First for Cloud
The Way of
the Future
First for Cloud, Africa’s original cloud services brokerage (CSB), has multiple
benefits for business partners looking to resell cloud services to their customers.
Now eighteen months after its launch, as First for Cloud gains traction in the
local market, we re-examine some of the benefits offered through the CSB and
profile three early adopters whose own First for Cloud-enabled webstores have
gone live.
C
loud service brokerages (or CSBs) operate in
a layer between cloud vendors and private enterprises, integrating various cloud services on
one platform and making it easier for businesses to administer, navigate, integrate & consume
cloud services whilst reducing cost and risk at
the same time.
With so many services now available in the cloud, businesses can face serious complexity in trying to manage all their
services and accounts, particularly if each service has its
own separate account. CSBs add value in simplifying this
by offering a single sign-on point, and usually a simple and
logical dashboard of all current services utilised by
the organisation.
This in turn allows organisations to reduce their own investment in time and IT resources in managing the complexity.
It stands to reason that an organisation which spends less
time and effort on trivial administration is able to better
focus on other more profitable areas of the business.
Enterprises also benefit from the economies of scale
which CSBs can provide. Due to spanning a wide variety
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of services from a multitude of providers, CSBs can often
offer better cloud usage rates than if individual enterprises
signed up for cloud services individually.
This ties into the core element of what CSBs can offer,
namely value. Whether it be simplicity, cost benefits, enhanced security or, as is often the case, all of the above, the
CSB needs to add value to the original cloud services being
offered in order to make a valid business case for itself.
First for Cloud
First for Cloud offers a number of solutions to get resellers
started on the road to selling cloud services as quickly as
possible. These include both pure cloud services as well as
value-added peripheral services such as consulting, webstore setup and support, to name just a few:
- A Cloud Services Catalogue
Resellers are able to select the services they want to distribute from First for Cloud’s wide portfolio of
world-class vendors.