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Many solutions providers consider SaaS to be a game changer and believe that cloud services will forever change the way the IT channel does business.
Suresh Ramani, CEO, Techgyan, Mumbai-based Microsoft business partner, says, “I believe SaaS will be the biggest game-changer for solution providers especially those focused on SMB segment. There is an existential threat to the traditional solutions provision business as hardware and software infrastructure will move from on-premise to the cloud. It’s time, we all realize this and start strategizing for our future sustenance.”
Srikant Rao, President and CEO, Affordable Business Solutions (ABS), hosting services and SaaS provider, echoes the same view: “Cloud services will create a paradigm shift for the entire ecosystem including the IT channel and vendors. They will have a similar impact on the IT channel as online ticketing has had on travel agents.”
Prashanth Subramanian, Executive Director, Quadrasystems.net, another Microsoft partner says, “In this model, vendors will control service delivery and customer billing, the most important elements of customer engagement. Smaller SPs focusing on SMBs will be impacted more than their bigger peers. With a substantial cost advantage on offer, SMBs are expected to go head on for cloud services while large enterprises will have a mix of both on-premise and SaaS.”
But Rao elaborates, “This doesn’t mean that channels will have no role to play. With cloud services IT penetrations will increase 10 to 15 folds, which means the opportunities will also grow exponentially. What will change are the role of channel and the revenue models. The partners will have to reinvent themselves from the traditional business mindset to the new reality of cloud computing and differentiate themselves to retain their relevance in the value chain.”
Ramani too reiterates the opportunities, “Presently, we target small businesses with less than 100 nodes to provide software infrastructure. But with cloud services we will able to target larger companies as we don’t have to bother about deploying multilocational on-premise infrastructure. Also we don’t have to manage SLAs as they will be managed by either the hosting partner or the vendor. Our USP will lie not in deployment and maintenance but consulting, customization and training.”
For business sustenance, partners will reinvent themselves to become service oriented rather than product oriented. “The focus of partners should shift to business consultancy from technology consultancy where they can help customers to decide on technologies they should use and how to use. Their aim should be to help the customers adopt technology online,” concludes Subramanian. |