Our Cloud or Their Cloud

Are SPs writing their own cloud story in India?

Since its penetration in the Indian IT market, the cloud computing has come a long way in terms of acceptance and adoption among enterprises. The emerging technology has witnessed large scale adoption in the enterprise segment, whereas the SMBs and SMEs are skeptically making their move towards the platform. Where most of the solution providers have aligned their business with big giants like AWS, Oracle and Microsoft, some of them have chosen a different way. What has been evidently observed is that in the space dominated by the MNCs, SPs are creating their own niche in the cloud domain with their expertise and R & D capacity.

Why own cloud?

Flexibility in the business and better margins are the two prominent reasons for SPs opting for their own cloud space. Rather than selling standard packages with standard price tags, SPs are keen to provide customized solutions to their customers. In short, with their cloud offerings, SPs want to give Indianised solution suitable for the Indian business conditions at an Indian cost which might not be possible while selling third party cloud.

Shivani Patel, Senior Executive at Alliancetek says, “There is limited window for customization using AWS or Azure. Also, they have their own price tag so we cannot offer price flexibility to clients and we have to stick to their standard packages, while using our own cloud we can offer flexible quotes depending on client requirement and budget.”

Endorsing similar thoughts, Chetan Shah, Managing Director of Xpress Computers says, “Selling other people's cloud does pose challenges such as limited margins. So we decided to come up with Xpresscloud. With our own solution, we are able to offer many features such as unlimited data backups, 30 days recovery of deleted files and 30 versions of all files along with other benefits.”

Limesh Parekh, CEO of Gujarat based Enjay IT Solutions which offers Tally on Cloud, CRM on Cloud and Telephony on Cloud says that instead of becoming resellers, Enjay created unique concept, where the company add more value by providing its own cloud based on Linux.

Similarly, the apprehensions about the data loss and price factor are also the reasons for which many SME customers prefer Indian cloud providers over MNCs. Security conscious entrepreneurs do not prefer to host their mission critical applications and sensitive data outside the country. Therefore, they look for the solution providers who can give assurance of data protection.

Samir Jhaveri, MD of XcellHost Cloud Services says that SME customers are looking at the solution providers like XcellHost for the cloud deployment for the reason that they want their data to be hosted in India.

“Big giant like AWS and Microsoft Azure, offer a Platform-As-A-Server and are currently do not have data center in India.  XcellHost offers Fully Managed Private Cloud in over 40+ countries. The advantage being local support and billing and fully managed services and Private Cloud custom build to customer requirements”, Jhaveri says.

What SPs offer in their cloud baggage?

SPs bring a lot of expertise in their cloud deployment. The biggest advantage that gives the SPs a little edge over the global cloud players is that they understand the actual needs of SMBs and SMEs customers and customize their cloud offerings according to the requirements of the users. Maintaining the global standards, SPs, too have built their R & D capabilities to serve to their clients in the most efficient way by giving them a better value proportion.

Apart from giving value addition to the customers, SPs have introduced an innovative cloud model such as “Automatic Sizing Instances”, “Pay as you Grow”and “Pay per Consume” billing model bringing simplicity and ease in the business.

Nashik Based ESDS Software Solution which offers eNlight Cloud says that with “Pay per Consume” billing model, eNlight Cloud drastically increases the sharing of resources and saves up to 70% cost for consumers.

Piyush Somani, Managing Director of ESDS Software Solution, says, “eNlight Cloud services are unique as with eNlight Cloud, every user get an automatic resizing virtual machine. It significantly reduces the cost of hosting by giving required resources such as vCore and RAM only for the time for which they are needed by server. With its “Pay per Consume” billing model, customers are guaranteed to save up to 70% of their hosting costs.”

Data backup and preparedness for quick recovery in case of disasters has always been a big challenge for enterprises. While most companies lose data due to system failure, software crashes or other reasons, only 23 percent of businesses back up their data frequently. This makes a strong case for using a seamless and simple cloud backup solution to safeguard the business.

Chetan Shah says that Xpresscloud as a backup solution, is ideal for companies and individuals having large sized data. He says that the beauty of Xpresscloud is that it provides seamless access to data through any communication device.

“Xpresscloud offer world-class reliability features such as strong encryptions, Tier 3 state-of-the-art data centres in Europe and personalized URLs to each customer for enhanced security. Data on a Xpresscloud account can be accessed from Phones, tablets and any browser 24 x 7.This is an incredible value for SMB and enterprise customers as it offers a simple disaster recovery mechanism for even small organisations”, he says.

Similarly, XcellHost Cloud Services offers a plethora of cloud offerings such as Cloud Server, Private Cloud, Cloud Backup, Cloud DR,  Cloud ERP that rightly hit the requirements of SMB customers. The company also offers SMB with Cloud ERP or Cloud Tally Servers so they don’t need to buy and manage server on-premises.

“For SMB once they buy a Cloud Server then can host their Website + Mail Server + FTP Server + Sharepoint which is complete Business-In-Box solution in the Cloud”, says Samir Jhaveri.

Challenge of making SMEs adopt cloud

Cloud has increased the affordability of world-class business applications and a resilient IT infrastructure for companies, which otherwise would not have had an appetite for significant investments in building up their IT. However, the SMB and SME segment is still hesitant to completely rely on cloud platforms. However, the segment has started taking conscious steps to deploy high tech technology solutions in their organizations. Like, big players, SPs to face criticalities in convincing the SMB customers to move to the cloud platform. However, trust and connectivity are the major factors which help them address the challenge.

“People are concerned about security and cost, but then Indian SMEs is doing business based on relations, We have been trusted vendor for last 15 years, We use that Trust to close the deals”, says Limesh Parekh.

Chetan Shah says that a live demo or a case study also helps to add the SMB accounts in the business as it helps them to have in depth understanding of the offering.

“Often the Indian customer is not convinced about the features or data security promised.  So we offer POC or demo accounts to help customers understand the features and benefits that Xpresscloud offers”, says Chetan Shah.

Preference to channel driven model

Though able to take the cloud solutions directly to the end users, SPs recognize and opt for the channel model as it is a convenient and efficient way to reach to the masses. Some of them have made a unique blend of direct selling and channel driven sales approach.

The marketing strategy of XcellHost is purely driven by the partners. Its XcellHost Cloud Channel Partner Program offers up to 20% monthly recurring margin to its partners.

“Our Sales and Marketing is purely partner driven model globally.  We work with System Integrators of all sizes, ERP Implementation Partners, Web Apps + ISV's. We enable Cloud Channel Partner on Sales, Pre-Sales, Marketing Content. Most important training on how to sell Cloud Services” says Samir Jhaveri.

On similar lines, Piyush Somani, MD of ESDS Software Solution says that Channel and Alliance Partner ecosystem is an integral part of ESDS' Go-To-Market execution.

Whereas Accel Frontline prefer the direct selling model. John Vijay Bhaskar, National Sales Manager - Managed Services Group, Accel Frontline Limited says that company makes use of various media platforms such as tele-marketing and online marketing. Girish Madhavan, Owner of Quadsel Systems says at present the company is spreading its wings on direct sale to establish and acquire a good customer database. However, he has plans on moving and growing into Channel in the future.

The way ahead

SME is the most critical segment in cloud adoption and solution providers play a very critical role to actually deploy the cloud infrastructure in the organization. Therefore, SPs are seeing a lot of business prospects and taking steps to use the power and the convenience of the cloud technologies to ease their business challenges. The access to a global, modern solution whilst meeting all local requirements at an affordable cost and scalability are the unique value propositions that solution providers are offering to their SME customers which might create a tough competition to the global cloud players in coming days.