Learn from the SaaS choices of OneOffice™ leaders: Part one—cloud partners

The Situation: Enterprises valuing OneOffice™ outcomes are most likely to create business value through their software choices. They want their SaaS (software as a service) to deliver improved customer and employee experience, and they want to see how it makes outsourcing business processes easier. As part of our SaaS XXV research, we identified the SaaS choices made by these OneOffice enterprise leaders and compared them with those made by less-mature tactical laggards. In this first in a series on the SaaS choices of OneOffice leaders, we focus on cloud partners.

How we identified the leaders and the laggards

We asked enterprise decision makers how SaaS is changing their business. We identified OneOffice leaders as those who agree or strongly agree with survey statements indicating SaaS improves employee experience, improves customer experience, and makes outsourcing business processes easier. These responses indicate the realization of outcomes indicative of greater maturity in the adoption and use of SaaS, thus a tighter alignment to the HFS OneOffice mindset.

In contrast, tactical laggards agree or strongly agree SaaS is changing how their business operates by improving the flow of information across the business, improving data and information access, improving security, encouraging the business to bypass IT, and making it harder to budget. These responses we identify as indicative of an enterprise that has not yet have moved beyond the technical functionality of SaaS solutions and is missing how SaaS creates real-time “connections” between the company and its customers. We analyzed 411 responses and compared the strength of preference for the use of particular technologies by either leaders or laggards.

Azure shines for OneOffice leaders among current cloud partners

Our data—an enterprise customer subset of the overall SaaS XXV responses—shows Microsoft Azure has established the greatest gap in current use between leaders and laggards; 45% of OneOffice leaders in our survey use Azure. Leaders were more likely than laggards to be using cloud partners across the board.

Exhibit 1: Cloud partner preference is becoming a two-horse race with OneOffice leaders placing bigger bets while laggards play catch up

Sample: 411 responses from enterprise leaders, January 2022 SaaS XXV survey; the total is greater than 100% because some enterprises use multiple cloud partners
Source: HFS Research, 2022

OneOffice leaders in Exhibit 2 reserve their highest NPS (net promoter score) for Oracle, MS Azure, and IBM Cloud. In our graphics, net promoter scores range from -1.00 to +1.00, where 1.00 = 100%. Anything higher than 0.70 (70%) is usually regarded as outstanding, .50 to .69 (50%–69%) as strong, and .49 or lower as needs improvement. The average NPS across the cloud partner category in our survey was 0.25 (25%).

In general, both leaders and laggards are looking for more from their cloud partners, with only Oracle Cloud landing outstanding scores—and only then from the less-mature laggard group. OneOffice leaders in our survey were particularly underwhelmed by Google Cloud, which also saw the biggest difference between the views of leaders and laggards.

Exhibit 2: Cloud providers should target scores higher than 0.7; they average 0.25

Sample: 411 responses from enterprise leaders January 2022 SaaS XXV survey
Source: HFS Research, 2022

Our respondents’ relative dissatisfaction with Google is also reflected in the intent in Exhibit 3 to invest in cloud partners in the next 12 months. We asked, “Of the vendors you use as a cloud provider, which do you expect to increase your investment (resources, certifications, co-development, etc.) with over the next 12 months?”

Exhibit 3: OneOffice leaders plan to invest more with AWS, laggards with Azure

Sample: 411 responses from enterprise leaders, January 2022 SaaS XXV survey; data significant for top three hyperscalers only
Source: HFS Research, 2022

The Bottom Line: To learn from OneOffice leaders, gravitate toward AWS and Microsoft as cloud partners

Among our respondents, OneOffice leaders clearly prefer MS Azure and AWS as their cloud partners, and they seem set on continuing to invest more in the big two. The learning for laggards in this case is to follow suit. Painfully low NPS for Google can’t be ignored, and they are reflected in conversations HFS regularly has with enterprise customers and their partners. Google has a significant distance to make up, starting with working more closely with their partners and customers to shine a brighter light on the business outcomes they can deliver rather than the nuts and bolts of the technology.

Read the results of our broader SaaS XXV survey here.