Managed SPs: Optimizing the Value of AI with Managed Cloud Services

This IDC Perspective discusses how success for managed SPs in utilizing automation, particularly AI, will require implementing a holistic set of capabilities that will optimize the value of automation while meeting the expected outcomes that organizations are looking to achieve when using managed cloud services. This document examines factors that involve defining the expected value and measuring outcomes when using AI with managed cloud services, providing insight into enterprise business concerns with AI when using managed cloud services, establishing a risk curve for automation, defining the critical capabilities required to manage and mitigate risks when utilizing AI as part of managed cloud services, and understanding the impact of competition and a potential move to new business models."With automation taking center stage in supporting managed cloud services, managed SPs need to design an effective blueprint for how best to deploy the many types of automation, particularly AI, to support provisioning these services, which requires taking a life-cycle approach for managed cloud services," says David Tapper, program VP, Outsourcing and Managed Cloud Services at IDC. "Investments that managed SPs must make to ensure that they can effectively support client use of AI as part of managed cloud services involve aligning the type of AI by stage in the life cycle of services based on KPIs and risk factors, architecting a business structure to support the use of AI, building an AI inventory management capability, and creating a road map of the evolution of AI versus labor."