Happy New Year

The whole team at Cloudreach would like to wish our customers and partners a happy and successful 2014. It seems strange to be saying that a week or two into the new year, but as you’ll know if you’ve seen Cloudreach in the media, it’s been a busy and exciting few months for us. We’ve included some links below if you’d like to catch up with what we’ve been doing.

While everyone was busy making their new year resolutions, here at Cloudreach we set ourselves some targets too. So here is our vision for 2014.

Investment

Over the course of 2014, we’ll continue to invest in the best people and technology. This will ensure we can keep our customers at the leading edge of their markets. Through our partnerships with leading global service providers, we have been able to offer our customers the very best business computing tools available, affordably.

Our promise to our customers this year is to keep up-to-date with the latest developments and trends. Combined with our team’s expert knowledge, we’ll deliver our innovative range of services according to the exact needs of our business partners.

Our team of experienced consultants each have proven track records in business. We have invested in the best people, simply to ensure the service we deliver to Cloudreach customers is the best available.

We will continue to develop and grow our team as we continually expand the products and services we can offer in 2014.

Events

It’s important to our customers that we keep our finger on the pulse, attending industry events alongside our technology partners. Last November Cloudreach invited our customers to join us at the Gartner Symposium ITxpo in Barcelona.

With a week of themed networking receptions, we gained valuable insight into the future of cloud computing, alongside 1,500 CIOs representing the world’s leading names in IT and business technology.

As well as showcasing the wide range of Cloudreach services, attending events allows us to keep up-to-date with the industry developments. This ensures we are offering our customers the latest, most innovative solutions to suit their businesses.

As a Premier Consulting Partner for Amazon Web Services, Cloudreach will be attending two industry events next month. Our team will share the floor with Amazon at the TFM&A show on the 25th-26th of February. And at the Cloud Expo Europe on 26th-27th February we’ll be in the AWS Partner Village, close to where AWS will be running lab hosting sessions. 

Cloudreach in the media

As a leading provider of business services in the cloud, you can expect to see a great deal more of Cloudreach in the media. We’ll be partnering with some of the industry’s key names to bring you news, trends and best practice approaches to cloud computing.

Pontus Noren, Co-Founder and Director of Cloudreach has started us off in 2014, sharing his expertise with readers of the well-respected ‘Information-Age’ title. This article reviews the true potential of the cloud, and explains the benefits of taking a smarter approach to business.

Pontus’ article gives useful guidelines to businesses on setting their cloud resolutions for 2014. And unlike most new year resolutions, Cloudreach is working with its customers to make sure they stick to them.

From adopting new business technology to guides on how to stay ahead in the cloud and how to make cost savings, Cloudreach continues to provide content and commentary to the industry’s leading publications.

A new era

Given our approach to constant development, it will come as no surprise to our customers that a new Cloudreach website is in-build. The site will offer a host of new features, engaging information on our range of services, and resources to add value to our customers. This new site will transform the online presence of Cloudreach, and characterise our vision for 2014; of progress and opportunity.

Dream Big For Your Business; Cloudreach and Dreamforce

As a consulting partner for a number of global leaders in the world of cloud computing, Cloudreach is committed to bringing its customers the very latest in news, innovations and trends from the world of business technology. Here, we take a look back at Dreamforce, the biggest Cloud Computing event of the year, to bring you an insight from industry leaders.

Who better to kick start a look into the future of business technology, than the Chairman and CEO of Salesforce itself, Marc Benioff. The fact that Marc started the company back in 1999 alone shows the vision of Salesforce as a company, a fact supported of course by the success of Cloudreach customers using Salesforce to drive their business.

Marc introduced the event as keynote speaker on the morning of the second day. And what an introduction to be making; the likes of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Yahoo President and CEO Marissa Mayer and world leading cancer doctor and author David Agus all showing the weight of Salesforce as an organisation.

Alongside the informative and insightful demonstrations, presentations and seminars with leading figures in the world of business technology, Dreamforce also delivered entertainment on a global scale. Tuesday’s Gala saw Green Day and Blondie headlining what could possibly be seen as an explosive “alternative networking session”. Watch that appear on the billing next year!

Dreamforce Benefit demonstrated the company’s strong tradition of philanthropy, showing that there is more to the future of global business than simply developing strategies and increasing deal sizes.

And finishing with a Q&A session with Marc Benioff and Parker Harris, Co-Founder of Salesforce.com was a fitting way to conclude the event. Opening up the floor to users of Cloudreach business services characterises the company’s approach to developing through collaboration and feedback from end users, and from their service partners. It’s also why Cloudreach is proud to offer expert implementation of Salesforce products.

This show of strength from Salesforce, through their Dreamforce event will no doubt come as reassurance, but shouldn’t be any surprise for Cloudreach customers currently developing their business using Salesforce.

As leaders in the implementation and strategy development of cloud-based business applications, Cloudreach proudly flies the Salesforce flag. If you’d like to join us for Dreamforce 2014 to find out why for yourself, you can find all the details here

Transform Your Organization with Google Apps Collaboration Tools

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success”  – Henry Ford

In an incredibly competitive space with an ever faster growing pace of work, organisations are recognising employees as their number one asset. Where there is teamwork and collaboration pulling all their knowledge together as well as their resources and skills there is an increase in productivity and profitability.

With that in mind, many organisations are turning to cloud based communication and collaboration tools such as Google Apps. Teams can meet and converse spontaneously using Google Hangouts. Workgroups can create content simultaneously in Google Docs, seeing changes in real time with full version control.

To look your staff in the eye on a daily basis, no matter where they live, creates a real sense of belonging for those remote employees. People want to be social even at work and Google Apps collaboration enables that.”

Moving to Google Apps ensures a robust set of tools that meet organisational needs. Having the ability to work together in real time, no matter where they live, connecting teams and remote workers.

Learn more on how Cloudreach can help you transform your organisation, join us at the Going Google Edinburgh Roadshow, Dec 4th 2013

Cloudreach online at Gartner

The middle of November saw the Gartner Symposium ITxpo 2013 take centre stage in Barcelona. Cloudreach took along a few tricks of our own, and some neat themes to entertain guests on our stand.  If you’ve never made it to Gartner before, you need to make sure you’re at the next one. But, enough of that – something big is happening in the digital world, and we’d like to share it with you.

The internet of things (IoT) is a concept with its roots in the late ‘90s, at a time when the true extent of 21st Century digitalisation could barely have been dreamt up. There’s no doubting that the advances in thinking and technology over the past 10 years or so have been spectacular, unprecedented, even unthinkable in 1999 perhaps.

But even back then a need was emerging for a new type of world, where digital creation would lead the world’s biggest systems; economies, health, business. And out of this need came the ‘internet of things’.

At Gartner, this concept was realised as an everyday phenomenon that is transforming the way we live; unique internet structure-like systems to automate processes which until now have been subject to human-to-human, or human-to-computer interaction. Just about every device you can think of can benefit from communicating with other devices or ‘back to base’ whether its a gas-meter, a streetlight, a car engine, a vending machine or a freezer in your local supermarket!

It is widely acknowledged that the growth of the world’s top businesses will rely on being more connected, more able to control their assets, and more able to track their progress and automate systems.  The work Cloudreach has been doing for its customers is very much in the vein of this concept - all these devices generate huge volumes of data; data which has to be structured, stored, sorted, visualised and analysed.   Cloudreach uses the power of cloud-based technologies to provide the capability needed to deal with the volume, velocity and variety of this data.

By assisting our clients with the installation and management of a vast array of tools to help them track, analyse, automate and generate data from their business systems Cloudreach is enabling them to “know what they don’t know” and then address it.

At Gartner, Cloudreach was in the company of some of the world’s leading CIOs - Leaders of world business, whose job it is to forecast the development of future business, and to lead the global change due to emerging digital trends.  We found it reassuring therefore, that we’re already embracing these trends, and exploiting them for our customers.

Don’t wait for the next Gartner expo to discover a direction for your business. Speak to Cloudreach today.     

Cloudreach to help showcase the future of business at Gartner 2013

Mobile, social, cloud and information technology are at the centre of the Cloudreach proposition. They are also at the centre of a spectacular event in Barcelona this week which looks set to showcase the future of global business collaboration.

 

This is your invitation to join Cloudreach on stand A7 at the Gartner Symposium ITxpo 2013 from 10th – 14th November in Barcelona. Join 4,000 of your professional peers, including 1,500 CIOs as Cloudreach stands alongside some of the world’s leading names in IT and business technology.

 

For Cloudreach, Gartner is an opportunity to offer the industry an insight into the accessibility of technology and systems that have forged global market leaders. And we’ll be offering this insight in style, with a series of themed networking receptions throughout the expo.

 

Here’s what guests on the Cloudreach stand can look forward to:

 

Night 1 (Monday 11th) – Star Wars themed reception

 

Stars Wars themes may have been done to death, but they’ve never been done like this! We’ll have a Death Star piñata for delegates to get stuck into, as well as our expert cloud business consultants on hand to offer useful meteors of business advice.

 

Night 2 (Tuesday 12th) – Weird Science themed reception

 

Don’t be put off by the lab coats – it’s all part of the fun you’ll have when you work with Cloudreach. Our cloud consultants will be mixing up weird and wonderful cocktails while they demonstrate that doing business should be fun, as well as successful.

 

Night 3 (Wednesday 13th) – Superheroes theme

 

Everyone’s favourite theme, we’ll be challenging our guests to a superhero duel – Nintendo WII style. Cloudreach customers don’t do losing out to the competition, and nor will you with the large chocolate medals we’ve got ready for our superhero winners!

 

If you’re planning a visit to Barcelona for Gartner 2013 you’ll have a unique opportunity to sample a vision for the future of global business with the explosive expo line-up.

 

Make the most of your visit and get along to stand A7. A visit to the Cloudreach stand will ensure you leave the show confident of your own business’ place in the future of the IT revolution.

 

And don’t forget - you’ll receive a Cloudreach kite when you visit us on Stand A7!

Did you see us in the Telegraph?

Article published 20th October 2013

‘Analysts predict that by 2015, 90 per cent of large enterprises will have moved to the cloud – savvy enterprises will take advantage of the agility and cost reductions the cloud can offer. And it’s more than cost savings…

Innovation - fail fast

After years of marketing promises of “utility computing’, true pay-as-you-go consumption of IT infrastructure is available. The ability for an organisation to have an idea, execute on that idea and ‘fail fast’ has never been greater. As barriers to investigating new initiatives come down, low-risk and low-cost innovation can thrive. 

Raising productivity

With competition fierce, organisations recognise employees as their number one asset. The cloud lets staff collaborate in real time with friendly, familiar, convenient applications.

Making it happen

The cloud requires a different mindset, and at Cloudreach we live and breathe cloud applications. Whether you are looking at collaboration, CRM, infrastructure, test and development, disaster recovery or big data analytics, the cloud changes everything - from forward-thinking consultancy to seamless data centre migrations and application development through to 24/7 managed services.

With key partnerships with Amazon Web Services, Google and Salesforce.com, we provide support for our customers at every step of their journey from helping you assess your suitability to supporting your cloud estate’.

Pontus Noren, Co-founder, Cloudreach

Sales Cloud

Cloud computing empowers businesses to increase their efficiency, make significant cost savings, and improve communication, at the same time as offering innovation previously available only to global market leaders.

Managing your sales and marketing functions through a cloud-based CRM system such as Salesforce is the difference between having a good business, and having a great business. With the right level of expertise, experience and knowledge, CRM will:

§  Drive innovation
§  Improve collaboration
§  Increase knowledge of your marketplace
§  Simplify communication channels
§  Enable you to focus on the future of your business

The key benefit of cloud computing is in the opportunity it provides to look at what a business already does well, and improve it considerably through more efficient systems and joined-up thinking.

The key benefit of a cloud-based CRM system is the ability to manage your sales and marketing activities, and internal teams in one central place. Accessible from anywhere by anyone, Salesforce offers a comprehensive suite of tools to enable you to tailor the system to your exact business needs.

With easy integration of systems your business already knows and uses, and scope for independent developers to build their own apps within Salesforce, the only limit to your success is having the knowledge and understanding to make the most of the opportunities. Fortunately, Cloudreach is here to do just that. We’ll lead you through the process in the most suitable way for your organisation.

The main asset of any business is its people. People with the ability to shape your success exist inside and outside your organisation. Doing something new to inspire, motivate and influence them is the key to a successful sales and marketing strategy.

Achieve all this through Sales Cloud by Salesforce and you’ll have a great business. But ultimately, we know you invest in your business to do one thing; to increase your bottom line. That’s why the consultancy services offered by Cloudreach focus on the real-time benefits of cloud computing, namely increasing:

§  Turnover of sales and productivity
§  Conversion of leads
§  Average deal size and win rate
§  Accuracy of forecasts and visibility of sales activity

Moving your sales function over to the Sales Cloud also allows you to capitalise on the mobile business revolution. In the past two years, use of mobile internet has increased by over 80%. Far from covering your bases, ensuring your sales team has the tools to perform effectively via their mobile device is an opportunity you can’t afford not to take.