How can poor cloud architecture and operations affect cloud ROI?

Businesses switch to cloud computing to cut costs, but many experiences the opposite effect. According to The Wall Street Journal, some company executives claim that as they shift to cloud computing, their costs are rising. 

What causes this to happen? Experts believe that businesses can leverage technology to save money, promote agility, and scale, but decision-makers quite often do not understand how to get to an optimized solution. In other words, you must create cloud-based technology configurations that are superior to the “as is” state. Instead, many companies just move applications and databases to cloud platforms and then wonder why their cloud bill is so high. 

Before providing the expected results, cloud ROI requires optimization and refactoring. The lack of cloud ROI has been discussed for a while. Although opinions on the causes differ greatly, a few facts are undeniable. 

First, no one would use the cloud if it didn’t have the potential for an ROI to the business.

Cloud computing technology has been around for roughly 15 years. Some companies are very successful with cloud computing. These businesses are using the cloud as a true force multiplier to create innovative solutions while also providing agility and scalability. 

On the other hand, many businesses cannot find value while spending roughly the same amount of money as those who do. As a result, we must conclude that bad decisions are being made. 

Second, cloud computing requires specific architecture and operations.

Those business leaders who use the cloud successfully do not seek a one-size-fits-all solution, but rather strive to tailor technology to their own business needs and the overall company vision. They devote time to assessing existing systems, which include data and applications. They evaluate the changes that must be made over time to meet the business’s objectives. They assess the best enabling technologies for achieving those goals. This is a better approach than basing technology selection on criteria unrelated to solving business problems. 

The size of the budget does not determine success. There are examples of businesses that spend roughly the same amount of money, but some fall short when it comes to the value returned to the business with cloud computing. 

Third, another topic of debate when it comes to cloud ROI is cloud operations.

It takes time to fix bad architectures so they can function properly. No matter how well-organized and automated your operations team and technology stack are if the solution is poorly designed, the outcome will be poor. A good solution, on the other hand, can quickly lose any value if it is moved to a badly organized cloud environment. 

These are the primary reasons why businesses aren’t seeing a return on investment, though there are undoubtedly other factors. 

It frequently takes a significant amount of effort and knowledge to repair architectures, both cloud-based and not. Improving your designs and adopting an innovative mindset, on the other hand, will help you up your IT and cloud computing game.