Cost and Security Perhaps the biggest difference in the type of content that resonates with each group of decision makers comes in the area of costs. While 62 percent of BDMs believe using public cloud is cheaper than self-hosting applications, only 46 percent of ITDMs believe this to be true. Overall, only 27 percent of U.S.-based ITDMs believe that using the cloud is cheaper than self-hosting. “This pessimism represents a challenge for tech marketers, especially because IT professionals might be initial gatekeepers that have the power to rule out a solution early in the buyer’s journey,” warned Spiceworks analysts. Another area of misalignment among ITDMs and BDMs is around payment preferences. Across all geographies, 55 percent of BDMs say their organizations would rather pay for tech infrastructure as an operational expense (opex) rather than a less frequent but larger capital expense (capex) compared to 47 percent of ITDMs. Among U.S. organizations surveyed, the gap is even wider: 44 percent of BDMs in the U.S. said their organization prefers opex over capex compared to only 27 percent of ITDMs. Likewise, BDMs are more likely to view adopting cloud technology as a way to reduce the need for potentially expensive hires or additional training. Nearly six in 10 BDMs said using cloud services can reduce the need for developing specialized IT skills and expertise in-house, compared to half of ITDMs. BDMs also are more likely than ITDMs (49 percent vs. 39 percent) to say their organization follows a “cloudfirst” technology strategy. Turning to the also-important issue of security, a plurality of IT buyers said cloud providers offer superior security compared to their own organization’s data centers, but significantly more BDMs hold this belief (59 percent) than ITDMs (50 percent). “Additionally, our data suggests some BDMs might have a blind spot regarding cloud security,” said Spiceworks researchers. When using cloud-based B2B solutions, companies essentially pay for the use of infrastructure and services maintained by a third party, continued Spiceworks researchers, potentially leading BDMs to assume their cloud providers will provide adequate security and safeguard everything. However, the “shared responsibility model” for security and compliance in the cloud says service providers (such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure) are responsible for the underlying infrastructure of the cloud, explained Spiceworks researchers. At the same time, customers are responsible for what’s running on top of that infrastructure, including their own data, access management settings, applications and configurations. “While we found that the majority of companies (55 percent) have evaluated and addressed the ‘shared responsibility model’ for security and compliance as part of their cloud strategy, there’s a disconnect between ITDMs and BDMs,” said the report. In small businesses (1-99 employees), for example, 57 percent of BDMs think that they’ve addressed the shared responsibility model compared to only 37 percent of ITDMs. The same phenomenon exists in medium-size businesses (100-499 employees), where 71 percent of BDMs think they’ve addressed the shared responsibility model, compared to only 44 percent of ITDMs. ITDMs and BDMs are much more aligned in larger organizations, where 73 percent of ITDMs and 70 percent of BDMs say they’ve addressed the shared responsibility model. Forced to consider a tech buying collective made up of stakeholders with unique needs, preferences and objections, marketers of cloud solution can no longer rely on a one-size-fits-all approach. Rather, they must have a grasp of the key differences between ITDMs and BDMs and the specific objections that might need to be overcome. At the same time, cloud solutions marketers must remain in tune with the types of messaging and materials that ITDMs in particular are seeking, as IT remains central to the cloud purchase journey despite its level of direct involvement in any specific steps along the way. o How important is optimizing spending and reducing the cost of existing cloud services? Source: Anodot ‘2022 State of Cloud Cost R port’ What are your top challenges to controlling cloud costs? yer’s journey ITDM vs. BDM Beliefs about Cloud Costs 0 60 37% 58% 20% 27% % al s Approve purchase Implement/ manage solutions 59% 58% Source: Spiceworks Cost of cloud cheaper than self-hosting Cloud reduces need for specialized expertise Organization prefers capex over opex Organization employs “cloud first” strategy 46% 62% 50% 59% 47% 55% 39% 49% ITDM BDM Very important Extremely important Somewhat important Hardly important 59% 30% 10% 1% Gaining true visibility into cloud usage and costs Complex cloud pricing Complex, multi-cloud environments 49% 50% 53% 22 CHANNELV ISION | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2022
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