Strategic Alliance Magazine Q4 2017 - 34

BIG CHANNEL BETS

How Cloud Computing Has Changed the Buyer Paradigm
By Norma Watenpaugh, CSAP

Cloud computing is a technology
consumption model that has fundamentally
changed who the buyer is and how they
buy. Some 70 percent of the IT budget is no
longer in IT, according to Gartner and other
IT research and advisory firms. The funds
and decision authority reside in functional,
operational budgets under the discretion of
line-of-business (LOB) buyers. This means
that the chief marketing officer (CMO) can
select and subscribe to the lead nurturing
system or data analytics services that best
meet the need of the department. IT may
never be involved, and the IT organization
struggles to stay relevant. That's not to
say IT shouldn't have a role. For example,
buying software as a service puts a load
on the company network that needs to be
considered and managed.
have been digital marketing agencies that also sell to
the CMO. The sales model for Marketo can take many
forms-a simple referral, white label subscription, or
the agency can provide digital marketing services on
their own instance of Marketo and bundle the cost in
their services. Marketo doesn't much care, as long as
its software is provided in the mode that the customer
wants to consume.

34

The same sort of model is evident with Quickbooks. Its
primary channel partners are small accounting firms
that provide accounting and tax preparation services to
small businesses.
STRATEGIC ALLIANCE MAGAZINE | Q4 * 2017

The LOB buyer has very different criteria for
making decisions than IT. Take, for example,
another kind of CMO-the chief medical
officer of a health care facility. That CMO will
be looking at how to improve patient care
and reduce medical mistakes. Only partners
who understand what LOB buyers care
about, what they are accountable for, and
the trends within their industry will be able
to effectively sell these services.
With "everything as a service," there is
also elevated expectation on "time to
value." When you download a new exercise
tracking application to your phone, what
is your expectation of when you can begin
using that app and getting value from it?
Exactly! Instantaneous! Enterprise software
services aren't quite instantaneous, but the
expectation today is days and weeks, not
months and years.
Working with a partner with business domain expertise
is quite a change for many vendors, even for those who
are providing business applications.

Leveraging the ecosystem
When you look at the complexity of selling
cloud solutions, especially when you look
at the opportunities in digital transformation
and IoT enabled by cloud, it's clear that no single company
can deliver an end-to-end solution. More than ever, channel partners, vendors, and software/SaaS companies need
to collaborate as each brings a piece to the puzzle.



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Strategic Alliance Magazine Q4 2017

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