CA Technologies Webinar Outlined Three Steps to Building a Successful Cloud Business

A webinar sponsored by CA Technologies (News - Alert) highlighted the steps to building a successful cloud business. The presentation, “The Private Cloud Triad: The Model, the Plan, the Platform. Three Steps to Building a Successful Cloud Business,” outlined the top three things businesses need to know to be successful.

According to the webinar, businesses are heading to the private cloud and many of them may be choosing a cloud platform right now. Businesses are also interested in growing their margins and offering higher level services, but are also concerned about the potential high cost to entry. Companies need to create a business model that can take advantage of SaaS (News - Alert) market growth and also offer those types of solutions to customers and prospects.

The webinar, aimed at small to mid-sized MSPs, telcos and cloud service providers, was moderated by Charles Weaver, CEO and co-founder of the MSP Alliance (News - Alert). Weaver also presented an overview of the business aspect of the private cloud as well as a SaaS market overview.

Other presenters included Mike Marks, VP of business development for the Cloud Customer Solutions Unit at CA Technologies, and Steve Stewart, senior director of service provider marketing for CA Technologies. Marks discussed the forecast and plan for the private cloud business model, while Stewart examined the go to market plan and how companies can market and sell their services successfully. The webinar also examined how the CA AppLogic platform can aid businesses in achieving their goals.

According to Forrester (News - Alert) Research, SaaS comprises the bulk of public cloud revenue with over $21 billion in 2011. That number is expected to rise to more than $132 billion by 2020. Forrester also finds that dynamic application services make up the largest portion of the virtual private cloud market at $3.09 billion in 2011. A company's business model should cover four key areas: whether cloud is the right business for the company's strategy, attractive financials, risk mitigation and choosing the correct technology.

The webinar stated that a company's business model should not be about ROI for cloud technology but should instead focus on strategy, competition and the existing customer base. Revenue considerations for a cloud business should include services, pricing and packaging details and customer adoption and growth rates. Additional expenses to consider include the required hardware to run a cloud platform, software, data center resources, staffing and implementation.

A number of risks must also be addressed when considering the cloud, including the upfront investment, potential vendor lock-in and trade-off with single vendor solutions and how new service offerings will impact the current business and staff in terms of training, marketing and customer awareness.

According to CA Technologies, there are three proven steps to a success launch of a cloud services business. Cloud service portfolio planning is key, with a differentiated set of cloud services being offered and a phased service launch designed to take market share. The second step is business modeling to maximize profit and accelerate breaking even, including the pricing and packaging of planned services and the initial customer adoption and service growth. The final step is market launch and sales enablement. This includes acceleration of lead generation and rapid spin-up of sales and marketing staff.

The presentation also summarized how CA can help businesses achieve their cloud adoption goals through joint market planning, white-labeled and co-branded marketing assets and online and event marketing. The company also offers a Cloud GTM Execution Workshop and installed base inbound marketing with demand generation programs.

To find out more about CA Technologies, visit the company at ITEXPO West 2011. To be held Sept. 13-15 in Austin, TX, ITEXPO (News - Alert) is the world’s premier IP communications event. Wendy M. Petty, senior advisor of Business Development, Cloud Strategy and Solutions at CA Technologies, is speaking during “Picking a Winning Mix: Keys to Cloud Service Success.” Don’t wait. Register now.

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