Most UK businesses will know of Softcat for its resell capability but many will be less familiar with Softcat as a modern cloud partner (MSP), where we combine our resell heritage with cloud native services.

In recent years, Softcat has been combining these capabilities to help organisations across the UK with Cloud programmes, so businesses can focus on objectives to:

• Get time back from BAU Cloud tasks to re-focus on projects for business change.
• Reduce technical debt (cloud migrations and application modernisations).
• Reduce cloud waste (commercial and carbon).

If these objectives sound familiar, read on to hear more about how Softcat and our Cloud practice could help you.

Getting time back

The skills shortage is a well-known challenge in the IT market with an estimated 80% of IT Leaders stating that a lack of specialist skills is holding their organisations back, with 75% planning all new business products and services in the Cloud.

We often assume that this means IT Leaders are struggling to find new skills and bring them into the business.  More often than not, valuable time can be freed up out-tasking daily BAU tasks from existing team members, so they can focus on higher value activities or strategic business initiatives.

Out-tasking usually comes from adopting a managed service partnership, not to be confused with an outsource model.  In a managed service engagement, specific activities are transferred to a partner who has developed automation, industrialised process and has a resource model to work as an extension of your organisation, for a specific area.

Softcat’s approach to Cloud platform operations blends highly skilled with emerging talent (e.g. apprenticeships and/or those returning to work). The result is a cost-effective approach that guarantees access to some of the industry’s best Cloud talent, while ensuring our customers can focus on the things that are important to them.

Reducing technical debt

30% of CIOs believe 20%+ of their budget is diverted into projects resulting from technical debt (e.g. old systems, temporary solutions that became permanent, delayed refreshes). Unsurprisingly, 41% of IT Leaders see technical debt and modernising legacy systems as their top priority, and 60% believe migrating applications to the cloud will help reduce technical debt.

Addressing this focus could also be hampered by the above point relating to Cloud skills. This is why many organisations are working with a Cloud partner to support them with quick-wins, right up to strategic multi-year programmes.

Partners such as Softcat stand out in this space due to the size of our Cloud practices, exposure to a range of industry projects providing the ‘tried and tested’ culture. Our cloud provider partnership statuses also allow us access to funding programmes that are passed through to our customers, to offset the cost and risk of addressing their Cloud migrations and application modernisations.

Reducing cloud waste

Cloud waste is commonly linked to wasted Cloud spend, which is easy to see when an estimated 32% of Cloud spend is wasted. However, wasted spend directly translates to excess carbon emissions, and with regulations in this space tightening to contribute to a sustainable future, Cloud waste is a prominent issue for organisations today.

More so, this overall waste comes during a period where many individuals and businesses are facing a cost crisis, with many organisations already facing pressures around cost cutting or freezes on projects, recruitment and more. Getting a handle on waste can be tricky, especially if you’re using multiple clouds and aren’t equipped with the right tools or process, to identify and report on Cloud usage.

Softcat has an un-rivalled capability in this space, with an offering delivered to 100+ UK customers that typically saves far in excess of the engagement itself, ensuring an optimum return on investment.

In summary

If you have objectives or challenges around skills shortages, technical debt, or Cloud waste, then please get in touch to find out more about how we can help.

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