In Business Week article, Gartner predicts 3X growth for Cloud Computing – Why?

Business Week featured an article last week titled, ‘How Cloud Computing Will Change Business’ http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_24/b4135042942270.htm.  It offered interesting, even encouraging, insight into the move to On-Demand Services.

 

In the article Gartner says Cloud Computing ‘may be the largest growth opportunity since the Internet boom’.  In fact, Gartner predicts the market for cloud products and services will vault from $46.4 billion last year to $150.1 billion in 2013.  That’s 3X growth in 4 years! 

 

So why is that?  Well, in our case, if you had a contact center and needed an IVR – and if you’re taking inbound calls, making outbound calls or sending text messages, it’s clearly a necessity – you have two options:

 

Option 1

Buy all the hardware and software required, pay for the professional services to develop the applications (and that ain’t cheap), and then turn it loose to greet your most prized possession – your customers.  And the guys and gals in IT taking care of it post-deployment are the same folks tasked with keeping your ENTIRE network running.  How much attention will it get from those professional services guys who’ve since moved on to the next billable project, or your IT staff also tasked with keeping the whole infrastructure running?

 

Option 2

Skip all the capital investment in hardware, software, professional services and on-going annual maintenance fees, and buy per-call, only what you need.  All while knowing the systems are safe-guarded by a vendor whose livelihood is dependent on making sure all the pieces and processes are in place to ensure your customers get 24 x 7 service.

 

Given the options, the Gartner growth estimates for Cloud Computing make sense. 

 

However, there is a big flaw in the options described above.  Let’s say you go with Option 2, because of the brilliant arguments outlined above, and the vendor has a strict SLA in place to ensure calls are taken 24 x 7– seems like a big improvement over Option 1, and it is. 

 

But remember that your customers want a live agent above all else.  They only go for self-service if it’s quicker and better than an agent, or if forced.  The professional services guys you’ve paid to deploy your applications do what they can to ensure your customers will opt for self-service.  But when they have moved on to the next project, who’s ensuring your applications continue to be optimized so that callers will continue to chose self-service? 

 

Option 2 is a clear winner over Option 1 for most businesses today, and the reason Gartner is projecting such aggressive growth.  But even better, is a business partner incented to make sure the self-service rates continue to grow, and not remain stagnant or decline, over time.

 

Business Week goes on to say this move to Cloud Computing is “…one of those turning points where small companies can explode onto the scene while industry giants miss out.” 

 

At Contact Solutions, we’re are exploding, because we haven’t forgotten that businesses only invest in contact automation to save money – so we’ve built a business whose growth is dependent on making sure they do – on a regular basis, not just after the initial deployment.