the 5 stages of cloud transition

Brought to you by HowToSellCloud.comBrought to you by HowToSellCloud.com

The Five Stages of Cloud Transition

Presented by: George Brown

www.salesworks.com

http://howtosellcloud.com/


http://salesworks.com/

Brought to you by HowToSellCloud.com

Operationalization

ProactivityAwarenessDenial Optimization

Five Stages of Partner Transition



Business Management

The customers need and want us. The Cloud is just another deployment option. Nothing will really change regarding service consumption. Our business model is safe.

Finance & Admin The same controls and procedures will continue to do just fine.

Marketing Marketing? Isn’t that what Microsoft is supposed to do for us?

Sales Dazzle the prospect with demos until we hit on something they want to buy.

Professional Services

Let’s design a solution a tailored solution just for your company. It will serve us all best that way.

R&D IP? We build custom-tailored solutions and leave R&D for the ISV’s.

The Denial Stage – up to 2012



Business Management

• Understanding business model impact• Understanding the shift in human resources

Finance & Admin • Cash flow impact• Capital requirements• Change in contracts & billing mechanisms

Marketing • Shift from sales to marketing (facilitating the buying process)

• Shift to increased volume of new customer adds• Shift from interrupt to on-demand marketing tactics

Sales • Cost of sale reduction• Sales cycle reduction• Prescriptive approach versus solution selling

Professional Services • Repeatable rapid delivery• Reduced (and different) labor inputs per project• Cost structure reduction• Increased remote delivery

R&D • Overall vertical competency assessment• Formalization of owned IP

The Awareness Stage



Business Management

• Align resources and planning processes • Identify target markets

• Vertical, Customer scenario, Geography

• Establish Volume offering set• Product suite• Packaged services

Finance & Admin • Build financial model & business plan• Product, marketing, sales , services• Pro forma P&L’s

• Set pricing structure

Marketing • Set promotional price structure (including discounts)• Ready marketing

• Keyword research, Domain acquisition(s)• Conversion content, SEO/SEM• Trial strategy• Marketing automation & data mining tools• Social media strategy identified

The Proactivity Stage



Sales • Escalate sales readiness• Build volume sales muscle (new hires)• Develop skill sets and competencies needed• Adjust compensation to reward behaviour• Adopt new sales methodology• Train on new value proposition

Professional Services • Escalate delivery readiness – set solid service ratios• Identify and test streamlined implementation process• Prepare data migration procedures• Design packaged services and managed services offering• Deploy volume solutions to learn

R&D • Development is assessing Agile programming methods• Build Solution Matrix by vertical, including packaged

services & identify fit / gap with your current IP• Crystalize existing IP into repeatable functionality• Test with end customers in appropriate vertical(s)• Incorporate into each vertical offering

The Proactivity Stage - 2012



Business Management

• Cloud/Volume product and packaged service offerings crystalized

• Discreet teams created to pursue each one, leadership driving new business model

Finance & Admin • Cash flow deficits identified & funded• Management controls and infrastructure in place• Contracts & billing engine in place

Marketing • Marketing machine in place• Social media strategy in active• Keyword research ongoing• PPC campaigns are producing• SEO (off page and on page)• Data mining & marketing automation tools working

• Initial marketing wave active• Vertically oriented PPC campaigns• Squeeze pages, offers, capture mechanism• Trail management in place

The Operationalization Stage



Sales Sales machine in place, including:• Sales methodology with embedded support tools• Compensation models• New hires• Collateral and sales support materials for managing trial • Active recorded demo scenes and sequences• Capable of live functional demos


Service delivery machine deploying solutions• Implementation packaged service offered• 50% or more of services delivered remotely• Training videos V1• Demo video V1• Configuration image used by vertical • Service margin is targeted above 45%

R&D R&D has fully adopted Agile programming methods• Customer feedback and marketing driving functional changes• Next “builds” identified• R&D synched with marketing on contract renewal releases

The Operationalization Stage



Business Management

• Manage and refine core KPI’s:• Gross margin (services, packaged services,

“subscribable” IP)

• Customer add rate and market penetration

• Customer acquisition cost

• Customer satisfaction

• Churn rate

• Labour cost

Finance & Admin • Billings and collections running smoothly

• Cash flow healthy

The Optimization Stage




Marketing • Refine and adjust ongoing marketing activities• Social media ongoing• Blogging• Off Page SEO (Link building)• Keyword strategy ongoing• On-page SEO• Ongoing PPC campaign refinement based

on results experienced• Nurture email active “campaigns of 1”• Tight integration/handoff with Sales



Sales • Continuous “wave” selling as part of inside sales & support function to:

• Defined revenue per subscriber targets set• Grow solution footprint & share of wallet• Create “sticky” customer experience• Manage churn below 10%


• Streamlines customer onboarding process:• Provision an instance in less than 30 minutes• Remote training & support• Other value-added consulting revenue streams identified and

working

R&D • Continuous functionality upgrades, components and point solutions targeted

• Agile development fully adopted• Code quality high• Bug reports low




Presented by: George Brownwww.salesworks.com


http://salesworks.com/

the 5 stages of cloud transition

Technology

business model

business management

professional

optimization

finance amp

proactivity

operationalization

amp