CloudGarage shows small businesses in cloud services how to dream big

This article is a part of CloudSparks Series sponsored by Microsoft Azure.

Azure is Microsoft’s cloud platform: a growing collection of integrated services—compute, storage, data, networking, and app—that help you move faster, do more, and save money. This powerful combination of managed and unmanaged services lets you build, deploy, and manage applications any way you like for unmatched productivity. Its enterprise-proven hybrid cloud solutions give you the best of both worlds and can quickly scale up or down to match demand. It’s also easier to build applications that span both on-premises and the cloud. With Azure, data storage, backup, and recovery become more efficient and economical.

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Cloud has played a big role in sustaining new entrants to the IT world since it is extremely supportive to startups, offering very high levels of scalability. Therefore, it is no surprise that we are seeing the advent of several ‘born in the cloud’ firms, purely dedicated to cloud services.

CloudGarage is one such start-up dedicated to providing customised cloud solutions to all kinds of businesses, be it a large enterprise, an SME or a startup. The size of the firm they support is irrelevant, but they have found that they work especially well as a solution provider for the small business sector, for whom this kind of support makes a huge difference. Cloud services allow these firms the use of sophisticated IT resources without having to invest in Capex. Pay-As-You-Go services can be integrated into their service plan, to help the clients take advantage of superior technology at reasonable prices.

The beginning

Talking about how they started, one of the co-founders of CloudGarage, said, “All the co-founders had attended a Microsoft partner conference and we were seated near each other when Microsoft MD Karan Bajwa spoke about how Microsoft was hoping for a hundred born-in-the-cloud partners to join them. This set off a conversation between us, which developed into a friendship and soon CloudGarage was set up.”

This happened in 2013 and CloudGarage is part of both the Amazon Web Services as well as the Azure Partner Network. In the last 15 months, however, they have moved 85% of their services to Azure, since they found it better suited in their line of work. Why Microsoft Azure stands apart from other competitors is, according to the CloudGarage team, because Microsoft is a solid technology company with sound product knowledge. Other players like Amazon started off as an online e-commerce company while Google started with selling ads. Decades of product development experience lends an integrity to the Microsoft brand.

The firm started off with a core team of 10 people which has now grown to 35 people. Being a new entrant in the field, one of the toughest challenges they faced was that most prospective clients wanted to work with experienced companies. They had to compete with established players with far more experience and credentials. But very soon CloudGarage became a born-in-the-cloud partner of Microsoft, and the opportunities for CloudGarage since then have only become better and bigger.

What they offer

The most satisfying experience for the team has been helping clients grow faster by allowing them to focus on their core areas. Their clients enjoy higher computing power with effective information transfer. Moreover, their partners can access their enterprise data and manage it from anywhere around the globe. Scale up or scale down of computing capacity is possible within minutes, depending on individual needs. They also ensure multiple layers of security so that safety and integrity of data, application and IP is never compromised.

Other than cloud computing, the services that CloudGarage specializes in are mobile app development as well as custom app development. The team has found that each customer is unique and their needs are very specific. So they try to use their specialized knowledge to try to innovate and build solutions that are custom-made. They pride themselves in developing products quickly and economically.

CloudGarage has partnered with leading names like HCL technologies, Genpact, Coco Cola and Airtel among others. CloudGarage is also Azure circle partner which is the highest accreditation among cloud services firms while also being a Microsoft silver partner.

Future plans

Located in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata, they plan to be making inroads in South India by end of the year. CloudGarage wants to change the face of the industry and geographically reach beyond the Indian market and set up locations abroad in Singapore, USA and the Middle East.

Cloud Garage has seen a 200% revenue growth since their inception and they expect a lot more because in today’s scenario cloud is the way to go. Mainframes still exist even after several decades, and so will cloud they say, at least in the foreseeable future.

Today, cloud computing or mobility are not superfluous services but intrinsic to managing businesses well and resourcefully. They give top priority to their core values of integrity, client satisfaction and innovation. They also believe that finding ways to support the larger community and regularly participating in several philanthropic activities throughout the year is important, while looking at the bigger picture. Their approach, like many startups, is one of combining work and fun, and thus their work culture is inspiring.

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