Migrating to cloud

Migrating to cloud services generally means traditional product resellers have to re-evaluate their business models. Even if you sell specific products, an upgrade is never bad! Staff strategies are also important and common means of generating revenue. Those partners who aren’t accustomed to service-oriented business models will have to find that becoming a cloud reseller generally requires a number of strategic changes.

Here are some common struggles every product reseller needs to tackle

Selecting the right partner

Any traditional value-added product reseller will tell you that a high-quality product is the most important factor. Even the best hardware or software will matter little if your vendor’s technical support. Or their financial health is critical. A simple yet complex solution comes from Google, it's solution GSuite has a large library of apps that can help businesses.

Compliance and legal issues

Another common struggle the product reseller faces is the legal issues that surround a cloud service partnership. The customers might have regulatory or compliance requirements that must be upheld not just during the service contract but for a certain time after that as well.

Working with or against hardware/software vendor partners

Most of the cloud resellers have existing partnerships with software and hardware vendors who in turn may be developing their product. This will create either an opportunity or a conflict.

Working with another vendor/provider will enable cloud resellers to develop better and more creative packages of cloud-based products.

Staffing needs should be updated to meet new demands

If you are a cloud reseller who is currently into a traditional software/hardware sales, migrating to cloud services is a smart move. You should expect this move to shake up the division of labor. For the resellers, staff labor time will decrease and focus less on initializing services. The implementation staff might be retained to work on integrating the cloud services with enterprise infrastructures, but the staff will likely see less work with on-premises servers.

Cloud services will shake up the old revenue models

The cloud resellers’ business models need to evolve so that they are able to survive the growth of cloud services. All the small-sized businesses and medium-sized businesses want one provider and one bill.

If this partner program includes royalty, the cloud reseller will need to wait for a few months to even a year before they are able to recoup its sales cost for the services they sold. This wait can sometimes create risks for cloud resellers. If the customer cancels the services or if the provider goes out of business, the cloud reseller will be shortchanged on any royalties.

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