How addressing the cloud maturity gap can strengthen your institution
We can help you realise the full potential of your cloud platforms to reduce both costs and risk.
A cloud maturity gap is growing across UK education and research. Inconsistent governance, oversight, and optimisation of cloud technology mean many institutions are still not realising the full financial, operational, and security benefits seen by those leading the sector—and are at risk of falling behind as a result.
Cloud platforms are now well established across education and research, as infrastructure, storage and applications have moved from on-premises environments to external data centres.
However, adoption too often stops at migration. The opportunity to improve cost control, reduce risk, strengthen security, and support long-term transformation remains underexploited.
This disconnect between adopting cloud and using it strategically is the cloud maturity gap. How institutions are positioned relative to the gap is becoming increasingly important, with those on the wrong side facing growing pressure on costs, risk, and resilience. For senior leaders, ensuring their institution is on the right side of this divide is fast becoming a priority.
Adoption too often stops at migration.
What does the maturity gap look like?
Signs that an institution is operating within the gap can manifest in several ways. We commonly see that education and research institutions, just like businesses and other organisations around the globe, have moved applications and data to cloud servers by replicating existing structures, and have done little more. Seeing this ‘lift and shift’ approach as the completion of a ‘move to the cloud’ is a warning sign that mere adoption, not optimisation, has taken place.
Inconsistent or irregular governance of cloud environments and workloads, poor transparency of cloud usage and costs, and unstructured security monitoring are common indicators that work needs to be done on governance and structure.
Complex endpoint and identity environments can present security vulnerabilities, while licensing for software and services may be under-optimised, leading to unrealised value or unnecessary expenditure.
These are serious issues to face in a sector that is already challenged by financial constraints, audit inspection and compliance requirements, sustainability commitments and increasingly sophisticated cyber criminals.
Cloud maturity - an institutional resilience base
Institutions that have cloud governance structures, control and transparency at their core have what we would describe as cloud maturity. These institutions are more resilient, have full visibility of usage and costs, and have a vastly improved cyber security posture.
Importantly, organisations that have achieved cloud maturity see cloud as an ongoing discipline, not a completed project. They have solid governance and foundations in place that enable them to adapt and evolve along with their needs.
They also have better FinOps discipline, the financial management of cloud usage, for example, by using cloud technology to automate processes to drive efficiency.
A good example is the running and management of a database. An institution could simply move the database to a cloud server and keep using it in the same way it always has.
Cloud as an ongoing discipline, not a completed project.
Alternatively, it can use a cloud-based managed database service whose provider takes away the pain of patching and maintaining the database - freeing up time while ensuring no updates are missed and that data remains accurate and protected.
Another example is how a platform such as Microsoft 365, a large suite with many services and licensing options, is used. Organisations may actively use only a small part of what they have paid for, so there are potential savings to be made. They may also be able to optimise configurations of applications such as Microsoft Defender so they run more effectively and provide better value.
A question for leadership teams
The cloud maturity gap exists for a variety of reasons, with skills shortages or time constraints in under-pressure IT teams among the most common.
To start on the journey to cloud maturity, leaders should be frank with themselves about the position of their institution. Has the cloud merely been adopted, or has it been implemented and optimised with a strategic vision behind it?
Cloud assist
Cloud assist is our new tool that helps institutions not only move to the cloud, but to optimise it. It is designed to support organisations across education and research environments, working from our 30 years of experience in supporting the sector.
Cloud assist can be used by teams who have already started their cloud journey and want to maximise the benefits, or those who are taking their first steps. It combines recommendations with automation to make management easier.
There is a free version of the cloud assist tool available, which carries out a quick health check for your Microsoft 365 tenancies and advises on next steps.
Get started with cloud assist.
Find out more
- Contact your relationship manager to learn how cloud assist and our broader cloud portfolio can help you build a more resilient future
- Request a cloud architecture review
- Request a cloud security review
- Join our cloud community group
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