Managing Cloud Based Backup is Critical to IT Reseller Competitiveness
For many years, we were intuitively aware that IT Resellers needed a top quality data backup solution in their offering list. Now, CloudBerry Lab has proven this to be so through a detailed and comprehensive survey of a large number of resellers.
Earlier this May, CloudBerry Lab announced the result of a survey of 434 IT solution resellers and Managed Service Providers (MSPs). The survey was conducted in March and asked respondents several open ended questions about their understanding of how important cloud based backup solutions were for their business. They were also asked to comment upon the trends they could discern in the industry and the factors they considered critical when selecting their backup solution provider.
Data analysis showed that there was considerable commonality in the answers. Large percentages of respondents marked similar capabilities as critical to their business.
Key takeaways –
- Cloud backup is growing and will continue to do so – as many as 79% of the survey takers were firm that demand for cloud based backup would continue to increase over the next 12 months.
- Vendor managed cloud based backup solutions were critical – 51% of vendors polled admitted that vendor managed cloud backup solutions were critical to their profitability. If they did not offer this, they would be unable to compete. As against this majority, 29% resellers did not consider cloud based backup a critical part of their portfolio. It was shown later those offering backup solutions had three times greater business as compared to those who did not offer this service.
- Both reliability and cost were important – resellers felt that both cost and reliability needed to be focused upon. Reliability was more important, followed closely by price. However, other aspects of the service such as security and ease of restore were also critical.
- Small businesses worry about their data – resellers found many small businesses were apprehensive about entrusting their data to a third party. They also worried about the ease of access and the low quality of internet service in their area.
- Selling managed cloud backup key to greater sales – resellers that included managed cloud backup in their service offerings rang up three times as many sales as compared to those resellers who did not offer managed backup.
CloudBerry Lab’s CTO Alexey Serkov has commented that costs of cloud based storage are dropping all the time, yet resellers who offer managed backup have seen increasing profit trends. Many SMBs may be apprehensive about cloud storage but smart resellers were showing SMBs the advantages and the stability and this helped bottom lines grow for the SMBs as well as for resellers.
