As Partners determine the best strategies to enact as a response to the growing trend towards cloud computing, they are usually reminded of the benefits their customers will receive. The types of benefits cloud computing can provide are both objective:

•  Increase the productivity of your organization with fewer people and resources
•  Reduce Capital Expenditures (CapEx) by eliminating or reducing servers, software and software licenses
•  Future proof your business by leveraging product and technology advances offered at no or little cost by cloud solution providers
•  Improve employee systems access and operational mobility

Other cloud computing benefits are more subjective but none the less appealing. These include:

•  Leveraging cloud solutions and services increases strategy options for the business and business decision makers. Innovations can be applied more quickly and often to product, processes and personnel.
•  With productivity improvements, results can be delivered faster, more cost effective and with increased expectations
•  The business is more competitive and responsive to market changes
•  The business is ready for any potential interruption due to storms, fire, epidemics, etc.

While Partners may believe the pendulum of benefits has swung solely in the direction of customers, it is not true. Partners benefit from the delivery of cloud solutions through:

•  The ability to pursue more opportunities and close more business faster. Cloud computing simplifies the sales cycle and implementation process thus improving customer satisfaction.
•  The need for fewer resources.  Cloud computing allows the Partners to employ fewer resources per opportunity by leveraging the resources in the cloud. The Partner can redeploy or reassign people to new projects or functions as needed.
•  Removal of geographic boundaries. Partners are not limited to regional sales where physical installs are required. Many cloud applications can be installed and supported using remote access only.
•  Sales of Monthly Recurring Revenue products produces long term revenue resulting in easier to manage cash flow. 
•  Selling cloud solutions and services increases strategy options for the Partner. The Partner can be more diverse in the products offered and can change them more easily to match market demand.

However, increasing margin and profitability is something most partners, even those “born in the cloud” continue to pursue. CloudRoute and Microsoft are offering a webinar on December 2nd specifically to address Building Robust MRR and Improving Margins.  Interested partners should check it out. 

Partners need to know that the pendulum is back in the middle. They and their customers can benefit from the transition to the cloud.