With the cloud broadly mandated for government organisations, the question when renewing your infrastructure, services and applications is at the same time simple but important: Are you getting optimal value from your investments?
It is no secret that enterprise software licensing is complex. With the cloud now suitable for far more than software, and with licensing regimes extending to infrastructure, platforms, and more as a service, complexity in cloud optimisation is quickly magnified.
That is why, as All of Government contracts come up for renewal, there is an excellent opportunity for a health check of your progress on the journey to the Microsoft cloud, and be sure of value going forward.
The scale of cloud in the New Zealand government is, to put it mildly, staggering. In addition to your own organisation, there are around 150 others, with a total of around 200,000 seats.
Licensing at this scale costs taxpayers billions of dollars, while reciprocally providing them with value – after all, the Government needs the resources provided by Microsoft and other vendors in support of service delivery.
A good question at this juncture is, well, just exactly why is licensing so convoluted? With the ‘as a Service’ offerings associated with the cloud in general, and Microsoft Azure and solutions like Dynamics 365, the ‘granular’ nature of services allows customers to choose and use only those components necessary for their organisation.
So far, so good. But this is a double-edged sword, because while it implies efficient purchasing, it also means complexity is unavoidable especially at scale.
In practice, that means some organisations may very well purchase and provision services they do not need and never use. With the scale of All of Government, you know where this is going: failure to optimise even ‘small’ things quickly equates to ‘big’ costs.
Now, as you will appreciate, while government organisations fall under an umbrella of sorts, each one is at a different stage on the journey to the cloud, notwithstanding Cabinet’s 2016 endorsement to accelerate adoption. There are plenty of very good reasons for that, which we will not go into here; what is important is that Insight offers services designed to support progress wherever your organisation is presently at.
Across all our services, which are proven in multiple government agencies, the focus falls squarely on creating and optimising value, so you get the best bang for your buck.
Note that it isn’t about ‘shortchanging’ the vendor, and in fact the vendor prefers it when spend accurately matches requirements. After all, that’s why they made cloud services granular in the first place!
- The first is the Insight SAM (Software Asset Management) Baseline Review. A comprehensive review of your Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, the Baseline Review identifies cost avoidance and optimisation, including baselining on-premises software and equipping for planning ahead for changes over the coming 12 months. The focus on optimisation is clear in the typical results of reviewing subscriptions to Azure and Microsoft 365, with the average Insight NZ customer benefiting to the tune of $1.81million in identified savings and $151k in spend avoidance.
- For those already using O365 Insight provides the Office 365 Platform assessment. With our O365 Platform Assessment, we will conduct workshops with your key business stakeholders to carry out the assessment of your IT landscape and current cloud presence, identify gaps, and understand the maturity of your organisation. We will review your Office 365 platform using our Office 365 Technical Implementation Framework (TIF), which has been developed specially to provide pragmatic guidance for the implementation and configuration of your Office 365 platform and supporting features. We look at the key pillars: Platform, Security, Governance, Enablement and Adoption. This provides a clear assessment of your O365 Readiness.
- Insight's Microsoft 365 Foundations is applicable to organisations setting out on their Microsoft 365 journey as well as those running for some time or about to leverage a new feature. Delivering accelerated configuration of the base Microsoft 365 platform with a focus on productivity, security and governance, Foundations offers a proven strategy and approach to mitigate identified risks. The service can be used as a blueprint for provisioning services into Microsoft 365 to ensure security and increased productivity. We help by providing:
- Accelerated configuration of the base Microsoft 365 platform
- Focus on productivity, security and governance
- Proven strategy and approach to mitigate any identified risks
Several services are available in support of organisations migrating to, or already in, the Azure platform. They include:
- Experience Azure Migration in a Month for those looking to move – and leverage a partner that is cloud-native. Insight provides an end-to-end accelerated solution taking a client from envision right through to providing a Landing Zone and migration. All along the way guiding and helping implement best practice and a true understanding of what it means to move to cloud.’
- Azure Cloud Ready – Cost Management, Security and Governance Assessment for those that are there and are looking for an assessment to capture any business risks, issues and best practices aligned to Governance, Cost Control and Security within Azure. The report that Insight provide will detail a list of findings, recommendations and remediation actions that will give the customer a point in time reference for improvements across the Azure environments.
- Monthly Reporting for existing Azure Customers. this service, is focused on continual optimisation and improvement – wrapping findings up into a monthly report that includes potential financial savings along with any licensing implications/costs that may need to be considered.
You might ask yet another simple question as you go into your contract renewal process.
Why Insight? The answer is that we offer highly experienced licensing consultants with a proven track record of understanding your requirements and delivering optimal configurations not just for today, but into the future. Our unique value proposition a combination of Licensing Specialists with our Professional Services team who are proven in successfully delivering a Microsoft cloud-first strategy. Simply put, our local teams have the experience and capability to meet and deliver the strategic initiatives of your Government agency, whilst our national and global networks mean we scale as required.
This helps you take advantage of all that Microsoft has to offer in the cloud, which is valuable and applicable to you, while avoiding all that which is not relevant to your organisation. The result? Software investments optimised for ongoing value.
It’s time for Microsoft Licensing Renewal. Get Cloud Ready with Insight.
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