Money makes the world go ‘round. It keeps solution providers rolling, too.
And the cloud is big business. Market watcher IDC predicts that this year, the public cloud market alone will reach nearly $70 billion, and that spending on cloud infrastructure equipment will top $33 billion.
One of the best ways to make money in the cloud is to first help your clients enjoy financial gains of their own. “One of our biggest challenges,” says Miguel Wood of Planet Technologies, a Germantown, Md.-based provider of Office 365, Azure and other Microsoft services, “is ensuring that our customers understand how a cloud solution can either help them reduce costs or increase revenue.”
Emphasizing client benefits first is also a great way to build up a base of customers. “We sell technology, but we deliver outcomes,” says John Purdy, CEO of Ergo, a cloud and IT managed services provider based in Dublin, Ireland. “Better ways for our clients to improve margin, collect cash faster, and have more delighted customers.”
How does a 50 percent increase in recurring revenue, dramatically lower costs, and 25 percent more customers’ sound? A New Zealand solution provider, pcMedia, has done just that. Lee Harper, the company’s CEO, realized that Microsoft cloud products allowed him to reach more clients without needing senior engineering staff. He also found that by focusing on just one industry — in his case, winemakers — pcMedia could help clients save money, access data easily and run their entire businesses in the cloud.
To explore how you can make more money in the cloud, check out these other valuable MPN resources: