Organizations Talk Top Cloud Challenges

Cloud, of course, comes with a range of challenges. Flexera detailed nine of those areas; here, we highlight the top three and provide brief commentary on how partners can assist.

1. Managing cloud spend. A majority (82%) of respondents called this their primary challenge. It’s one that has garnered more attention in the wake of COVID-19 overprovisioning and amid seemingly endless economic problems including inflation and supply chain shortages. Many MSPs, system integrators, consultants and other partners have the skills and capacity to handle FinOps requirements for these customers. Of interest, however, is that 72% of respondents said they have a dedicated FinOps team. The disparity between cloud spend management and the presence of a FinOps team may indicate room for partners to deliver some extra guidance.

2. Security. Coming in at an unsurprising second place (79%), cloud security. Cloud providers themselves are doing better at shoring their platforms and protecting data in specific regions, but still, human error gets in the way — and so do hackers. Channel partners with security operations centers and granular cloud expertise are ideally positioned to oversee security for their customers, especially in light of the third top challenge.

3. Lack of resources/expertise. A little more than three-quarters (78%) of respondents to Flexera’s 2023 State of the Cloud survey said one of their biggest cloud challenges lies in not having enough (or the right) resources and expertise. We smell channel opportunity. As organizations tighten their financial belts, they’re either letting go of skilled IT staff or refocusing them or finding that they need to call on a channel partner.

Speaking of the economy, the next slide discusses how all the uncertainty is impacting organizations’ cloud strategies.