6 unique ways an MSP helps businesses manage cloud costs

Cloud adoption among enterprises in Asia Pacific is already becoming mainstream – according to an IDC report, the cloud computing market in Southeast Asia will reach $40.32 billion by 2025. However, many Southeast Asia companies are yet to see the return-on-investment they expected from integrating cloud services into their operations. Or, worse yet, they’re finding that their cloud spending is out of control, a situation known as “cloud sprawl”. 

Cloud services require a high level of expert maintenance. This is something internal IT teams and DevOp teams are often unable to muster, especially for an SME with limited manpower. 

This is where a Managed Service Provider (MSP) enters the picture. According to an ISG report, the managed services market grew by 32 percent in 2021 to US $2.9 billion. This shows that companies are recognizing that they need qualified partners to not only guide them through initial cloud migrations, but to help them optimize and leverage cloud resources. In this article, we’ll discuss the efficient ways of how cloud MSP helps businesses to effectively optimize their cloud spend and avoid cloud sprawl.

1. Ensure teams are using the right services & without overlap 

It’s possible that within your cloud architecture, certain cloud services may be being used by different teams for extremely similar tasks, leading to overlaps. Or, certain teams may not be using the services most suited to their function. Using cloud services incorrectly can do more than lead to inefficiencies, but result in your company being billed more per second.  

An MSP can help companies to identify overlaps or gaps in cloud infrastructure and provide a plan as to how to correct these issues. For example, your MSP partner quickly discovers that your DevOps team is generating excessively high VM and computing costs compared to other departments. They then get to the root of the problem by identifying which services can be optimized or if certain workloads can be combined. The MSP works with the team to correct the problem, taking over the tasks that your internal IT doesn’t have the time to do. 

2. Consistently track and “right-sizing” your cloud resources 

In a large organization, a CIO or IT head would struggle to provide an impartial view of which departments might be excessively utilizing IT resources, and then allocate them accordingly. This is where the value of a neutral third party is most visible. An MSP can help your organization to “right size” your cloud services by impartially analyzing where those services are being over or underused and then providing recommended changes. 

For example, CloudMIle provides annual infrastructure reviews to improve overall cloud stability and optimize total cost based on consumption trends. By knowing where to add and where to subtract, companies are able to optimize their setup.

Right-sizing not only helps you to control cloud costs, but at the same time further optimize your processes, which we’ll discuss in more detail below.  

3. Effectively leverage your data with automation 

A qualified cloud MSP can do much more than just assist your company with data migration and maintenance – they can provide expert strategies on how you can use that data to create machine learning (ML) algorithms and automate internal processes.  

For example, retailers can improvise customer behavior models via AI/ML to improve marketing performance; ML models can also assist your logistics department by automating order fulfillment and tracking with a workflow.

By helping your company integrate automation into your processes, an MSP helps to remove the burden of repetitive tasks and allows users to focus their time on other important work

4. Manage your cloud payments

Cloud providers generally offer two modes of payment: pay subscriptions upfront or a pay-per-use model. Each model carries its own risks. Subscription services can lead to unnecessary expenses when companies end up paying for services they no longer use. Conversely, pay-per-use can lead to quickly drained IT budgets when service usage exceeds the original plan. 

One of the most valuable services an MSP can offer is to help your organization keep close tabs on your cloud spending no matter which model you follow. For example, CloudMile offers MileLync, a Cloud Management Platform that allows monitoring of all cloud spend down to cloud services, billing trends, and retrieval of monthly invoice and to log and manage all tickets that have been logged to CloudMile with a professional Support Team.

5. Help to avoid costly data breaches 

The drawback of initiatives such as migrating a portion or all of your company data to a public cloud or implementing remote work is that they could increase your attack surface. According to the Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021, the global average cost of a data breach increased by 10% in 2021 to $4.24 million.

That is why investing in an MSP partner with experience navigating the complexities of cloud security is vitally important. An MSP can make sure that no service updates are being missed and all your protections are up-to-date. As new threats emerge by the day, an MSP can help your cloud infrastructure to stay on top of all the latest standards and scale with them accordingly. 

6. Implement productivity tools 

With more companies being forced to embrace hybrid or remote working models, it’s likely a considerable portion of your cloud spend is going to productivity tools, and rightly so. According to BCG Platinion, a productivity solution like Google Workspace goes a long way to “alleviate the traditional costs and burdens around availability, backup, and maintenance of on-premise collaboration infrastructure.” 

However, having the tools doesn’t ensure productivity unless staff are using them properly. Without proper guidance, team members may not be used to tasks like remote IT service or using collaborative documents. That’s a big part of your cloud budget going down the drain. 

An MSP can provide training courses in how different departments can use cloud productivity tools effectively to make sure that your investment is being fully utilized.