5 Cloud-Based Service Fallacies

By Andrew Harrover, CEO, Matrix Computer Consulting, ASCII Group Member Since 2012

What is it about the cloud that seems to confound the small to midsize business (SMB) IT consulting space? You can’t escape cloud-computing advertising unless you are stranded on a desert island. When attending technology conferences, I find many IT consultants in the SMB space tend to be skeptical of either their ability to sell cloud services or the ability of cloud to help their customers. I’ve even heard some say, “It’ll pass.” I sit and listen politely, but I feel like I’m attending a buggy-whip convention in the years after the introduction of the Model T.

For crying out loud, cloud computing is not going away — the single most important thing you can do for your business is wrap your head around that fact. You are fooling yourself if you think you can ignore it. I keep hearing the same things from the folks I talk to:

1. It isn’t in my client’s best interest so I do not bring it up with them. Trust me friends — this just isn’t the case. Even if the client is not ultimately interested in transitioning to a cloud solution, you need to educate them. After all, if you are not educating clients, then who is? I’ll tell you who — your competition. When that happens, a seed of doubt is planted in the client’s mind, one that starts the nagging concern about “why his IT guy did not at least bring this up?” This can rapidly evolve into a trust issue. It is important to do the legwork and meet with your clients or you will have to head off more severe problems.
2. My client can’t or won’t pay for this service. If the cloud alternative is in the client’s interest, you should work hard to devise a way to get them onboard. A complicated cloud solution need not be on offer — it might be something as simple as migrating from a Small Business Server to Office 365. I spent months trying to get a client on O365 from an on-premises Exchange server. Would I have made much more money selling them a hotshot Exchange server and licensing? Sure, but it was not in their best interest. Maintaining an on-premises server really isn’t a trivial affair anymore. When it is in your client’s best interest, figure out a way to get it done.
3. Cloud is a big rip-off. The cloud is not a rip-off. However, it does work very differently than traditional IT. This is complicated by the fact most advertising and messaging around cloud computing is that it is cheaper than buying new hardware/software. In order to craft a plausible value proposition of the cloud, you have to think like a business owner. Look, we’ve all been in the position where a client is looking at a monthly recurring proposal versus one-time project cost — they do the math in their head and sign the one-time cost proposal. It happens every day in Main Street America — “I’ve got the money so I’m going to buy it now.” That is where things like Total Cost of Ownership come into play.
4. My clients are better off using things I can manage because I can control everything and do everything my way. I’ve heard this one since way back in the day and it is still bunk. Nobody can tell me with a straight face that they are better off managing an Exchange server than they are with Microsoft hosting it. Yeah, you know more than the programmers that wrote the software? Also, if you are “doing everything your way,” odds are it is not a best-practices solution and if you get hit buy a bus your client is in trouble. This is, more often than not, an excuse to control your own profitability.
5. It isn’t secure. The big tamale: is the cloud secure? Securing data in the cloud really is not much different than securing it on premise. Yes, if you are using an application hosted by a third-party you have to depend on them to get it right, but this may also work to your favor. Who better to secure an Exchange server (for instance) than Microsoft? Properly architected cloud solutions can mitigate data security concerns, just like on premise.

The cloud is real and it is not going away. Yes, you can take an incremental approach to cloud computing and get your clients onto a cloud platform, but you must not hide from it. If you do, your business might linger for a number of years but you can’t wait it out. This isn’t the same as wide ties coming back into fashion — you’re just going to end up with a closet full of ugly ties.