Member Article

Cloud Hangover Costs Public Sector £300Million Every Year

Research from Sungard Availability Services finds that unexpected costs, integration challenges and increased IT complexity are all contributing to a ’Cloud Hangover’

Close to half (44 percent) of UK public sector organisations agree that the cloud has not met their expectations

_London, United Kingdom: 22nd Sept 201_5 – Sungard Availability Services® (Sungard AS), a leading provider of information availability through managed IT, cloud and recovery services, today announces research which reveals that UK public sector organisations are spending over £300 million each year on maintaining cloud services and on hidden costs associated with their cloud computing projects. The research questioned 45 senior IT decision makers in the UK in public sector organisations with more than 500 employees, with an average individual cloud implementation spend in 2014/15 of £390,000. The results are part of a wider study of 400 interviews with IT decisions makers which revealed that the Cloud Hangover is costing European businesses an average of more than £2 billion per year.

Now considered as a more flexible and efficient way of managing IT, cloud computing has gained significant momentum across public sector organisations. Recent research from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) revealed that 78 per cent of UK public sector bodies have adopted cloud as a key part of their IT strategy[4]. However, Sungard AS’ research reveals that the public sector is now facing a large number of challenges in managing and operating these cloud environments.

Unexpected Costs in the Cloud

The research revealed that over three quarters of UK public sector organisations (82 per cent) have encountered some form of unplanned cloud spend. Each is paying an average of just under £139,000[5] per year on maintaining cloud services and an additional figure of almost £258,000[6] over the last five years thanks to unforeseen costs such as:

External maintenance costs for hardware (41 per cent) Systems integration costs to ensure applications can share data (30 per cent)

Whilst 42 per cent of UK public sector organisations looked to lower IT team workload and 47 per cent looked to reduce IT costs, a similar amount (43 per cent are struggling with people costs to manage deployments.

Moreover, although more than half of UK public sector organisations (53 per cent) cited cost savings as a key driver for adopting cloud services, a third (33 per cent) believe this has not been achieved.

Public Sector Faces Greatest Complexity

Despite being touted as a way to reduce IT complexity, over half (55 per cent) of UK public sector organisations said that cloud had in fact increased the complexity of their IT environment. This compares to 45 per cent of organisations across the UK and 32 per cent within financial services and 29 per cent in manufacturing.

Meanwhile, 71 per cent claimed that cloud computing added a new set of IT challenges – with interoperability between their existing IT estate and their cloud platforms considered by almost half (44 per cent) as the biggest issue, making the public sector’s experience no different than that of other UK vertical markets .

Keith Tilley, Executive Vice President, Global Sales & Customer Services Management at Sungard Availability Services, said: “Cost and efficiency savings are top of the agenda for the public sector and cloud computing has the potential to dramatically reduce costs across health, education, central and local government and much more, if it is deployed in the right way. New strategies within the UK such as ‘Digital by Default’ and ‘Cloud First’ combined with the Government’s ‘Digital Marketplace’ are vital in helping ensure that the public sector continues to adopt cloud whilst reaping its many business benefits.

However, there is no silver bullet for adopting cloud computing and it is clear that the public sector has faced some significant challenges including interoperability, management and operational expenditure. The very nature of the public sector also means that highly sensitive data such as patient data, defence or security records are not always suitable for particular cloud environments. Therefore, whilst the public sector can indeed see incredible benefits from cloud computing including agility (58 per cent) cost savings (58 percent) and increased security (53 per cent), the cloud needs to be deployed on a case-by-case basis in line with business goals and the nature of the application or the workload.“

The report “Digital by Design: Avoiding the Cloud Hangover in the UK Public Sector” is available to download here. For further research results and infographics, please visit: www.sungardas.co.uk/cloudhangover. To follow the latest news on Twitter, follow @SungardASUK or join the debate using #CloudHangover.

Sungard Availability Services will be exhibiting at the Central Government Business and Technology show on 30th September 2015 at the Hotel Russell, 1-8 Russell Square, Bloomsbury, London, WC1B 5BE. Print copies of the whitepaper will be available at the stand.

END

*About the research

Interviews were carried out in February 2015 by Vanson Bourne on behalf of Sungard Availability Services. 400 interviews were conducted altogether: 150 from the UK, 150 from France and 50 each from Sweden and Ireland. The research spoke to IT decision makers in businesses of over 500 employees in the UK, France and Sweden and 250 in Ireland across a variety of sectors – including 45 senior IT decision makers in the UK in public sector.

Note for Editors:

The abbreviation for Sungard Availability Services is ‘Sungard AS’ as cited above. Please use ‘Sungard AS’ when abbreviating the name rather than ‘Sungard’ or ‘SunGard,’ which may confuse the reader with another separate company with a similar name.

About Sungard Availability Services:

Sungard Availability Services (“Sungard AS”) is the leading provider of critical production and recovery services to global enterprise companies. Sungard AS partners with customers across the globe to understand their business needs and provide production and recovery services tailored to help them achieve their desired business outcomes. Leveraging 35 years of experience, Sungard AS designs, builds and runs critical IT services that help customers manage complex IT, adapt quickly and build resiliency and availability. Visit Sungard Availability Services at www.sungardas.co.uk or call 0800 143 413. Connect with us on LinkedIn , Twitter and our Blog.

Sungard AS was recognised as Cisco Partner Summit Awards’ Cloud Provider Partner of the Year UKI 2015, 2104, and also the NetApp Partner Awards’ Innovative Cloud Services Provider of the Year 2015. Representing techUK (formerly Intellect), the trade association, Sungard AS is helping define ISO 27036 – the IT standard relating to information security in supplier relationships (including cloud services) as a member of SC27. Previously in a similar arrangement, Sungard AS helped develop both business continuity management standard BS 25999, now ISO 22301 and IT continuity management standard ISO 27031. Within the UK, Sungard AS became the first business continuity provider to secure certification against the BS 25999 Standard, which it retained in 2010. Sungard AS is also certified to ISO 27001 and ISO 9001, and compliant with IGSoC, PCI DSS and ISAE3402.

Sungard Availability Services® is a trademark or registered trademark of SunGard Data Systems or its affiliate, used under license. The Sungard Availability Services logo by itself is a trademark or registered trademark of Sungard Availability Services Capital, Inc. or its affiliate. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

[4] https://www.publictechnology.net/articles/news/public-sector-increasing-depth-cloud-engagement

[5] Actual figure is £138,840

[6] Actual figure is £257,730

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sungard Availability Services .