20th February 2023

Are you prepared for Microsoft’s upcoming global pricing increase?

Starting 1st April 2023, Microsoft will be aligning its cloud pricing with the US Dollar (USD) as part of a new semi-annual pricing assessment. This change could have significant financial implications for many companies. So, what does this mean for you?

"We have deferred pricing adjustments based on currency fluctuations thus far. However, after a sustained period of lower local currency Microsoft cloud pricing in many regions of the world, we're now beginning a process to realign our prices globally."
Microsoft

Which Microsoft Products Will This Effect?

All Microsoft cloud services, such as Microsoft 365, Office 365, and Azure (except for Azure under the current Microsoft Customer Agreement), will be impacted by the following price increases:

• GBP prices will increase +9%
• EURO prices will increase +11%
• Danish Krone (DKK) and Norwegian Krone (NOK) prices will increase +11%
• Swedish Krone (SEK) prices will increase +15%

When will the price increase affect me?

The exact timing of the price increase will depend on your current agreement with Microsoft. It could be as soon as 1st April 2023, or it will take effect at the end of your current fixed-price contract.

Microsoft already increased pricing for certain Microsoft 365 and Office 365 licenses by up to 20% in 2022. This means organisations that are currently midway through a fixed-price agreement, could see pricing increase by up to 35% at the end of your current contract.

Can You Reduce Your Microsoft Licensing Cost?

While the news of the price increase may be unwelcome, there are ways to reduce the impact this will have on your organisation. By maintaining an optimised licensing estate, you can not only mitigate the impact of this and future price increases, but also improve adoption and utilisation over time, while reducing the load associated with license management.

To achieve this you must have an ongoing understanding of how your licenses are being utilised. This means having an insight over time into who in your organisation uses which aspects of their licensing and how often. By having visibility of this data, you will be able to:

• Identify spare, unused, and unassigned licenses.
• Uncover waste in over-provisioning – where users have been assigned features they do not need or use.
• Identify potential security risks and reduce your cyber-attack surface – highlighting old, inactive users, devices and operating systems.

Having this level of understanding across your license estate will provide full control, allowing you to not only reduce the impact of price increases but also maintain a fully optimised licensing estate on an ongoing basis, ensuring you always get the most out of your licensing spend.

Our powerful platform and team of licensing experts have already helped many organisations stay in control of complex multi-vendor cloud estates.

Don’t get caught out - come and talk to us today.