This post was authored by Lynda Stadmueller, Vice President, Cloud Services, Frost & Sullivan

As a software provider, are you confident you are keeping pace with your customers’ digital transformation initiatives? Frost & Sullivan recently joined a Microsoft-sponsored webinar to discuss the results of their 2017 survey of IT decision makers. They shared their thoughts on meeting customers’ evolving needs, beginning with choosing the right platform.

As you consider cloud options, view the cloud as more than a place for hosting your software. Position your business for success by selecting a platform that maximizes flexibility, intelligence, security, and cost-efficiency in software development and delivery,

Here’s a review of five ways customer buying behavior is changing, and how the right cloud partner can help you continue to succeed:

1. Your customers have more options

In addition to cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS), your customers may evaluate on-premises software, infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), or even managed services. To capture the greatest market opportunity, you need to choose a cloud platform that offers flexible deployment options.

2. Your customers expect technology purchases to support their business goals

Businesses are choosing cloud services that support strategic business goals, such as business agility, market responsiveness, and innovation. Make sure your cloud platform meets the challenge by enabling you to incorporate the latest technologies into your software, including analytics and artificial intelligence.

3. Your customers want their applications to easily integrate with one another

Time-constrained businesses expect their applications to work seamlessly with other common solutions. Choose a cloud partner with a broad ecosystem of leading technology providers and a platform that supports APIs. 

4. Your customers want both control and administrative simplicity

IT organizations look to the cloud to lighten the infrastructure management burden while retaining visibility and control over application usage.  Choose a cloud platform that makes it easy for your business customers to manage user access, via single sign-on controls and comprehensive reporting. 

5. Your customers want to track and allocate costs

Customers need to track usage and costs in a way that makes sense for their business — e.g., by department, project, or individual user. Choose a cloud platform that supports leading IT and cloud management solutions — thus facilitating your ability to manage your business and your customers’ ability to manage theirs.

Your future success depends on continually evolving your software to meet customer expectations — faster, better, and more reliably than your competitors. To do so requires a cloud partner that helps you optimize not only your software, but your business. Watch the webinar to see how the software market has evolved, and what Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) like you need from cloud providers to remain competitive — including a flexible, next-generation cloud platform and support to run your business. 

View the on-demand webinar, Optimizing Your Cloud-Based Business: Tips for Software Providers, presented by Microsoft and Frost & Sullivan, and download the Frost & Sullivan executive brief, Is Your Cloud Delivering What Your Customers and Stakeholders Need? A Guide for Software Executives.