Liaison Tech: CSB Success is in Flexibility, Choice

There is plenty of interest in the cloud services broker (CSB) business model, but doing it effectively and helping to provide customers with a variety of vetted cloud services isn’t easy. Rob Consoli, VP of marketing at Liaison Technologies, recently chatted with Talkin’ Cloud about how the CSB model is changing and how Liaison has managed to be successful in the space.

Liaison has data centers around the world and a cloud integration platform that it bases its CSB business on. The company also focused on providing “mass customization” to its customers, which Consoli said basically means Liaison is the Starbucks of the CSB world. He noted that Liaison’s platform enables the firm to uniquely apply the platform to whatever customer requirements are.

And that has helped them make Liaison successful, he said.

“We really believe that is the future going forward in terms of innovation being required,” Consoli said.

Liaison has built its business lately on becoming the integration platform for its customers, enabling the end-customer to select from a variety of cloud services.

The key to the CSB business is flexibility and giving customers choice, Consoli said. Liaison has relationships with many existing cloud services providers, and it aims to provide customers with choice and customizability so they have a broad selection of services and plans to choose from.

“It’s really the flexibility we provide in that, too. We’re providing a common approach across all these integrations,” Consoli said.

According to Consoli, Liaison is succeeding where others fail. He noted that very rarely do customers have any choice. Instead, they get locked into proprietary solutions — something we hear about a lot and is a concern among end-customers.

In a dynamic and changing industry, today’s and tomorrow’s customers want as much flexibility as possible. The CSB market is changing, and Consoli noted the winners will be those who adapt to those changing market conditions and provide customers with what they want and need.