CloudAny. Is Your Customer (or Prospect) Ready for the Cloud? A White Paper from. Date. Volume. Or other data here

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1 Is Your Customer (or Prospect) Ready for the Cloud? Contact Telegraph Road, Suite 120 Bingham Farms, MI CLOUD ( ) CloudAny.com Anywhere. Anytime. Any Device.

2 Is Your Customer (or Prospect) Ready for the Cloud? There is great confusion in the marketplace about the cloud. Your customers are hearing about it, but they probably only hear the technical jargon. They do NOT understand how it affects them. As their trusted advisor, you need to help them see the value. Most IT Service Providers are used to making technical sales, but selling the cloud is consultative, with a heavy educational component. We all know that the cloud is not for everyone or every situation. Your challenge becomes assessing whether your customer (or prospect) is ready for the cloud, and if they will take the leap. (For simplicity, I will now refer to the customer and/or prospect as customer. ) As you discuss the cloud opportunity with a customer, your readiness assessment has to focus on four (4) key areas: Cloud Opportunity Assessment 4 KEY AREAS 1. Business 2. Cultural 3. Financial 4. Technical Bob Breitman is President of CloudAny. Bob has more than 30 years of experience in the IT industry and previously served as CIO of a $3.5 billion company where he was paid to be paranoid. In 2006, Bob created A Better Outlook, the largest Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint hosting provider based in the US Midwest. Bob has appeared several times on MSPtv as a Cloud Expert, on a podcast with Karl Palachuk, and was featured in the January 2012 issue of ChannelPro magazine. Bob was recently named an SPC International Boot Camp Cloud Track instructor for Learn more about Bob About the Author BUSINESS What are your customer s cloud expectations? With all the hype in the marketplace, it is sometimes hard to tell what a potential customer thinks the cloud will do for them. Very often they believe it will save them significant money. This is generally not true, especially if the customer is comparing the cost to what they are spending today. Many companies have not been keeping their IT infrastructure up to date because of the economy, so what they are spending today may still be at the level they were spending a few years ago. A truer measure is the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) over a three- to five-year period, comparing what a complete on-premise solution would look like today versus implementing in the cloud. This analysis usually leads to a favorable position for the cloud. Business executives are not going to buy cloud because it is cool. There must be a business benefit and probably some pain that the cloud will solve.

3 Has the business gone through a recent change or is change imminent? In today s economy we are seeing many changes in the business landscape. Many companies have downsized, and some have not survived at all. Other companies have found niches that appear to be recession-proof, and they are growing. And some companies are growing through acquisitions or mergers to gain customers, resources, processes and skills. The key is change, and with change comes opportunity. Change often creates a need for capital. The cloud offers a way to upgrade or standardize their technology solutions with minimal or no up-front capital. At the same time, they can enable their company with the latest technology and forever eliminate the need to worry about the technology refresh cycle. CULTURAL How does the customer currently buy IT services? How your customer buys IT and other services today can be an indicator of how they will buy in the future. Are they a Managed Services customer paying a monthly fee? Do they lease computer equipment? Do they lease company cars? Companies that pay monthly for other services are, from a financial perspective, typically more open to buying cloud services. Conversely, many companies have not spent adequately on maintaining their IT infrastructure either because of the economy or because they believe If it ain t broke, don t fix it. These companies may find the ongoing, forever monthly cost to be a barrier or even a shock. Is the customer in multiple locations or do they have a mobile workforce? Companies that are multi-locational or mobile have needs that are effectively addressed by cloud solutions. Cloud solutions remove the high bandwidth requirements of a central location and provide redundancy over most internal implementations. Control of applications and data can be centrally managed. Maintaining remote hardware becomes less of an issue with the concept of Anywhere, Anytime, Any Device. Nothing needs to exist on the local access device except the software to connect to the cloud environment. Does the customer enforce infrastructure standards or do the users have free reign to install anything on their desktops? Often in a cloud environment, end-users do not have complete control of their environment. They cannot load their own apps that must be done by an administrator. This has both positive and negative impacts. On the positive side, applications are standardized, and everyone is running

4 the same, compatible version. On the negative side, users may require one-off applications for their daily tasks and will have to get their implementation approved and then deployed. It is important to identify these situations up-front and handle them proactively to ensure a positive customer experience. Is IT a means to gain competitive advantage, or are IT and the people that support it seen as a necessary evil? If a company views IT as a means to gain competitive advantage, its leadership will invest whatever is necessary (within reason) to gain that advantage. It is imperative that you engage the leadership at a business level for them, it is not about the technology, it s about supporting the business. On the other hand, if IT is a necessary evil, you will be fighting an uphill battle as they are not likely to spend money unless or until they have no other choice. These companies will not buy without a compelling reason, like the immediate need for a technology refresh. In these cases you must show them alternatives, like on-premise (done right) versus cloud, and include a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis. FINANCIAL Have they been investing in IT? In this economy many companies have tried to avoid technology investments, letting their infrastructure age to the point that it is becoming unreliable or outdated. The key is to find out why they have not been investing is it lack of capital, lack of funds in general, concerns about upgrades and migrations, or it s just not important to them. In these cases, the sale needs to focus on the pain of inefficiency and potential business failure if critical components die. Provide testimonials from other companies that put off investment and afterwards said they don t know why they waited so long. Will the cloud eliminate capital expenses and shift them to operational expenses? Capital is not always readily available. This can be due to the economy or because there is a higher priority need for it. In any case, cloud provides the opportunity to shift a large, up-front investment in hardware and software to predictable, monthly expenses. The side benefit is that you pay only for what you use, and in many cases the customer gets new software versions as they are released without having to make new investments. Since most of the heavy lifting is done in the cloud, the company will not have to replace desktops and other access devices as frequently, and they eliminate the need to load applications and move data when they do replace devices.

5 Will the purchase decision be based on dollars and cents or on value? Many companies are run strictly by the numbers. Unfortunately they often focus on the short-term numbers, not the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). When evaluating any IT investment, the focus must be on more than the actual cost of hardware, software and implementation. Ask your customer to consider the impact on business efficiency, compatibility, maintenance, application and hardware upgrades, staffing for support, reliability and general operating costs like Internet connectivity and electricity. Would they rather pay for what they need now and only add resources as they need them? Or size their IT today for a 5-year requirement? Which option is the better value? TECHNICAL Does your customer desperately need a technology refresh? Many companies have not invested in their IT for years and now are seeing hardware failures, software incompatibility, and software version end-of-life. The cost of a technology refresh can be daunting hardware replacement, software licensing, deployment costs and migration costs. Moving to the cloud can effectively eliminate these costs forever. Run hardware until it dies, replace it with a low-cost, thin or zero client that requires no maintenance and minimal setup (usually less than 10 minutes). Software is maintained and the newest releases are applied in the cloud and updated in one place, often by the cloud service provider, and then assigned to the users as required in minutes through an easyto-use control panel. Technology refresh is one of the strongest reasons that a company will consider a cloud solution. Be prepared to show them a comparison of an onpremise solution versus the cloud. Once they are properly educated, the choice should be obvious. Does your customer already have stuff in the cloud? People like stuff where they can touch it, so there may be resistance to putting things in the cloud. Many companies are already using the cloud in one form or another hosted , file storage, backups, online banking and may not be aware of other cloud opportunities. The cloud sale is educational and business focused it is not about the technology. Address their fears and show the benefits. What technology is deployed? Not everything runs in the cloud. You need to understand what the customer is running and why. This will help you determine if they should run onpremise, in the cloud, or using some hybrid solution. There are many tools in the marketplace that will help you quickly assess the current environment.

6 A message from our sponsor CloudAny At CloudAny we have been marketing, selling and using cloud for a long time, and we are now ready to share our expertise with you to make you successful in your cloud business. CloudAny offers Business Computing as a Service (BCaaS pronounced because ) an integrated, brandable, self-provisioning solution available only through resellers. With CloudAny as your partner, you avoid the capital expense of building an inhouse infrastructure, and you can lower costs and speed time-to-market by leveraging our experience and proven infrastructure. We have been focused on developing and offering cloud services since Our proven, enterprise-class infrastructure enables you to deliver cloud services to clients in any industry. There are many cloud partners out there offering a variety of solutions. With CloudAny, your solution carries your brand, and your clients are always yours. CloudAny is invisible. Are you ready to lead your clients into the future? Learn more about the CloudAny Partner Program Register for a CloudAny Partnership Webinar Contact Telegraph Road, Suite 120 Bingham Farms, MI CLOUD ( ) CloudAny.com CloudAny provides the flexibility for you to rapidly and consistently provide solutions for your clients. Our self-provisioning control panel can be used by you and your staff, or extended to your clients for them to add resources as required. CloudAny will assist you with marketing, sales, and education. We help you avoid the typical pitfalls of starting a new cloud business while you achieve 30+ percent margins. Anywhere. Anytime. Any Device. About CloudAny CloudAny is a Tier One provider of cloud services, including Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, hosted desktops and hosted application servers. CloudAny solutions are sold exclusively through its Partner Channel Program where partners receive sales, marketing and technical training as well as 2nd level technical support for their end-user clients. CloudAny has been a Tier One Cloud Provider since 2006 with regional offices in Detroit and Nashville. CloudAny is a Citrix Cloud Service Provider and holds multiple Silver competencies as a Microsoft Partner, as well as certifications with other technology partners. Learn more at