As digital technology reshapes the world around us, organisations are being forced to look inward to reimagine the way they consume and deliver IT to their business.
At the front lines of this evolution are IT leaders, whose role and responsibilities look markedly different to those from only a few years ago. Where the role of an internal IT team once centred around managing IT assets, they are increasingly being called upon to drive the next generation of outcomes for their business, including:
- launching new applications and systems in cloud environments
- streamlining customer service delivery models and experiences
- leveraging automation and AI for creating more efficient processes
- facilitating a dynamic and dispersed workforce across multiple locations
In fast changing marketplaces, chief executives and board members desperately want solutions that create agility in every area of their business. As a result, they have little patience for the old models of IT investment and procurement.
Technology vendors have recognised the shifting needs of their customers and are meeting their demands with a smorgasbord of “as a Service” technology options. This isn’t a new phenomenon, however, as the market for Software as a Service (SaaS) has been growing concurrently with the rise of cloud computing over the past two decades.
SaaS was a win-win for developers and buyers, as it simultaneously lowered the entry price of enterprise software while significantly reducing software piracy. As the scale, performance and price of cloud computing and storage has gradually improved, the possibilities for delivering on-demand IT have become endless.
From assets to outcomes
Perhaps the most consequential shift in this continuing evolution can be seen in hardware purchasing. With new options such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Storage as a Service (STaaS) and Network as a Service (NaaS), IT decision makers are enthusiastically adopting these new models that allow them to avoid:
- having to predict their capacity needs for the next 5-10 years
- performing manual maintenance, updates, and backups
- taking the IT team’s focus away from strategic business initiatives
Because of this, the Everything as a Service economy is experiencing rapid growth across the board. Particularly in the IaaS space with Gartner predicting global spending on IaaS offerings will nearly double from $38.9 billion in 2019 to $76.6 billion in 2022.
Last year, HPE made the bold pledge to sell its entire portfolio as a-service by 2022. While they’ll continue selling hardware, software and services in capital expenditure and license-based models, they also plan to offer subscriptions and pay-per-use IT for all of their products.
Even in the device marketplace, we’re seeing both vendors and technology solutions businesses transitioning into Device as a Service (DaaS) or Endpoint as a Service (EaaS) offerings. Once again, the impetus is to free IT teams from the daily grind of updating and troubleshooting devices, as well as the need to develop lifecycle plans for their device fleets.
The real winners of the move to an Everything as a Service marketplace will be those organisations who can leverage these flexible pricing models to deliver agile IT outcomes. From what we’ve seen this year, those outcomes can now change from day to day – which is why flexible and adaptable pricing models will become incredibly vital.
