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Using Buzzfeed for business

How real B2B businesses use Buzzfeed for successful brand marketing.

Buzzfeed is the guilty pleasure of B2B marketing. You probably think Buzzfeed is only suitable for millennial news, weird videos, and fun personality quizzes. And for the most part, you're right. But that doesn't mean your super serious business shouldn't take advantage of Buzzfeed's benefits. What are those benefits?

Buzzfeed has a huge daily visit count. Millions.

Buzzfeed has a herculean domain authority (93).

Buzzfeed encourages ANYONE to post content.

Buzzfeed has a fantastic content creation tool.

Buzzfeed is do-follow.

The content marketers in the room just perked up with that last point. Let's say it again for the people in the back. Buzzfeed is do-follow.

But certainly, Buzzfeed would crackdown on articles they could monetize, right?

Yes. Almost all publishers are pay to post for advertising content. And for a good reason. Do not try to write product pushy articles. You will get flagged, banned, and deleted. It is best if you don't write about your products at all. 

Here are some submission tips:

BLL - Buzzfeed Loves Lists

When writing for Buzzfeed, you should write about anything relevant to this moment that is tangentially pertinent to your business. It's Summer. If you're in the HVAC business, why not write a list of the top 10 Sexiest Air conditioners? Yes, sexy air conditioners are a bit avant-garde. But, getting weird increases the shareability of a piece of content.

Now that you've written a draft to your piece on sexy air conditioners, you're probably thinking two things.

How does this benefit my business?

I don't want my customers thinking I'm sexually attracted to air conditioners.

Mark Twain isn't Mark Twain's real name. His real name Samuel Clemons. Publishing work under a good nom de plume will significantly benefit your marketing because it allows you to get weird without backfiring on your business. My nom de plume is Doctor Dinosaur. I am neither a doctor, a dinosaur, or a dinosaur doctor. I didn't even goto paleontology school (fun fact, there is no such school). What I did do is create a name that is purposely unrelated to the Cloud Technology industry in which I work.

Now that we've figured out how it won't backfire, how do we make it benefit the business?

Copyright attribution is your best friend here. Buzzfeed requires that you provide image owner details and a link when you post an image to their site. When you're listing your ten air conditioners, use pictures of air conditioners on your website and credit each image with a backlink to your website. 

The above is the how; the below is the why:

There are entire industries built around boosting brand awareness. Sure, SEO is one, but Public Relations is the OG of fueling brand awareness shortcuts. Any numbnuts with Google can get randomnews.net to post a press release on their site. But getting USA Today to post press releases or stories about a brand requires years of relationship building. Few brands have the time or budget to leverage PR assets.

But if you boil PR down to the goals of PR and what the benefits of USA Today are, you can extrapolate those goals to better tools. At its foundation, PR goals are to get your brand name onto highly trafficked websites and drive traffic to your site. The benefits of USA Today are that its articles sit high in Google search results.

Get brand on a highly trafficked website

Drive traffic to own site

Earn SEO

 Now you have legitimate backlinks on a 93 DA site that is related to your business and just weird enough that it is shareable.

[drdinosaur-blog1]

FY20 is Over

FY20 is over.

They altered the deal. Pray they do not alter it further.

As you know, as a partner, Microsoft will pay you (through rebates) to sell its products.  However, changes are coming to the rebate program in 2020, and we are here to help you navigate those changes. 

The Fine Print: 

First off, before you can earn anything, you must be sure you satisfy the requirements of and are onboard-ed with the Microsoft Partner Network. There are conditions you must meet before onboarding with Microsoft Incentives. Please be sure to visit MPN and fill out all the required documentation.

Now that you have that settled, you can get into the nitty-gritty on what the changes will mean for you.

The hard to swallow: The Core Incentive Rate will drop in Q2. Essentially the most significant rebate Microsoft offers is shrinking slightly.

The silver lining: Global Strategic Product Accelerator will more than double from 2% to 5%.  This growth will offset the core incentive rate drop.

Additionally, Microsoft will increase incentives for set product lines including Microsoft 365, Office 365 Business Prem, both E5 Mini-Suites, and Dynamics 365 Business Central SKUs.

Customer-Add Accelerators will provide additional revenue concerning the three clouds: Azure, Modern Workplace, and Dynamics.

The Concerning: Starting the first of January 2020, your Microsoft incentives will split 60/40 between a rebate and a co-op.  What does this mean? The cash rebate as you know it is being reduced 40%; you still receive that money but as a rebate for marketing efforts ONLY. The co-op is essentially an MDF, or market development fund (marketing money). This split will ensure that you drive more business your way. Though a bit jarring, this new program should raise your future rebates by growing your sales with Microsoft. Microsoft requires proof of execution before it will pay out the co-op rebate. We can help.

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COVID-19 Tech

In March, when the world mostly stopped, companies everywhere scrambled for ways to get their work done through the COVID-19 crisis. Employers knew they had to get a remote working capability up and running. But remote working is little more than a buzzword that actually covers many different areas of operations and information technology. Everything changes, from management to technology infrastructure. One does not simply flip the switch for remote working. But once the foundation is in place, it is that easy.

Available technology is the first audit an IT group will take on. Not every worker has a company laptop. But many employees have personal computers at home. Bring your own device (BYOD) was the most economical method of bringing remote working to an entire workforce. But managing security across dozens of manufacturers and countless models with varying degrees of native security isn't worth the headache. Employers will typically recommend VDIs or Remote Desktops to manage the aforementioned headache. Remote desktops offer a simple, secure, and cost-effective remote work capability to your entire workforce. A properly configured remote desktop will mirror the image, and the data the employee is used to using. This permits employees an "access anywhere" approach to working.

Pandemic aside, employees will find they can work securely from coffee shops, co-working spaces, ski lodges, and tiki bars. The freedom and security remote desktops provide brings up another question for employers, is this a good thing? I like to call this type of employee a "Free-range" employee. They have the freedom to work from anywhere.

A free-range employee presents a bevy of pros and cons for both employers and employees. Employers will find reduced leasing and other operational costs enticing but may find it challenging to assess 40 hours worth of work. Employees will enjoy the freedom but may not be thrilled with the costs transferred to them like high-speed internet, phone plans, office equipment, etc.

When the lockdowns end globally and offices re-open, employers might find employees demanding remote working options to remain in place. Whether it is fear of disease or love of freedom that drives employees toward remote work, the employers will need to rethink their operational infrastructures. There's no doubt that a remote desktop and a motivated employee trumps a logo in an office park. Thankfully, cloud services are quickly transforming from a luxury available to some to a utility necessary for all.

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Rightsize Software

The 24/7 panic from the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided, but the effects linger. The most important lesson we learned from the corporate response to the pandemic is that very few companies were truly ready from an enterprise software standpoint. In business, we are often reactionary and forget to use the scientific method taught to us in 7th grade: observe, hypothesize, test, conclude. When something happens, reacting aggressively is usually our first inclination. But if we took Ferris Bueller’s advice and stop to look around, we might find the bigger picture staring right back at us. Yes, sometimes duct tape fixes a problem fast and long term, but everyone knows at some point, it’ll break. When the pandemic hit, our customers told us they needed to get their house in order. My family often tells this story of a legendary Wall Street investment banker. Half a lifetime ago, this banker was sitting in his office on a Tuesday reviewing the numbers, and something didn’t feel right. It felt very wrong. He decided to take the nuclear option and pull all of his clients out of the market. They hated him, and every day that went by, he lost clients by the fistful. By Friday, every client he still had was screaming at him for all the money he cost them. He went into the weekend, beaten down, and wondering if he had done the right thing. Monday morning, less than a week after he pulled his clients out of the market, is infamously known as Black Monday. Within 24 hours, he had all of his original clients back plus 500%. The theme of the story is that when disaster strikes, you need to pause; take a breath; look around. Before you off and start licensing software, let’s see what’s in your estate first. Looking inside your entire software estate is a crucial starting point. It is so important that we take our first steps on sure footing. You need to KNOW what you're using versus what your future plans are. With the pandemic, this is vital to ensuring you have the licensing in place to support an entirely remote workforce. Even as the pandemic and lockdowns subside, it is essential to maintain the necessary infrastructure should a natural disaster or global pandemic reoccur. Looking under the hood is only the first step. Next, you need to plan for needs during the disaster. What gets you operable right now? Here is where you thought you’d start, but now that you've done your homework, you can spin up fast and economically efficient. While most industries are shrinking or stabilizing, some are proliferating during the pandemic. There’s a difference between reacting quickly, reacting aggressively, and reacting tactfully. When deciding to Rightsize software licensing, especially for Microsoft Office 365, thinking beyond the present will remove or reduce growing pains when things return to normal. Some things to consider are if your company plans to keep a remote working option available, transition to a hybrid or off-premises network, add new employees, or install an AI solution. With the first three steps figured out, companies will react fast and tactically to Rightsize their Office 365 licensing. Having a licensing structure that scales with your needs, planned and otherwise, will drive out costs and improve IT efficiencies. Doing your homework, reacting quickly and tactfully will make sure you plan past the pandemic and reduce costs from the present through future stabilization/growth.

[drdinosaur-blog1]

Working From Home in Dual Income Households

Notes for securing WorkFromHome 

My friend and his wife have a big apartment for lower Manhattan, 1500 sq ft. But as is typical for a married couple in their late 30s, they are a dual-income household. He works in the financial industry, and she works for a marketing agency. Their careers couldn't be more different. But as COVID-19 has confined New Yorkers to their respective square footages, he and his wife are working from the same room. That big apartment is a whole lot smaller when a senior manager at a Fortune 50 bank is sharing the same space as a senior leader at a marketing agency. Their story is not unique. 

 But what can we do in Cloud Security to ensure privileged information from his bank is not overheard by an influencer in London who happens to be on a call with my friend's wife? Should we take into account a marketing agency's lax approach to network security when we consider security measures for our banks? How can a financial institution protect its networks and IP with distributed employees?

 When company leadership establishes work-from-home models, we in IT can't assume our employees work in a bubble. They're sharing connections, rooms, maybe even PCs with at least a significant other and perhaps even a child who is remote learning. We need to protect our networks like we would if everyone worked 100% of their time on a crowded subway car. 

 I look at work-from-home security as a two-pronged approach. It is a shared responsibility between you and your employer, with the employer defining a proper employer-owned or BYOD security policy and the employee adhering to the plan. We need to remember that security goes beyond encryption, it becomes a people-centric solution. If we apply the people, process, and technology approach, we can secure our systems with more than a modicum of self-assurance.

 One of my favorite quotes from the movie Men in Black is "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals, and you know it." When we design best practices and policies, we should consider the lowest common denominator. And we all know that denominator is not necessarily in the mailroom, its sometimes in the ivory tower. Some of the smartest people I've ever met also have been some of the most situationally naive, myself included. 

 There are three significant ways employees can contribute to network and IP security:

Strong Passwords

Securing their home-router

Obscuring their screen

 Creating password rules for employees to adhere will create a foundation for successful security confidence. We've all seen and laughed at the XKCD comic about passwords. But there's no way we can communicate upwards that CorrectHorseBatteryStaple is a more secure password than Tr0uba4or&3. I like to think that creating strong password rules for employees is more than plausible deniability, it's plausible certainty.

  So what technology should you employ? 

 Two-factor is an obvious first step. While password security provides basic security, there is little to prevent someone from sharing the password with someone else. It would be relatively simple for someone to get on the network and using a "Packet Sniffer" (an application that can review network traffic) and watch for any unencrypted information useful to them.

 Dual-income households themselves produce interesting problems for companies but don't necessarily require creative solutions. Multiple computers from separate companies can run within the same home network. Still, the most secure way of doing this is to enable Network Isolation on your home network to prevent individual devices from communicating directly with each other through the router.

 Ensure your antivirus/anti-spyware software is up-to-date and enabled on workstations deployed to your users - this can help avoid a cross-system infection within your home network

  If your applications are not all cloud-based and     accessed via a web browser over TLS/SSL connections, ensure that your     systems connect back to your data center/hosting provider via a VPN     connection. Best if it automatically connects without requiring user     interaction

Allow split tunneling on the VPN connection to prevent     all user traffic (streaming, video conferencing, VoIP calling, etc.) not     intended for corporate systems from traveling through the company network

 A software option to reduce the risks of working on a shared network would be purchasing a reputable Virtual Private Network Service. Using a VPN effectively creates your own private network and end-to-end encryption. 

 Another issue relates to BYOD. Many companies shifted aggressively (or were forced) into work-from-home models and, as a result, have needed employees to use their personal computers. Acers, Apples, Dells, HPs, and custom builds are now under the same IT policy.

 In the scenario where your users must use a personal computer or tablet to access company systems or services, your best-case scenario is to ensure enrollment of the device in an Enterprise Mobility Management solution. As an example of this, using Microsoft Intune will ensure that corporate resources are provisioned to those systems based on what you choose, and can be entirely removed by IT when required.

 For households where multiple users share the personal computer or tablet, ensure that the profile that your users log in to is separate from others who will use the system and ensure that the password is not shared.

 Screen obscuring: When I was at HP, I briefly had the opportunity to consult with the NPI team on SureView, their screen hiding technology. With the click of a button, the screen will obscure from every angle except head-on. Other commercial PC manufacturers have started implementing such technology, but it hasn't made its way to consumer PCs yet. I expect that will change as work from home models displace traditional offices. Without an automatic or bolt on screen hider, have your users position their workspace in such a way that the screen is not visible from outdoors to protect corporate data from theft via shoulder surfing. Additionally, set short timeouts for screen locks to avoid misuse of a system by others in the same household.

At the end of the day, security should be layered by applying the People, Processes, and Technology approach. With each having different roles to play. People can create some of the most significant risks to security. However, when well informed, they can also be an asset and the first line of defense. Often, cybercriminals will specifically target people as an attack vector based on their lack of knowledge for security best practices. For example, cybercriminals might target people with phishing emails designed to get them to click on a malicious link or divulge credentials. Knowledge, they say, is power.

 Our government flipped the switch and forced us to work from home. The silver lining is the security officers, information officers, and operations officers can very quickly turn into rock stars. Implementing proper work-from-home security policy, developing a working and scalable cloud infrastructure, and getting weird by experimenting with business model adjustments to account for the new normal will ensure that the stigma of working from home won't return. Happy employees are productive employees, and if the employee can get their work done efficiently at the beach (or riding a crowded subway car) while strictly adhering to security and IT policy, our archaic office model shouldn't have to persist.

 ​

[drdinosaur-blog1]

Unseen Problems with Distributed Teams

In March, when the world mostly stopped, companies everywhere scrambled for ways to get their work done through the COVID-19 crisis. Employers knew they had to get a remote working capability up and running. But remote working is little more than a buzzword that actually covers many different areas of operations and information technology. Everything changes, from management to technology infrastructure. One does not simply flip the switch for remote working. But once the foundation is in place, it is that easy.

Available technology is the first audit an IT group will take on. Not every worker has a company laptop. But many employees have personal computers at home. Bring your own device (BYOD) was the most economical method of bringing remote working to an entire workforce. But managing security across dozens of manufacturers and countless models with varying degrees of native security isn't worth the headache. Employers will typically recommend VDIs or Remote Desktops to manage the aforementioned headache. Remote desktops offer a simple, secure, and cost-effective remote work capability to your entire workforce.

A properly configured remote desktop will mirror the image, and the data the employee is used to using. This permits employees an "access anywhere" approach to working. Pandemic aside, employees will find they can work securely from coffee shops, co-working spaces, ski lodges, and tiki bars. The freedom and security remote desktops provide brings up another question for employers, is this a good thing? I like to call this type of employee a "Free-range" employee. They have the freedom to work from anywhere.

A free-range employee presents a bevy of pros and cons for both employers and employees. Employers will find reduced leasing and other operational costs enticing but may find it challenging to assess 40 hours worth of work. Employees will enjoy the freedom but may not be thrilled with the costs transferred to them like high-speed internet, phone plans, office equipment, etc.

When the lockdowns end globally and offices re-open, employers might find employees demanding remote working options to remain in place. Whether it is fear of disease or love of freedom that drives employees toward remote work, the employers will need to rethink their operational infrastructures. There's no doubt that a remote desktop and a motivated employee trumps a logo in an office park. Thankfully, cloud services are quickly transforming from a luxury available to some to a utility necessary for all.

[drdinosaur-blog1]

Distributed Workforces

Cities exist for a multitude of reasons, chief among them is that density provides populations with everything they need to survive and as a city grows in density so does its economic value to places beyond its borders. Thus, for millennia, man has traveled from one city to the next creating commerce between each city, spreading knowledge, and providing needed services in short supply. And we flourished. But it came at a price; our environment has been irreparably harmed, real estate within cities got too expensive creating sprawl and worsening damage to the environment, the highway traffic is increasing resulting in longer workdays and higher stress levels. Working in and between cities is killing the environment and ourselves.

But the democratization of high-speed internet has the potential to change the world. It used to be in order to get hired at a company you had to live within a reasonable distance. 15 years ago, a friend packed up his SUV and moved across the country from Annapolis, MD to Encinitas, CA with the intent of finding a job and surfing before work every day. Thousands, if not millions, of other people have moved to a desired city without first obtaining a job. Whether it is to find adventure, find work in a specific field, or be closer to family people will risk everything to pursue their dreams in a foreign city. But in 2020, due to high speed internet and quarantines/social distancing, corporations around the world are supporting work from anywhere models. Now, you don’t have to have a job in a city to live there, you don’t even have to live near a city as long as you have maintain constant access to high speed internet.

We’d be naïve to think that benefits to the workers or the environment will drive the change to remote workforces. Corporations will seek out what most benefits the corporation. Initially, remote working will negatively impact commercial real estate. We see this happening already with corporations seeking co-working spaces instead of full offices, and home offices displacing square footage at corporate offices. But an empty skyscraper is the least of our worries. The fact of the matter is, regardless of where in the US a corporation sources its workers, there will always be similarly skilled workers in less costly nations. 15ms in additional internet latency is a small price to pay when the savings are in the tens of thousands per worker.

Proud, American manufacturers will place a sticker on their products reading “Made in the USA.” But these days, selling a product requires a social media manager, a blogger, a sales manager, a web developer, a web hoster, an experienced management team, and a customs broker. Every single one of these positions can be had for pennies on the dollar by outsourcing workers except for the customs broker. Made in the USA stickers would still apply even with every job, outside of assembly and customs brokering, outsourced to Mexico.

When it comes to intangible digital products or services, the problem is even more pervasive. Digital products and services aren’t subject to ports of call and Customs. Digital products created in Turkey and consumed in Ohio are not economically scrutinized to the same degree of other Turkish products like its amazing textiles. There is little reason for a corporation not to utilize outsourced digital services. When having, for instance, marketing designed, delivered, and hosted overseas, results in lower costs of goods sold.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mark Zuckerberg spoke of salaries being adjusted to reflect cost of living (COL) needs if employees choose to move to lower-cost areas¹. Essentially, Zuck is holding employees hostage in a polluted metropolis brimming with stress and economic anxiety. To put this in perspective, if a Facebook employee decides to move from Facebook Headquarters in high COL San Francisco to lower COL Houston, they would incur a 50% reduction in pay². If instead, that same employee chose to emigrate to the beaches of Rio, they would take a 93% reduction in salary³. Facebook isn’t alone in this. Corporations in high COL cities needed to pay a living wage to their employees. But if employees no longer live in those cities, they shouldn’t expect to keep a salary that had always been calculated by COL. And if a corporation chooses to find skilled workers in Rio anyway, what’s to stop them?

The city of Chicago has been derided by consumers for levying a tax against streaming services like Netflix. But the “cloud tax” could be the sandbagging we need to prevent an economic meltdown in first world countries as the benefits of remote workforces continues to be made apparent.

https://www.businessinsider.com/zuckerberg-facebook-salary-employees-moving-out-of-silicon-valley-2020-5

https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare/san-francisco-ca-vs-houston-tx

https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/interactives/costofliving/compare/san-francisco-vs-rio-de-janeiro/

[drdinosaur-blog1]

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Ignite is an annual conference for developers and IT professionals hosted by Microsoft. This year, attendees can expect 1000+ sessions with over 200+ hands-on experiences over four days.

We’ve detailed some exciting new features coming to Microsoft Teams below. If you are hoping to stay informed throughout this event, visit the Microsoft Ignite website to watch on-demand keynote speeches and sessions.

Here the features we are most excited about. To see a full list of announced features, visit the link at the end of the article.

1. Private Channels: Available starting this week, private channels enable users to create channels in an existing team that can be accessed by only select members of that team.

3.Outlook and Teams: Easily move an email conversation from Outlook, including attachments, into a Teams chat or channel by clicking the “Share to Teams” button that will be available early next year.

[drdinosaur-blog1]

Software Negotiations

Remember at the end of the last century when every blockbuster described Armageddon, outbreak, nuclear fallout, global warming, or intelligent apes taking over the planet (starring Marky Mark)?  We know now, they got it all wrong. Nothing stops during a global disaster. In fact, reliance on the internet and digital technologies GREW as a direct result of the pandemic. In corporate IT, the growing dependence via remote working, eCommerce, Netflixing, or anything else means scaling its software spend to match market and business needs. Successful negotiations with software vendors are best done strategically when the world seems to have you over a barrel.

Socialization is one of the first things that technology has pushed fully remote. We often refer to the medium as social media, but foundationally social media normalized remote relationships. Today, 15 years into the social renaissance, our relationships are no longer saved for nights and weekends. We socialize on the train, in a boring meeting, in bed 10 minutes after we should have already fallen asleep. Ease of use and widespread adoption made social media one of the most pervasive aspects of our lives.

What if work weren’t confined to 9-5? What if there were no offices, traffic, congested metropolitans? Would we work harder, more efficiently, and be happier? Tough to say all around but studies have shown remote employees to save money and be happier overall compared to traditional employees. With the recent onset of lockdowns and curfews, it is best that companies strive towards majority remote workforces to keep the lights on when the geopolitics say otherwise.

In order to support the necessary workforce model, companies need to negotiate software to enable their workers. Budgets weren’t planned with lockdowns and curfews in mind, so companies will need to optimize costs and transform how they approach problems. First steps will be to automate what they can with AI, license Office 365 for the entire workforce, and move to a cloud or hybrid cloud solution if they have not already done so. For many organizations, this is a long list.

Customers often want to start by discussing their problems and current solutions. But oftentimes, that’s just noise that masks the underlying issues. The best place to start is always to understand exactly where your organization stands prior to the negotiation. What is already in your software estate and what are your needs to scale up or down as needed? Software publishers often use audits to drive new revenue, but a self-audit can actually further optimize costs for companies and help build a strong foundation for the future. A buyer who enters the contract from a position of strength and understanding will typically save at least 30% on their total spend.

As working models continue to adapt to the new normal, we will need to renegotiate our software estates to fit with our needs. And expect software publishers and vendors to revisit their contracting terms and offers to adapt to market needs, but don’t expect that those offers will align with your needs or be easy to understand. It is our job to make sure you get what you need out of the changing software landscape.

[drdinosaur-blog1]

Working from home

Credit

Your good friend Dr. Dinosaur happens to manage a fairly large work from home Facebook group as a side hustle. Part of the way we prevent bots from joining our group is by implementing a question one must answer.  The question we ask is “What is your work from home setup?” Obviously we want to know where and how you park your booty when you are working. Or maybe you have a standing desk and don’t park your booty anywhere.

During the COVID-19 pandemic we saw a massive spike in membership and some very creative responses to our question. Here are 5 of my favorites: 1. “I have a standing desk on order but I’m currently set up on the baby changing table.” I have to admit, this is one of my favorites. It is so symbolic of the times were are in right now. But it also sounds fairly convenient as even a long term solution.

2. “Um I only have an old dell notebook and a monitor but I’m hoping to upgrade it at some point.”

So many people are seemingly ashamed of their setup. There’s far too much Jonesing when it comes to home offices or gear. If you can get your work done you don’t need the fancy set up. 

3. “Right now just a laptop and my side of the bed.”

THIS right here is perfect. This setup gets the job done.

4. “kitchen table, coffee maker, headphones.”

All you need.

5. “I don’t know what you’re asking.”

Membership request DENIED.

[drdinosaur-blog1]

Cost Optimization in IT spending

When most people think of IT, I think they picture pocket protectors and fluorescent lights. It’s an unfortunate consequence of a profession that was previously relegated to the cold, dark basement. But as IT moves to the cloud, the stereotypical IT managers are venturing out into the ivory tower; and as more roles are driven remote, it will have the ultimate selection of office space as they are the among the only roles that may need to remain on-premises. But IT isn’t just a few comp-sci majors, it’s an entire business unit with many different roles working together to build and manage the foundation of any business large and very small. The goal of the business unit is to drive out legacy and redundancy costs and to provide the tools necessary for cross collaboration thereby improving operational efficiencies paramount to the business.

Driving out cost is at the heart of all transformational business units. Just as our fathers’ companies replaced complex ledgers with Apple 2s and IBMs, we will replace frontline inefficiencies with AI and overspending on real estate will be replaced by cloud computing. To achieve our lofty goals, we need to look at the core responsibility of IT which is IT asset management.  IT asset management supplies and maintains the interconnectedness and the tools used by employees at every level of an organization. Regardless of size, all organizations should employ IT asset management.

The 30,000-foot view of IT asset management is the hardware (servers, pcs) and the software (apps, security) on which the organization’s operation is built. Not all the assets are owned by the organization, some are licensed, and some are leased. Not all assets make sense to bring to the cloud. At least not at first. Many companies employ custom built software solutions that use legacy on-premises connections. Rewriting legacy software for cloud usage can be a huge time suck with limited ROI. Knowing what to bring to the cloud and what to leave behind is the ultimate strategic move. Collaborating across business units is vital for unseen reasons as well. It is important to match the culture of the business to the solution. If the business works one way, don’t future proof at the cost of productivity.

It asset management has grown from ordering computers and deploying windows to managing the pulse of the organization. The growth trajectory of IT asset management as a business unit will include injecting IT asset management into every business unit from finance through manufacturing. IT asset management will follow the culture of the organization.

IT asset management is a growing field comprising many specialties not typically associated with it. As the way we work continues to transform digitally, IT asset management will continue to grow as the keystone business unit.

In the past, IT asset management was used retroactively as an audit function annually or during a time of crisis. Business leaders wanted to make sure data was secure and available. As things grew more complex, audits would take too much time to do once a year, and real time reporting became increasingly relevant

Everyday new SaaS apps and tools launch that make various work easier to perform across business units and functions like project management, graphic design, and engineering. A portfolio of it licenses and services grows organically and as it does it becomes increasingly complicated. Maintaining a full view of the IT estate and creating an accurate asset map is vital to the economics of IT. We’ve all been at companies where we were negotiating the license on software only to find out that we already had a license through a different business unit. IT asset managers can help rein in redundant spending and improve accessibility to the estate.

SMBs that do not yet incorporate IT asset management into their operations will benefit from planning of their goals and a success metric. Once the start and end points are developed (goals and success metrics), the in between can be filled in. The resulting process is the strategy for a successful IT asset management structure.

This isn’t 1996; software no longer comes on a cd in the mail. In fact, most software is transforming from installable to a SaaS model. Though they may seem like a collection of login credentials, SaaS and cloud computing assets are huge pieces of managing software estates.

It used to be that cloud software was deemed less safe because it required external access to a pc, but with end to end security and virtual machines, running cloud software is many times safer than native!

A business leader at an SMB might ask themselves if SaaS is safer and more versatile than native software, wouldn’t cloud servers or full cloud computing solutions protect my organization? And yes, the cloud solution will almost always be the most versatile solution. But overall safety is par for the course for most applications. Leaders need to assess and ensure value before moving to the cloud.

Business leaders and new IT asset managements should not be tempted by multiyear cloud/software licensing deals. What’s true about your business today, is not necessarily true tomorrow. 2020 has proven thus far that your growth plans mean nothing in the face of pandemic. In fact, even to expert eyes multi-year deals tend to be misleading.

On way to backstop against misleading multiyear deals is to employ redundant cloud vendors. Pairing Microsoft azure with amazon web services backstops against misleading multiyear deals and backstops against failure should one service go down unexpectedly.

Business units must be transparent about needs and wants in order to make wise economical decisions. Collaboration at the highest (and sometimes the middle) level is paramount to getting things done right the first time. And if not the first time, the second time.

You might wonder which cloud package is right for your business. Often there seems to be a nearly unending amount of available solutions. Vendors make the options complicated on purpose. Finding a consultant or it asset management capable of simplifying the licensing solution is easier than trying to go it alone.

It has moved out of the basement and is collaborating cross functionally with all business units. Moving to the cloud optimizes costs throughout a company and allows for more productivity. If our it asset managements can successfully navigate the intricacies of the other business units, companies will find greater efficiencies and save into the millions.

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Cloud Cost Optimization

Given everything going on in the world, companies large and small will be looking into ways to control cloud costs post pandemic. There are two ways to achieve this. From a load perspective, a Retail Organization, for instance, whose stores are shut down, could make their infrastructure smaller. The cloud gives you the capability to dial-up and dial-down very quickly. That's the simplest way. The other way would be to look at restructuring your cloud presence more cost-effectively. And there are a lot of different elements that go into that.

I ask our customers a lot if Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) were cheaper than Platform as a Service (PaaS), would you do it? Specifically, in Azure, IaaS can be more economical, and we help our customers achieve that. If you're in an AWS or other environment (somewhere that's not Azure), the transition from IaaS to PaaS usually cuts your cost. Within Azure specifically, I would say that there aren't specific target services for cutting costs.

Now that said, the capacity management discipline that goes into how you contain costs in Azure applies at every one of these points. It applies to IaaS, it applies to PaaS, so it doesn't change - even across AWS and GCP, frankly, its the same discipline. Your capacity costs for a VM and your capacity cost for a comparably sized SQL PaaS instance are the same. They don't change. But typically, when we move into those environments, we get a little more aggressive as technicians about how we do capacity management, and that's what leads to the savings. So if you are relentless about your capacity management, you could save money at any time in any cloud environment.

The number one path to savings in the cloud economy is commitment. The positive relationship between commitment and savings is the universal truth. From a financial perspective, reserved instances are about committing to a workload for a period of time. That is what's going to reap the rewards. Reserved instances are a crucial element of that; they aren't the only element, but they are a key factor. The catch there is finding the right term for a lot of customers. For many, three years is a big ask. It's not something they can predict effectively. So there are challenges in organizations believing that's the right course or knowing that's not the right course. So there's a hesitation about what level of commitment you're comfortable making. From a cost planning tool perspective, I tell customers that the discipline precedes the tool every time. If you're not good at capacity management, a capacity management tool won't help you. The same principle applies to software asset management, project management, or your favorite ITIL discipline. I do believe the tools have value; just I think the discipline needs to precede the tool they support. Azure allows you some exciting opportunities to right-size your environment. Environments that are on-premises are universally over resourced. There are good organizational reasons for that, but it's the reality of the situation. When you get into Azure, you typically cut your resource footprint, and then you can actually reduce your spending. Moving to Azure allows you to cut your CAPEX; you can transition your CAPEX into OPEX, so there's a lot of interesting financial plays you could make with Azure. There are some specific spots where Azure can be hugely beneficial:

• If you're still using tape, Azure is incredible • if you are paying on a per-compute basis for VMs or a per-GB basis for storage, there are great opportunities in Azure to right-size that cost

So there are ample opportunities to transform how you spend. There are opportunities to reduce your spend. There's an opportunity to create alignment between what you compute, what your IT is, and what your business is. Doing so creates a path where IT becomes almost a COGS as opposed to a nebulous expense that goes up all the time. There's a way to track that as your revenue goes up, your cost of services goes down so you can create that relationship between what I get out and what I have put in to achieve that.

I believe the pandemic will take Azure spend—and cloud spend in general--up tremendously. What we're seeing is organizations large, small, and otherwise are caught flat-footed and had no way to handle all their workers going remotely. In a lot more cases, we've also seen organizations that had an inkling of doing remote work but aren't culturally or technologically set up for the scale of everyone remote at once and all day. They've been caught it in a scale problem. For example, one company I've worked with has 9000 connections available for about 20,000 users. They're stuck; they can't grow that. 10,000 of their users cannot be online. This condition, unfortunately, isn't unusual in today's environment, either. To come in with a solution and drop in 10,000 seats today, and quite frankly, turn that up to 20,000 seats tomorrow down to 5000 seats the week after that and pull it out altogether the week after that. That's a scale and elasticity that only the cloud can provide. If I ask "with IaaS being cheaper than PaaS, would you do it?", different customers come out at different places for technological, religious, and political reasons. As a cloud technologist, I spend as much or more time talking to my customers about finances as I talk about technology, which has always surprised me. There's a very democratic piece to the cloud - you can always develop or build skills internally, but it takes some internal will, and some political air-cover a lot of times. But the cloud disciplines are a critical piece of being able to operate cost-effectively in the cloud. Whether it's security discipline, or capacity/cost management, or any other discipline, you have to have those supports in place to make sure your cloud environment is going to be sturdy enough to hold up in the real world.

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