Beyond the Numbers: What’s Really Driving Cloud Adoption?
Cost. Scalability. Flexibility. All of these are drivers for enterprises that seek to adopt cloud-based file sharing, but none are the primary drivers, at least not for senior-level executives.
According to a recent Gartner study discussed in a story at FirstBiz.com, the top driver for this group is not something that can be measured in cost savings or productivity rates. In fact, the top driver has nothing to do with numbers at all. FirstBiz.com explains:
Nearly 44 percent of survey respondents said that overall cost reduction continues to dominate as the main reason for investment. However, when the data is organized by role, the cloud adoption survey indicates that "cost reduction" rated highest for the more junior IT roles (IT staff and IT managers). Senior business executives (excluding CIOs) also rated "cost reduction" as a key benefit, but not at the same rate as the IT staff.
The CIO and IT director roles all rated "cloud is a modern approach," "innovation" and "operational agility" as top drivers.
The key takeaway here, as the author goes on to note, is that senior-level leaders and decision-makers are more concerned with creating an “innovative IT environment with operational agility and business advantage as key outcomes.” They are less concerned about how much it will cost them to achieve this.
In other words, the top driver for business leaders is far more abstract. This leads us to a number of highly significant conclusions for MSPs in the cloud. Let’s take a closer look at three in particular:
1. Know When to Sell The Costs. As the article notes, cost (and the ROI) is still a significant driver of cloud adoption, but mostly for junior-level personnel. This is perhaps the most interesting finding of the study, as one would assume the exact opposite, where the technicians (i.e. those who actually manage systems) would want something modern, and would care less about expense. Perhaps they cite cost as a result of pressure from their superiors. In any event, it’s important to remember that the higher you go in the enterprise food chain, the less importance will be placed on price.
2. Speak To The Benefits of Modernity. If senior-level executives value “modernity” and “innovation”, MSPs must be able to speak to these aspects using real world examples. Again, depending on their rank within the organization, your clients will care less about the features and specs of your solution. Rather, they want to know how it will offer them a competitive advantage over their peers.
3. Understand That The Enterprise Is Different. It should be noted that the study focused entirely on the enterprise (albeit, across several continents). Had the question been presented to smaller organizations – startups, SMBs, healthcare organizations and others in your MSP wheelhouse – it’s safe to assume that the findings would have been different. Unlike larger organizations, smaller businesses are indeed highly concerned about price, scalability and other traditional cloud benefits. The enterprise is different, so MSPs need to adjust their pitch accordingly.
Success in selling often has less to do with real need, and more to do with perceived need. In this case, the need to be seen as a modern IT department. We’re interested to hear your reaction to these findings. Be sure to share your views in the comment section below.
