Cloud consultants in cloud brokerage services are not a whole lot different from the regular contracting firms that IT has used for many years. However, they could also mean more profitability and fast cycle times. Projects tend to be a little smaller for cloud services and the language can be difficult to understand. For example:
Do you want your project to leverage offshore resources?
A lot of firms use development testing and different kinds of data in order to keep costs low offshore. This is done to maintain the margins an integrator needs. There is ample opportunity for miscommunication between the offshore and onshore teams. Cloud consultants are needed to reiterate the firm ‘no’ to any kind of suspicious requirements. They should also recognize when there is a problem at hand or quality is not up to snuff. Having your data go offshore is not always a great idea. It may be low cost but that could also mean low value.
Are you happy with this bid?
CRM projects tend to be a bigger section of integration and data than a lot of the other kinds of software. They also are often overly specific in their requirements when a business valuation has been thoroughly checked out. When the bid is to high, cloud consultants should be able to tell you that the vendor is either saying that they don’t really want to sell this project or that the project specifications contain too much risk. Either that, or it’s a mixture of both problems.
Should I reassign the account?
Cloud consultants have to get rid of the bottom 10 percent of their customers each year. In order to do this, they may introduce you to another firm or say no to the next bid. If money is being left on the table, this is a pretty good sign that they may be cutting you out. Letting a vendor walk away usually means that there are too many politics involved, unreasonable deadlines, staff incompetence or some other similar problem. If the cloud consultant is trimming you, check for an internal resistance to change within your own project.
Are you familiar with this technology?
This generally means that the cloud consultant is not and they either need it explained, which is not a good sign or they want to take it out entirely and start over. There is a lot of risks as well as benefits to starting over but you need to make sure that you understand all the verbiage. You don’t want to put old technology into a project that has newer language and interfaces. The ‘rip and replace’ method by be suggested by cloud communications but you should always find out what is wrong with the path you are on at the moment when that is suggested by a cloud service broker.
Can you maintain a higher hourly rate?
Cloud services are not asking you if you’d prefer to stick with the old rate when they ask you this. They are raising their rates and if you can’t afford it, you will also lose their service. What you need to find out is that will there be more value being delivered and a commitment to high standard of quality along with the higher fees? Even if you can afford the higher rates, if there is going to be no change to the service, you may be better off finding another service for cheaper that offers what you have now rather than paying more for no differences in value.
The whole goal of cloud services is to spend only where there is business value. If you find your cloud consultant is building and spending in areas that seem profitless and pointless, you may want to start looking into a new consultant. Of course, find out why they are investing in these areas; they may have great good reason and strategy but chances are the reasons are self serving and not in the greater interest of your company. You need a cloud consultant that you can trust to help you understand the language and the way that this kind of technology works without roping you into some sort of scheme. You have to keep looking until you find that.
