The struggle is real. Hyperscalers may have control of the cloud services jungle, but according to Gartner, there are a few do’s and don’ts that tech companies' general managers should keep in mind when working with the behemoths.
Gartner recently released its top tips for dealing with hyperscalers – and Silverlinings got an insider’s look at the report just for our readers. Tech general managers, this one's for you.
- DO invest in cloud independence because many enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy and will continue to do so.
- DO prioritize your functional and vertical expertise. Yefim Natis, distinguished vice president and fellow emeritus for Gartner wrote, “Application customers stay loyal to vertical- and process-specific functionality, or integration to the organization’s existing systems. Generalist applications from the hyperscale vendors aren’t cheaper enough or more scalable to justify switching to them.”
- DO pitch your applications and services to business decision makers not IT, and while you are at it, showcase your application value and suitability.
- DO preserve and elevate your own brand. According to Natis, “software and services brands that catch business executives’ attention differ from those that are notable for IT executives. Pitching a product as available via a given hyperscaler does not elevate it for many business buyers."
- DO NOT bother to compete with hyperscale vendors on price. Natis wrote, “As hyperscalers commit substantial resources to drop their price in order to effectively compete with each other for cloud services unit pricing for workloads and applications.”
When it comes to these do’s and don’ts, the report doesn’t mince words about where hyperscalers are lacking.
“Hyperscalers’ brand power in IT is unmatched, and their ability to provide software and services vendors with opportunity and rivalry forces new approaches to product design, development, marketing and sales strategies,” he wrote, adding, "General managers must personally engage their products and sales organizations to protect current and future revenue opportunities (see Table 1) by funding products, staffing sales efforts and forging partnerships."
What's in Table 1, you might ask? Well, Table 1 is where he breaks down the opportunities where hyperscalers lack authority — see below.
