How To Connect Your Network to the Cloud

1.Welcome to the Cloud!

Cloud computing is a storage utility which is quick, engaging and enlightening. Building a network will be potentially unique to the requirements of a. your company and b. the connection to the user as and when needed.

You may have seen commercial applications such as iCloud and Drop Box providing simple, deployable solutions that work on your desktop, tablet and smartphone.An office based system is not too different to these applications; however the enterprise will want to often integrate its own IP Address Management (IPAM.) to maintain a tight level of control on its own server.

2. What can I expect?

A lot of business applications are now moving to the cloud, it’s a shift from traditional software as the internet has become more acceptable and advanced over the last 10 years.  Cloud computing will simplify the technology and eventuallyoverlap the network, because of its interconnectivity with phones and tablets, and any other further potential computing devices that may come around.

Cloud-based apps are also very quick and easy to set up. Getting them up and running in weeks and costing less than a network or a CRM tool for research, project files, progress charts etc. The cloud app will let you create projects, reports and manage data in a dynamic format, with charts, graphs and plenty of other formats that other CRMs charge much more money to use.

3. Public cloud access networking

Public cloud access networking, such as Oracle CloudWorld, Cloud Pro and vCloud by VM Ware are all examples of internet cloud access.  These cloud providers are able to support virtual private networks (VPNs) for large customers as well. It’s important to note that not all computing providers will support encrypted tunnels, so there will always be a security issue while your information is sent over the open internet. There are drawbacks to encryption as well, because this often delays data trafficking, slowing your transfer speed.

The more recent innovations in cloud computing are making our business applications more mobile and sleeker to collaborate with. As consumers we expect to be able to deal with information in real time, and business applications in the cloud are heading towards that direction now as well.

4. Will cloud computing continue to grow?

The future of cloud computing seems to be positive, with lots of growth, if not a little enterprising and prosperous as well. A new report from Visiongain entitled ‘'World Cloud Computing Market 2013 - 2018' cites the prospect of cloud computing for the years ahead, painting a starry picture for the industry.

Market revenue for Cloud computing services will grow to $35.6 billion by the end of 2013. This worldwide phenomenon in growth is evidence of the success cloud computing has in industry. It is undeniable that cloud computing is changing the business landscape, and is seen by many as the solution to the problems seen in slow deployment of applications, with limited resources and unpredictable system configurations that can occur in existing IT infrastructure.

5. What we do at my company

Working at The Genuine Gemstones Company a company which has brands selling jewellery live on television, we like to be innovative with ideas and embrace new technology. Our brands Gems TV and Rocks TV are televised in the UK and USA respectively to a TV audience who are shopping savvy and fashion-conscious.

Using cloud technology enhances our reach within the company. With many departments reliant on data, it is useful to keep some low key projects on the cloud and store away data in CRM based charts, processing private data used in the operations for day to day usages.

One example is so we can see what our customers like ordering, such as diamond earrings, silver pendants or a bright blue gemstone sapphire ring for example.  Once we can collate this data on the cloud, we can log in on any digital device connected to the internet, analyse the data and create charts instantaneously, making our own all in one CRM for order frequency and filter out variables effectively.

Our team are always working to keep up to speed with the latest technology, as it is in the nature of the business to excel and achieve and grow year on year.

This post is written by my dear friend Edward Meeks, digital marketing executive at The Genuine Gemstones Company

Mining Email Clutter in Salesforce.com

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, has an aversion to email.  At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2013, his keynote speech was entitled “How are you connected with your customer, your partners, your employees.  Email?  Those days are over.”   Marc should pick up a copy of this month’s Foreign Affairs and carefully read the article written by Kenneth Cukier and Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger entitled “The Rise of Big Data”.  Their key insight is that “Large amounts of messy data trumped small amounts of clean data”.

Marc needs to think beyond the current fad of social networking and realize that the next $1 billion of revenue is in making use of big data.   With big data in his pocket, Salesforce.com’s current overblown valuation might actually be sustainable.

Currently, the big data component of customer relationship management is email and voice; two old technologies that make up 99% of customer interaction.  Think about it, what else is there?    Currently, cloud integration technologies exist that can consolidate all voice and email interactions inside a CRM system and make them available for data mining.

Using that mountain of raw and messy data, sales executives can apply data analysis techniques that can unlock patterns in customer behavior and use those trends to monitor and optimize the sales process.  On a simple level, daily sales rep activity can be measured.  How many emails and calls did a sales rep receive; how many emails and calls did he or she send/make?   More specifically, identify those Leads and Opportunities that are hot and those that are cold.  Look for linguistic clues in the email bodies and voice-over-IP transcripts as to why certain deals closed and other deals were lost.    Look at correlations between won deals and email subject lines to determine which phrases led to commercial success.

But to gain the benefits of big data in a CRM system, Salesforce.com needs to adjust its thinking.  Up until now, Salesforce.com has been about a small set of clean data.  Salesforce.com account reps are trained to create FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) about email and voice-over-IP clutter.    More importantly, Salesforce.com pricing nudges customers away from big data concepts because storage is limited to absurdly low levels:  Enterprise Edition users get 20 MB of Data Storage, only enough for a few months of email and voice-over-IP data; Unlimited Editions users, which in fairness are used by the majority of major corporations, get enough storage for about 18 months.   Salesforce.com needs to unlock these constraints and give customers the space to import big data and analyze it.

There are two cloud services on the AppExchange that can be used as the foundation for email and voice-over-IP big data in Salesforce.com.  Match My Email offers automated Salesforce Outlook integration.  It is different from the other tools and services on the market because it creates a 100% complete and accurate email log in Salesforce.com with no user intervention.  This comprehensive data is then available for analysis.   Shoretel offers a voice-over-IP integration cloud for Salesforce.com.  The Shoretel service logs every voice interaction to Salesforce.com together with a transcript of the telephone call.  Because it works completely in the cloud like Match My Email and Salesforce.com, it captures every phone call regardless of where it is made – mobile phone or office phone.

Making use of apps such as these, Salesforce users can begin to harness the power of big data on their own, and maybe Salesforce will then move in that direction.