Cloud Roundtable: How To Find Success In The Cloud Era

At a recent CRN roundtable, cloud executives offered tips to partners on how to be successful in the transition to cloud products and services.

"As an EMC Federation company now, we're really seeing a growth opportunity in the public and private, on-prem, off-prem cloud deployment models," said Sean McGinn, vice president at Virtustream.

He added that when his company looks for partners, he doesn't want them to abandon their original offerings in favor of new cloud products and services.

"We're looking for those types of partners who are willing and able to invest in transforming themselves so that they're still capable of providing traditional services from an infrastructure standpoint but can be a strategic adviser," he said.

Bobby Patrick, cloud chief marketing officer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, suggested that solution providers look for variety in their cloud offerings.

"As companies all go to the cloud, cloud is not just AWS, right? It actually is a variety of deployment platforms, and I think it's the right mix that matters," he said.

He added, "You have to lead with security -- it's a hybrid world."

Phil Sorgen, vice president at Microsoft, urged the channel to find out what makes a business offering or strategic partnership unique.

"When you look at how you deliver value, what percentage of that value is uniquely delivered by you, monetizing that value, and how do you make it repeatable to many customers and ideally drive it into a recurring revenue stream?" he said.