Cloud backup
Why Resellers Should Offer Cloud Backup Services
Resellers can play a key role in small and midsize businesses’ migration to the cloud by helping them select the right backup options to meet their needs.
Gateway to Higher Margins
18% of respondents said cloud backup services are a “gateway” to higher margins and IT services, and 67% said they typically sell cloud backup as an addition to their primary service.
Rising Demand
79% of respondents expect to see increased demand for managed cloud backup services over the next 12 months. Only 20% expect no change and less than 1% expect a decrease.
Competitive Offering
51% of respondents said they could not compete without cloud backup services or it would be very difficult to compete without them.
Profitability Rules
Slightly over 30% of respondents said managed cloud backup services were “extremely” or “very” important to their overall profitability. Another 40% said these services account for a “low but not insignificant” percentage of their revenues.
Cloud Laggards
About 29% of respondents said managed cloud backup services account for a small percentage of their revenues or not at all.
Considering the Cloud
Solution reliability and cost are the top two considerations of IT resellers when they select a cloud backup solution, followed by support, the ability to store data at the provider of choice, and degree of manageability.
Selecting Cloud Providers
Reliability of service and security are the biggest criteria when selecting a cloud provider for customer backup requirements, according to IT resellers.
Key Criteria
Other top reasons for cloud provider selection include ease of file restore, cost per gigabyte, ability to bundle cloud backup with other cloud services, tech support and partnership benefits.
Lack of Adoption
The top two reasons customers don’t adopt cloud backup, according to IT resellers, are data confidentiality or the need to keep sensitive data on-site, and unavailable/slow backup or recovery due to poor Internet connection.
Adoption Barriers
Other top reasons for slow customer adoption are an inability to select cloud providers for their backup needs, questions about data ownership (who can access the data in the cloud), cloud storage provider service suspension and security concerns.