No it won’t.
I was working earlier today and had two engineers from different companies, both based in Mumbai, working on two servers on my screen. I joked with a colleague that I’m just acting as a proxy server. I wasn’t doing much, but I was doing important work that the client didn’t want to do i.e. liaise with different support engineers from different providers to make sure that their IT worked.
And this is exactly why Hosted Exchange will not lose you your client.
I’ve yet to find a cloud services company that will get to know your client by name, and likewise that your client will get to know personally.
I’ve yet to find a cloud services company that will understand the client’s network from the PC through to the cloud. One that will help diagnose problems on their printer, broadband connection, iPhone and dodgy space bar on their keyboard and be the single point of contact for all those things.
This is why clients will always phone us first. The market for support companies is now moving to Service as a Service. Vendor management will become an increasingly important part of our service offerings.
Will Hosted Exchange affect your bottom line?
If you currently sell on premise Exchange then it is important to find a suitable partner to sell Hosted Exchange as there will be cases where it is simply more appropriate for the client. There is then the argument as to whether there is more margin in selling on premise solutions rather than hosted. There probably is, but if all you are looking at is the margin on the sale rather than the value it presents to the client then you aren’t going to be building a strong relationship with the client, and I would argue that in the long term if the client isn’t getting value from you then you aren’t going to get as much out of the client.
Author: Adam Pedder, Managing Director at Shadowfax
