Independent Study by Boomi Links Wasted Cloud Spend to Blind Cost Management Strategies

Boomi™, the intelligent integration and automation leader, today launched the findings of a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Boomi, December 2023, that reveals companies are fraught with uncontrolled and wasteful cloud spend, and cost remediation tactics are introduced too late or without a full picture of the environment.

The independent study found 87% of APAC companies exceeded their set cloud budgets over the past two years, with 69% of these companies foreseeing their cloud budgets to exceed this fiscal year.

Although the study shows APAC business leaders prioritizing CCMO tactics earlier in the cloud development process (62%), most companies lack proactive strategies at the earlier architecture level.

Just five percent of APAC decision makers report their cloud cost remediation strategies are as proactive as possible, and only four in 10 say they contain costs at the solution architecture stage. While APAC organizations are aware that they could optimize cloud costs at the solution architecture level, less than half of companies have the strategy in place to resolve perennial problems, such as excessive storage (57%), lack of integration strategy (39%) and overconsumption of bandwidth (45%).

“We believe the findings are a clear example of integration being left out of the cloud cost equation,” said Ed Macosky, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Boomi. “When systems are disconnected and data is siloed, companies are only seeing part of their organizations’ cloud cost picture, and this lack of visibility impacts tracking and decision making.”

When asked how difficult it is to track areas of cloud spend with the CCMO tooling currently in place, leaders stated data management as the most difficult undertaking, followed by egress charges (e.g., fees for moving data in and out of the cloud), with time and resources needed to build and maintain app integrations as the third most difficult area to track.

“About six out of ten APAC respondents (63%) believe their CCMO recommendations are only as good as the data their company can provide. However, 40% are finding it challenging to address the fundamental issue causing their excessive cloud spend. This issue arises due to many organizations perceiving integration as a separate entity, when it holds great potential to serve as a control layer in managing cloud costs,” said Thomas Lai, Vice President & General Manager, APJ at Boomi.

Further key APAC findings from the study include:

●     More cloud complexity to come: Cloud workloads and costs will increase even more rapidly over the next two years, with decision makers expecting applications in IT ops (51%), hybrid work (55%), software creation platforms and tools (42%), and digital experiences (40%) to rise at the fastest rates.

●     FinOps practices are also being hit: Similar to CCMO tooling, emerging FinOps practices are not spared the challenges associated with reactive cloud cost remediation strategies. 59% of APAC respondents stated visibility into costs associated with FinOps roles remains elusive, significantly more than that of North American respondents (43%) and European respondents (40%). Meanwhile, a lack of cloud architecture that supports cost containment at the integration level prevents leaders (37%) from advancing their FinOps cost control initiatives.

●    Cost mitigation to improve with early integration: Respondents agree (75%) an integration platform that connects apps, data, and people is a game changer for improving cloud efficiencies and reducing overall cloud spend from the solution architecture stage. Among those using integration platform as a service (iPaaS) solutions, 63% report experiencing more effective cloud cost management, 59% report increased data visibility and reporting capabilities across stakeholders, and 63% report improving cloud spend governance.

In December 2023, Forrester Consulting conducted the online survey with 420 cloud and real-time data decision-makers at companies across the globe. The respondent base spanned multiple industries, business sizes, and geographies, including North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

 To learn more about the findings, download the full ‘Cloud Costs Are Out Of Control: Integration and Modernization Can Help Rein Them In’ report, here.

 Additional Resources

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