Opportunities in Public Cloud

Applications delivered via the public cloud provide the perfect solution for small and medium sized organisations.  Businesses that are start-ups, are experiencing rapid growth or encounter fluctuating demand can access key business applications delivered as a pay as you use cloud service.

Advantages over other deployment models

The public cloud provides access to a wide range of off-the-shelf business applications; such as voice, UC, contact centre, CRM, recording, collaboration.

It is easy to buy and scalable to meet changing demands (up or down in line with business growth or decline), with no upfront costs.  The cost of infrastructure is shared across multiple users and setup takes minutes as a result of its rapid deployment model.

For the channel, self-serve portals facilitate easy provisioning and management and their customers benefit from a predictable low cost, pay-as-you-use service with guaranteed service levels.  Security can be incorporated in the proposition to add value and differentiate from competitors.

Drawbacks

Public cloud offerings do not provide flexibility, since one size fits all and they are perceived as less secure than private cloud offerings.  For this reason, the public cloud is better-suited to non-sensitive, public-facing organisations.

Multiple tenants using the same infrastructure creates unpredictable traffic, which could impact performance.

Reseller opportunities

Resellers are the operative word.  Public cloud services are easy for resellers to build into their portfolio and resell; a natural and straightforward add-on to existing products and services that requires reduced investment and therefore minimal risk.  Public cloud services are also easier to support, requiring less in-house expertise and most importantly can deliver incremental, high margin and predictable recurring monthly revenues.

Resellers should create numerous service packs to meet their customers’ needs in order to shorten the sales cycle, reduce the cost of sale and significantly improve the lead-to-cash journey.  This presents a good cross-sell opportunity to existing customers, driving customer loyalty and satisfaction.

As featured in Comms Business