We’re Keeping our Head in the Cloud [Here’s 3 Reasons Why]

The cloud is a powerful tool for business, and we recognize that at SugarCRM. It’s why we optimize our CX suite for cloud enablement but there’s a striking difference between what we do and what others do: We don’t offer proprietary cloud.

Wait, what? Didn’t you just say that the CX suite is cloud-centric? Don’t you have SugarCloud?

You read that right.. What it means is that Sugar isn’t built on a private cloud, instead, we rely on AWS as a trusted, global provider for our cloud services that enable SugarCloud. Unlike proprietary cloud vendors, or merely placing software onto a 3rd party server, Sugar products are designed to maximize the use of AWS’s entire portfolio of cutting-edge technology.

So, why does this matter to you? There are three main reasons.

1.) It allows us to focus on what we are good at—fostering innovation.

We have a talented team at Sugar that focuses on innovating our products and technology. Since we don’t have a private cloud that our applications are deployed on, it allows our team to focus on Sugar products. This makes us agile and empowers us to release more innovative features and updates to the Sugar CX suite. 

Companies who host their own private cloud for applications, also have to maintain that cloud which divides time between their product and a cloud instance. This also translates that companies must invest in employees who specialize in both their application and cloud architecture further dividing the company’s internal workforce. Both expertise can co-exist together and can be complimentary depending on the business, but it often spreads employee’s focus and lengthens internal innovation. 

At Sugar, not dividing our team to enable our own cloud accelerates our innovation and ignites the ability to put more time into the features our customers ask for. We can focus our internal talent on creating a successful customer experience whether they’re part of our product team, service team, or sales team because not having a private cloud instance is not eating at our operating budget.

2.) It’s Provides Stability

Stability is a key essence of cloud computing because there are multiple data centers that support cloud deployment. This allows for redundancy and fallbacks should one area go offline, creating a smooth and uninterrupted instance for our technology within the cloud. Were Sugar to host a private cloud, it becomes limited by our technological capabilities and hardware. 

There are options to increase the fallbacks of a private cloud, but it eats into the profitability by often, over-assuming the needed protection of that information within the cloud. If companies have their own instances and hardware, they then increase their technological debt and will, eventually, deplete the capacity of the private physical instance with the consistent need to increase hardware quality and capability. By not using a private cloud on our own hardware, SugarCRM passes that cost along to our cloud provider and it’s one less thing to work on. More so, depending on the implementation and provisions, private clouds can go down creating a business stopping outage. At Sugar, our technology is business-critical at all times regardless of where our customer sits, and we want to assure they have the availability they need to get information when they need it. Not focusing on our cloud internally allows us to free more time up for customers because of stability but also, to support asks on many new features for our core offering.

3.) It’s Valuable and Reduces TCO

That technical debt mentioned before is something companies have to worry about when looking at their pricing model. It includes the calculation of the current cost of operation, estimated technical depletion, and future hardware investment that is then tacked onto the product cost which is passed onto customers. At Sugar, passing on the savings we have by not having a private cloud is how we help you find a solution that not only fits your needs but also your budget. It creates room for additional technology or integrations with your Sugar technology that you might normally be paying to other vendors.

But there’s more value there since also it allows us to scale as we need to rather than invest in more hardware and having to strain our capacity. A dramatic increase in users does not leave us with few options but rather, we can be flexible and adapt to the ebb and flow of our customer needs. This allows customers to transition their organizations, merge their data, and increase as needed right along with us. With our lifetime commitment to customers truly driving us, we grow when you grow, and our software and cloud offerings grow right alongside.

Our Head in the Cloud for our Customers

As a company, we are decidedly dedicated to our customers and that means that we want to provide the best technology possible for you and your organization. By focusing on being a customer experience-centric company and empowering people with software, we don’t have to wear the additional hat of also being a cloud company. 

Yes, we innovate because we are cloud-enabled but we have an amazing, global expert to take care of that aspect for us. So in the end, we can take care of what’s important—you.