Improved Cloud Spending Optimizes Move to Digital Business Offerings, According to CDW Canada Report

CDW Canada’s 2023 Hybrid Cloud Report found Canadian CEOs expect nearly half of their organization’s revenue to come from digital products, services or experiences in the next five years, but current cloud spending needs to be maximized

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, CDW Canada, a leading provider of technology solutions and services for Canadian organizations, released the 2023 Hybrid Cloud Report, which explores emerging trends and the state of hybrid cloud for Canadian organizations.

Organizations should be maximizing cloud spending

Organizations say the growing use of public cloud services will increase their ability to innovate, improve customer experience and deliver new products. The report found that Canadian CEOs expect nearly half (49 percent) of their organization’s revenue to come from digital products, services and/or experiences in the next five years.

Despite the increasing reliance on cloud services, which enable Canadian organizations to stay competitive, Canadian public cloud IT spending has room for improvement. On average, 18 percent of all public cloud services spending annually in Canada is not being maximized, highlighting a crucial area of opportunity for Canadian organizations to properly resource their plans for future business offerings.

“Hybrid, multicloud environments are the bedrock of collaborative business innovation,” said KJ Burke, Principal Technology Strategist, Hybrid Cloud at CDW Canada. “They are essential for supporting the increasingly pervasive digital business landscape and organizations must know how to refine their cloud spend and maximize their potential for future endeavours.”

To optimize cloud spending, organizations are turning to Financial Operations (FinOps), an evolving cloud financial management discipline designed to enable maximum business value. The report found that just over half (55 percent) of Canadian organizations surveyed have an individual or team dedicated to FinOps and as with any new discipline, those responsible for it are experiencing growing pains.

The top cited challenges faced by the person or team performing IT FinOps around cloud expenditure are:

• Understanding how to optimize cloud spend for architectural and business benefit (42 percent)
• Allocating cloud costs to the correct team (40 percent)
• Understanding cloud price models and how to apply these optimally (39 percent)

Leveraging a cloud partner to provide best practices for hybrid, multicloud financial management can ensure organizations maximize their spending and reduce overages.

Third-party partners are essential for security and governance of hybrid, multicloud environments

The report found that Canadian organizations are increasingly running their compute and storage capacity across private and public clouds, increasing from 33 percent currently to 40 percent by 2025, meaning we can expect more hybrid, multicloud environments in Canada.

The advantages of running hybrid, multicloud environments include the ability to be agile and resilient, allowing organizations to scale performance while meeting security and compliance requirements.

Many factors may affect the scope of Canadian organizations’ digital infrastructure strategies, which dictates the use of hybrid, multicloud environments. The top cited external-facing business objectives shaping these strategies over the next two years are:

• Reducing the overall cost of doing business (42 percent)
• Supporting more personalized customer engagement (41 percent)
• Responding to specific crisis-driven requirements (37 percent)

In comparison, the top cited internal-facing business objectives are:

• Improving internal staff productivity (47 percent)
• Cybersecurity and data protection across all geographies (45 percent)
• IT responses to unexpected business conditions when needed (40 percent)

Canadian organizations will have to address complex concerns around management, governance, security and visibility that can have serious consequences for data protection.

“Having workloads and sensitive data deployed across the cloud enables flexibility, but Canadian organizations have a long way to go in ensuring that these environments are secure,” said James Charter, National Practice Lead, Hybrid Infrastructure at CDW Canada. “If organizations don’t have the internal resources to do so, working with an external IT partner is the best way to mitigate these shortcomings and maintain a secure cloud environment built for success.”

Hybrid, multicloud environments enable the future of work in an ever-changing business landscape.

Visit CDW’s Cloud Solutions page to learn more.

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About CDW Canada

CDW Canada Corp. is a leading provider of technology services and solutions for business, government, education and healthcare. Established in 2003, CDW Canada is the country’s trusted advisor for cybersecurity, hybrid infrastructure and digital transformation. CDW Canada experts design, orchestrate and manage customized services and solutions, making technology work so people can do great things. Through its services-led approach, CDW Canada simplifies complex technology to empower customers to focus on their business and thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape. CDW Canada is a wholly owned subsidiary of CDW Corporation (Nasdaq: CDW), a Fortune 500 company. For more information, visit www.cdw.ca.