MSPs Accelerate Digital Transformation for Customers with Storage-as-a-Service

IT departments are under intense pressure today to move faster and reduce costs. Top management has been pushing IT to deploy more business-focused digital apps with the people they already have on staff.

  • November 15, 2022 | Author: Steve Zurier
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In today’s fast-paced world, combining managed cloud services with the consumption-based pay-per-use model for applications such as storage-as-a-service (STaaS) can help businesses accelerate their digital transformation goals.

Scott Sinclair, a practice director at the Enterprise Strategy Group, says 52% of companies ESG surveyed are already using the pay-per-use model for STaaS. Sinclair says these companies realized the following benefits:

  • 51% say they accelerated operations so they can roll out more digital apps
  • 47% say now can free up people from manually-intensive storage tasks so they can focus more on digital apps
  • 41% say accelerated innovation

So managed services coupled with consumption-based pricing of resources lets IT staffs avoid the many downsides that come with purchasing and maintaining on-premises storage. Instead of worrying if they have enough storage capacity, IT teams can flex usage up or down as business requirements change. Instead of paying for major capital expenditures upfront, they can improve cash flow by paying an annual subscription based on consumption. And, instead of spending weeks or longer preparing the business case and navigating the CAPEX approval process, MSPs can help IT teams meet their needs for increased storage. 

A Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact (TEI) study examines the value of pay-per-use consumption and managed services within its STaaS offering. Forrester talked to IT decision-makers at four organizations with extensive experience using the service. They found that a composite organization representative of all the participating companies experienced a benefit of $25.88 million over five years versus costs of $8.24 million. This resulted in a net present value of $17.64 million and an ROI of 214%.

 

 

How Hitachi Vantara delivers STaaS 

Glen Lomand, global partner solutioneer at Hitachi Vantara, says his team works with MSPs to deliver a public cloud-like STaaS experience to end user customers. The STaaS service offers self-service modules for simplified access so customers can execute the following functions: quotes, orders, auto provisioning, reports, billing, and dashboarding. “The entire onboarding process takes two weeks from ordering to activation,” says Lomond.

Trevor Williams, global sales director for cloud and MSPs at Hitachi Vantara, adds that his group ties together the STaaS offering by working with MSPs on special programs, including lead generation and rebate campaigns. 

“A lot of our MSP partners are not software developers,” Williams points out. “We are software developers, so our MSPs rely on us to deliver best-in-class software technologies and solutions that improve the end user customer experience.”

Finally, Williams adds that Hitachi Vantara does all this in a way that’s profitable for both Hitachi and the MSPs.

 

Image Source: Hitachi Vantara / Getty Images

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