Results of Data Analysis

All the respondents acknowledged that their companies do use the assistance of consulting firms, but only in case when it is not possible to resolve an issue by themselves. One respondent made an additional note that his company uses services of consultants when they need to approve or disprove solution already available. However, companies prefer to resolve all the issues themselves, because traditional consulting involves a physical contact between client and consultant (sometimes participation in public tender), spending solid time on making concluding a complicated contract and resolving multiple bureaucratic issues, support and modification of working relationships, involvement of comoany-client’s employees, which some of the respondents claim to be not flexible, fast, and cheap.

During an interview, there was a brief description of the cloud consulting company’s model provided to respondents:

“Imagine that there is a company that provides consulting services via its own online platform for distance problem solution. The task or a problem is solved by a third party external experts and professionals in different areas. Those experts sign special agreements with that company. Great advantage of such company is that those tasks are resolved in short periods, with maximum efficiency, and avoiding multiple bureaucratic procedures. Would you be interested in using services of such company?”

None of the respondents gave direct either negative or positive answer for this question. Nevertheless, most of them showed substantial interest in at least trying such services due to faster.

However, there were some issues that put the respondents on their guard.

· There must be some guarantees. The guarantees that expert is a truly expert and that the client will pay at the right moment: after, in advance or in process. Moreover, in case if the solution for the project might “go wrong” then the consulting company needs to guarantee to fix it. The client also wants to enter into a contract with an entity, not individuals, to ensure that the work will be done. At the same time, the client also might want long relationships with the platform and be flexible with the opportunity to use the right expert in a right time and give them tasks. The client want to choose different form of collaboration.

· Data security. It is not allowed to share the information without confidentiality agreement with all contractors participated in the project (i.e. cloud consulting company and experts) and this, in turn, could be a serious obstacle.

· Risk avoidance. The clients do not want to face any problems with the unexpected inadequate quality of the completed task. The client does not want to work with any risks or wants to transfer all the risks to the platform.

· Juridical issues and obstacles –following long-lasting bureaucratic procedures, imperfection of state legislation in intellectual property rights and usage of electronic tools for business transactions (such as application of digital signature).

· Control. Companies prefer to have a high level of personal control over their confidential data and the working process, which might be little more difficult due to the fact that the cloud consulting company would be the only one participant that might be controlled to some extent. Experts would be unknown to the company-client, i.e. the client would be able to see experts’ profiles only, without direct contact with them.

There is also a substantial problem of the “consumerism” culture and perceptions that were formed during “prosperity years”. Clients expect to receive high-quality services fast and almost right away (“по щелчку пальцами”). To target multiple clients, various electronic platforms providing minor services occurred. Nowadays, the culture and perceptions are transforming towards willingness to participate in and use the more advanced platforms for more complex tasks.

To conclude, experts are ready and interested in using the cloud consulting services due to increase of outsourcing and freelance services in modern Russia. However, it might be very difficult to convince businesses and their lawyers to trust and work with cloud consulting company. In case of establishing cloud consulting services it would be quite difficult to do, because of low level of trust to indirectly contacted experts, and almost no understanding of the concept and benefits of cloud consulting for local businesses.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 409