The concept of ‘cloud computing’ is causing a lot of stir at the moment. And it’s no wonder, as it is arguably one of the greatest technical revolutions since the invention of personal computing. However, while most of us have come to grips with the basic functions of our PCs and laptops, there exists a lot of confusion surrounding cloud computing, even amongst the most seasoned computer user.

At its most basic, cloud computing is ‘internet computing.’ Essentially, it involves the accessing and storing of applications and services over the internet. So far, so simple. However, the term ‘cloud’ itself seems to be one of the main causes of confusion. People often ask: ‘What exactly is the cloud? and ‘Where is it?’ The best way to answer this is to think of ‘cloud’ as an umbrella term for the data centres that store these applications and services. There is no one physical cloud in the sky in which this data is stored. Rather, there are huge centres all around the world that hold this information. Just think of the hard drive on your laptop or the server in your office, but on a much larger scale.

The truth is that the layman has been using cloud services for quite some time now, though they may not have been fully aware of it. Take, for example, your internet banking, your Gmail or Hotmail accounts, and of course, your social networking. All of this information is both stored and accessed remotely. Whether you log in to your email account from your smartphone, tablet, laptop or PC, what you are essentially doing is accessing data which is stored in a remote centre, possibly thousands of miles away.

When the concept of cloud computing is simplified, the personal user realises that there is little to be afraid of. However, in the business world, adopting cloud services can seem like an ominous task. This is due in part to the high level of data that most organisations would need to transfer to the cloud. It is also due to the wide variety of cloud solutions that are available to business customers. Some more common questions: ‘How do I know which is the right cloud solution for my company?’ ‘Will our sensitive information be safe?’ and ‘How long will the migration process take?’

This is where Cloud Compare steps in. As Ireland’s first cloud services brokerage, Cloud Compare acts as the independent middleman between service providers and customers, ensuring the right cloud solutions are adopted for the business. However, there is more to Cloud Compare than simply identifying appropriate solutions for clients. The team at Cloud Compare also works closely with clients to ensure that these solutions are implemented and managed in the most effective ways possible, as well as offering support and review services so that clients are always ahead in the cloud.

Cloud Compare is currently rolling out tailor-made workshops for organisations that are looking to move their operations to the cloud. These interactive workshops are conducted on the client’s premises and generally last about 3 hours. They aim to equip staff with the necessary knowledge for the adoption of cloud services and include a personalised take-away report outlining the individual needs of the organisation, along with suggestions for cloud solutions.

If you are unsure about which direction to take on the road to cloud migration, a Cloud Compare workshop could provide you with the answers your organisation needs. All concerns are covered; from the commonest of queries to technical and company-specific requests.

Eamon Moore is Managing Director of Cloud Compare, Ireland’s leading Cloud Services Brokerage.

Contact Details
Phone: + 353 1 5312300
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Web: www.cloudcompare.ie
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/cloud-compare
Twitter: www.twitter.com/CloudCompareIE
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Anyone know where I might score a Bing Ads coupon that'll work for someone based in Ireland?
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Here are some blogs you might like. It is a bit of a bugbear.

www.smallbusinesscan.com/ireland-awards-...o-foreign-suppliers/
www.smallbusinesscan.com/size-really-does-matter/
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With thanks to Gerry Sinnott;

Probably 99% of the Non Disclosure Agreements we see that have been used “quickly” by American companies with their potential Chinese counter-parties are defective, usually terminally so.

www.chinalawblog.com/2012/08/china-ndasn...we-need-to-know.html
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Hi Camillus,

Find it very difficult not to agree with you. As you know I have a jaundice view on marketing. Not with the art of marketing, but with the people claiming to be marketers. I just finished reading another book by Brian Solis, which shows the importance of marketing; www.bookbuzz.biz/blog/213-branding-and-total-recall.html, with the brand as the beacon and brand as the sum of all experiences.

Which again suggest that it is important for marketers to lead the way.

You might find this interesting too; www.slideshare.net/tkawaja/marketing-technology-lumascape It shows how complex marketing has become. From a technology perspective, from a channel perspective, from a ditribution perspective (what will 3D printing do to marketing?) and mix that with social media, design, user experience and filter bubbles and you have a lot as an old marketer to catch up on.

Happy to suggest some books to read and discuss

Ron
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Is marketing fit for today?

In a previous article I raised the question about marketing and accountability. Can or are marketers willing to be held accountable for the results or lack thereof?

This raises the question if marketing is fit for today? It is quite amazing how little confidence the C suite( its the latest Management Jargon, I just had to use it) has in marketing, if the results of a Fournaise study are believed. They suggested in a study from July last year, that 80%, yes 80% of CEOs do not really trust marketers. Now the key is to differentiate between marketers and marketing. Is one directly connected to the other. Maybe not, but it certainly doesn’t help if a whopping 80% of CEOs don't trust marketers.

So what to do about this? Is it because they see so much of what marketing does is a waste of money? For Rex Briggs writing in 2012, has suggested that 40% of marketing budgets are wasted. So this would seem to support this belief in waste and with 50% of brand preference campaigns not working and 98% of Direct Mail campaigns also unsuccessful, and when according to David Trott, 89% of advertising is not even noticed, marketers certainly seem to deserve the lack of trust of their CEOs.

As if to drive the point home in the same survey, it was highlighted that, and I quote “marketers are too disconnected from the financial realities of companies”. Now that is some indictment. If this was a 5 or more years ago, this might be somewhat acceptable, if you were willing to hide behind ‘soft metrics’, like brand awareness or advertising recall, but in 2013, never mind 2012, it’s bad, real bad.

If we can agree that the starting point for marketing - is to begin with the end in mind - achieving turnover and profit objectives, then we won’t become infatuated with measuring these kind of - nice to have, but not critical - measures.

So what should we focus on when it comes to the role of marketing? Money, pure and simple. Now, we know that this money is not going to grow on trees that we can harvest at will, and we also know that we have to ‘give’ something in return for this money, our products, our services and so on.

So in order to get this money from prospective customers the usual 'default' response seems to be, lets ‘sell’ to them. But why would anyone buy from you if they’ve not heard of you, or would even consider you? Sales is just one measure of achievement, but its not the ultimate one.

And how do we think we should ‘sell’ to these potential customers? Well, then we think we should advertise to them. Lets tell them why they should buy from us and we’ll come up with a great slogan, using creative that ‘will standout’ and we’ll use the latest and ‘coolest’ media to reach them. That will make them open their wallets and just hand across their money, won't it. But the funny thing is they don’t. Why? Because the majority of messages are banal, easy to copy and don’t really differentiate us from our competitors, never mind competing for the money that customers might decide to spend elsewhere (think of all the insurance companies extolling the value of their prices - sometimes, I think these are based on a mythical consumer). If people don’t buy from you, its because they don’t WANT you!

What does marketing success look like?
So what is the ultimate measure of success? Profit is by far and away the best measure of success. So how do we go about achieving this success. Well, we start with a very clear and unambiguous strategy because "agreeing clear objectives makes marketing more accountable and more effective by focusing minds and resources on tasks that matter" (Binet & Field 2008) and as Professor MIchael Porter has reminded us for several decades, if a strategy is misconceived, more talent or more research won’t help.


So following on from setting clear objectives how do we bring these objectives to life?

Its not all about the medium, and with the multitude of media channels used by both customers and marketers, it becomes more difficult to select the best channels. So if its not then medium, then what is it? Well its its about communications because its all in the message. You’ve got to get a message that works for your business and your target customers and for that to happen you need a message that cannot be copied. To get this ‘not-to-copy message’ you have to decipher your organisational or brand(s) DNA, or to put it another way, you have to get inside the ‘mind’ of your brand. I think the words of Rudyard Kipling explain this well “they copied all the could, but they couldn’t copy my mind and I left them sweating and stealing a year and a half behind”. Can you say with complete confidence that your message can’t be copied. Does your message go to the heart of the DNA, the ‘mind’ of your brand(s) and/or organisation? Is it built on a fundamental, provable truth, like M&Ms ‘melt in your mouth and not in your hands’ ( see Powerlines by Steve Cone for more examples), that can emotively engage your target audience across all the media channels at your disposal?

Is this ‘not-to-copy’ message based on helping you achieve your commercial and financial goals? You see when we strip away all of the hype around marketing that seems to be about advertising, selling, PR, social media, direct marketing and so on, the reason that anyone does business with us, is because we communicate with them. Seems blindingly obvious, but we forget about this because we focus too much on campaigns that deliver ‘soft metrics’ including brand awareness, advertising recall, Facebook likes and so on.

Marketing needs to lead the drive for revenues.
Now here’s the rub. Marketing hasn’t always gotten a good press, but marketers have, what I believe is an ‘understanding’ based on their education, training and experience and, therefore the ability to make the commercial and financial goals of their business a reality. Why? Simple really. Think of every other function in a business, which one of them takes the lead role for revenue generation? It’s not finance, it’s not IT, it’s not HR and it’s not even sales. This is where marketing can take the lead role for revenue generation within the business by focussing on turnover and profit, supported by messaging that is built on a strong and measurable strategic foundation. The time for marketing to stand up and lead the way is NOW!
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From our friend in Soical Entrpreneurs Ireland:

If you are a social entrepreneur in the Mid West region, you may be interested in going along to the next monthly meeting of the Mid West Social Enterprise Hub which will take place in the Absolute Hotel, Limerick on Thursday the 2nd of May at 11am. This monthly networking session is part of the Limerick Open Coffee Club and you can register to the online community by clicking on the following link.

plus.google.com/communities/116670619862524992858

(Please note you need a Google Plus account to sign up)
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Hi Ron,

Thanks for your reply.

For me the only way to know what the best option is for a business is to look at their both business and technology requirements and work from there.

We have developed our Cloud Adoption Framework for SMEs (CAFS) to conduct a five-step approach that aligns the correct Cloud services with the needs of a organisation. CAFS maps out a business’s cloud journey from start to finish through five stages – assess, review, procure, implement and manage.

The adoption of CAFS ensures that businesses consider the strategic, financial, regulatory, security and management impact of Cloud adoption. CAFS provides the tools and techniques to assess the business case for Cloud technology and then facilitates a Cloud implementation project.

To coincide with National Cloud Week this week we are launching a brand new initiative to the Irish market. Our 'Cloud Ready' Workshops will help to educate businesses about the Cloud while leaving them with a Cloud Adoption Roadmap with actionable steps to move forward.

Further information is available at www.cloudcompare.ie/cloud-ready-workshops/

Hope this helps.

Eamon
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From our friend in Soical Entrpreneurs Ireland:

If you are a social entrepreneur in the Mid West region, you may be interested in going along to the next monthly meeting of the Mid West Social Enterprise Hub which will take place in the Absolute Hotel, Limerick on Thursday the 2nd of May at 11am. This monthly networking session is part of the Limerick Open Coffee Club and you can register to the online community by clicking on the following link.

plus.google.com/communities/116670619862524992858

(Please note you need a Google Plus account to sign up)
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If it is a local service, the clip board works. If it is a product, try start selling on local markets. Selling being the best way of reseaching the market. If you tell us more about the porduct, I am sure we can help and ask the SBC community for some help and feedback.

You could also try Kickstarter and other crowd funding sites as a way to get feedback.

Ron
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Hi,

The Irish Exporters Association offer a good guide. Though they concentrate on exports, there is fantastic amount of information that is entirely relevant to you. They also have a service directory with freight forwarders who can take over the whole process from you in terms of documentation. You need to familiarise yourself with INCOTERMS and international forms of payment, need to understand the currency exchange risks and so on. Revenue also have a comprehensive guide www.revenue.ie/en/customs/leaflets/import-procedures-guide.pdf

A lot to digest!
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Hi
I've recently designed a new product, primarily made of metal. I have costed the making of it in Ireland but it is wayy to expensive.
It was suggested that I try Alibaba and see what companies respond.

I have done so and received offers many times cheaper than the Irish equivalent. But what is the next step?
Is there a step by step guide to importing? Do you contact Revenue? What are shipping agents?

Is there a service that will look all from port to port including documents, tax/duty requirements etc...

How do you go about it?

Thanks
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Just read www.smallbusinesscan.com/data-protection-for-small-businesses/

The ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) can fine small businesses up to £500,000 for breaches of the Data Protection Act. how does this work in Ireland?

Ron
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Hi Eamon,

Thansk for your post. What in your view are the best options?

Ron
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Cloud Services Brokerage - The New Middleman in Cloud

It seems everyone is talking about Cloud Computing at the moment. In simple terms, Cloud
Computing refers to applications and services offered over the Internet. These services are
housed in data centers all over the world, which collectively are referred to as the "Cloud."
Services like email, file storage and even your Windows desktop will no longer require a
server in your office - they are now run from the Cloud and accessed over the Internet via a
range of devices including smart phones and tablets.

Cloud Computing is still in its formative years in business terms. And as a result, there can be
confusion on the part of buyers as to what the best options are, for them. Although many
companies are both willing to, and capable of applying the resources necessary to utilise
Cloud services, others are not. For example, some companies establish direct commercial
relationships with Cloud providers and apply their own IT resources to address their
technical requirements.

Although some companies have the commercial and technical resources to handle these
tasks, others do not or don’t want to do so. This has created the role of a Cloud Services
Brokerage. With their experience and knowledge of Cloud Computing they assess the
individual needs of the organisation and recommend Cloud strategy, usage and
management using the vendors best equipped to provide the options required. In other
words, a Cloud Services Brokerage is a third party company that adds value to Cloud services
on behalf of Cloud service consumers.

Many of these companies are struggling to understand the Cloud and the benefits it can
bring to their business. The number of Cloud offerings available and the complexity of the
landscape creates confusion for them, and this confusion is amplified by concerns about
security and data ownership. A Cloud Services Brokerage will act as a middleman and will
use their extensive experience of Cloud Computing, business and technology to assess
customer needs and to advise them on the best Cloud options available to them.

Cloud Services Brokerage is an innovative new concept that bridges the gap between Cloud
providers and businesses. It offers a new route to market for Cloud providers and allows
businesses to gain confidence in Cloud services by ensuring that they have chosen the
correct service based on their individual requirements.

Far too often, organisations are encouraged to switch to Cloud services for the wrong
reasons. A Cloud Services Brokerage will act as an intermediary to provide an honest and
independent recommendation based on research, best practice and industry standards.

Eamon Moore is Managing Director of Cloud Compare, Ireland’s leading Cloud Services
Brokerage.
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Here is the link to Zipit website; www.zipit.ie/

It does look good. Particularly liek the blog (I am an Xbox fan); Parents need to be able to give back to our children some of the freedoms we had as children ourselves and encourage them to take risks, explore their environment, look for adventure and stretch the boundaries.

Zipit seems to be a real live Xbox
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As a response to www.smallbusinesscan.com/cloud-hosting-small-business-benefits/ we got a query on @smallbc:

@JonyMulholland know a company I can talk to about cloud? Any volunteers?
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