Power Up Your Cloud Services Business Practice

Your clients are probably spending a fair amount of time in a virtual workspace — whether your company provides it or not. Through Google, Amazon and a variety of other vendors, consumers are not only becoming more familiar with cloud services, but they’re bringing those solutions to work with them. The web-connected world is knocking down or reducing the walls that used to exist between a solution provider’s clients and the technologies they employ.

Without a strong client relationship, VARs and MSPs may find themselves left out of key cloud technology business decisions. That doesn’t mean they’ve lost their customers respect or trust, but it’s become easier for them to sample web-based solutions. If they enjoy the service, a business owner may find themselves in a buying situation—without their solution provider’s input (or knowledge)—especially when they discovering how scalable and accessible they are!

Those may turn out to be costly decisions for clients without a clear understanding of their current systems, and create major headaches for the VAR or MSP who has to work it into their organizations’ master technology plans.

With public IT cloud services expected to generate $72.9 billion annually by 2015 (according to research company IDC), these situations are sure to escalate and continue to threaten provider/business client relationships. But there are ways to prevent these potential lapses in the traditional IT decision making process—with the addition of a cloud services practice (in-house or through a partnership) topping the list.

In order to make the right decisions when expanding their portfolio, solution providers need the quality information, industry best practices and advice that only successful experts can offer. Of course, bringing those professionals together is what the CompTIA Breakaway conference is all about. This year’s event (July 30 to August 2 at Las Vegas’ ARIA Casino and Resort), offers a multitude of educational sessions, workshops, expert panels and certificate programs designed to help solution providers build new cloud practices (or advance existing ones).

Agenda highlights include:

• CompTIA Executive Certificate in Cloud (fundamentals): a five-course pre-event workshop covering the knowledge and skills solution providers need to successfully deliver cloud solutions to business customers. Attendees also will learn how to leverage industry best practices in marketing, sales and client relationship management.

• Cutting through the Fog of the Cloud: join a panel of industry-leading tech journalists as they cut through the “buzz” that confuses solution providers and their customers. This session will objectively cover cloud research, information and success stories gathered from across the IT channel, the influence of mobility and the security requirements affecting these technologies.

• CompTIA Executive Certificate in Cloud(Intermediate): step up your cloud practice with this three-part training session, with a deep dive into processes that will improve revenue generation. Participants will receive valuable takeaways such as the:
  • Cloud solutions playbook,
  • CompTIA 10-Week Guide to Accelerating Your Cloud Business,
  • CompTIA Quick Start Guide to Accelerating Your Cloud Business and
  • One CompTIA Education Credit for each course completed.

Last but not least. Be sure to join the quarterly face-to-face meeting of the CompTIA Cloud/SaaS Community at Breakaway, where they’ll share additional business improvement ideas and work on key industry initiatives. Time’s running out, so register today at no cost.

Kelly Ricker (Twitter: @kellyricker) is senior VP of events and education at CompTIA, the voice of the world’s information technology (IT) industry. As a non-profit trade association advancing the global interests of IT professionals and companies, CompTIA focuses programs on four main areas: education, certification, advocacy and philanthropy.