MARKET REVIEW Three resellers that stand
Three leading resellers from voice and data backgrounds give us their views on the significance of the cloud, the reasons they embraced the off-site delivery model, and the challenges and opportunities associated with the move to cloud computing.
C
omtact is blazing a trail in the cloud space. But apart from standing out
in the crowd with a cloud offering the company’s sales process also differs from many of its rivals. Rather than push a product it approaches each meeting with an empty toolkit and builds a solution based on the customer’s needs. “To do this we need to be at the cutting edge of technology and continually monitor the market, assess the latest solutions and offer our customers best of breed technologies,” said Justin Thorogood, Product Marketing Director at Comtact .
Cloud services are currently a major market trend with
many of the big vendors now having an offering in this space ranging from telephony and collaboration through to infrastructure and storage services. This allows Comtact to have a different type of discussion at CXO level which cascades down through the business and gets the buy in required. “Comtact works closely with its customers and acts as an extension to their resource, looking at ways we can enhance their business and help them to be more effective and productive,” added Thorogood. “We saw a fantastic business opportunity with cloud services as it can augment many of the solutions that we currently offer, from replacing an ageing server estate
through to hosting data or unified communications services in the cloud on a customer’s behalf.”
The key messaging here is around the immediate return based upon the removal of on-premise equipment – the power, the cooling, the rackspace, the person to look after and manage the boxes. This enables the reseller to retain a greater level of control of the solution and provide a managed services wrap that takes away the pain of the customer rolling out an alternative CPE-based solution that can often be painful.
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Margin squeeze The most difficult step for any partner, especially those that have been used to selling capex fronted solutions, are that margins have been on the decline for some time (especially in the server infrastructure arena), and customers are wising up to the fact that cash is king. “It seems the recession has taught many a harsh lesson at making huge capital outlays for projects,” added Thorogood. “To offset an upfront purchase over a period or to procure a service that effectively gives them a similar or same outcome is far more pragmatic.”
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Transparency with customers from the outset is key
In order to address this, resellers need to take a hard look at their current sales model or risk potentially going out of business. “Yes, you may have to look at acquiring many more customers, but there comes a tipping point where you can accurately forecast what is coming in based upon a passive income generated from previous sales wins,” added Thorogood.
Comtact has found its entry into the cloud market as being quite low cost. “If anything it is our customers that have needed educating into this new wave of transformation,” said Thorogood. “Many of the cloud-based solutions we have at our disposal have even shortened the sales cycle as we aren’t at
the mercy of the delivery of stock to the customer site. We can simply turn a service on in a matter of hours on receipt of an order, something we certainly cannot do with any type of infrastructure or unified communications deal.”
The adoption of cloud won’t happen overnight and end users will need help to work out the right mix of on-premise and cloud solutions. “This means the channel needs to be several steps ahead in terms of understanding both the technology and its benefits if they are to advise and support their clients during the process,” commented Garry King, Managing Director at ShiftF7. “The challenge for resellers is how to equip themselves
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