A lot of hosters now offer only Hosted Exchange, but with Microsoft offering Office 365 they have no choice but to offer a cloud portfolio with at least Hosted SharePoint, Exchange and Lync in it to compete with Microsoft and other hosters. So time is now to invest in a cloud portfolio. At World Hosting Days in Germany we noticed a lot of hosters are already busy setting up cloud strategies to reach out to SMB’s, I guess you don’t want to be left behind?
Tailor-made cloud portfolio or less customers!
There were two types of hosters at World Hosting Days, the “online shop & go” and the experts. Online shops show a shoe which customers only order after they first researched it on their own, do you recognize these companies? The challenge for these companies is that customers don’t know what shoe they want so they’ll go look somewhere else as well. A lot of hosters lose customers this way. SMB’s are not looking for Hosted Exchange, they need more.
The expert though is similar to sport stores who measure your feet and walking motions eventually advising what shoe exactly fits your need. So the expert offers a tailor-made product and creates opportunities for upsells because they earned trust. This opportunity lies open for hosters as well. By offering a package containing Hosted Exchange, SharePoint, Lync and whatever your customers need you earn their trust allowing you to create even more upsells.
Workspace 365 as a tailor-made cloud portfolio
During the session by Parallels, CEO Birger Steen explained SMB’s are looking for clarity. SMB’s now have different suppliers for each service and miss structural and predictable IT costs. A lot of hosters are keen on automating provisioning and billing, why not offer the same ease to customers?
Workspace 365 is a complete online workspace powered by Office 365 or Hosted Exchange, SharePoint and Lync. We also provide you with the possibility to bundle applications in our cloud workspace. In the workspace we build a business app store allowing your customers to upgrade their workspace with CRM, Project Management and more. Workspace 365 is paid for per month, giving your customer’s a tailor-made product and predictable costs. This way they will know exactly where to look for new products without having to look at other companies first. Don’t let your customers search for themselves, offer Workspace 365.
During World Hosting Days we exchanged a lot of informative knowledge talking with hosters from around the world. We advise a lot of hosters about cloud solutions so if you would like to discuss how we can help with your cloud strategy please let us know.
Regards,
Erik Nicolai
