There is an ongoing debate happening among cloud pundits, vendors and channels partners about "who is going to own (survive?) providing high value and high margin cloud solutions to businesses". Will it be legacy partners (VARs, MSPs, Telecom Agents etc) or Born in the Cloud CSPs or companies like accounting firms that have a very close relationship with the Business Managers at their clients (remember Business Managers are the new tech buyers). We'll see. One thing I do know is the newly appointed CSP will need to sell tasty high value and high margin meals aka business outcomes focused cloud solutions

Follow my logic here,

A close friend of mine, Bob, is a chef/partner at a very successful small chain of three fairly high end restaurants. He has been is the restaurant business his entire career. For years now I've sat at the bar of one of his restaurants chatting about the similarities of his business and today's technology/cloud business. Here's one of the big similarities,

To keep his business viable and grow it every day Bob must deliver "delicious, high value and high margin" meals to his customers on a consistent basis. To do this Bob needs to,

What's a Modern Technology Provider? Are you? Want to be one? Take our asessment

So now you finally admit - you want to be in the cloud – and you want to be there NOW – smelled the coffee did you?

Wonderful but………………

Your Business Model
Have you assessed your technical core competencies, the market and competition to determine the type of cloud provider you should be including your initial value proposition and target end customer and partner personas, researched potential cloud technology vendors to partner with, created a business structure model to support your cloud business and created a pro forma 3-year recurring revenue model?

A few major disruptions have recently occurred in the technology and business world,

• Cloud computing has emerged to become the most dramatic technology evolution in the past 20 years since when the internet first emerged in the 90’s. At it's core, one of the main benefits cloud provides businesses is the ability to deliver "business outcomes" to Business Managers.
• The internet and cloud have teamed up to cause the demise of the traditional marketing and sales playbook where “interrupting” prospects is (was) the name of the game. Today the buyer is now in control of the sales process known as the buyers’ journey, 1. awareness, 2. consideration 3. decision. Marketing and sales is now executed in the digital world and according to IDC, 65% of B2B buyers have already researched and made a purchase decision before they contact a sales rep.
• Technology purchases have moved out of the IT department to the Business Managers of an organization. According to Forrester 65% of new technology decisions are made by Line of Business Managers looking for cloud-based solutions to help achieve their desired business outcomes. Cloud Solutions Providers (CSP) are taking the lead in providing cloud-based business outcomes solutions to these Business Managers.

As much as we are all talking about the impact that cloud, subscription based consumption etc will leave many channel partners in the dust....I believe it's the new world of sales and marketing via the buyers journey that will be the real culprit.............

Time and time and time again, talking to, and working with ITSPs of all types (VAR, MSP, CSP, SI etc) and sizes I hear "ok, I'm ready to sell cloud - let's go!". Really?

Yes, the cloud world is heating up. And an even more resounding yes to the marketing world heating up - even more? And for the cloud-focused IT Solutions Provider it's a double whammy!! How the hell is a cloud-focused IT Solutions Provider going to execute on this new world of marketing (let's call it marketing 2.0 for the heck of it) required to add great recurring revenue cloud business?

You're a CSP or SaaS ISV.........Are you ready to expand your market coverage? Thinking about the tradeoffs between hiring more direct sales people and creating an indirect channel to widen your footprint? Well, before you go too far down the indirect channel route, ask yourself these key questions - and don't forget to rate your responses.

So you're a CSP and you just launched a new cloud service offering. Congratulations! All of that hard work to design, develop and launch your cloud solutions into the marketplace is finally beginning to pay off. Or is it? How is customer acquisition going? Are you bringing new customers on board without the use of personal networking or leveraging friends and family? Or are you still cherry-picking new deals?

It's happening........what's happening????????

For too many years I was a "gym lollygagger" going to the gym too inconsistently and when I did I measured my results on how much time I would spend there. I was basically checking the health check box and got zippo results. A few years ago I finally came to my senses and signed up for a personal trainer spending a pretty hefty monthly OPEX (Operating Expense) for a committed 12 months.