09 June 2015
By Pippa
Wilson, Manager: Cloud Solutions for Jasco Enterprise, The Jasco Group
While the cloud remains a hot topic for
business, the majority of discussion has now moved beyond the debate over
whether or not it will serve the business and deliver benefits such as cost
efficiency and agility. These advantages are now a given. However, businesses
are still faced with a challenge – the dilemma of deciding whom to partner with
in terms of a cloud service provider. There are many players in the local
market jostling for space, each offering similar services and solutions. For
the customer, this is beneficial as differentiation means providers need to
deliver additional value in order to heighten competitiveness and avoid a price
war. However, it can be confusing when customers are faced with too much
choice. Choosing the right service provider with the most appropriate benefits
and value adds for your business is essential to leveraging maximum cloud
advantage.
As the cloud has become an increasingly viable
option in the local market, many organisations have become convinced of its
value proposition. Of the ICT market as a whole, cloud is one of the fastest
growing sectors worldwide. Many cloud services, particularly Infrastructure as
a Service, are largely commodity-based, with prices becoming a race to zero.
This means that when it comes to purchasing a cloud service, there are lots of
providers to choose from a competitive price points. However, organisations
need to select the service provider that will deliver the best fit for their
business. This may not always be the cheapest offering.
The booming, competitive cloud market has
given rise to many small providers focusing on a very specific service. This
has both pros and cons. On the one hand, there are usually cost savings that
can be leveraged when compared to larger providers. In addition, smaller
providers are usually specialists in what they do and often, very few companies
can do it better. However, on the other hand, their scope is limited, meaning that
when it comes to customers needing a portfolio of cloud services, the customer
has to manage multiple providers rather than just one or two, and inherit the
hassle of integrating these services. This is not a viable option for the SMB.
In order to ensure maximum value and returns,
it often benefits organisations to look for a provider that has both specialist
skills in the services they offer as well as a broader range of offerings which
are syndicated from other providers. This will help to ensure interoperability
does not become a problem when purchasing multiple cloud services. In addition,
in order to avoid a price war, many providers are now focusing on offering
value around their services through bundling. This is not limited to
complementary services. It can include professional services and consulting to
ensure customers choose the right service to meet their needs and derive
maximum advantage from the service after installation or activation. This is a
huge benefit that is often overlooked, until an organisation ends up stuck with
a cloud service that does not meet their needs.
Self-management and self-provisioning are two
important criteria that organisations should look for, and can be particularly
beneficial for the SMB market. These features enable organisations to manage their
service without having to request additions, changes or deletions from their
provider. This reduces the time it takes to provision new services and greatly
increases agility and customer experience. If a business hires a new employee
they can simply log on to their control panel, create a new user and provision access
to all the services they need, for example, a new mailbox or anti-virus
subscription. Organisations can easily scale up and down dynamically to suit
their requirements.
As with any new technology or service,
training is an essential component to ensuring maximum value and adoption. Training
is often overlooked or added as an afterthought, which can hinder adoption and
diminish cloud benefits. If providers expect self-service to be a success, they
need to provide the right training, and customers should look for a cloud
provider that puts a lot of focus on training. Successful providers are putting
as much effort into customer training as any other aspect of the service.
Providers with a cloud customer portal can make self-help videos available so
customers can refer to them whenever they need to, making life easier for the
customer and reducing the number of service calls to the provider. Integration
and migration capabilities are also key, since cloud solutions that are core to
the business are hardly ever standalone solutions, and must work with existing
business systems.
When it comes to selecting the right cloud
services, organisations need to ensure business requirements are clear and they
have the right partner to meet their needs. The cloud market in South Africa
continues to grow, and this rate will only increase as the market matures, with
new players entering the market and existing players exiting or consolidating.
Organisations thus need to examine their business needs and the services and
value adds on offer, as well as the record and reputation of the cloud
provider, in order to ensure they select the most appropriate services and
provider.