This SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during the entry process. As a function of entry, applicants were required to declare that all details are factually correct, do not infringe on another’s intellectual property and are not unlawful, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, obscene, or otherwise objectionable. Some profiles have been edited for reasons of space and clarity.
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1. THE BEGINNING
This innovation initially came to life when…
…co-founders Faith and Braden were working for an ASX listed professional services company and each day the customers they were talking to were having issues reconciling their cloud consumption bills from AWS and Microsoft (Azure). Braden came up with an idea. Through skunk works they built the first version of the product. They both left their employer and started SixPivot, and they realised that their old employer had shelved the product so they asked to buy the IP. After a successful negotiation they continued the development of the product and soft launched Cloud Ctrl for general production in Dec 2015.
2. WHAT & HOW
The purpose of this innovation is to…
…enable enterprises of all sizes to manage public cloud providers via a single pane of glass: manage, monitor, analyse and switch cloud resources. Ultimately Cloud Ctrl was created to provide transparency and cost efficiency into the ever changing cloud world.
It does this by…
…enabling full consumption management by using: real time billing; predicting current and future spend by using real price books; learning spend patterns via the use of machine learning to ensure highly optimised cloud environments; and allowing cost comparison among providers using blueprint technology and even allowing you to assess what it will cost you to move workload to the cloud.
3. PURPOSE & BENEFITS
This innovation improves on what came before because…
…cloud consumption and billing management is an evolving space. Most customers are using poorly designed provider portals which are not real time. Customers can allocate spend limits or cross compare providers using tools available today. It is difficult to allocate cloud spend limits and many customers to this manually with no automation.
Its various benefits to the customer/end-user include…
…a single pane of glass to manage, monitor, analyse and switch cloud resources. Allocate spend limits, keep track of environment costs, manage compliance, security and performance. Make choices about providers and understand real time billing.
4. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
In the past, this problem was solved by…
…manual spreadsheets to cost and evaluate costs of moving workloads to the cloud. By logging into individual cloud providers portals and extracting info into spreadsheets and then trying to cross reference these. Typically billing information is historical and it would take manual calculations to try and predict future spend and understand current consumption spend.
Its predecessors/competitors include…
There are now a number of cloud billing platforms. Cloud Ctrl is the only Australian innovation that includes multi cloud providers, machine learning and predictive analytics. We compete with parts of products from Right Scale, Odin, etc.
5. TARGET MARKET
It is made for…
…all B2B customers from SME to Enterprise to Government, anyone consuming public cloud services. We have also created a niche for Independent Software Vendors (ISV) and Microsoft Cloud Solution Providers. SME customers consuming under 12k access a freemium model that allows them to use all features. Many customers currently use the product for free to evaluate and cost their business case to support moving to cloud. Vendors such as Microsoft use it to provide a comparison to their competitors for their customers. ISVs use it to cost their product and CSPs use it to manage and bill their customers.
It is available for sale through…
Cloud Ctrl is sold direct with a future goal to be completely through channel. We have an APAC distribution partner in rhipe and a Global distribution partner in Insight. We also work directly with resellers in Australia and NZ.
Our marketing strategy is to…
…build our online and channel partnerships. Cloud Ctrl is a SaaS product and we currently use a multi mix marketing strategy from direct sales both online and account management, channel distribution, social media, webinars, demonstrating thought leadership and PR.
FINE PRINT: This SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during the entry process. As a function of entry, applicants were required to declare that all details are factually correct, do not infringe on another’s intellectual property and are not unlawful, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, obscene, or otherwise objectionable. Some profiles have been edited for reasons of space and clarity.
