How to Sell Application and 'as-a-Service' Clouds

James Anderson

**Editor’s Note: Register now for Channel Partners Evolution, Sept. 25-28, in Austin, Texas.**

What does a solution provider do once its customers have caught up with innovations like cloud and SD-WAN?

Jo Peterson

Five experts will sit on a concurrent-education panel to tackle “Selling Application and “as-a-Service” Clouds: Make Money Moving up the Stack” at Channel Partners Evolution, Sept. 25-28, in Austin, Texas.

Jo Peterson of Clarify360, Tina Gravel of Cyxtera, Jasmina Muller of CenturyLink, Chris Peters of 8×8 and Carmen Sorice of Sungard Availability Services comprise the panel.

Peterson spoke to Channel Partners on behalf of the panel to give a preview of subject matter.

The transcript has been edited for clarity.

Channel Partners: Who is your target audience, and what kind of obstacles do they face?

Jo Peterson: Organizations are rushing to the cloud. Customers are looking at their options around many previously hardware-based or on-premises-based solutions that are now available in an as-a-service model. The five fastest growing categories in the as-a-service space are ERP, CRM, security as a service, big data as a service and collaboration/UCaaS.

Customer are looking at a number of drivers as they evaluate their choices. Many of the drivers lend themselves to a cloud-based solution with an operating expense component. The three top considerations are cost, rapid deployment, flexibility and scalability. Overall, the total cost of ownership for a cloud-based solution can be 50-60 percent less than for traditional solutions over a 10-year period.

Cloud-based solutions offer a basic configuration with a limited range of options that are designed to meet the requirements of most businesses — an approach that can significantly reduce cost.

Vendors have been developing new ways for companies to acquire additional software and software as a service and functionality on a subscription basis. This makes cloud-based systems even more appropriate for companies that are quickly evolving to meet a changing competitive environment. Security as a service, big data as a service and collobaration/UCaaS are being adopted by organizations of all sizes and all verticals.

CP: Could you list a few enterprise application-based cloud services that partners might consider adding?

JP: The target audience for cloud-based ERP often has the following characteristics:

Cloud ERP is especially popular for two-tier ERP deployments, in which companies run a primary ERP system on-premises with …

…one or more additional ERP systems in the cloud. Most core (e.g. financial) ERP systems are on-premise, while the second tier (such as sales and inventory management) may be either on premise or cloud.

CP: What do you hope the audience will take away from your panel?

JP: This session will provide guidance on the current market landscape for the five most adopted products. The panel will discuss the corporate drivers that are moving organizations to pursue as a service options. During the session, we’ll identify prime selling opportunities such as upgrade cycle and greenfield environments. Additionally, session participants will learn the key benefits that as-a-service-model products can bring to their clients. Many of these application-as-a-service products, along with marketing and engineering resources ,are available today from existing, trusted vendors like 8×8, CenturyLink, Cyxtera/Cryptzone and Sungard [AS].

During the session we’ll provide ideas to that spur participants’ thinking about which clients could benefit from these solutions as well as how to monetize the vendor resources currently at their disposal.