Local Solution is not Local
Content
Brand – a word that used to be the assurance of good quality and accompanying price.
And in a certain regard it was also an assurance of uniqueness. Today, it is more like an excuse to set high prices and insufficient customer care.
In IT, you can enounter companies with a long tradition on the market and a giant brand being favored when companies select cloud services. But the reason is in most cases brand than operational or pricing advantages.
Companies also have the feeling that to be able to shoot for the stars and keep on developing, they have to think big – and they think the only way to do that, is to have infrastructure from a large global provider.
So how is it possible that an international company chose a local cloud provider. And not only for its local customers. On the contrary, a local cloud service provider ensures the whole environment for foreign customers. How is it possible that disrupting all the traditional notions leads to the best optimization and highest efficiency?
Why a Local Provider?
The company had specific requirements for their service. Infrastructure that would run the system should be equipped with fast processors. It was necessary to deploy a dedicated server that would align with the requirements for physical configuration.
The advantage of the local provider was that when the need arose to renew owned cloud infrastructure, these high standards were taken into account. They got the chance to fully integrate the system to the cloud thanks to this.
Usually the approach is a follows – a customer asks for a solution including non-standard requirements, the suppliers says the cloud is not built for that, the customer then uses the traditional physical infrastructure, and that is it.
In case of a local provider, there is a dialogue. He will go into detail to inspect what is actually needed and then he will find a solution. Or in the case of the aforementioned company, the provider takes into account the needs of companies in general that utilize legacy systems.
Global vs. Local provider in a nutshell
| Global | Local |
|---|---|
| Several data centers around the world | Data center in the country of origin |
| Unified approach to customers | Individual approach to customers |
| Universal support team | Local support team |
| Impersonal approach | Personal approach |
Language barrier-free approach
One thing is to get to the point, another is being able to get to the point. Language barrier is usually one of the biggest problems. Tech support consists of people that can be seated thousands of miles away and you have to speak their language.
Besides this a problem also can be a strong accent that can be a strain to even the greatest of native speakers. Sometimes it is just better to write but at that point you are sacrificing speed so any resolution will just get delayed.
tech knowledge
It could also happen that tech support will not always know how to help you. At first, the phone is held by people that are not technicians and they probably have to put you through to those who have technical training. But still in their language. With a local provider, you have a better chance of finding a technical person sitting by the phone right away.
At that point, this ceases to be just a regular call center and becomes a technical helpdesk that is trained to more than support level L0 – because that is just recording the request without any deeper insight.
we are happy to meet with you
That is not something you will hear from a global cloud service provider. Not that the individuals would not like to per se – the business model is set up in a way for you to be doing business with an entity without a face.
On the other side, you have a local provider that will introduce you not only to the sales dpeartment but you will also find familiar faces among the technicians and administrative employees. Each of them personally takes care of certain area of the services you are being provided and you know who you can turn to for help. You don’t know? Then maybe this is the right time to think about your partners.
abroad and beyond
Now we are probably getting to the most confusing part. The word local in labeling a provider doesn’t mean he is providing the service in the place the team is seated. It is a label for a company that is geographically bound to a specific country and thanks to this it is able to find its way there and provides services with understanding the local customs.
This doesn’t mean that they cannot provide their services beyong the borders. The company we spoke about is a star example of that because it wants to use local services provided abroad. But it means going beyong the border to a specific area that has many things in common thanks to historical developments.
How Should You Choose?
That depends on what is your priority. Is it a big brand and nothing else matters? Then the path is cleared towards a global provider. Are you accustomed to working with specific systems from one provider? Then the path is cleared towards a global provider.
If personal approach and clear costs are important to you, then you will probably search among local providers who are able to step out from the shadow of immpersonal technologies and become the team of people that is glad to see you.
