5 Best Practices for Defense & National Security Companies Working With Amazon Web Services
I am a Partner Development Manager at Amazon Web Services, specifically in the World Wide Public Sector (WWPS) division focused on Federal Partners, both enterprise and startups, in the Defense and National Security sector. My role is to work with AWS partners supporting Federal agencies with a desire to utilize the cloud.
This post serves as an introduction to several of the best practices I have seen and my way of thinking about delivering tangible results vs. ethereal concepts.
- Cloud Knowledge Improvement Across The Business Development/Capture Team & Pricing Strategy Team
Nearly every “Request for Proposal” and “Request for Information” coming out on FederalBizOpps.gov that has anything to do with IT has a cloud component to it. Regardless of if your company favors Microsoft, IBM, Google, Oracle, or AWS, your “Business Development/Capture Team” and your “Price Strategy Team” absolutely need to understand the changing paradigm of what the cloud is, how it is priced, the methods to effectively generate a response to a proposal involving the cloud, etc.
Nearly every author on “Cloud Adoption” focuses on “Executive Support” and I would agree that without the involvement of the CEO, CIO, CTO, cloud adoption internal to the partner will likely not occur at a rapid pace. However for winning new business, for capturing opportunities that keep business partners moving forward, “Cloud Knowledge” is an absolute must.
What does “Cloud Knowledge” mean to the biz dev team and pricing team in tactical detail?
- How “usage” is now the metric used for pricing estimates?
- How can your proposal team draft a competitive bid about resiliency & compliance using the cloud?
- Security standards from cloud vendors meeting RFP’s/RFI’s?
- What does the cloud mean for scaling up or down as needed by the end user?
- How can buying cloud services as a company up front regardless of use dramatically increase cost savings and competitive bidding?
2. Partner Funding
Cloud providers, especially AWS, have a large amount of resources available to partners that can help alleviate costs, improve the quality of proposals, and increase marketing efforts.
For example, did you know that as an AWS Technology or Consulting partner who is Select, Advanced, or Premiere partner-status is eligible for nearly $10,000 in AWS credits for “Innovation Sandbox” usage?
The goal of the AWS Innovation Sandbox Program is to enable the Partner to effectively integrate AWS services into their solution or launch a product in general availability on AWS.
Companies looking to grow their cloud adoption (both internally and externally) should familiarize themselves extensively with what cloud providers have to offer to off-set costs and improve visibility.
Speaking for myself, I can bring the following to bear for AWS partners:
- Partner funding for Proof of Concepts in response to business opportunities
- Partner funding for Sandbox innovation concepts
- Partner funding for Marketing
- Free AWS training (both in-person or virtual) on topics ranging from Machine Learning to Artificial Intelligence to Cloud Storage & Security.
- Partner Packages outlining best practices in cloud adoption to help develop responses to specific RFI’s and RFP’s
- Technical deep dives with teams of solution architects around opportunities that may utilize the cloud
3. Engaging with the Cloud Provider Early in the Opportunity Pursuit Process
The cloud is not as simple as procuring a set of equipment to support an initiative. It can be, if all we are talking about is storage, but almost all initiatives today coming out of the government require an extensive usage use of the cloud. Engaging with the cloud provider about an opportunity early in the pursuit process can increase the efficiency of opportunity pursuit dramatically.
I have been fortunate to have been brought into an opportunity pursuit almost the day after an RFP has been “dropped” on FBO.gov and the process was smooth and the proposal with proof of concept completed on time and exceeding the request requirements.
Conversely I have been brought into an opportunity pursuit meeting (3) days before a proposal is due and the proposal hinges greatly on being able to provide cloud services and a pricing model that was unfortunately drafted by someone who didn’t understand the cloud and “usage” pricing.
4. Eating the Dog Food
Cloud adoption is occurring rapidly across nearly every level of Local, State, and Federal IT departments. Nearly every RFP/RFI on FBO.gov that comes out specific to IT has a cloud component. Unfortunately the partner companies that provide these services to State & Federal agencies do not necessarily use the cloud internal to their own IT needs. This is becoming a “sticking point” when procurement officers and program managers start asking system integrators, “How much (cloud vendor name here) services does your own organization use?”
The best way to increase knowledge across an organization is to internally utilize the very service you are providing to end-user. How confident does an end-user feel if the system integrator they are utilizing has low usage rate and poor understanding of the cloud services they are supposed to be providing?
Would you trust a waiters recommendation if they admitted they had never dined at the restaurant they were representing?
Additionally this creates a lost opportunity in identifying where and how additional services can be brought to bear for the end user. If your engagement team or program manger doesn’t know how the cloud works or what services are available, how can they recommend the next evolution of the program to the end-user?
5. Build an Alliance Team
Cloud services touches nearly all aspects of Federal partner businesses today ranging from business development efforts to internal IT expenditures to marketing & branding. Having one individual be responsible for the entirety of the relationship with cloud vendors is a disservice to your organization and will only result in an overworked individual struggling to keep up with requests and emails.
Some organizations create “Cloud Centers of Excellence” which can internally improve cloud adoption across a company, however this is mostly “defensively” focused and is built to educate a workforce about cloud services, institutionalize best practices, and governance. What is really called for in terms of “offensive operations” such as opportunity pursuit is a “Cloud Task Force” composed of internal experts who can utilize cloud partnership funding & technical expertise, know how to price cloud services correctly, and can articulate competitive advantages in proposals when all applicants utilize the same big cloud vendors.
An Alliance team should be responsible for:
- Ensuring cloud spend across an organization is correctly identified/tagged correctly
- Cloud expenditure both internally and as a vendor is bundled to increase cost savings with cloud vendors
- Identifying the best methods to train and educate cloud across the organization
- Collaboration on Marketing materials or Whitepapers
- Working with cloud vendors to improve cloud product offerings to fit the needs of the organization and identifying where mutual interests align
You can learn more about AWS Partner Network here: https://aws.amazon.com/partners/
(All opinions are my own)
You can reach me at mpben@amazon.com if you have any questions or would like to discuss any of these topics further. Connect with me here on LinkedIn. Thank you.
