Conquering Cloud Sprawl: Empowering Productivity with the Right Strategies

In today’s highly collaborative and cloud-based work environment, it’s become increasingly difficult to govern access, data, and teams. John Peluso, chief product officer at

AvePoint, outlines just how your organization can stay ahead of cloud sprawl and minimize risk. The proliferation of hybrid work in recent years has resulted in a surge of new

workplace tools, software and platforms to help employees collaborate remotely. As organizations continue to adapt to the changing workplace, the use of cloud software is crucial.

With worldwide cloud spending projectedOpens a new window to grow 20.7% to a total of $591.8 billion in 2023, up from $490.3 billion in 2022, the use and adoption of these tools

and software shows no signs of slowing down as businesses strive to maintain high growth in a more decentralized environment.    However, IT teams and leaders alike must

understand the potential downsides of employing cloud-based technologies. According to recent dataOpens a new window from Productiv, the average company has a staggering 254 SaaS

applications. However, average app engagement over 60 days was only 45%, meaning that less than half of a company’s apps are being used on a regular basis. Further, it’s also

reported that individuals are increasingly exploring tools outside of their IT environment to get the job done, with external tools having a 54% engagement rate.  Clearly,

employing ineffective or too many cloud technologies can result in difficulties in managing your organization’s teams, data and risk–ultimately impeding visibility and

accelerating cloud sprawl. With this, below are some key considerations to stay ahead of cloud sprawl, promote productivity and maintain high growth across your organization.  

Staying Ahead of the Collaboration Curve  When it comes to managing your organization’s cloud environment and data, the only way to beat sprawl and associated risk is to be

prepared. It’s critical to begin by establishing a proactive approach that anticipates sprawl, sets guardrails to mitigate risk, and meets your teams where they collaborate with

the most secure and streamlined tools possible–both for internal and external collaboration.   If you know your organization has high levels of collaboration across teams who

may not have the same level of access to sensitive information, be prepared and have your bases covered. IT should anticipate complex patterns and pockets of collaboration and

specifically design and automate workspaces within their productivity software, including Microsoft Teams, for example, to manage access and protect sensitive data. Employees are