Cloud Service Provider (CSP) entrustIT has found market differentiation by certifying against the Cloud Industry Forum’s (CIF) Code of Practice. For the CSP, the certification helps to stand it apart from other providers of Cloud services and demonstrates to customers its commitment to transparent and accountable business practices.
entrustIT was established in 2006 to address the IT issues of small and medium-sized enterprise businesses, with the aim of simplifying their IT and technology. It provides applications and IT facilities to a range of public and private sector organisations though a combination of Cloud-based products and services, coupled with on-premise capabilities.
Although the CSP had already achieved ISO 9001 and ISO 27001, entrustIT felt that the CIF Code of Practice was important to the business as a means of demonstrating its commitment to being a high quality Cloud provider and boosting its credibility.
Jeff Dodd, entrustIT’s Managing Director, commented: “As our name suggests, trust is incredibly important to our business and we go to every effort to make sure that our customers can have faith in the services that we offer. We first achieved certification against the Code of Practice last year, shortly after we achieved our ISO accreditations. Although there is some overlap, the ISO standards do not directly map to Cloud computing, so we felt that it was important to go one step further and go for the Code of Practice.
“The Cloud Industry Forum sets the industry standard in the UK and by achieving the Code of Practice we are able to demonstrate to customers that we have safe and transparent business practices. It provides us with an edge over our competitors, makes it easier for us to compete with larger CSPs, and has enabled us to reach out to a wider network with the confidence that our core company values will be immediately understood by our partners and end users,” Nigel continued.
The CIF Code of Practice is a credible, certifiable tool that allows Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) to demonstrate that they meet specified requirements of transparency, accountability and capability. Managed by APMG International, the scheme aims to standardise enterprises offering Cloud services, provide clarity and transparency, and give assurance to end users migrating to the Cloud.
Richard Pharro, CEO of APMG, added: “The Code of Practice was developed with the objective of simplifying the relationship between the service provider and the end user. By certifying against the Code, organisations are given a simple, trustworthy way to appeal to the end-user and ensure their service measures up to the high standards of the Cloud Industry Forum. As entrustIT has found, the scheme goes a long way to helping CSPs differentiate themselves in a crowded market and brings with it significant business benefits.”
