By Michael Brown 1

Why are your customers using the cloud? Why aren’t others using it? As an MSP working with cloud-based file sharing, you should know what motivates your clients and prospects to either adopt or avoid the cloud.

Results from a new survey offer an interesting view into what people think of the cloud, how they use it, and what concerns you should address to bring more people into the cloud. Understanding what influences cloud sharing decisions will help you better position your services and be better prepared to handle objections.

Here are some findings from the survey that show why people either are or are not using the cloud, and how you can use that information to your advantage.

Why They Are Using the Cloud

Forty-three percent of respondents say they are using the cloud for backup purposes. While easier collaboration and flexibility are great benefits of the cloud, a large number of users are leveraging it as a backup for their important files. Find out as early as possible what your client’s hope to use the cloud for so you can explain your solutions benefits around those hopes. For some, backup may be their main need. For others, they may have other pressing needs that they didn’t even know cloud storage and sharing can solve.

Twenty-three percent resort to the cloud mainly to free up device space.

Another major benefit of the cloud that users are taking advantage of is the ability to free up space in their networks, speed up the processing of tasks, and limit the need for costly infrastructure. If your customer’s processes are slow or they are spending money to support large amounts of internal storage, helping them move some of that to the cloud can help free up some space and improve the speed and agility of those processes.

Why They Aren’t Using the Cloud

Thirty-nine percent of respondents that don’t use the cloud said it was because of privacy concerns.

Unfortunately there are still many misconceptions about cloud sharing that you will need to address early on in the sales process. Because of some consumer facing cloud sharing applications have become the most well-known – but also have the weakest security – many people believe that all cloud sharing solutions will put their files at risk.

Explain the difference of an enterprise level solution and the added security you can put on their files. While this misconception may seem like a barrier initially, it is actually an opportunity for you to demonstrate even more value after solving their privacy needs.

Thirty-two percent of those who don’t use the cloud were not familiar enough to see its benefits.

This statistic really stresses the need for you to be educating your clients and prospects. Although cloud sharing has been around for a while, a surprising number of business leaders still don’t understand the benefits enough to know if they can be useful for their business. Even if you feel the information is too simple or “common knowledge” – do your best to give this information to your audience – you may be surprised how many of them need it.

This new study clearly gave MSPs some good news for cloud usage and some good opportunities for future cloud discussions. The good news is people are using the cloud to solve specific problems like backup and bandwidth. The opportunities are that many people still don’t fully understand cloud sharing or fully understand how an MSP’s services and solutions can help them. Show them these benefits and you can both reap the rewards.

Any other feedback from your clients about why they are using the cloud? Or other objections to cloud-based file sharing that you’ve addressed in the past? Let us know in the comments below!