A FORRESTER TOTAL ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY New Technology: The Projected Total Economic ImpactTM Of Broadcom VMware Cloud Foundation 9 Cost Savings And Business Benefits Enabled By VMware Cloud Foundation 9 AUGUST 2026 © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
“Before VCF 9, we were managing a patchwork of tools and processes that didn’t integrate well. It created delays, added complexity, and made it harder to operate consistently across environments.” — Chief information officer, financial services © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
4 Key Findings Key Metrics PROJECTED ROI 31% - 137% PROJECTED BENEFITS PV $20.0 M - $36.1M PROJECTED NPV $4.8M - $20.8M © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Projected three-year financial impact for the composite organization Top 5 Benefits By High-Impact Scenario Reduced infrastructure costs 37% Reduced storage operations effort 19% Reduced infrastructure operations effort 12% Faster infrastructure and application delivery 10% Reduced infrastructure-related downtime 7% VMware Cloud Foundation 9 (VCF 9) is a unified private-cloud platform integrating compute, storage, networking, security, and management into a single system.
5 Methodology Interviewees PROJECTED FINANCIAL MODEL FRAMEWORK Constructed a projected financial model representative of the interviews using the New Tech TEI methodology and riskadjusted the financial model based on issues and concerns of the interviewees and survey respondents. COMPOSITE ORGANIZATION Designed a composite organization based on characteristics of the interviewees’ and survey respondents’ organizations. EARLY-IMPLEMENTATION INTERVIEWS AND SURVEY Interviewed eight decision-makers and surveyed 55 respondents at organizations using VCF 9 to obtain data with respect to costs, benefits, and risks. Role Industry Annual Revenue Service owner, virtualization Manufacturing $5.5B Director, architecture and infrastructure Insurance $82.0M Chief information officer Financial services Not disclosed Vice president of platform cloud Telecommunications $16.6B Director, enterprise applications Information technology $7.0B Head of global IT and security Healthcare $1.9B Director Real estate $10.3B Global head of cloud Financial services $78.0B © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
6 Total Benefits © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. High-impact scenario, three-year present value Up to $36 million Three-year projected benefits PV for the high-impact scenario Reduced infrastructure costs $13.4M Reduced storage operations effort $6.7M Reduced infrastructure operations effort $4.2M Faster infrastructure and application delivery $3.6M Reduced infrastructure downtime $2.5M Reduced storage downtime $1.7M Reduced network operations effort $1.5M Eliminated third-party tooling $1.3M Security, vulnerability, and compliance $1.2M
Reduced infrastructure operations effort through automation and fleet management can deliver up to $4.2 million in projected value. . VMware Cloud Foundation 9 can help organizations reduce the time required to manage infrastructure operations by automating lifecycle management, centralizing administration, and simplifying routine operational activities. Interviewees described spending less time on provisioning, patching, maintenance, and other repetitive administrative tasks while improving consistency across environments. Prior to adopting VCF 9, infrastructure teams often relied on fragmented processes and manual workflows that increased operational overhead and limited the time available for strategic projects. As interviewees’ organizations standardized operations and introduced greater automation, routine infrastructure work at these organizations declined significantly, allowing their teams to redirect effort toward higher-value engineering, optimization, and modernization initiatives. Reduction in time spent on routine infrastructure operations Up to 33% © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Three-year benefit PV Up to $4.2M
“Lifecycle automation and centralized administration made it much easier to manage infrastructure, so the team spends less time on routine operational work.” — Director of architecture and infrastructure, insurance © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Reduce manual network ticket volume by up to 72% through policy-based networking and automation. VMware Cloud Foundation 9 can help organizations simplify network operations by introducing policy-based networking, automation, and standardized provisioning. Interviewees described completing network changes in minutes rather than hours or days, while reducing the operational burden associated with routine network administration and configuration activities. Prior to adopting VCF 9, infrastructure teams at the interviewees’ organizations often relied on manual processes, ticket-driven workflows, and coordination across multiple teams to provision and modify network resources. With greater automation and centralized management, these organizations reduced manual network work, accelerated provisioning, and shifted resources from reactive operational activities to highervalue engineering initiatives. Reduction in manual network ticket volume Up to 72% © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Three-year benefit PV Up to $1.5M
“In the past when we needed a new network, it was like work for one day, and today, it’s like 5 minutes.” — Service owner of virtualization, manufacturing © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Storage operations efficiencies can deliver up to $6.7 million in three-year projected value. VMware Cloud Foundation 9 can help organizations simplify storage management by consolidating administration, automating lifecycle operations, and reducing the effort required across provisioning, troubleshooting, remediation, and recovery activities. Interviewees described storage environments that were easier to manage, scale, and maintain while requiring less manual intervention from infrastructure teams. Interviewees said that prior to adopting VCF 9, their storage teams often managed fragmented environments that required significant time for lifecycle management, deployments, provisioning, and recovery-related activities. By introducing automation and a more unified management model, interviewees’ organizations reduced operational complexity and redirected time savings toward higher-value engineering, optimization, and modernization initiatives. Average monthly hours saved per storage operations employee on lifecycle management activities 20 hours © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Three-year benefit PV Up to $6.7M
“Consolidating storage into a more integrated platform has reduced complexity and made the environment easier to manage and scale over time.” — Director of architecture and infrastructure, insurance © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Reduce storage-related downtime by up to 32% through improved resilience and streamlined recovery. VMware Cloud Foundation 9 can help organizations improve storage resiliency and maintain workload availability when infrastructure issues occur. By strengthening data protection, simplifying recovery processes, and reducing operational complexity, interviewees’ organizations minimized service interruptions and improved overall system availability. Prior to adopting VCF 9, storage incidents at the interviewees’ organizations could create disruption across critical applications and business services, requiring significant effort to recover systems and restore operations. With a more resilient architecture and streamlined recovery capabilities, the interviewees’ organizations reduced the frequency and impact of storage-related disruptions while maintaining business continuity during component failures. Reduction in storagerelated downtime Up to 32% © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Three-year benefit PV Up to $1.7M
“The environment is much more resilient now. Even when underlying components fail, workloads continue to run without disruption.” — Service owner, virtualization, manufacturing © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Improved resource utilization and workload consolidation can deliver up to $13.4 million in projected value. VMware Cloud Foundation 9 can help organizations optimize existing infrastructure capacity by bringing compute, storage, networking, security, and management together in a more unified operating model. Interviewees described gaining greater visibility into resource utilization and improving their ability to run more workloads on existing infrastructure without adding proportional capacity. Interviewees reported that prior to adopting VCF 9, fragmented environments and siloed infrastructure resources often resulted in underutilized capacity and incremental investments to support growth. By improving resource visibility, standardizing operations, and consolidating workloads, their organizations increased infrastructure utilization and deferred infrastructure expansion while supporting continued business growth. Improvement in infrastructure utilization Up to 15% © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Three-year benefit PV Up to $13.4M
“We’ve been able to use our existing infrastructure more efficiently instead of expanding capacity, which directly impacts how we manage long-term costs.” — Vice president of platform cloud, telecommunications © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Eliminating third-party tools and licenses can deliver up to $1.3 million in projected value. VMware Cloud Foundation 9 can help organizations consolidate infrastructure, management, backup, recovery, and operational capabilities onto a single platform. As interviewees’ organizations standardized on VCF 9, they reduced dependence on standalone products while simplifying the technology stack that supports infrastructure operations. Prior to adopting VCF 9, interviewees’ organizations often relied on multiple tools from different vendors to support infrastructure management, monitoring, protection, and recovery activities. By consolidating capabilities onto a unified platform, these organizations reduced ongoing licensing, maintenance, and integration costs while decreasing operational complexity and tooling sprawl across the environment. Third-party tool costs that can be fully eliminated after consolidation onto VCF 9 90% © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Three-year benefit PV Up to $1.3M
“We eliminated the additional software licenses, [including backup and recovery tools, after moving those functions onto the VCF 9 platform.]” — Director of architecture and infrastructure, insurance © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Reduce the business impact of unplanned infrastructure-related issues by up to 32%. . VMware Cloud Foundation 9 can help organizations identify, diagnose, and resolve infrastructure issues more quickly through unified visibility across compute, storage, networking, and management environments. By bringing infrastructure operations together within a centralized platform, teams at the interviewees’ organizations improved response times and reduced the impact of operational issues on business-critical applications. Prior to adopting VCF 9, infrastructure teams at the interviewees’ organizations often relied on fragmented monitoring tools and disconnected operational processes that slowed issue identification and increased the time required to restore service. With integrated operations, centralized control, and improved visibility across the environment, the interviewees’ organizations contained issues more quickly, improved incident response consistency, and reduced disruption to critical business services. Reduction in infrastructurerelated downtime Up to 32% © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Three-year benefit PV Up to $2.5M
“Having a unified view across the environment allows us to respond to issues much faster and reduce the impact on business-critical workloads.” — Global head of cloud, financial services © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Faster infrastructure and application delivery can accelerate deployment times by up to 50%. VMware Cloud Foundation 9 can help organizations deliver infrastructure and applications more quickly by automating provisioning and reducing the manual effort required to deploy and configure environments. Standardized templates and self-service capabilities enabled the interviewees’ organizations’ teams to provision resources faster and with greater consistency across use cases. Prior to adopting VCF 9, infrastructure and application delivery often depended on manual processes, multiple handoffs, and coordination across teams at the interviewees’ organizations. By standardizing provisioning and reducing reliance on manual configuration activities, these organizations accelerated infrastructure and application deployment, improved responsiveness to business needs, and increased delivery velocity across the enterprise. Faster infrastructure and application delivery Up to 50% © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Three-year benefit PV Up to $3.6M
“The biggest value is the ability to deliver infrastructure quickly and consistently, without being slowed down by manual processes.” — Vice president, platform cloud, telecommunications © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Reduced financial exposure to material security incidents can deliver up to $398K in projected value. . VMware Cloud Foundation 9 can help organizations strengthen their security posture through centralized control, microsegmentation, and more consistent policy enforcement across infrastructure environments. By improving visibility and limiting lateral movement across systems, interviewees’ organizations identified and contained potential threats more quickly while reducing overall exposure to security-related risk. Interviewees noted that prior to adopting VCF 9, their organizations often managed security controls across fragmented infrastructure environments, increasing complexity and creating opportunities for issues to spread more broadly. With centralized management, segmentation, and improved operational visibility, their organizations reduced the likelihood and potential impact of security incidents while limiting the financial consequences associated with breaches and operational disruptions. Reduction in the frequency of material security incidents Up to 20% © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Three-year benefit PV Up to $398K
“Centralized control and segmentation have significantly reduced our exposure, making it much harder for issues to spread across the environment.” — Chief information officer, financial services © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Reduced compliance and audit effort can deliver up to $148K in projected value. VMware Cloud Foundation 9 can help organizations reduce the effort required to demonstrate and maintain compliance by embedding controls and best practices across the infrastructure environment. Centralized control management and automated governance capabilities helped ensure that policies are applied consistently across the interviewees’ organizations while reducing the administrative burden associated with compliance activities. Interviewees said that prior to adopting VCF 9, teams often spent significant time validating configurations, collecting evidence, and coordinating across multiple stakeholders to support audits and ongoing compliance requirements. By standardizing controls, improving visibility, and aligning environments to compliance requirements from the outset, the interviewees’ organizations simplified audit preparation, reduced manual effort, and streamlined ongoing governance processes. Reduction in compliance and audit effort enabled by VCF 9 Up to 18% © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Three-year benefit PV Up to $148K
“Our environment is aligned to compliance and best practices from the start, which reduces the effort required to demonstrate and maintain controls.” — Director of architecture and infrastructure, insurance © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Reduce vulnerability remediation and patching effort by up to 50% through automation and centralized lifecycle management VMware Cloud Foundation 9 can help organizations remediate vulnerabilities more quickly by automating patching and lifecycle management activities across infrastructure environments. Centralized management and standardized update processes reduced the manual effort required to deploy patches at the interviewees’ organizations while improving the consistency and reliability of remediation activities. Prior to adopting VCF 9, patching and vulnerability remediation at the interviewees’ organizations often required significant coordination across teams and infrastructure components, increasing both operational effort and the time required to address security risks. By streamlining update workflows and automating key remediation processes, the interviewees’ organizations improved remediation speed, reduced administrative burden, and minimized exposure windows without increasing operational overhead. Reduction in time required to remediate vulnerabilities Up to 50% © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Three-year benefit PV Up to $618K
“If I patch the whole environment, I would say with VCF 9, [it’s] 30% faster.” — Service owner of virtualization, manufacturing © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Unquantified Benefits Increased confidence in the platform. Improved infrastructure adaptability. Improved crossteam coordination. Greater operational consistency. Stronger governance and control. Additional benefits that customers experienced but were not quantified include: © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Better alignment with business priorities.
. Total Economic Impact Approach Present value (PV) The present or current value of (discounted) cost and benefit estimates given at an interest rate (the discount rate). The PV of costs and benefits feed into the total NPV of cash flows. Net present value (NPV) The present or current value of (discounted) future net cash flows given an interest rate (the discount rate). A positive project NPV normally indicates that the investment should be made, unless other projects have higher NPVs. Return on investment (ROI) A project’s expected return in percentage terms. ROI is calculated by dividing net benefits (benefits less costs) by costs. Discount rate The interest rate used in cash flow analysis to take into account the time value of money. Organizations typically use discount rates between 8% and 16%. Payback period The breakeven point for an investment. This is the point in time at which net benefits (benefits minus costs) equal initial investment or cost. Appendix A: Total Economic Impact Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists vendors in communicating the value proposition of their products and services to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of IT initiatives to both senior management and other key business stakeholders. Benefits represent the value delivered to the business by the product. The TEI methodology places equal weight on the measure of benefits and the measure of costs, allowing for a full examination of the effect of the technology on the entire organization. Costs consider all expenses necessary to deliver the proposed value, or benefits, of the product. The cost category within TEI captures incremental costs over the existing environment for ongoing costs associated with the solution. Flexibility represents the strategic value that can be obtained for some future additional investment building on top of the initial investment already made. Having the ability to capture that benefit has a PV that can be estimated. Risks measure the uncertainty of benefit and cost estimates given: 1) the likelihood that estimates will meet original projections and 2) the likelihood that estimates will be tracked over time. TEI risk factors are based on “triangular distribution.” The initial investment column contains costs incurred at “time 0” or at the beginning of Year 1 that are not discounted. All other cash flows are discounted using the discount rate at the end of the year. PV calculations are calculated for each total cost and benefit estimate. NPV calculations in the summary tables are the sum of the initial investment and the discounted cash flows in each year. Sums and present value calculations of the Total Benefits, Total Costs, and Cash Flow tables may not exactly add up, as some rounding may occur. © FORRESTER RESEARCH, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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