How to Sell Cloud Computing to Your C-Suite

While speed to market and possible cost savings are great features of cloud computing, it often takes more than that to convince your C-suite that implementation is the way to go. Take a look at the tips below before your formulate your pitch.

A conversation with your C-suite will often start with numbers, but in this case, you may want to reconsider where to begin. In the summer of 2016, CEB conducted a survey of 28 CTO’s and those numbers didn’t produce a clear insight into which option is more budget-friendly. The survey found that a bit over half of the 28 CTO’s  said cloud costs were more expensive than on-prem and just under half maintain that they are cheaper, if not equal. No one can make an easy decision based on those insights.

Learning the role that cloud migration plays in what your CFO shares with investors is key. This will give you a better idea of how important cost is and how much they may be willing to bend. You’ll want to make sure that the cloud fits into your organizations growth strategy. According to techtarget.com, It’s also important to understand the following three things before you make your pitch:

• What the CFO’s expectations are for growth
• Whether any long-term cost savings from cloud use can be used in other areas of the enterprise
• If the short-term costs of cloud migration can be covered by efficiencies created in other areas of the business

Timing is another vital aspect of this process. Ask yourself if it makes sense, financially, to migrate capacity to the public cloud and if you can come up with a timeline that works, add it to your C-suite pitch.

Something else to point out is that cloud-based systems are centrally updated, which means organizations utilizing it will always have the ability to take advantage of the most recent technology.

And when it comes to scaling, forget about it! This specific point should be a slam dunk for you, as the cloud is easily scalable and can be configured to match specific use cases.  The C-suite should be more than happy to hear about your plans to scale and grow their business with the cloud.

Immediate transparency and simple service are two other great selling points that you may want to include in your pitch.

We predict that highlighting the chance to attract and retain new customers along with scalability will lead to a successful pitch, but if your C-suite still needs convincing, point to how the public cloud will allow your IT department to provide better service to the rest of the enterprise.

We’ll be watching. Stay with us for updates on their progress. And don’t forget to connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.