Historically, a business needed to decide what applications to buy, then what computers were needed to run the applications and finally what organisation they needed to look after all of that.
Today, most applications and the systems needed to run them can be purchased on a subscription basis. This can feel like an increased cost but in reality, the cost has always been there. In the past the cost was hidden, where now it is easy to see.
For example, taking the first step and buying Microsoft 365 subscriptions can cover a significant proportion of the IT requirements for a small business. In many cases this can be followed subscriptions for accounting and business-specific applications all of which can be run on systems accessed over the Internet.
This simple model begins to become more complex when the requirements extend to include data sharing, security measures and business applications that may not always integrate well with each other. At this point many of the issues outline earlier begin to influence the choices made in relation to applications.