Kloud takes out the Excellence in Cloud Productivity Award during the 2015 Microsoft Australia Partner Awards
"We want long-term relationships with our customers and we see no value in winning a piece of work then getting the hell out of there.
“This approach drives a different process and we’re now turning down more work than we’re saying yes to because we want to do the right thing.”
In taking out the Enterprise Mobility gong during the Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year awards this year, against the tech giant's global channel community, Kloud assesses the marketplace when seeking external input, seeking cultural fits for both partners and customers.
“If they cut our lunch and provide a better service than us then the customer should take it,” admitted Bowers, reflecting an seismic shift in thinking among channel partners.
“But if we’re constantly supporting the customer they have no reason to look elsewhere.”
Lock-in or lock-out?
Consequently, Bowers challenges customers to move away from age-old methods of doing business, advising them against signing three-year contracts in favour of monthly billing cycles and renewals.
“If we’re delivering a service that is of value, and I go back to my point again, then they simply won’t want to leave us,” she explained.
“We find that by giving the customer freedom and starting off small, they begin to add more managed services and grow as they require more which has proved a successful approach.”
In challenging the traditional ecosystem around how they win, deliver and close business, Bowers believes the market is ripe for future growth, alluding to the untapped potential of cloud migration in the workplace.
“We butt heads against Accenture a lot who are untraditional SIs, but we’re not butting heads all the time and that’s key,” Bowers added. “This shows that there’s still enough work in the market for other partners to come in and make money.
“If I was competing at every single turn then I’d have to change my entire business model.”
With employees across Australia and Manila, Kloud specialises in assisting corporate and government customers in adopting cloud technologies, providing consulting capabilities through its professional and managed services.
“Because of this approach customers are now turning to traditional partners and asking for the same type of service and that’s challenging the channel,” Microsoft General Manager of Small, Medium Business and Partners Asia Pacific, Valerie Beaulieu, added.
“If the rest of the ecosystem fails to transform, they will become irrelevant.”
Delving deeper, Kloud is also rebelling when fighting for deals, moving away from constantly responding to tenders in favour of examining the bigger picture at play.
“We’re challenging how our customers go to tender,” Bowers explained. “VARs will always offer a fixed price but with cloud, customers don’t always know what they need, which is why we focus on providing time and materials to understand the requirements first.”
Looking ahead
With over 180 employees operating across three states in Australia, Kloud has brought on board 20 new customers during the past 12 months, working with customers at different levels of cloud maturity.
“It’s a long-term play either way,” Bowers added.
Looking ahead, Bowers said plans are in place to increase the company’s managed services business and head count as it branches outside of Australia, targeting Asia under the Telstra banner.
“We won’t grow it to kill it but our capabilities are expanding rapidly,” Bowers added. “In terms of what we can achieve in cloud, I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface yet.”
James Henderson is attending 2016 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto as a guest of Microsoft.
