IT Brief New Zealand - Technology news for CIOs & IT decision-makers
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Export yourself to the cloud
Fri, 21st Jun 2013
FYI, this story is more than a year old

The NZ tech sector is well known for companies that are innovative, nimble and quick to market.

We may be a small country, geographically isolated from the rest of the world, but when it comes to software development we can compete at a global level.

Growth in this area is fuelled by the export market, selling our software in Australia, Asia and further afield. In 2012, export sales of software totalled NZ$166 million, a 27 per cent increase on 2010.

Launching into the cloud

In practical terms, to compete on an equal footing with software vendors around the world requires a move from a perpetual licensing model to software as a service (SaaS), delivering your product via the cloud.

As well as being convenient for clients who no longer need to purchase a physical boxed product, there are several benefits for your company.

Keeping your business going often requires a heavy investment in back-end IT. There is a regular purchase cycle of new infrastructure and hardware, and often you don’t see the ROI before it’s time to upgrade or expand again.

As well as sinking investment into infrastructure, your business also requires a team of professionals to manage and maintain the infrastructure and ensure that it’s available and running well.

Moving to a cloud-based platform eliminates the need for this IT purchasing, essentially smoothing out the ups and downs of repeated capital investment.

You’re free to reinvest your capital into your core business, spend more on R&D and can redeploy the IT team to projects that impact the bottom line.

Predictable cash flow and revenue

While moving to the cloud makes it easier to predict your in-house IT costs, another big advantage to a SaaS model is the increase in monthly cash flow and a predictable annuity revenue.

Not only does this help enormously with planning and forecasting, it also increases the value of your business over the long term.

A traditional perpetual licensing model relies on regular product upgrades and a predictable release cycle.

A cloud-based platform allows you to roll out improvements as and when they are ready, ensuring that customers always have the latest version and the best customer experience.

Lightning quick to market

Cloud also gives your product development team an advantage. It pays to remember that many of your competitors are already in the cloud, so getting products to market as quickly as possible is important.

To compete, it’s also important to enter new markets at a low price and at a low risk to your company, with the ability to scale and grow as you become more successful.

Local hosting support with ICONZ-Webvisions

A cloud-based export strategy opens up countless new markets for your software product, but you may be wondering about hosting in the various countries you plan on operating in.

ICONZ-Webvisions is the only Asia-centred cloud and managed hosting provider serving Asia, Australasia and the global market and can support your business as it grows into new territories.

What this means is that you can purchase a cloud solution in New Zealand, pay in NZ dollars, develop a relationship with your local account manager, but deliver business services from any of the seven countries we operate in.

Our geographical reach spans Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore, with strong technology support and customer service in every country. Your company can deliver business services from any one of these companies on our cloud platform.

To find out more about how you can create a high-growth, export-focused software business, contact us on sales.nz@iconz-webvisions.com.