The role combines an educational remit, to promote the adoption of cloud principles among reseller partners, with a wide-ranging business transformation mandate that includes engaging existing and new vendors and creating the infrastructure and processes for future cloud-based services.
“It’s time for some ‘blue-sky’ thinking now that the cloud consumption model is beginning to become more relevant,” said Barrie Desmond, COO of Exclusive Group. “The Cloud First initiative is our way of helping us, our vendors and most importantly, our reseller partners understand their relevance in this journey – as much symbolic as it is strategic - to get them to put cloud at the forefront of their proposals and strategic mindset. Cloud First means always thinking cloud – something we’ve done ever since the launch of BigTec four years ago. And to underline the significance we have appointed Patrick as our ‘envoy’ to spread the message and activate new, practical programmes across all divisions of Exclusive Group.”
“The traditional on-premise, hardware-based markets for cybersecurity and infrastructure are still growing, but the private, public and hybrid cloud alternatives are growing 10 times faster. The opportunities for partners are huge but only if they take some steps to evolve,” said Patrick van Arendonk, Director of Cloud First at Exclusive Group. “We will support them and stay at the forefront of cloud-driven change. I am looking forward to taking Cloud First to the next level, expanding our global vision to accommodate new kinds of vendors, services and cloud solutions.”