We all tend to focus on bringing in new customers. But don’t be fooled — retaining the customers you currently have is critical and sometimes easy to neglect.
How do you proceed when you’ve brought aboard a new project from one of your existing customers that stretches beyond your current comfort zone, such as cloud services, where you’ll need a Partner’s help to deliver
Not all IT activities are right for Cloud computing . What’s more, you may not have the basic elements you need (such as a sufficiently robust network environment) for Cloud computing. And the last thing you need is to learn those uncomfortable truths after you’ve committed to a Cloud project.
This is why conducting a Cloud feasibility assessment is so important. And unless you have Cloud computing expertise on staff, don’t try to do it alone.
Regardless of their cause(s), your ability to minimize business disruptions depends on planning that’s based on a granular understanding of the risks posed to your business processes.
This planning begins with understanding who your key stakeholders are, how your organization conducts business, and what sorts of disruptions are likeliest at your locations (note that recent studies indicate power failures, hardware failures, and network failures account for more than 80% of IT-related disruptions).
When it comes to choosing a partner to help you meet changing client demands, you face some tough decisions. As I see it, you need three things to make a successful partnership:
A partner who’s willing to share — i.e., when you make a sale, you get a piece of the proceeds, including a portion of ongoing revenue from Cloud service subscriptions.
A partner with the right offerings — i.e., a solid bench of Cloud and other technology solutions that truly address your clients’ requirements.
A partner who fields sufficient resources to reliably deliver what you’ve promised your clients — i.e., not merely strong technical experience/expertise but also a network of leading edge data centers specifically designed with the virtualization, automated management, and security capabilities.
Last year, disasters in the United States caused more than $60 billion in damage . And the future promises plenty more of the same, says a recent report from Swiss reinsurer Munich Re — especially in North America, where weather-related loss events have quintupled in the last 30 years.
Now add in concerns about inadequate backup of the data on employees’ smartphones and tablets, wayward virtual machines, cyberattacks and other security incidents …
The challenge: Protect your essential business resources
It all makes now a good time to take another look at your company’s business continuity/disaster recovery plan, which ought to be reviewed and updated at least annually to keep your risk assessment current.
I’ve posted before about Cloud computing best practices , and I’m doing it again now (and for the next several posts) for a couple of reasons:
Cloud computing continues to (quickly) evolve, and while some Cloud best practices stay more or less constant, others must be adapted to keep pace,
Cloud success depends on adhering to best practices — so there’s no such thing as talking too much about them or the order in which they should be applied.
