Today’s global economy is creating information and new technologies at an ever-increasing rate and pushing us to our limits. However, we have always adapted and survived. The current adaption process is encouraging specialization and convincing companies to migrate to the cloud. 

The logic is simple. Specialization minimizes the learning curve and allows individuals to maintain proficiency in their chosen fields without being overwhelmed. Hosted and managed solutions leverage the skills of outside IT specialists to quickly expand a company’s capabilities at a reasonable cost. Initially, going virtual was relatively simple since the choices were limited, straightforward and the learning curve was short. Services such as hosted VoIP, e-mail or CRM were easy to understand and implement. Now, however, the choices are wide-ranging and some require specialized knowledge and skills just to make the right selections for your company’s requirements. This scenario presents both opportunities and challenges for resellers. 

For example, communications-as-a-service technology applications can function as stand-alone solutions or be combined with other cloud services beyond VoIP and UC. These include SaaS (News - Alert) applications like hosted electronic medical records and cloud finance/ERP solutions. Each of these segments has some critical prerequisites with respect to security – very obvious for anything connected with finance but the EMR component must also comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This adds on an additional layer of specialized requirements for companies engaged in the health care industry. Both market segments are exploding and will continue to do so. The aging population of baby boomers is approaching retirement age and will require increasing amounts of health care and financial services. 

Currently, financial and health care industry challenges tend to revolve around secure communications and secure data transfer. Resellers with CaaS technology experience can leverage their expertise to seed the baby boomer clouds and become true rainmakers.

Many have already formed relationships with providers of secure solutions like hosted fax services, which remain a critical component of the financial and health care industries.  

Baby boomers have dominated market patterns since they started being born and that trend will definitely continue for some time but do not limit yourselves to the financial and health care segments. Many other opportunities, such as those in the hospitality industry are also excellent targets.