Page 206 - How Cloud Computing Is Transforming Business and Why You Cant Afford to Be Left Behind

MANA GEMENT STRATEGIES F O R THE CL OUD R EV OL UTION

Business management is always seeking a better way to
capture customer loyalty. In the past, that has meant selling
something that the customer needed, but including a hook in
the product or service that more or less involuntarily tied the
customer to the company. As long as he is using the product,
he has to keep coming back. Printers need ink cartridges just

as razors need blades. It’s not a new story.
But the current climate is different from what has gone
before. Business managers are trying to fight their way out of a
deep recession. Wary customers are still reluctant to spend.
What’s the formula for success in such a setting? Just as cloud
computing can reshape relationships inside the company, it
can provide a platform for relating to customers in a whole

new way—a way that can perhaps take into account a certain
unease with the straitened circumstances in which many of
those customers find themselves. As businesses attempt to re-
cover from the downturn, they will not only be competing with
rivals for revenue, but also struggling to restore trust to cus-
tomer relationships. That trust may have been frayed by hard
times, if not irritation, anger, and impatience with Wall Street’s
business-as-usual crowd that helped bring on a risk-filled re-
cession in the first place.

If social networking, wikis, blogging, and community fo-
rums ease communication inside the company, why can’t the
company use the same platform to put its best foot forward
with customers? Why can’t it display its core competencies and
primary values in every interaction with the customer, strength-
ening the relationship?

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