As the industry grows, businesses want to migrate to the cloud to seek its advantages, and this is where they typically contact a cloud provider. As the cloud is a thriving industry, IT suppliers want to be able to offer these cloud services to customers. Therefore, instead of creating their own cloud platform to accommodate customer requirements, IT suppliers are becoming resellers and partnering with existing cloud providers.
So, what are the benefits of being a cloud reseller as opposed to creating your own cloud platform?
Vendors already have a cloud platform in place, where they run and maintain the system for existing customers. As the reseller is, in essence, renting the space on the platform, all these elements continue to be managed by the vendor, including off-site backups. When a solution is designed, you and your customer can be up and on the platform in no time at all.
Usually, all this technology comes with a price; however, as a reseller, you don’t have to pay to maintain the infrastructure as you would when creating your own cloud platform. Traditionally, costs would include an IT team to manage the infrastructure, hardware costs to manage the upscaling process, and power costs.
As a reseller, all you would pay for is the resources and services your customer uses. From this base cost, you’d then add on any additional service costs from you onto their final bill.
Many cloud vendors offer resellers the opportunity to retain and manage the customers themselves. As an example, virtualDCS offers both a reseller scheme and a referral scheme. The reseller scheme allows the reseller to maintain control of their customers, which includes all points of contact, including invoicing.
Cloud vendors want to ensure that their resellers have a smooth and profitable experience working with them, which is why they offer comprehensive support and, if needed, training. This can include marketing assistance, sales assistance, and technical support.
If you were to create your cloud platform from scratch instead of partnering, these are resources that you’d have to source or create yourself.
Many vendors also offer a white-labelling option, which means that you can rebrand the service provided by your reseller and sell it as your own. This builds your own business brand recognition, whilst taking advantage of outsourced experts.