By Dean Ara

We are living in the age of convenience — innovations and new businesses are continuously creating new ways to add value and simplify our lives. As consumers, for a number of years, we have been privileged with increasingly faster access, increasingly better service and continuous advances in technology that are enriching almost every aspect of our personal lives. But we are at a unique crossroads in the business world. We are now starting to see a major shift in the consumerization of enterprise technology to serve us in the same way.

One big change we have observed over the past year is the growing consumption of enterprise cloud applications. There has been an increase in both the number of enterprise applications moving to the public cloud marketplace as well as the ease of consumption of these enterprise cloud applications.

Consumerization of Enterprise Cloud Applications

In the past, enterprises needed to talk to the vendors, complete an RFP process and jump through a number of hoops to select and deploy an enterprise software solution. Today, an organization can go to a public cloud marketplace and, with just a few clicks, spin up an instance of Microsoft Dynamics, SharePoint or other business applications. What’s more, if the application ends up not working out for them, they just deactivate it. No cumbersome strings attached. Plain and simple.

What this means is that the entire enterprise applications process is much faster than it used to be. Vendors themselves are less involved in the buying process. There are no long drawn out trials and contract procedures. The simplicity of this model was formerly only available to consumer apps. Which is why we call this shift the ‘consumerization of B2B Enterprise software’.

Research has shown that analytics and data storage will lead cloud adoption applications in 2017. According to the RightScale State of the Cloud Survey (2016), 75 percent of enterprises with greater than 1,000 employees have at least one app or platform running in the cloud today, leading all categories of adoption measured in the survey. Furthermore, the study found that 90 percent of all organizations today either have apps running in the cloud or are planning to use cloud apps in 2017. Demonstrating how the cloud has successfully broken into the enterprise market and organizations will only continue to adopt and integrate more and more cloud applications in their businesses in the years to come.

The pay-as-you-go Amazon Web Service (AWS) model is a primary driver of this shift. Use of AWS was at an all time high in 2016, with 57 percent of companies running it in the cloud. This is largely in part because AWS makes it easy and affordable for organizations to move to the cloud. AWS offers users the ability to search for and buy SaaS directly from AWS Marketplace Vendors without monthly fees or subscriptions costs. Instead, the AWS pay-as-you-go model only charges users for the services that they consume.

AWS Partners, like Data Resolution, are also helping make this shift possible. Data Resolution provides a one-stop solution for turnkey Microsoft SharePoint Enterprise, Dynamics, and other business solutions, along with the flexibility of pay-as-you-go, bring-your-own-license (BYOL), and managed service options straight out of the AWS marketplace. Solutions like Data Resolution give buyers the ability to:

●Pay for just what you use

●Bring your own license

●Choose packages based on company size

●Choose which AWS region you want

●Take advantage of a 30-day trial

Data Resolution is an example of an exclusive partner with AWS, that ensures these easy to consume enterprise solutions are vetted by a world-class brand to give buyers peace of mind.

The consumerization of enterprise cloud applications is taking the pressure off selecting the right cloud strategy. With the ample number of enterprise apps available in the public cloud, the flexibility in features and the transparency in pricing, there is little reason not jump on the enterprise cloud app bandwagon — but it is important that buyers do their homework before they leap.

What You Need to Know About Enterprise Cloud Applications

Even with the ease of consumption, there are a few important steps buyers need to take before landing on an enterprise solution for their business.

●Buyers need to take the time to navigate the abundance of choices available in the marketplace because a failure to plan accordingly can be costly, in both time and money.

●Buyers must start with understanding their needs and how they plan to use the cloud; identifying where their data will be stored, how much will be used and how it will be used.

●Keeping those considerations in mind, buyers can then narrow down their options for enterprise cloud applications, and select the best-fit solution for their unique needs.

Ready to Consumerize Your Enterprise Applications?

At Total Product Marketing, we work with cloud and channel partners to provide end-to-end marketing solutions for any project. We can help you capitalize on the consumerization of enterprise cloud applications by working with you to develop a well-defined MSP marketing plan to capture your audience. Get in touch with TPM today for help driving business in the public cloud.