Mumbai: Cloud Computing is no more a new concept in the business field and is rapidly growing segment in the IT domain. Enterprises are widely opting for cloud solutions for business agility and productivity. Considering the bright future of cloud, vendors such as Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, IBM etc are pouring huge investments in their cloud strategies. While cloud vendors are very bullish over their business, partners also can win revenue-generating opportunities by tapping multi-million enterprise deals.
According to IDC’s estimates, Public cloud services that include various “as-a-Service” offerings – including software (SaaS), platform (PaaS) and infrastructure (IaaS), is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23 percent through 2018. On the private cloud side, IDC expects worldwide spending will exceed USD 24 billion by 2016. On the other hand, the IT spending among enterprises is also moving in the upward direction. Significantly, this spending is not restricted only to large scale enterprises and medium scale companies are also ready to spend on the best IT infrastructure.
According to the IDC data, there are 79 million companies that generate less than USD 1 billion in revenue each year. This segment represents 95 percent of all businesses in the world and employs 55 percent of the global workforce. These companies will invest USD 564 billion in technology. As more companies that generate $1 billion or less in revenue adopt a cloud or hybrid approach, channel partners can take advantage of these new opportunities to create a steady revenue stream from a subscription-based, pay-as-you-go business model.
“Traditionally, channel partners have grown revenues and maximized profitability by hiring new sales and consulting staff, cutting costs, or raising prices. However, selling cloud technology offers a new way to look differently at the organization and the opportunity each customer brings”, said Rodolpho Cardenuto, President, Global Channels & General Business, SAP in a blog post. (Read here)
Also Read: Cloud Data Backup: An Impressive Growth Area For Partners
Given that many companies, especially small to medium sized businesses, can not afford to have a second, physical data center for backup, the cloud becomes an viable option. Application development is another area that is ripe for the cloud. Mobile service offerings are another natural, whether it’s unified communications, or enterprise applications such as CRM or ERP. With cloud, partners can deliver such services to customers.
Cloud channel partners are leading the way to business model innovation as well as their customers’ digital transformation. Partners are evolving and adapting to the changing needs of the business, but they will keep an eye on the future to anticipate and capitalize on emerging shifts.
In the end, no matter what path partners choose to the cloud, they do need to make sure they have got the right infrastructure in place to ensure they offer highly reliable, available and secure to their customers.