Utilising the training offered by cloud specialists can help develop valuable platform-management skills within your IT team.
Many small businesses have embraced the cloud in the expectation of achieving lower costs and improved competitive advantage. However, the actual costs of managing public cloud services can get out of control if not managed by staff with a specific skillset.
Organisations are using public cloud to accelerate digital transformation. While this seems cost-effective in the short-term, building the capabilities to support and manage cloud platforms within an organisation can be expensive. And finding employees with the required skillset as cloud specialists can be difficult. According to the latest research from Hays Quarterly, these skills are in short supply in the ANZ region.*
Our research has found that organisations without specialist skills to manage and optimise the AWS platform spend up to 60% more in platform costs and experience 35% more security breaches.**
The challenge for organisations is to build the capability to support and manage the platform. In practice, business priorities default to delivering product or software delivery milestones. The result is higher platform costs. Worse, they may be exposing themselves to significant security risks.
To overcome these issues, small businesses can partner with organisations such as Fronde to acquire the specialist capabilities to proactively manage cloud platform performance, costs and security. To maximise the return on investment, it can also be beneficial to engage with IT partners and use the specialist skills of their SaaS and IaaS cloud architects.
By incorporating specialist tools, skills, and DevOps practices, small businesses can save on costs and reduce their security risks. Utilising the training offered by cloud specialists and providers can also help develop valuable platform management skills within the business IT team.
For many organisations, achieving maximum return on investment is unlikely given their limited access to in-house skills and resources. Small businesses stand to benefit from reduced costs and improved security by outsourcing their cloud platform management to the right partner.
* http://www.hays.com.au/report/information-technology-16659?ver=d
** http://www.fronde.com/products/aws-managed-services/
James Valentine, Chief Technology Officer, Fronde
