Making it Rain: Monetizing Revenue in the Cloud

By Dominick Sorrentino, Editor  |  June 16, 2015

Whether you embrace the cloud, hate the cloud, fear the cloud, or look at a blue sky and ask “what cloud?” the shift toward cloud technology is inevitable, and as it happens, every level of business will be affected.

The question on everyone’s mind now is where does the money come out?

“Traditional businesses have been struggling with the way they’ve generated revenues,” Ian Khan, Manager, Head of Innovation & Marketing at Solgenia told TMC (News - Alert) at Cloud Expo in New York last week. “For telecoms especially, the challenge now is how to drive revenue with cloud, because cloud has proliferated the industry . . . how do we find new and unique ways to monetize our existing customer base, our existing infrastructure?”

The answer, according to Khan, is in SaaS (News - Alert)-based solutions that utilize already existing infrastructure and customer base. It sounds simple in theory, but a lot of value can get lost in translation. Creating and maximizing a revenue stream in a new cloud model takes a lot of strategizing.

“That’s what Powua does,” Khan said, referring to Solgenia’s cloud management platform for monetization. “It kind of uses the infrastructure to serve customers: you’re using equipment that you already have, a customer base that you already have, and you’re generating new revenue.”

Khan asserts that many businesses, especially telecoms, have hit a glass ceiling in terms of how they can drive revenue. And for many companies, the cloud hovers in plain sight on the other side of this ceiling, with vague forecasts of revenue, but no monetization handle to grab onto. Powua creates this handle by understanding the needs of a company’s end-users, and how it can offer SaaS-based solutions to these customers in a viable business model. 

A recent example is taking place in Europe, where H3G—in partnership with Ericsson—is harnessing the power of Powua 3.0.

“The consumers are using our solutions . . . through their mobile phones on the H3G network, and H3G is monetizing that by offering subscription-based access to these solutions,” Khan said. “This has generated a new revenue stream for H3G, so in addition to the regular telecom minutes and plans they sell, now they’re in the business of offering business productivity tools to their customers on a subscription basis.”

With workforces around the world turning to enterprise mobility, the immensity of this type of revenue stream needs no further glorification; it’s safe to say that H3G is feeling the ‘Powua.’

And as long as other telecoms embrace a SaaS model as the cloud looms large, they will too—especially if Solgenia has anything to say about it.

It’s been cloudy for a while. Now it’s time to make it rain. 




Edited by Maurice Nagle
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