New Zealanders, alongside Australians, can expect to benefit from a marked increase in the number of businesses offering pay-per-use and subscription billing models, as well as a broadening of the range of available cloud services during the year ahead.
According to regional industry experts, the changes are being driven by the growing number of businesses turning to the cloud in the quest for innovation, performance improvements and cost savings.
Drawing on the results of Frost & Sullivan's 2014 State of the Cloud report, Frost & Sullivan Managing Director, Mark Dougan says seven in ten ANZ organisations currently use some form of cloud computing services.
"Two-thirds of those companies say the cloud has significantly improved their business performance and our research shows that on average, use of the cloud leads to IT cost savings in the region of 12 per cent," he says.
"It's a compelling story that we expect will encourage further cloud adoption and the exploration of new business models over the next five years.”
Enthusiasm for these new business models is supported by the rise and rapid acceptance of subscription services among global names such as Amazon Web Services and Spotify.
Locally across the region, Deloitte, Sensis, Fairfax and Weight Watchers as examples of organisations that are changing their models to attract new clients and build a closer relationship with existing clients.
“It's often overlooked, but one of the biggest benefits for the buyer and seller in the world of cloud is a much tighter relationship," says Kim Benito, Vice President – Professional Services APAC, Zuora.
"By its very nature, cloud pricing and packaging models are much more in balance with no particular bias towards buyer or seller."
The opportunities for new service and billing models are well illustrated across the industry, with Nimble Storage for example now complementing its traditional pure hardware-based storage solution model with a consumption-based fee model.
“Nimble now provides rental infrastructure on a pay per use basis," says Peter O'Connor, Vice President Asia Pacific, Nimble Storage.
"With the cloud as the delivery mechanism, users can access our cloud storage platform, either in-house or through the storage provider of their choice, and only pay for storage as it is consumed.
"This is a major break from the past when organisations used to have to buy on average two years of storage up front. It's a far more efficient approach for the buyer and one that places almost as much focus on the billing model as it does on the product itself.”
