Market View 06

Deepika Gupta

Chief Technology Officer

Market View 06

Deepika Gupta

Chief Technology Officer

It is key to take into account the business needs when defining the cloud strategy. Failure to meet these expectations will result in frustration across the customers.

What are the top priorities when creating a cloud strategy?

When defining a cloud strategy, the number one priority should always be the end-user, also known as the ‘customer’. The customers expect a seamless and reliable experience when interacting with the business products. Depending on the business product, the requirements from the cloud platform will be different in terms of scalability and availability. Thus, it is key to take into account the business needs when defining the cloud strategy. Failure to meet these expectations will result in frustration across the customers.

Businesses also need to consider ongoing cost when defining their cloud strategy. Over time, their requirements and usage is likely to increase, leading to a correlating rise in cost too. With proper planning, it is possible to keep cloud costs stable whilst still meeting customer requirements.

What do businesses need to think about after their cloud solution goes live?

When a cloud solution has been adopted by a business and is working how they would like it to, there are then two areas of constant focus that need to be maintained. The first is the end-to-end customer experience. As the cloud providers are moving more and more towards a micro-service-based offering, it is imperative to track key success metrics from customer perspective instead of individual services. The customers do not care about the service levels of each of the services but the overall experience they have when using the platform.

Alongside this, the second focus is keeping up-to-date with the cloud solutions provider. Because there are always new developments within cloud technology, it can be easy to miss an update or exciting new feature. It should be up to the cloud provider to keep consumers informed of any updates, but it doesn’t always happen this way.

As the cloud providers are moving more and more towards a (micro-) service based offering, it is imperative to track key success metrics from customer perspective instead of individual services.

A good relationship with your cloud provider is crucial. A good cloud provider would build the relationship around customer success instead of service performance reporting.

How can businesses separate a good cloud provider from a bad one?

The service consumption model for cloud services makes a lot of sense on paper. The power to pay only for what you actually consume is hugely enticing to businesses. But in reality, it rarely works like this. There are so many add-on services and consultancy extras that it can quickly become quite tricky to keep track of costs. This is where a good relationship with your cloud provider is crucial. A good cloud provider would build the relationship around customer success instead of service performance reporting. Sadly, many big cloud providers even today struggle to provide a real-time customer success dashboard.

Sunweb Group is one of the largest travel operators in Europe, with large brands across seven different international markets. They are passionate about developing digital brands that stand out, leading the way for their partners through truly human interactions and ever-expanding hospitality expertise.