Eager To Expand Your Cloud Offerings? Think Pairings

The expanding cloud ecosystem is creating new business opportunities with the introduction of innovative “as a service" offerings that pair well with what IT channel partners already supply to customers. Many partners, however, aren’t keeping up with the ever-increasing roster of services and solutions.

That’s a problem, because fresh options are essential to increase revenue as customers’ IT requirements evolve.

Some of today’s most innovative technologies are hybrid IT solutions that pair well with traditional offerings. Partners can blend them with existing resale competencies to create a more comprehensive suite of services and products. Here are some options that might complement channel partners’ existing product-based cloud offerings and help them stay relevant to their customers in this rapidly evolving environment:

Think Hybrid: Rarely is the answer a single cloud offering; it’s more often a mix of on- and off-premises and cloud-based technologies. Channel partners can grow revenues by blending existing dedicated hardware with multiple public/private cloud capabilities. Accordingly, vet out a small roster of hardware and service providers that will give you access to “as-a-service" offerings that will complement traditional high-end compute server sales.

Think Agility: When considering customers’ existing IT and cloud environments, channel partners should find providers that help leverage that landscape with new options. Focus on agility rather than cost, which can favor a pay-as-you-go approach to reduce a customer’s capital expenditures and let them retain legacy platforms longer.

It’s a start-small strategy, of sorts. Customers can build a larger cloud capability over time, be flexible and then build capabilities in the sales cycle’s “off-season" – without a large outlay of cash at once. Again, partners should pick service providers with broad enough portfolios to fit the solution to the customer’s needs.

Think Flexibility: Offer customers choices of different cloud platforms to handle various workloads, but work with fewer vendors to avoid switching horses mid-deal if requirements change. In addition, technologies such as Cisco Intercloud Fabric make it easier to move workloads between and among cloud services.

Think Data Protection: A channel partner selling high-end (and big ticket) servers must emphasize to customers the need to protect their cloud data if a disaster hits via a “recovery-as-a-service" option. Customers use these servers for mission-critical applications, so sensitivity to data loss and downtime is high. They often require aggressive recovery points and recovery times as low as four hours or less because customers today expect to be served and serviced instantly. No one, for instance, likes it if Google or Amazon is down. Reputations sour over of service disruptions. So channel partners who build their businesses from long-term customer relationships and customer references must nurture and deliver exemplary customer care. 

Think Second Site: It pays to offer customers the ability to store their data at a remote second site. If an outage occurs, a customer or its service provider vendor (if they use a managed recovery service) can quickly retrieve the data. This is especially valuable if a public cloud provider can’t ensure that the data will be protected in a calamity.

Think Consultancy: Many channel partners offer consultancy services, such as business impact analyses, which they can complement with business-continuity SaaS. This proves important should a disaster hit and the company needs documentation and a way to contact the right people to keep all processes up and running. This service goes beyond simply addressing compliance requirements when a data disruption occurs. Through intuitive software, business continuity as a service lets a customer’s teams recognize threats to the business and act to avoid major disruptions.

Think Testing: Specifically, penetration testing to assess a customer’s security posture. Data breaches trigger big headlines, so customers might favor an offering that ensures continuous protection of its information. A service option that evaluates a customer’s IT security top-to-bottom in the context of industry-best practices and regulatory requirements can achieve this. It comprises a penetration test of a customer’s systems and measures results against an information-security model.

As channel partners face today’s business transitions, they shouldn’t panic about their portfolio of offerings. They should recruit service providers to help provide more cloud-based and cloud-related options that augment their own hardware and other offerings.

NOTE: Article first appeared as a Blog on ChannelPartnersOnline.com

http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/blogs/peertopeer/2015/08/eager-to-expand-your-cloud-offerings-think-pairin.aspx?cmpid=twee