Using a Cloud Broker Platform to Drive B2B Growth
What if I told you that there are platforms in existence that have combined aspects of all of the platforms mentioned above? What if I told you that these “cloud broker platforms” are engineered to drive massive revenue diversification and sales growth for B2B organizations across all industries?
Would that be too good to be true?
Table of Contents
What is a Cloud Broker Platform?
Why Choose a Cloud Broker Platform?
4 Components of a Cloud Broker Platform
1. It’s White-Labeled
2. It Has a CRM for You
3. It Has a Web Portal for Your Clients
4. It Has a Robust Marketplace of Apps
Bonus Points: Additional White-Label Solutions & Services
What is a Cloud Broker Platform?
A cloud broker platform is a cloud-based solution that enables any B2B organization to transform into a cloud broker. The key components of the platform are a marketplace of cloud-based solutions to sell, white-labelling for your business, a sales CRM, and a client facing dashboard where your clients can manage their solutions and view performance reports.
And a cloud broker is defined simply as: “...any B2B organization that provides multiple cloud products/services to their business clients.”
B2B organizations from industry verticals such as: finance, marketing, telecommunications, yellowpages, traditional media, technology, broadcast, and insurance, are beginning to make the cloud broker transformation. This is made possible by adding additional cloud solution offerings to supplement existing product/service offerings.
This process serves a number of purposes:
- Builds stronger relationships with your clients by meeting more needs
- Offers you diversified revenue streams and increased margins
- Provides you with increased organizational flexibility and competitiveness
Besides, the businesses have spoken. According to a study by AppDirect, 66% of businesses purchasing B2B solutions would prefer a single solution provider, and a further 51% have already switched, or are currently looking to switch.
Time is of the essence.
Why Choose a Cloud Broker Platform?
If your organization is interested in becoming a cloud broker, a cloud broker platform is not the only avenue.
Here are the competing alternatives:
- Internally develop cloud products and services to sell
- Solicit and perform integrations of existing cloud solutions on the market
While these are very viable alternatives, the greatest problems they present are delayed time to market, high incurred costs, extensive work outside of core-competencies, as well as the risk of vendor clutter and fragmentation.
On the other hand—and it’s not lost on me that we’re marketing a cloud broker platform here, but it’s the cheapest and fastest way to scale—a cloud broker platform is an established solution that is built to give B2B organizations “instant-on” cloud broker capabilities while mitigating extensive costs, accelerating speed-to-market, and centralizing both core business offerings and new cloud offerings.
4 Components of a Cloud Broker Platform
To maximize your market leverage and minimize time-to-market, you need 4 key components in a cloud broker platform.
1. It’s White-Labeled
This is the holy grail. If you’re adopting a client facing cloud broker platform, then it NEEDS to be white-labeled—or in other words, completely rebrandable. When your clients log-in to their account, they should see your company name on the platform they’re using, not the name of the platform provider.
2. It Has a CRM for You
If you are looking to integrate a cloud broker platform into your business, it will be critical to ensure that it’s backed by a powerful white-label CRM. Here are some of the top features to look for:
Marketing Automation
Best-in-class marketing automation capabilities will ensure that you can minimize toil and quickly begin selling new solutions without the sales hump that generally accompanies selling new solutions.
Some key features include:
- Intelligent pipeline management tools for sales
- Performance management tools for managers
- Pre-built marketing campaigns for marketers
- Automatic activity tracking
- Probability analytics
- Contact management automation
Lead Generation
If you’re expanding into new business verticals, then you’re going to need some help. Your cloud broker platform should be complete with AI powered sales tools to help your reps identify new business opportunities with existing clients as well as unmet needs in new industries.
Powerful Dashboards & Reporting
You need a platform that can provide you with powerful business insights to guide decision making. You also need a platform that will automatically generate reports to showcase sales rep performances, campaign performance, task completion, and more.
Project Management Resources
Your fulfillment teams are already busy. New solutions means more projects to manage, more resources to allocate, etc.
Your team needs a task manager that can:
- Remove redundant technicalities
- Organize projects and manage timelines
- Support approval and revision processes
3. It Has a Web Portal for Your Clients
Login & Reporting Portal
Your clients are starving for single sign-in. A cloud broker platform can enable your business clients to login and easily navigate the products they’re using, view proof-of-performance reports, and easily communicate with your business and sales reps from one location.
Store
You already have core product and service offerings. With a cloud broker platform you need to be able to plug and play your business solutions into a digital store, while also adding any number of new cloud-based apps to your offering. You also need the flexibility to price and package various solutions in order to build out a comprehensive client facing store.
Billing
Your clients are drowning. They’re trying to manage payments to 15 different solution providers on 15 different payment portals. They just don’t have time. By adopting a cloud broker platform, your clients get access to the solutions they need most, and need to be able to pay for them all in one place.
4. It Has a Robust Marketplace of Apps
According to ISVWorld, there are 71,000 SaaS solutions on the market, so you need a cloud broker platform that has a carefully curated marketplace of cloud based products and services that align with your core offering, and can be bolted-on with minimal development work.
Key cloud solution categories include:
- Productivity
- Business applications
- Communications
- Finance
- Marketing
- Website hosting & web services
- Community & collaboration
Bonus Points: Additional White-Label Solutions & Services
Along the same line as the white-labeled CRM sit white-label solutions (cloud-based solutions that can be resold under your brand), and white-label services (fulfilment teams that will complete work under your the guise of your brand).
Vendasta’s Cloud Broker Platform
Business is changing. B2B organizations are expanding beyond the traditional confines of industry. Telecommunications companies are stealing business from marketing agencies. Broadcast companies are stealing business from tech companies. And Vendasta is enabling these companies with the platform they need to do it.
Vendasta is the leading cloud broker platform for B2B organizations that are looking to make the cloud transition and accelerate their growth.
Vendasta’s best-in-class platform is complete with a robust CRM, a powerful partner center, leading edge sales automation, a suite of white-label products and services, as well as a carefully curated marketplace of cloud-based products that will quickly give any B2B the upper hand within their competitive landscape.
Are you ready to permanently alter the trajectory of your B2B organization?