When you go to hire a new employee, do you show up without questions prepared? Probably not. The same goes for interviewing a Cloud Service provider. It’s important to ask the right questions to find the right partner for your business and your needs.
Asking specific questions will set you up for success with your upcoming conversations with potential cloud service providers. Here are some that I feel are essential to finding the right cloud partner:
1. Do you have experience in the MSP space?
As an MSP, it’s only natural that you want a cloud provider with experience in your industry. Cloud providers with MSP experience have gone through similar issues and processes to the ones you may be going through currently, making them immediately helpful to your business. Some cloud providers simply do not have the same level of commitment and experience relating to MSP businesses, so finding out if a cloud partner has MSP experience beforehand is invaluable information.
2. How is your pricing structured?
When partnering with a cloud provider, price is an undeniable concern. Do prices fluctuate? Are there attached transactional fees? Asking questions such as these will shed light on where your money is being allocated. If possible, ask to see a sample quote to gauge its structure as well. If a cloud provider can’t explain the significance of a price point or hidden fee, there are certainly options that respect your wallet elsewhere.
3. Do you help with migration to your service?
Seamless migration is a massive benefit for MSPs looking to transition to the cloud. Cloud providers that handle migration internally are a huge help, and they take a lot of the guesswork out of the cloud migration process. Asking this question will help you to understand the structure of the migration process; a clear and defined migration structure is often indicative of a cloud provider that offers reliable cloud services.
4. Do you provide backups?
In line with the migration question, not all cloud partners will handle the backup process for your MSP business. In fact, many cloud providers don’t cover backups at all, which can come as a surprise if you are expecting this service before partnering. If backups are provided, a good follow up question is to ask for specifics on the backup process to understand the security you will be offered. Just because a backup is provided doesn’t mean that it is always an effective tool for your business and your data.
5. Why shouldn’t we work with you for cloud services?
This is the question that will make a cloud provider stop and think. It isn’t expected and plays directly into the transparency of the provider to reveal their greatest weakness. No business is perfect, and it is much harder to rehearse an answer for this question than other ones. Honesty goes a long way in a partnership; the insight you gain from this question will reflect on the capability and culture of a cloud provider.
Make sure to write answers down and compare them between all providers. You will often work with a chosen provider for many years, so it’s important to do your due diligence prior to partnering.