An essential part of the value you provide your clients is helping them determine which technologies, such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), will help them reach their goals. To be able to provide advice with any merit, however, you need to have a thorough understanding of what’s driving businesses toward those goals. That’s what makes managed services providers (MSPs) and value-added resellers (VARs) supremely qualified to advise their clients on solutions to improve customer experiences. In an industry where your solutions and services can become commoditized, you know how important it is to differentiate your business by providing first-rate customer experiences. IaaS can give that capability to your clients.
What IaaS Does
In general, IaaS gives businesses the capabilities of their physical infrastructure, such as servers and data centers – with a minimal investment in hardware, networking and maintenance. Instead, providers maintain the hardware, offering IaaS as a cloud service that scales with your client’s needs. As a result, they don’t have to invest in infrastructure now to support the changes they anticipate for the future. IaaS also scales down, so your clients pay only for what they’re using today rather than wondering how they will get ROI from investments they no longer need.
For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), IaaS may be the only way to afford high-performance computing and big data analysis. However, investing in the infrastructure – and IT resources necessary to manage it on-site – are usually cost-prohibitive. Those capabilities, however, may be the key to competing with larger companies.
Designing Great CX with IaaS
So, you meet a prospect that wants to ramp up their ability to compete on customer experience but doesn’t have millions to invest in infrastructure. With IaaS, it’s possible. IaaS can support new Software as a Service (SaaS) applications that make doing business with their company faster, easier, more personalized and more convenient. IaaS can support a 24/7 call center, customer portal, and e-commerce solution – technically, just about anything they can dream up.
With IaaS, your prospect could collect and analyze massive volumes of data on customer behaviors and preferences and how products are used. Subsequently, your prospect could use those insights to guide their decisions about how to market their products or services, improve their product, and understand the types of experiences their target market wants and deliver them.
Furthermore, when demand changes due to seasonal volumes, industry standards or new competitive pressures, the company could respond quickly and not wait to budget for, purchase and deploy new infrastructure.
Suppose the business determines its customers want new ways to engage, access services or shop. In that case, IaaS also allows the company to innovate rapidly, perhaps even leveraging Platform as a Service (PaaS) to develop new features. IaaS will enable them to scale to support their projects almost instantly.
IaaS can also help the company achieve greater operational efficiency, supporting tools that streamline processes, minimize administrative hours, track time and bill accurately. Affordable, scalable and usable Infrastructure as a Service provides the foundation for running a more intelligent business. So, when the company engages with customers, their requests are handled quickly, efficiently and accurately, enhancing CX.
For the VAR or MSP
IaaS can also benefit VAR and MSP businesses struggling with infrastructure projects’ thin margins. IaaS allows you to build recurring revenue, not only through the monthly charge for IaaS but also for additional solutions and services you offer with IaaS.
Taking this approach with your clients in markets where it’s tough to compete without data analysis capabilities, digital engagement, and highly personalized service can demonstrate that you understand what they’re up against. And they can trust you to provide them with the advice and the solutions they need. 
