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“Whoever holds the subscription (as a service) holds the key to growth.” These words of wisdom from Andy Martin, Pure’s vice president of global partner sales, hit the target in terms of the benefits of recurring revenue business models, also known as subscription models. 

When businesses offer products and services via subscription models, they cushion the ups and downs of forecasting, purchasing, and migrations that can damage revenue and growth. “Having a subscription product or service that customers will reload, renew, or reorder repeatedly can smooth intermittent cash flow and keep a business alive,” reports Harvard Business Review

Stable, ongoing revenue was likely a godsend for many businesses during the past couple of years. It will likely continue to be welcome, with recurring revenue to stabilize cash flow, businesses are in a strong position to look hard at subscriptions for their own needs. As-a-service models can keep businesses agile enough to navigate new market trends, avoid new risks, and manage price volatility and supply interruptions. 

But with steady growth and digital transformation efforts come added pressure on IT teams. They need to say yes to new initiatives and help the business evolve customer experience in the modern age. Which begs the question: If subscription models appeal to buyers, why not use the as-a-service approach to make your own processes and operations more efficient?

digital transformation

How IT and The Business Can Leverage Subscription Models

Those that have embraced as-a-service models see business benefits such as reducing CAPEX expenses and hardware maintenance. According to a survey from Bredin and Pure:

  • 41% of IT decision-makers said they plan to transition to buying IT equipment via utility consumption models in 2022
  • 52% plan to reduce reliance on on-premises infrastructure by moving to subscription models and managed services
  • 55% have adopted cloud-based and as-a-service operating models to manage budgets

What are the benefits? Reduced administrative effort, for one. A common struggle in IT is having the time, headcount, and skill sets to manage new technology, especially new and emerging tech. As-a-service models reduce the need for long-term maintenance. This frees teams up to focus on more high-level initiatives and be strategic partners to drive the business forward.

IT’s Subscription Sweet Spot: Storage as a Service

If you want to bring the benefits of subscription and as-a-service models to your company, consider starting with data management, and in particular, data storage. It’s more than a financial model—it’s a total service model where operations are managed by a provider. In fact, 81% of executives believe StaaS provides improved consistency for on-premises and cloud-based applications.

There are several other clear-cut business benefits to storage as a service (STaaS):

  • Storage will vary over time. If storage is variable, businesses don’t need to pay for the maximum amount and risk waste or overspend. As traditional apps move to the cloud, storage types are changing as well, making long term investments in storage infrastructure too inflexible.
  • Storage forecasting is time-consuming guesswork. If businesses buy data storage as a service, decision-makers don’t need to make predictions about what they might need and when. They can simply pay for the data storage they use—no more and no less.
  • Storage as a service is regular and reliable. Storage-as-a-service providers have strict SLAs for storage availability and capacity. These SLAs align with businesses’ own SLAs and often include allowances for overage buffers to ensure continuity.

Introducing: Evergreen//One, formerly Pure as-a-Service

Pure Evergreen//One, formerly Pure as-a-Service, is a fully flexible enterprise-grade storage subscription service. Evergreen//One offers organizations a true consumption-based service model for storage, delivering flexibility, transparency, and simplicity. With Evergreen//One, Pure takes on the responsibility of delivering storage where it’s required, offering on-demand storage service with the flexibility of on-premises deployment.  

As our own Andrew Miller once noted, “Why run the risk of outgrowing the infrastructure that you paid for and trying to squeeze every last penny out of it, when you know it’s not supporting your business? From a data storage standpoint, you’re much better off embracing a fully modern platform that propels you forward.” 

With Evergreen//One, you won’t outgrow an infrastructure—you’ll have an infrastructure that can grow with you.