Charles Cooper 1

Still Looking to Get into the Cloud Game? Here’s Your Plan

• September 25, 2017

Even if you’ve been sitting on the sidelines until now, there’s still major opportunity for channel players interested in shifting their focus to selling cloud solutions. Here’s how.

Cultivating Prospects, One Question at a Time

• July 18, 2017

Old school habits die hard but simply pitching a prospect with speeds, feeds and a price tag doesn’t work the way it once did. More than ever, solutions providers are being challenged to craft meaningful pitches around customer needs. And that means asking the right questions—a lot of them.

How To Make An Informed Buyer Your Best Friend, Not Your Foe

• July 10, 2017

Thanks to the internet, buyers now know your strengths, weaknesses and selling points. So don’t think you can still win business with a hard sales pitch. You can, however, open doors if you become part of the buyer’s trusted circle. Here’s how.

Progress Update: Converting to a Managed Services Model

• May 1, 2017

There’s ample incentive for resellers to make the change; some 73 percent of the managed services providers surveyed by CompTIA late last year reported that their services were profitable. But it takes no small amount of effort to move a legacy business to a new operations model.

Time to give marketing more respect? Good Idea

• April 20, 2017

If you’re still treating marketing as an afterthought, you’re likely courting trouble. A fresh marketing strategy is just as crucial to a reseller’s business as is a strong sales and engineering plan.

How to Pick the Best Candidates in a Competitive Job Market

• February 27, 2017

When it comes to workplace horror stories, everybody can pull out a favorite “can you believe this” anecdote. That goes with the territory.

Why IoT is Going to Matter—a lot—to the Channel

• February 21, 2017

Billions of connected, intelligent devices are entering the business mainstream as part of a collective phenomenon known as the Internet of Things (IoT). Many of these devices are connecting over networks for the first time, communicating with the headquarters as well as with other connected “things.”

Xpert Commentary: On the Eve of RSA 2017, A Perspective on the State of Security

• February 8, 2017

Companies face cyber threats from an increasingly sophisticated cohort of attackers armed with a toxic assortment of malware, ransomware, and APTs. And 2017 is shaping up to be as bad, or worse, than 2016, which was a year punctuated by a series of devastating cyberattacks.

The Business Advice of a Lifetime: How a Pre-Mortem Can Save You from Disaster

• January 31, 2017

Tech history is littered with failure. Think Yahoo’s push into apps, Cisco’s foray into consumer products and HPE’s acquisition of Autonomy.

Don’t Let Cloud Complacency Get The Upper Hand

• December 28, 2016

Cloud security is better than ever. But you can still put your organization at unnecessary risk by taking too much for granted.

Fixing the Weakest Link in Cloud Security

• December 23, 2016

As always, corporate security plans are being put in jeopardy by employees who ignore protocol so they can make it easier on themselves.

DDoS Attacks are Coming. Now the Really Bad News.

• December 14, 2016

A massive attack powered by a bot army showed how easy it is to overwhelm a cloud. But attackers are planning a lot worse than to simply take your cloud offline

Make Cloud, DevOps Force Real IT Transformation

• December 1, 2016

MSPs have an opportunity to push clients to pivot to a future where they can reap major advantages by revolutionizing their internal software delivery processes.

IoT and the Cloud: What to Watch Out For

• November 23, 2016

IT needs to consider the implications of how to best secure devices that are often left unsecured- and prevent breaches that could endanger data stored on the cloud. Here’s where things can get tricky.

Don’t Let Dollars and Cents Cloud Your Thinking

• November 18, 2016

Cost cutting often leads the list of benefits that companies want to reap by moving to the cloud. But there’s also the bigger picture where MSPs can help potential clients understand the transformative aspects of cloud computing.

The Promise and Peril Around Cloud Storage Security

• November 11, 2016

Greater cloud usage has opened up a myriad of business possibilities. But MSPs shouldn’t hesitate to get preachy about preaching the basics when it comes to securing the processing and storage of customer data in the cloud.

Don’t Get Caught Unprepared to Meet the Cloud

• November 4, 2016

Many IT decision makers face a dilemma: Even as they plan major cloud deployments, their organizations still remain unprepared to handle the transition. Here’s where MSPs can lend their expertise to help guide companies for a successful digital transformation.

Why Ransomware Attackers Really, Really Like Cloud Computing

• October 26, 2016

Ransomware attacks haven’t crippled victims – yet. But it’s only a matter of time before a major attack takes place. Before the big one hits, MSPs should push their clients to take proper defensive measures.

When it Comes to the Cloud, is Agnosticism a Blessing?

• October 21, 2016

How many horror stories have you heard about getting locked into one cloud vendor’s technology? But before getting religious about a one-vendor policy, consider the bigger picture.

Why CIOs are Finally the Cloud’s Biggest Boosters

• October 14, 2016

Resistance has melted away and CIOs are on board, pushing the cloud as a way to transform their infrastructure away from traditional datacenters. And there’s a role for MSPs to play.