How to Do Cloud Marketing in a Recession?
April 18, 2012
Most of the time people look at cloud computing as challenge or they think that cloud computing is luxury and we can implement it only when we are in stable condition. But in fact, in today’s situation where the world is already suffering from a big economic crisis, most companies want to reduce their expenses on IT and IT-related tasks. But at the same time, it is required that those tasks get done, as in today’s cutting-edge technology world, automation of most of the processes are important and we just can’t stop these processes because of a recession . Now, you must be thinking, how to achieve this and how to convince your client to opt for Cloud Computing? Let’s have a look at the main challenges step-by-step and area where we can focus…
POCs (Proof of Concept) on PaaS
First of all, we have to identify the problem area for customer. Then, we have to concentrate on a particular module, which on implementation will serve the purpose of Application demo. To implement such, we can opt of Platform as a Service like Google App Engine (GAE) or Cloud Foundary (CF). We can create a module of our main application for demo purpose to the client. With just couple of day’s work, we can show the dummy app up and working in Cloud, to client. Here, I insist on just a dummy app, as we have limited control on PaaS infrastructure. But with premium service, we can get assured of application availability and security with minimum or no downtime. PaaS can serve best solution for Small and Medium level enterprises. They are some service providers like Cloud Foundary, provides control over you application data. They also provide selection of resources like Databases. Recently Cloud Foundary release Micro Cloud, which is downloadable, local PaaS environment. With use Micro cloud, you can deploy your application in your local development environment where you have full control on your environment. And once testing is complete, you are good to run these apps on Cloud Foundary public cloud for global access of this app.
Reusable Application development on SaaS
Like previous, this is best solution for Small and Medium level enterprises. As we know, there are many applications which are required in our everyday corporate life. We can provide these applications as Software as a Service. Let’s take an example, suppose "ABC Company" wants to conduct survey throughout the organization. ABC will require this application, twice a quarter. Getting such application developed will waste both time and money. At that time, company can use such already available application as a service, and pay per use. So from, software development companies point of view, we can identify such applications, develop it, deploy it and give that for use to customer whenever required and bill them per their use. This will be beneficiary for both customers and software providers. Such kinds of services are provided by Sales force since long time.
Use of Private Cloud within Organization
Now, we will talk about how we can convince large/huge customers, for whom data security is main concern and can afford to build a private cloud. Consider a company, XYZ, having 50+ applications running within organization and running a separate data server for each app. Also, they have found that, only 30%-40% space or computing power is used actually and rest is waste. In this, situation, you should convince customer for use of Private cloud. Private cloud will be a best solution for this purpose, as we can deploy all apps on Private cloud. Private cloud will give following benefits to customer:
- Reduced maintenance cost and we need to maintain only single cloud and not many servers.
- Efficient use of resources like Power and space.
- Easily scalable when needed. (We can anytime add more resources whenever is required with no downtime)
- Data security as Private cloud is in organization premises and behind the company firewall.
Use of Hybrid Cloud
Hybrid cloud is nothing but setting up private cloud in Public cloud. This can be a good solution for those who are concerned about data security but cannot afford private cloud. So for such enterprises, hybrid cloud is a good solution. In hybrid cloud, we don’t need to do the setup of actual cloud; we just need to set secure and limited access to resources in public cloud. Hybrid cloud will give most of the benefits given by Private Cloud.
So, marketing folks and strategy planners in all software companies, target your customers, find their needs, and suggest them a perfect solution. And ensure that you don’t lose the pace in this not so good time of recession.
And redefine the three Cs of marketing-
Convince your Customer for Clouds..!!!