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Managed SPs: Need for Inventory Management to Optimize Managed Cloud Services

Publisher IDC
Published Jan 27, 2026
Length 19 Pages
SKU # IDC20818893

Description

This IDC Market Perspective discusses how inventory management should be a central building block in provisioning managed cloud services. Factors driving managed SPs to adopt more robust inventory management extend beyond the need to deliver greater agility, resiliency, and operational excellence. They also reflect growing dissatisfaction with managed SPs that contribute to higher costs, longer timetomarket and development cycles, misaligned service delivery, missed SLAs, and the deterioration of product innovation and leadership."Meeting critical business and IT objectives and overcoming key obstacles in organizational use of managed cloud services requires managed SPs to invest heavily in building a robust, end-to-end inventory management system that is utilized as part of an integrated digital services supply chain. Investments that managed SPs must make involve creating an end-to-end inventory management system, incorporating inventory management as part of an integrated digital services supply chain, implementing a robust governance structure, utilizing best practices from manufacturing, developing new metrics for measuring effectiveness, emphasizing use of empirical information and data, and leveraging AI with inventory management.” — Program VP David Tapper, Outsourcing and Managed Cloud Services, IDC

Table of Contents

19 Pages

Executive Snapshot

New Market Developments and Dynamics

Executive Summary

Significance of Inventory Management for Managed Cloud Services

Shifting the Curve of Adoption

Moving to Empirically Driven Managed Cloud Services

ART of Being a Cloud Service Provider: Integrated Digital Services Supply Chain and Need for Inventory Management

Inventory Management Building Blocks for Managed Cloud Services

Lifecycle Management with Managed Cloud Services

System-Centric Management with Managed Cloud Services

Matrix Management and Multicloud Operations with Managed Cloud Services

End-to-End Inventory Management with Managed Cloud Services

Air Traffic Control: Business Operations Center and Multicloud Management Platform

Role of a Business Operations Center

Role of A Multicloud Management Platform with Inventory Management

Criticality of AI as Part of Inventory Management

Creating New Metrics in Measuring Managed Cloud Services

Advice for the Service Providers

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