3 Things Successful CSPs do Differently
It may seem easy to be a Cloud Service Provider (CSP) on paper. But you know it requires far more than simply acting as the middle party between the cloud vendor and the end customer. Successful CSPs need to be able to add value and act as a sustainable partner. They have to differentiate themselves in their markets and offer unique selling points. Some of them do it admirably good. The question is: how?
Offering solid cloud solutions while adding the value of their own is the goal of every CSP. While almost every single one of them has an idea specific to their chosen markets and target customers, the most successful ones have certain common grounds. Here are three of them:
1. They give their customers full control
Cloud computing offers IT flexibility that has never been seen before. The ability to add or remove IT solutions, almost at will, allows them to tailor their environments exactly to their needs of the moment. But, not every organization can immediately communicate their needs quickly enough for optimal provisioning. Often what happens to companies is that they hit a bottleneck, where the data just can’t be sent fast enough. This is typically due to unnecessary manual action.
And that’s a shame because provisioning is as easy or as difficult as the CSP chooses to make it. By offering a platform that automatically spins up or spins down services at a moment’s notice, successful CSPs allow their customers to optimally make use of the almost unlimited resources cloud computing offers them.
2. Crystal clear and predictable billing
Closely related to automated provisioning is the ability of successful CSPs to offer automated billing. By eliminating the need for high capital expenditure, the pricing model is still one of the main selling points of cloud computing.
However, flexible use can also lead to surprising invoices. Tracking cloud use and charging accordingly is admittedly a daunting task, especially when multiple cloud services are in play. That’s because companies typically don’t choose cloud providers that fit the bill technically.
Successful CSPs have therefore incorporated automated billing into their platforms. It makes sure clients know exactly how much they are paying and what they are paying for exactly. This allows them to make decisions on the fly and gives them certainty about their costs.
3. The best CSP is the invisible CSP
There is no way around it: organizations almost always have their own IT environments and applications that they want to retain on-premises. The best-case scenario is that those resources are seamlessly integrated with cloud services. The role of the CSP is to offer that integration without issue so companies can have this seamless experience.
That is why the ideal CSPs are able to keep themselves in the background. They simply offer services in a way that ideally fits with the customer’s environment. Their platform also allows for data synchronization and APIs that link the cloud services to applications with as little effort as possible.
The interworks.cloud platform has you covered
CSPs offering Microsoft Cloud services can find all these features in the interworks.cloud platform. The full control, billing automation, and seamless integration with existing IT clear the way for any Cloud Service Provider to succeed. The tooling is there to carve your very own cloud business. If you want to know more, don’t hesitate to contact us!
