If you listened to some experts, virtual technologies are where everyone needs to be focused today. They believe that solution providers want to (and need to) use, support or sell cloud services to remain competitive in a digital world. As most channel professionals know, the reality doesn’t quite live up to those expectations. During the CompTIA Cloud Community’s meeting at ChannelCon 2015, members of the group’s leadership team decided to tackle that disconnect. They got the discussion started with an interactive panel session covering the real opportunities and issues that “born in the cloud” businesses face today.
The first question asked of these respected industry professionals concerned why they leveraged these virtual delivery systems as the backbone of their business. “The cloud model gives us not only elasticity and scalability, but it provides us the option to grow quickly with minimal investment,” said Leonard Dimiceli, Vice President of Sales for Relyenz.
“The great thing is that when you eradicate the backend infrastructure, you can focus on the applications,” suggested Dan Wensley, Acting Channel Chief for Passportal. “That lets you zero in on the real features and value of the cloud solution rather than the deployment.”
While the cloud’s growth projections remain strong, one panelist posed a note of caution. Datto Vice President of Business Development rob Rae pointed out, “When you talk about cloud and the concerns with security and hacking, there is definitely an associated risk. We will continue to see significant growth in this space, but it may be another 3-5 years before cloud is as commonly accepted.”
Words of Wisdom
While providers can’t alleviate all the risks, they do need to carefully vet vendors and other partners to ensure everyone is doing their best from a quality services and security perspective. “The risk is to your entire client base, which is why due diligence is so crucial. Prepare yourselves as well, and remembers that how you react to an outage (since downtime is inevitable) can make or break your organization,” said Wensley. Dimiceli emphasizes that point as well, “If you go silent when the cloud goes down, that is possibly the worst thing you can do.”
Mitch Greenwald, founder and CEO of Cloudbakers shared some other suggestions for aspiring cloud suppliers and vendors. “People don’t want their data mined, so ensure that the information you collect is necessary. Also, having an API in place is crucial. Going to the cloud in a big way make sense, but you still have to dot your I’s and cross your t’s.”
One of the best ways to establish confidence with customers and prospects and solidify your reputation is with a business credential. The CompTIA Cloud Trustmark+ builds additional trust and helps validate the processes a vendor has in place. It gives partners and their clients even greater assurance that a cloud supplier has the right systems and processes in place to protect their data and maximize their uptime.
Brian Sherman is Chief Content Officer at GetChanneled, a channel business development and marketing firm. He served previously as chief editor at Business Solutions magazine and senior director of industry alliances with Autotask. Contact Brian at Bsherman@getchanneled.com.
