the-clouds-silver-lining-how-hp-enterprise-saw-the-business-value-of-cloudy-with-low-visibility

CASE STUDY

THE CLOUD’S SILVER LINING: HOW HP ENTERPRISE SAW THE BUSINESS VALUE OF “CLOUDY WITH LOW VISIBILITY”

CASTING A BRIGHT LIGHT ON A CLOUDY PROBLEM

BACKGROUND.

With the rapid growth of the cloud and services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and many other cloud services platforms, enterprises large and small have found convenience and ease through potential scalability in computing power, storage, content delivery and other functionality to support growth.

However, along with the promises of the cloud came complete-and-utter shock when the bill for the “convenience” came, often in the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Pain? For sure. Employees, executives, and IT loved the cloud so much that it was breaking the bank.

Compounding this problem was a fierce storm brewing amongst the key members of the analyst community. Gartner restructured to address new technologies (cloud, IoT, artificial intelligence) and virtualization specialists were also considered financial platform aficionados as well.

Challenge.

Nascent technology and its quick adoption by the enterprise, combined with analyst confusion, led to even more confusion about the need for the technology that measured something that the enterprise, media, and analysts were barely understanding themselves. Within months, hybrid cloud (or multi-cloud) was the new normal. Business demands required immediate access to services for greater agility, finance professionals loved cloud’s TCO, and IT trusted more workloads to move to cloud. However, getting complete visibility and cost management across services, providers and costs meant that IT, finance and business teams needed to understand exactly what services were being consumed, and by whom.

STRATEGY

Although Cloud Cruiser had foggy brand visibility and suffered from a drought of dry media results, Lumina saw a major market opportunity tied to cloud financial management. Through our close relationships with the business, technology and cloud-focused media, and providing journalists with a succinct articulation of the problem at hand, we narrated the business need for Cloud Cruiser’s solution. Combined with the product’s innate market differentiating factors, reporters came to their own conclusions which led to the deduction that Cloud Cruiser’s technology was superior to anything else in the market today. It all created lightning—major spikes in media coverage tied to articles, industry-focused surveys and reports, greater brand recognition, and the creation of sustained value over time. In simple terms, we made it rain. Cloud Cruiser was ultimately acquired by HPE.

Lumina took the company’s existing messaging, worked closely with their marketing and executive teams and showcased Cloud Cruiser’s amazing time-to-value, ability to monitor hybrid/multi-cloud usage, and its ability to transform generic excel spreadsheets into real business meaning.

RESULTS

By positioning Cloud Cruiser as the pre-eminent forecaster of a potential overspend flood, Lumina garnered spectacular media coverage and analyst exposure across the board for a company of its size and public relations budget. On the marketing and sales front, the media recognition created tangible results. Less than a year after Lumina was retained for PR and communications services, Cloud Cruiser was offered a rainbow of a deal with HPE.