Liaison Technologies: Cloud Services Brokers Drive Success

The cloud services brokerage (CSB) business model is garnering a lot of interest in the industry, so it’s little surprise it’s helping to drive cloud business in a big way. Liaison Technologies, which specializes in cloud-based integration and data management services, announced 66 percent year-over-year growth in its managed services reseller program and 252 percent growth from referral partners.

The increase reflects Liaison’s growth and increasing reliance on CSBs, which actually drove 60 percent of its overall year-over-year growth. Not bad at all, and it shows just how important the CSB business model is becoming for both technology vendors and in the channel. Gartner actually expects 20 percent of cloud services to be sold through CSBs by 2015.

Liaison attributes much of its success in the last year to the introduction of its software as a service (SaaS) and cloud-based Application Partner Program.

“The past year was pivotal for the CSB market in general, and it’s now very clear that the work we’ve invested over the years with our partners to build out Liaison’s reseller channel is seen as a valuable differentiator among customers,” said Megan Pulliam, vice president of Channel Sales at Liaison Technologies, in a prepared statement. “Our channel enables us to provide ‘mass customization’ to customers, an area of the CSB market solely owned by Liaison. We remain committed to this model, and provide customers with the industry’s most flexible solutions.”

Maybe growth related to CSBs won’t be quite so dramatic for every company—likely even Liaison as time goes on—but the business model is one that will continue to grow over the next few years. It’s one way channel partners are becoming increasingly relevant in the cloud computing world.