Report reveals eight out of 10 IT execs unhappy with their CSPs

Upwards of 80 per cent of enterprises are so dissatisfied with their existing managed service providers (MSPs) and cloud service providers (CSPs) that they are looking to replace them within the next year, a report from CloudBolt Software reveals.

The report, entitled Filling The Gap: Service Providers’ Increasingly Important Role in Multi-Cloud/Multi-Tool Success, is based on a survey of over 300 senior-level employees at enterprises around the world.

Conducted by Pulse, a Gartner-owned research subsidiary, according to a press release the survey aimed to uncover enterprise sentiment regarding cloud-oriented services providers – and identify exactly which services and capabilities enterprises need providers to enable and fulfill in increasingly multi-cloud/hybrid cloud environments.

The report is the sixth in a series of CloudBolt Industry Insights (CII), and its authors note in it that “over the course of the previous five installments we have examined various dimensions of cloud computing as it undergoes rapid evolution. What has become abundantly clear is that a New Cloud Order has emerged – and what worked to get companies to this point won’t work going forward. This latest research further solidifies the key driver of this paradigm shift: Multi-cloud.

“Multi-cloud/hybrid cloud/multi-tool complexity is the underbelly of the beast; the place where the hype of cloud meets complex reality and where true chaos is exposed.”

The results, they said, were “alarming,” with the “dissatisfaction among respondents centered around service providers’ inability to properly optimize cloud spend (60 per cent); limited or non-existent multi-cloud options (58 per cent); inability to better enable cloud automation (50 per cent); inability to provide visibility across cloud spend (41 per cent); and an inability to automatically remediate cloud spend inefficiencies (24 per cent).

On the flip side, the report finds that “respondents still overwhelmingly believe that MSPs/CSPs can enhance and improve their multi-cloud/multi-tool infrastructure and fill the gaps they have internally.”

Other findings revealed that:

  • 85 per cent believe their MSPs/CSPs can more easily pull together all aspects of digital transformation than the enterprise alone.
  • 91 per cent believe their MSPs/CSPs increase agility so the enterprise can better capitalize on cloud-related initiatives.
  • 82 per cent believe their MSPs/CSPs reduce time to market for their customers.
  • 81 per cent believe their MSPs/CSPs save them money.

“Most significantly, a whopping 97 per cent said they would be willing to pay a premium to a service provider that delivered on the current shortcomings they identified with their current vendor; 79 per cent said they would pay five per cent or more,” the report states.

As for what is causing such widespread dissatisfaction with CSPs and MSPs, the report notes that core issues are growing complexity in multi-cloud environments, and a widening skills gap among both enterprises and service providers.

Jeff Kukowsi, chief executive officer of CloudBolt, said that with “multi-cloud architectures growing more complex and expensive, enterprises lack the in-house personnel and expertise to tame the chaos and runaway costs that arise, so they turn to CSPs and MSPs.

“However, service providers are experiencing a skills gap of their own. The personnel issues caused by the pandemic, along with the resulting Great Resignation and decrease in employee loyalty, have created severe challenges in hiring and retaining employees with the skills that are so desperately needed today.

“This skills gap among providers prevents them from becoming the deep, strategic partner their customers need.”

William Norton, director of CloudBolt’s MSP/CSP practice added that the report reveals a “golden opportunity for service providers in the current multi-cloud landscape.

“Customers are telling them exactly what capabilities they need, and that they’re willing to pay a premium to get them.

“Ultimately, it’s about filling the skills gap, automating wherever possible, and adding more value at every turn. As the survey revealed, service providers able to offer what customers need most will experience a watershed moment where they significantly increase net-new business, while profoundly reducing the risk of churn.”

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Paul Barker
Paul Barker
Paul Barker is the founder of PBC Communications, an independent writing firm that specializes in freelance journalism. He has extensive experience as a reporter, feature writer and editor and has been covering technology-related issues for more than 30 years.

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