MOVING TO THE CLOUD
Aiming for the clouds While the advantages of cloud technology are well documented, adoption has been patchy among small and medium-sized businesses. In this article, James Stacey, solution consultant at ECI Solutions, looks at how IT resellers can capitalise on the appetite for cloud technology.
(SaaS), can facilitate this seamlessly. Given the current uncertain economic climate, it’s likely that your customers will also be looking to cut running costs. Cloud-based solutions allow them to reduce their office space since more people can work remotely and improve efficiency and productivity at a time when firms must make maximum use of their available resources. The advantage of SaaS is that costs can be spread out with a single monthly payment, unlike costly on- premise solutions. Good relations A good relationship with your customers ensures you’re alert to the signs that they’re ready to embrace cloud technologies. For example, you’ll know whether they’ve experienced a period of growth that has made it difficult to scale their current IT systems, or if they have chosen to implement remote or hybrid working permanently. Ease-of-use and efficiency are critical today, as firms look to improve employee experiences and reduce the amount of tedious and repetitive work they undertake. Or perhaps they’ve experienced a security breach and are keen to retire their legacy systems with cloud-based ones that offer continuous data back-up and updates. It’s worth remembering too that SMEs rarely have a large IT resource so, having struggled over the years with server maintenance and software updates, will be only too happy to outsource these processes. Understanding and communicating the benefits of the cloud will provide the reassurances they might need before and during migration. Cloud technology has come on in leaps and bounds in recent years and has become a far more attractive proposition compared to on-premise solutions. With more innovations expected, and more competitive pricing models available, you can expect demand to grow even more. The right business management tools will deliver the most up-to-date customer insights and allow you to streamline your own back-office processes, helping you to increase your share of the cloud services market ahead of your competitors.
As an IT reseller, your role may have shifted in recent years away from delivering on-premise solutions to cloud-based ones. Businesses are increasingly seeing the benefits cloud technology can bring – including the ability to work from anywhere, lower implementation and maintenance costs, and scalability. Unsurprisingly, this process was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a third of IT leaders stepping up migration plans in 2020, with many more following since. Nevertheless, there are still some barriers to cloud adoption particularly among SMEs. They may already have on-premise software that – they believe – functions perfectly well, or be cautious about the cost and potential downtime that IT projects can entail. Miss it, miss out But it’s becoming increasingly clear that those who’re slow to modernise will miss out. The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) points to research that found that using cloud technology can boost the number of sales per employee by 13.5%. It also notes that a CRM can increase sales by 18.5% while ecommerce software leads to uplifts of 7.5%. Firms may be at different stages of their cloud journey – what’s important is that you use your own business management system to identify which customers you should focus on. With complete visibility of all equipment, you’ll soon see whether hardware you’ve previously sold is coming to the end of its lifecycle, and who might be ready to move to a cloud-based solution. When they decide to make the investment, you can produce contracts quickly and accurately, including billing and invoicing information to ensure prompt payment and positive cash flow. Your business management system helps you to identify the most profitable contracts too, giving you an opportunity to upsell and cross-sell cloud services – and realise the benefits highlighted above by the FSB. The appetite for cloud technology reflects, and is driven by, changing working cultures. The pandemic paved the way for remote and hybrid working and cloud software, also known as software as a service
James Stacey, solution consultant at ECI Software Solutions
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) points to research that found that using cloud technology can boost the number of sales per employee by 13.5%
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