It’s been a tough few years for business owners worldwide. In fact, successfully navigating the economic and financial challenges of a post Covid-19 landscape has been a difficult, seemingly insurmountable task for brands across the board. Not only have individuals, households and business owners alike felt the pinch induced by reduced trade and a greatly impacted economic landscape, but maintaining (and working within) a budget has proven incredibly challenging when said budgets are significantly compromised.

Setting aside the global pandemic, South African businesses have been dealt even further harsh blows as a result of a volatile, unpredictable and damaging MACRO landscape. From KZN riots to flooding, rolling blackouts and an increasingly fluctuating transition between office-based and hybrid work (together with the transition this entails), organisations have found themselves in a Catch 22 situation. On one hand, recent events have served only to further emphasise and motivate for the need to transition to a flexible, Cloud-based remote environment. On the other, the cost implications of said endeavour can negatively impact many a brands decision to do so.

The numbers don’t lie, as studies indicate that on average, at least 30% of companies migrating to a Cloud-based environment are faced with moderate to severe cost overruns. The unfortunate, harsh, and damning reality is that if not managed effectively, business costs can rapidly spiral out of control – which in turn can result in businesses either failing to maximise their Cloud potential or abandoning the process entirely.

With this in mind, Cloud Cost-Management has become a fundamental driver behind organisational decisions to successfully complete a Cloud transition. In light of this, a company with an eye on its budget would do well to ensure that the vendor consulting on or handling their move to Azure is not also left in charge of the Cloud Cost Control portion of the migration project. The reasoning behind this is simple: these costs can become substantial if left unmitigated, and a vendor focused purely on facilitating the transition is likely to forsake expenditure implications in favour of a wholly successful migration. Add to this the financial benefits to be gained from utilisation of the platform, and it’s difficult to motivate for complete neutrality on behalf of the vendor.

As such, an independent partner for Cost Management should, in theory, be completely void of income generation from Azure, whilst not being beholden to the revenue of any particular Azure supplier. This partner should in fact be a completely neutral entity within the marketplace – at least as far as Azure is concerned.

Enter Managed Services at Vox, which has emphatically limited their involvement within Azure migration processes, to instead focus exclusively on the cost-containment methodology. Our Managed Services division provides resources aimed at setting up triggers around organisational budgets, which in turn alert a help desk in the event of any unexpected or unwanted budget variance.

We  deploy a team specifically designated to reduce costs wherever possible.

This may involve (amongst other things) a wide array of interrogations and activities aimed at right-sizing environments whilst eliminating unnecessary billed features. In doing so, we eradicate the need for unwanted expenditure, ensuring the integrity of your business security fabric remains wholly intact.

Further benefits to our Cost Management Platform include:

  • Identifying of actions that will cause budget overrun
  • Continuous cost optimisation by rightsizing
  • Implementation of excellence areas, namely Visibility, Cost Governance and Optimisation
  • The elimination of Bill Shock

To ensure that your Cost Management investment is maximised, we begin each engagement with a full assessment in order to benchmark potential savings before giving the go-ahead. Only then is the actual exercise conducted, whilst full focus is directed towards ensuring that your actual project is not jeopardised by overspending. By operating on a fixed-cost basis, and not transactional finance models, Vox as your Cloud Cost Control Partner can ensure Cloud budgets are maintained.

It’s safe to say that an unregulated budget is as dangerous to your company’s future as any of the external business challenges we face today. Azure Cost Management allows for painless, seamless, and minimally expensive transition to the Cloud – and one which your brand should be wary to do without.