Bytes Blog: Optimisation & cost saving in light of Microsoft’s recent price increase
Monday 6th February 2023
Writer: Kathryn Piper
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By now, you’re probably well aware of Microsoft’s realignment of cloud pricing, due to come into effect as of 1st April 2023. But how can you optimise existing consumption and make sure costs stay down?
Today, we're providing the answers.
Quick recap - What are the price increases?
Before we dive into cost optimisation, let’s quickly recap what the price increases are and most importantly, what this means for your business.
On the 5th January 2023, Microsoft announced that they’re taking several steps to align the pricing of Microsoft Cloud Products globally. As a Microsoft customer, this means that you will have consistent pricing reflecting the exchange rate of the local currency to the US dollar (USD). Microsoft are updating local currency cloud pricing in EUR, GBP, SEK, NOK, and DKK based on foreign currency fluctuations compared to the US dollar. This will be in effect as of 1st April 2023.
For full details on the Microsoft Price increase you can check out our news article, or watch our recent price update webinar on-demand.
How can your business optimise existing consumption?
So, you know what the price increases are but how can you optimise spend? There are a number of avenues you can take to keep costs down.
Quantum 365
Firstly, Bytes’ Quantum 365 service offers unrivalled visibility across your entire Microsoft 365 estate. This innovative tool allows you to cut costs, boost security, and organise user data effectively.
Get complete visibility of:
- Current license agreements.
- Ongoing usage analysis.
- Spend forecasts and potential cost savings.
- Premium license allocations and usage.
Benefit from:
- Elimination of wasted licenses.
- Improved ROI.
- Better governance and compliance with security policies.
- Visibility of user activity and behaviour by user, team, and department.
Find out more about Quantum 365.
Quantum for Azure
Secondly, our Quantum for Azure Service offers impressive visibility across your public cloud services.
These are just a few things you can get visibility of with Quantum for Azure:
- Current commit and consumption levels.
- Commit balance – used and remaining.
- Potential saving opportunities.
- ROI of Hybrid Benefits and reserved instances.
- Where to optimise pay-as-you-go spend.
- Cloud usage by team, application, and project.
Building a business case:
- Alignment of costs with business stakeholders.
- Identify cost savings – In depth management, budgeting & forecasting.
- Gain insights into unexpected cost increases.
- Get the information needed to modernise your cloud estate.
Find out more about Quantum for Azure.
For more information around Azure Cost Optimisation, check out our new guide.
Cloud Essentials
Modern organisations face an increasingly complex IT landscape, with remote and hybrid working having accelerated the need to adopt cloud services to remain competitive. We’ll help you to overcome these challenges of cloud adoption with technical support, consulting, and optimisation services via our Cloud Essentials Service.
How it works:
- Support services – Reactive 24x7 support & regular health checks.
- Optimisation Services – Commercial & Technical optimisation.
- FLEX Consulting Services – Access to consultants across infrastructure, cyber security, modern workplace, change management, user adoption, training, and commercial services.
You’ll get access to:
- 24x7 remote support.
- Major incident management and resolution.
- Patching, upgrades, and health checks.
- Maintenance, remediation, and technical rightsizing.
- Cloud cost management.
- Expert technical consultants.
Find out more about Cloud Essentials.
Do More with Less
Finally, a crucial step to take when optimising consumption is through vendor consolidation.
With Microsoft 365, you can do more with less. Which means you can simplify licensing, management and identify cost savings.
Bytes can offer your business a FREE Do More with Less Workshop. Where you’ll discover how to eliminate redundant solutions, steps to implement a Zero Trust methodology, the process for simplified endpoint management, how to enhance productivity & collaboration, as well as how to take control of cloud spend and IT budget.
To find out more, sign-up for a Do More with Less Workshop today.
Next steps?
To talk to us around anything covered in this article, please email [email protected] or reach out to your Bytes Account Manager today.
Follow us on LinkedIn to get regular updates, announcements and invites to upcoming events.
Thanks for reading!
The Bytes Team,
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