Insights

Every pound matters in the current economy. With higher costs, increased national insurance contributions, and volatile financial markets, UK businesses must closely justify their spending.

As an MSP, One area where Chorus sees many companies still leaking money is in their IT licensing.

Principal Cloud Engineer, Joe Cato, noted this in a recent discussion:

“We’ll often onboard a client and see they’re paying for a half dozen different products, all of which could be replaced by what they already get with Microsoft 365. This doesn’t make sense, especially in today’s economy, where everyone’s trying to save as much money as they can.”

Overlapping tools and wasted IT spend

It’s a scenario we see time and again. Businesses invest in Microsoft 365 but continue to pay for third-party tools that provide similar features to those already included in their Microsoft subscriptions.

In many cases, this leads to wasted spending, as several Microsoft 365 licence tiers already provide first-class productivity, security, and management features within a single licence.

A classic example is organisations paying for extra email security tools like Mimecast or Proofpoint, when Microsoft Defender for Office 365 can provide strong protection at no additional cost.

The same goes for other areas of IT: cloud storage, endpoint protection, data loss prevention, multi-factor authentication, team collaboration tools and more.

“We frequently see businesses paying for Dropbox instead of using SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business or even running the likes of Zoom or Citrix and CrowdStrike or SentinelOne when they have Microsoft Teams and Defender for Endpoint in their subscription.” Said Joe.

“Rather than a matter of capability, it’s often because they were sold solutions that they didn’t need by their previous suppliers or simply because they weren’t aware of the capabilities of their existing licensing.”

Why does this happen?

Sometimes IT leaders stick with certain products out of habit or personal preference, not because they’re best for the business. This can lead to wasted IT spending, at a time when budgets are already depleted.

If you have an IT partner, they should guide you to make the most of your existing licences, not just keep things running as they always have.

Unfortunately, many service providers don’t suggest consolidation if it means losing out on extra sales, so businesses sometimes keep paying for services they no longer need.

For example, we’ve seen MSPs continuing to sell outdated VPN services even after a customer’s cloud migration, simply because it benefits the MSP financially, not because it benefits the customer.

How good MSPs should help you optimise licensing spend

A good MSP should regularly review your IT setup and suggest ways to save money, including consolidating tools and optimising licences. They should always put your interests first, even if it means less profit for them or having to have difficult customer conversations which challenge the current situation.

As a Microsoft Solutions Partner and MSP for over 25 years, we’ll often recommend Microsoft tools, but only if they’re the best fit for you.

Quite simply, the reason Chorus is a Microsoft-first MSP is because we find that Microsoft’s offerings are typically the best fit on the market for most of our customers.

“If there’s a gap in Microsoft’s offering, we’ll tell you and suggest alternatives. For example, we previously recommended Zscaler for web filtering when Microsoft’s Global Secure Access solution didn’t meet our standards” said Joe.

The value of Microsoft-first tool consolidation

Clearly, we wouldn’t suggest that a company using Chromebooks, Google Workspace and AWS should consolidate with Microsoft 365.

But if your organisation already uses Microsoft 365, Windows and Azure, consolidating your tools within Microsoft 365 can save money, reduce IT complexity, and boost security and productivity.

That’s why Chorus often recommends this approach to customers using Microsoft tools—it just makes a lot of sense both technically and financially.

For example, some Chorus customers are saving upwards of £30,000 a year by switching from multiple third-party apps to their existing Microsoft 365 E5 licences.

Common examples of overlapping tools with the potential for consolidation

Some of the most common areas where organisations save IT budget by consolidating with their existing Microsoft 365 licences includes:

Consolidate with Chorus

If your IT partner isn’t regularly reviewing your licensing, advising you on IT transformation, and helping you get the maximum value from your Microsoft investment, you could be missing out, both financially and technically.

Chorus is a Bristol-based MSP and Microsoft Solutions Partner, delivering UK-based managed IT services to organisations of all sizes and sectors. We help clients transform with Microsoft 365 and Azure, to increase IT maturity and achieve business success.

Get in touch today to discuss your Microsoft 365 licensing and IT transformation with Chorus.