By 2024, most enterprises aspire to have $8 out of every $10 spent for IT hosting go toward the cloud. That tells us your customers are all in on technology solutions that create efficiency and scalability, which the promise of cloud-based offerings can easily attain.
This attention is warranted. There’s an estimated $1T in business value that cloud adoption can unlock. Chances are good your customers are leaking their share of that value instead of capturing it, with inefficiencies in orchestrating cloud migrations adding unexpected costs and delays. Approximately $100B of wasted migration spend is expected over the next three years, and most enterprises cite the costs around migration as a major inhibitor to adopting the cloud.
Achieving cloud aspirations will require significant effort from both enterprises and technology providers. Being one of the fastest-growing technology segments, our cloud and Telecom Expense Management (“TEM”) breakout sessions demonstrated how you can take your recurring revenue to new heights.
Here are a few of the top trends that were discussed in these sessions.
Private vs. Public Cloud
It’s a question that pops up frequently: when it comes to cloud, should I go private or public?
The answer? It depends.
A public cloud solution is good for customers who prioritize cost-efficiency, scalability, and the convenience of managed services, whereas a private cloud solution is ideal for customers who prioritize data security, regulatory compliance, and greater control over resource allocation.
Our panelists noted that in the last decade or more, there has been a significant push for companies to leave their on-premises data center, with the pandemic being the ultimate factor with IT staff being unable to be on-premises to manage IT infrastructure.
A large number of companies went into the public cloud or hyper-scale, which proved to be an effective short-term solution during the rush to work from home. However, many soon learned a hard lesson – that public cloud can be cripplingly expensive in some cases since the customer pays by the compute they “consume.”
Attendees were encouraged to identify the workloads that a customer could host in a public cloud environment and how that could potentially grow due to increased consumption by certain applications.
They also noted that the flipside was true – many are paying far too much for their compute needs when unnecessary. For example, virtual machine workloads that must be available 24/7 are often better suited for private cloud due to operational cost.
The keyword we all learned was “repatriation,” which is the process of “leaving the cloud” or migrating these unnecessary workloads into a private or hybrid cloud solution vs. a public cloud solution. Attendees were encouraged to have this conversation with their customers to determine which would save them the most money while achieving business objectives.
Disaster Recovery
Are your customers prepared to respond and recover from an event negatively affecting business operations? When it comes to disaster recovery solutions, there’s plenty of opportunity out there. Only 54 percent of organizations have documented disaster recovery plans in place, yet more than 76 percent have experienced critical data loss. But if you want to drive the point home, tell your customers that 45 percent of these businesses lost their data permanently.
This breakout conversation focused on how you can be a hero if disaster strikes, be it mother nature or manmade. Attendees heard the latest trends from cloud service providers that offer disaster recovery as a service, allowing the customer to back up its data and IT infrastructure
into a third-party cloud computing environment and offloading the management of resources and processes of the event to the provider. For customers who need to maintain continuity through a loss of access to vital IT infrastructure, this could potentially be a thread that keeps them in business.
Whether or not your customer has a built-out IT team that can manage the disaster recovery event. There are service levels that create a fit for every organization based on asset management needs. We encourage you to learn about the differences between Managed DRaaS, Assisted DRaaS, and Self-Serve DRaaS before you speak with your customers about this option.
TEM As a Force Multiplier
TEM is no longer just about phones. The experts in the TEM session explained how it could feed into network, UCaaS, and security sales opportunities.
For example, with the prevalence of remote work, data breaches and cyberattacks are significant concerns, particularly in mobility on the Mobile Device Management (“MDM”) side.
TEM’s enhanced security protocols focus on security with mobility, including measures like data loss prevention to ensure sensitive information like Outlook data isn’t in the hands of another company. This aspect of TEM’s security might not apply to the entire population, but it makes a lot of sense in the context of modern work environments.
Another example is the hidden opportunity to redeploy key resources. Consider your customer’s IT team. Chances are good you’ve heard about how they’re swamped with tasks from managing infrastructure to upholding cybersecurity. Sifting through cellular bills? Not their top priority. It’s cumbersome and detracts from their primary objectives. Meanwhile, the finance folks, experts in numbers, might only sometimes catch the nuances of telecom billing discrepancies. This can lead to overlooked, costly errors.
Companies don’t just cut costs with TEM; they operate leaner more efficiently, and they create the opportunity to use these financial savings to fund other high-priority projects.
What’s Next?
Emerging technologies have a habit of jumpstarting stalled cloud transformation activities.
For example, in a world where calls from unknown phone numbers often go unanswered, billions of missed connections create a daunting challenge for businesses eager to reach new and existing customers. Attendees learned about a new solution called Branded Calling, which empowers businesses to proudly display their name and purpose when calling mobile devices, assuring consumers that it’s a call worth picking up.
On the flip side, from a customer service perspective, it’s no longer just about picking up the phone. It’s about providing seamless, omnichannel experiences that meet customers’ needs wherever they are. Attendees got to hear about a first-of-its-kind purpose-built CCaaS platform that scales customer service across more than 30 digital and traditional channels, using AI, automation, and self-service to deliver the complete customer and agent experience.
Want to learn more? Check out the assets below.
Continued Learning
- 2023 Channel Connect Breakout Sessions Slides at Intelisys University
- TEM course in iU
- Securing New Cloud Opportunities for Your Customers in AWS (And More)
- TEM: What Is It and Why Is It Important?
