Managing cloud infrastructure across multiple vendors requires deeper expertise, advanced monitoring and automation tools, and significant coordination. The shortage of skilled cloud architects and engineers only adds to the challenge, further inflating costs for training, recruitment, or outsourcing. Billing in multicloud environments is another significant pain point. Many companies report that managing cloud expenses has become so convoluted that they lack visibility into where their money is going, let alone how to properly optimize things. Without well-established financial management practices, costs spiral out of control, creating a disconnect between cloud spending and business value.
Migrating workloads back on-premises
One of the most telling signs of the cloud ROI problem is a trend that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago: Some enterprises are moving their workloads back to private data centers or partnering with managed service providers. Recent data from Australia reveals that this trend is gaining traction, and I’ve observed similar responses across other major markets, including the United States and Europe.
The decision to pull workloads out of the cloud signals a collective reevaluation of the initial assumptions that drove cloud adoption. For many organizations, particularly those running steady-state workloads, private data centers or managed hosting environments offer better cost predictability and control. The high fixed costs of on-premises infrastructure, once a deterrent, are now seen as an advantage in avoiding the budgetary volatility of usage-based billing. Additionally, organizations with strict compliance requirements or legacy systems find it difficult to justify the transformation costs required to fully embrace the cloud.
