Selling the public cloud to businesses is easier today than ever before. Right now, 58 percent of IT leaders believe the public cloud is the most secure, flexible and cost-effective solution for overcoming business challenges. And 51 percent of IT leaders claim security is better in the public cloud than in their own data centers. Many businesses look at the public cloud as a no-brainer.
But is it actually worth your time and energy to sell public cloud services? Can you generate a substantial amount of income from it?
In this series, we are debunking the top public cloud myths. Now, it’s time to zero in on the biggest one – that it’s impossible to monetize the public cloud.
It’s true that in the past, low public cloud costs typically yielded small commissions for partners. For this reason, some partners are viewing the public cloud today with skepticism.
The situation has improved, however, thanks to the emergence of managed service providers (MSPs). In fact, partners now have a tremendous opportunity at hand to rake in profits from the public cloud.
As we discussed in part one of this Top Public Cloud Myths series, MSPs (like Hosting, Rackspace and Datapipe) sit on top of the public cloud. In other words, they provide managed cloud offerings that streamline critical – and complicated – cloud management processes like migration, security and compliance. In short, an MSP will ensure a better and easier overall public cloud experience for your customers by doing all of the heavy lifting.
The trick is to sell bare metal cloud services to your customers along with managed cloud offerings. In doing so, you will receive larger commissions from the added value that the MSPs provide. Plus, your customers will be more satisfied with the white glove service. This strategy will help foster repeat sales, and it may even generate referrals.
Now for the big question: Will businesses actually be open to layering managed cloud services on top of the public cloud?
They will if you focus on some of the pain points about cloud management.
Businesses tend to rush into public cloud migrations by forming deals directly with companies like Google and Amazon. Then they learn the hard way that it’s very difficult to manage data within these cloud environments. Businesses struggle with a lack of visibility and control over their data. And they spend valuable time struggling with their cloud systems instead of growing their businesses.
Your strategy, therefore, should be to convince your customers that cloud services and MSPs go hand in hand. It’s a sure way to minimize risks, and guarantee strong results.
So to sum our series, you shouldn’t have any reservations about approaching your customers with public cloud offerings. The public cloud is safe, and easy for your customers to integrate into their business environments. And when paired with a managed cloud offering, the public cloud can generate a substantial amount of revenue for you.
Want to learn more about monetizing the public cloud? Watch our BattleBriefing on How to Make Money with Public Cloud on October 13th hosted by our own Drew Lydecker with Hosting, Rackspace, and DataPipe.