DCN May 2017 | Page 36

managed service providers MANAGED AS THE NEW NORMAL Russell Drury looks at why more organisations now consider service providers vital for digital transformation, with expert insight from Hyve Managed Hosting and Six Degrees Group. A new report was recently commissioned by Microsoft in partnership with 451 Research to examine the hosting and cloud market. The study has revealed that during this time of widespread digital transformation impacting organisations all over the globe, there is an enormous opportunity for managed service providers (MSPs) to help customers with their cloud implementation. The report, which charted 1,700 responses across 10 geographies, found that companies are looking 36 | May 2017 ‘beyond infrastructure’, and instead are focusing on overall business improvement through optimised IT management. Tangible benefits such as increased revenue, improved quality of service and cost reduction are driving organisations to incorporate hosting and management into their IT spend, with the study revealing that 62 per cent of cloud infrastructure spending is coupled with value-added services. The research also revealed that hybrid and multi-cloud environments are the preferred choice for organisations that have plans to implement cloud architecture in the next two years, with flexibility and choice the top responses to justify this type of adoption. This comes ahead of other areas, such as the ability to maximise return and resource capacity on existing on-premises IT investments. In essence, the findings prove that the cloud market is flourishing and that more often than not organisations are looking to create a strong alliance with a managed service provider