What starts as a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and managed services provider search has turned into something much more. In fact, once your local government office began looking at ways that cloud communications could streamline and support your tasks, it was tempting to reconfigure most of what you do on a daily basis. Luckily, the cloud communications provider encouraged a thorough examination your current platform first. Through that process they were able to determine your specific IT infrastructure and determine how they can use cloud services in conjunction with, and in many cases compliment, what the current IT infrastructure.
Questions to Ask a Cloud Brokerage Services Provider
- Why do you represent the companies that you represent?
- How are you going to save me money over just directly contracting with these services myself?
- Who will I be getting bills from, you or the cloud communications provider?
- What is the length of the most affordable contract with your cloud brokerage service?
- What are the perimeters for your service level agreements?
- Do you offer managed services?
Statistics Indicate That Ignoring Cloud Services Is a Mistake
- 52% of organizations indicate they have updated their existing cloud services or plan to within the next 12 months.
- 60% of companies indicate they use the public cloud services
- 57% use indicate they use a private cloud services
- 19% use hybrid cloud service, a combination of public and private offerings
- 70% of Chief Information Officers or top Information Technology executives are involved in cloud purchase processes
- 59% of businesses use cloud communications to share data across applications
Any discussion with cloud consultants involves a thorough inventory of the current procedures in use in a company. As a result of this inventory, cloud consultants can see where additional services may be needed. A 200 employee company in the midwest, for example, may find that a cloud communications provider could help extend live phone available personnel times to meet the needs of customers on either coasts who are in different time zones.
Cloud services brokers can help businesses of all sizes consolidate their needs and meet those needs through one contact. The selected broker, in turn, will monitor the latest trends, updates, and prices to help their clients get the most services for their money.
In the case of local school districts and state government agencies who are trying to update their cloud communications while at the same time reducing expenses, a cloud communications specialist can be very helpful. By using the cloud computing model for IT services, for example, many local government plans include ways to reduce data center infrastructure expenses by as much as 30%. Even with these reductions, the cloud communications platforms can provide more, not less, service. Imagine, for instance, offering your online customers the opportunity to quickly access any automated help that they need 24/7, but also option out for live phone conferences.
As more and more companies begin to offer their customers cloud communications opportunities, businesses who have not yet made the move to this platform need to make sure that they reconsider their choices.