INTERVIEW Stuart Day - iland
“With guidance from their CSP, devising a profitable cloud business model ought to be
straightforward.“ Stuart Day. Director of Channel, iland
Channelling the Cloud
According to analyst firm Gartner, migration to the cloud is set to continue strongly in 2019. As enterprises seek
out ways of reducing costs, Stuart Day, Director of Channel for cloud services provider iland, says channel
businesses can unlock the full cloud opportunity and build robust revenues for the future. As you might expect,
Day has some ideas how this can be achieved
Enterprises want to reduce
costs, increase efficiency
and reap the flexibility
benefits that cloud offers
and with Gartner predicting
growth of nearly 20% this year
this demand should be music to
the ears of the channel.
COMMS BUSINESS MAGAZINE (CBM):
BUILDING HEALTHY, PROFITABLE CHANNEL/
CSP RELATIONSHIPS IS GOING TO BE AS
IMPORTANT AS EVER FOR BOTH PARTIES THIS
YEAR. WHERE DO YOU START?
STUART DAY (SD): It sounds obvious
but understanding each other’s
goals for the relationship is
essential.
Channel partners need a CSP
that understands their customer’s
priorities and supports their
business ambitions – ideally
offering specialist expertise in the
sectors that they are targeting.
CSPs are seeking partners that
will commit to engaging closely
with their service, investing in
the relationship to effectively
take it to market.
Defining the structure of
the relationship early on is vital.
Our experience shows partners
have differing requirements and
preferred levels of investment
when launching a cloud services
strategy. For some, it is about
earning recurring commissions
with minimal involvement in
end-to-end sales and support.
Conversely, resellers often want
to retain billing relationships but
have assistance with the sales and
support process from the cloud
provider.
Managed Service Providers
(MSPs) want full responsibility
for the end customer
relationship, which includes
billing, account management
and support, and they want to
profit from adding their own
managed services offerings
around the cloud service.
CBM: HOW CAN YOU WORK OUT IF THE
SUPPLIER STRATEGIES MATCH WHAT YOU, AS
A RESELLER, IS TRYING TO ACHIEVE?
SD: Ask probing questions around
the CSP’s go-to-market strategy
and its commitment to joint activity
that will help you win new
business. How will they improve
your service capacity technically
and commercially to put you
ahead of the competition? What
can they add that will enable you
to go after bigger opportunities
with confidence?
When customers opt for
a cloud solution, speed and
simplicity of onboarding is
crucial. Find out how your
potential CSP will assist
your teams in scoping out
customer requirements. Cloud
environments can be notoriously
difficult to right-size, yet only
paying for what you need is a
core part of the customer value
proposition.
CBM: IN SOME MARKETS IT’S DIFFICULT
TO BUILD PROFITABLE SERVICES WITH
TRANSPARENT PRICING. WHAT WOULD YOU
ADVISE?
SD: Clear pricing with no hidden
costs is a priority for customers.
The waters have become
muddied in the hyperscale space,
where an estimated 500,000 line
items make it hard for customers
to optimise their deployment
and understand what they’re
paying for and why. Leading to
frustration for many.
It’s not just customers getting
frustrated, either. I regularly hear
that pricing is one of the most
difficult things for MSPs to get
right, but it really needn‘t be.
CSPs should be offering partners
full visibility of historical billing
and accurate predictive billing so
there are no nasty shocks in store
and customers can confidently
budget for their future needs.
With guidance from their
CSP, devising a profitable cloud
business model ought to be
straightforward.
CBM: TODAY, IT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN
EVER TO BE ABLE TO DIFFERENTIATE YOUR
OFFERINGS SO WHAT CAN A SUPPLIER DO
TO HELP?
SD: You need to be able to
leverage the CSP’s specialist
expertise as your differentiator.
If you are offering cloud
services, you’re going to
encounter the complexities of
compliance. Your customers
will be wrestling with data
privacy and security and need
reassurance that their cloud
solution investment meets
the industry’s compliance
requirements. This is
particularly important for
heavily regulated sectors such
as finance and healthcare. The
truth is that it takes years of
experience and continuous
focus to keep up to date with
the regulatory environment
and it’s not something channel
partners have the capacity to
do.
52 | Comms Business Magazine | March 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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