What's the biggest cloud cost mistake IT leaders make?

But a recent study revealed that while cloud-mature companies are improving business outcomes by working faster and more efficiently, 94% are still wasting money in the cloud.

The cloud has permanently changed the IT and business landscape for the better but in a competitive fast-paced environment cloud mistakes could lead to long-term competitive damage.

Cloud experts TelephoneSystems.Cloud are helping IT leaders understand how to avoid the four main cloud mistakes and reduce spending on infrastructure.

Understanding what legacy system costs are and how these costs will change by moving to or optimising cloud solutions is just the first step.

Planning effectively to make sure that business systems are fully integrated and work for and not against current organisational structure is key.

And IT leaders should not assume that once the move to cloud based technology is complete it is not job done, but instead they should seek out cloud based solutions that take advantage of ongoing technical developments.

Juliet Moran, founder of TelephoneSystems.Cloud advocates a bold approach so that businesses can take advantage of cost savings and technological benefits straight away.

She said: “When it comes to saving money in the cloud, acting immediately and strategically is almost always the best approach.

“The impending ‘Big Switch’ from legacy to cloud based telephone systems in two years time is a perfect example of this.

“All businesses will be switched to the cloud in 2025 when the old analog systems are made redundant but acting now would see businesses save costs long term as they will get onto an ethical billing plan sooner while also benefiting from more technologically advanced cloud based systems.

“It helps to track your spending on the cloud so I would recommend onboarding cloud technology solutions with no hidden set up or cancellation costs - transparency of costs is so important for business planning today.

“This approach is the best way to close the gap between what businesses are paying for their systems and what they could be paying by migrating onto cost effective cloud based solutions.

TelephoneSystems.Cloud’s four cloud cost mistakes not to make and how to learn from them:

1. Waiting too long to make changes

   Probably the most common cloud mistake businesses make is thinking they can wait to make changes to their IT infrastructure at some undetermined point in time in the future. They might decide to wait until the next financial year or a time when the structure of the business would be ready for a change. A good cloud resource offers flexible, ethical, continuous billing meaning that existing cloud solutions should be optimised straight away while the migration of systems onto the cloud will provide long term savings so the sooner that process has begun the sooner the benefits will be realised.

2. Understanding cloud costs

   While the cloud will offer businesses long term benefits it isn’t always the case that migration to the cloud leads to immediate cost savings. Not having a full and complete picture of set up costs can take businesses that aren’t prepared by surprise. IT leaders can manage the costs of transitioning to the cloud engaging with cloud solution providers that allow business to pay in instalments as well as up front. There can also be hidden costs such as reskilling employees to use the new technology so considering solutions that seamlessly integrate with existing working practices is a key consideration.

3. Platform sprawl

   A major challenge for business leaders is managing the integration of different cloud solutions across disparate platforms. Wherever possible IT managers should consolidate and merge cloud based services to reduce costs and avoid platform sprawl. Taking business communications as an example, leaders should work towards the ideal of having all their comms on one integrated cloud based platform. This allows a workforce to operate from multiple locations and communicate easily and cost effectively on one dedicated platform.

4. Cloud complacency

   Many businesses have now moved to cloud based technology across many of their systems but that doesn’t mean that IT leaders should think the job is now done. As cloud technology evolves, businesses need to position themselves to take advantage of cloud solutions that can fully integrate with existing architecture and operations while benefiting from evolving cloud technologies.