At the CloudFX Group we specialise in providing a range of services including strategic advisory, cloud services automation, cloud operational transformation, SaaS based IT decision support tools and multi-vendor cloud brokerage and management.

1. 22 Acquisition International - November 2015
The CloudFX Group is a multi-discipline Cloud Platform and Solutions firm.
We speak to CEO Damian Crotty who discusses
At the CloudFX Group we specialise in providing
a range of services including strategic advisory,
cloud services automation, cloud operational
transformation, SaaS based IT decision support tools
and multi-vendor cloud brokerage and management.
The overall purpose of our company is to provide
clients across all industries and regions with
independent, industry leading advice and solutions
in an effort to help them navigate the journey of
IT Transformation and realise measurable and
significant financial results be those revenue creation
or cost rationalisation. Our business operates across
all markets in Asia Pacific and our intention is to
bring our Industry leading platforms, CloudSelect and
CloudConsult to Europe and the Americas in 2016.
My own role as CEO is to lead, inspire and bring
value to our clients and employees through industry
leading solutions and value creation. I achieve this by
defining the products and solutions clients will need
to transform their businesses through technology,
unlocking value and improving the way they execute
and realise financial success in the markets they
serve.
As CEO, optimising our strategy and operating
structure, hiring great leaders, building a winning
culture and delivering long term shareholder value
are all critical elements of my role, and I dedicate my
experience and industry knowledge to achieving this.
Among the hardest aspects of my role is executing
effectively our business strategy and optimising the
outcome’s that I have defined for the business.
The key elements are ensuring this strategy is well
understood by everyone responsible for its execution,
so communicating clearly and regularly, having a
business management system in place that provides
visibility to the KPI’s you’ve defined so that you can
measure and manage the quality of the businesses
execution and finally, aligning compensation and
training around those goals so people feel motivated
to perform their best and confident they have the
skills and capabilities to perform.
Ensuring that my business strategy and goal are
upheld at all times is particularly important when
working through challenges. I launched my business
in 2009, in the aftermath of the crippling global
recession, which presented me with a number of
issues financially. These problems were compounded
by other factors related to our location in Singapore,
such as Asian customers readiness to embrace
transformative technologies, those same customers
being typically risk adverse around working with new
company’s and identifying the talent necessary to
build a great business.
Despite those challenges, virtualisation and cloud
solutions unlock unprecedented value for customers
and has the capacity to save company’s significant
expense whilst opening up new capabilities that
drive positive P&L outcomes, which is why we have
continued to thrive despite these problems.
Despite these issues we had at our inception, the
Asian technology market is diverse, dynamic and
presents enormous opportunity. The tendency to look
at Asia Pacific and Japan as one large homogeneous
market from those outside of Asia underestimates the
complexity of operating in this region.
The market here is widely diverse in many categories,
with mature and progressive technology markets like
Australia through to several emerging geographical
markets that make up ASEAN (South East Asia)
and then massive homogenous markets like China
and India. If other firms can work out how to work
across such diverse markets culturally, maturity and
complexity, Asia Pacific is truly a market of significant
opportunity.
Currently the software technology market is in a
good place as there has been a step change in
the adoption of products, cloud particularly, so the
outlook for our business and others in this space
is truly exciting. As such we predict many years of
positive growth and significant change over a five to
eight year horizon.
Overall Asia Pacific is a challenging but unique set of
markets. Some are very large such as China, whereas
others are small and fast growing like Vietnam, so
operating across a region of this size and cultural
diversity can be a challenge.
The other challenge we have found operating
across Asia is that you are working across 15
different markets so driving consistency in culture,
execution and strategy makes having a data driven
management system that’s process and systems
driven is a fundamental part of working across these
geographies.
Globally the software technology industry is also in a
good place, with a combination of interplay factors
that highlight a wide range of opportunities that are
now available through mobility.
These opportunities stem from developments in
technology, with virtualisation technology enabling an
anytime, anywhere, any application capability, cloud
computing and particularly SaaS, new applications
on new devices, enhanced network performance and
connectivity.
Within each of these categories there are challenges
around maturity however this space is evolving
quickly so it is important to harness the opportunity
that these factors present to both customers and
suppliers.
In order to capitalise on these opportunities, strategic
agility is the key, for example utilising the ability to be
able to anticipate what customers will want and need
to enable their goals and objectives. Fortunately,
in the current technological age there is a wealth
of information available so the ability to be able to
piece disparate data points together into a cohesive
strategy and then working closely with customers to
understand their concerns and challenges enable
Company: CloudFX Group
Name: Damian Crotty
Email:
Damian.Crotty@cloudfx.com
Web Address: www.cloudfx.com
Address: CloudFX Pte Ltd,
Singapore HQ, Winsland House
I, 3 Killiney Road, #04-05,
Singapore, 239519
Telephone: +61 437838558

2. Acquisition International - November 2015 23
CEO of the Month
us to remain aligned, but more importantly ahead of
our competitors and deliver disruptive products and
services to clients which keep them ahead of their
competition.
As a result, I have found as a firm that we need to
lead with insight, which means challenging the way
our clients think so they understand the opportunity
available to their business if they embrace change.
Beyond that our approach to our clients
revolves around committing to servicing their
needs, executing on their commitments, over
communicating and allocating our best resources
to deliver on the expectations we have created is
important. On a personal level, I try and build strong
personal relationships with our key customers so that
we have a direct connection and I can be responsive
to their needs and requirements, this builds trust,
rapport and openness.
It is this personal relationship, alongside our
capability, which makes our firm unique. People,
products and platforms and a true, unwavering sense
to help our customers achieve their goals are all
vitally important aspects of the way we work.
As such we have built capability others don’t have
and would be difficult to replicate and we are
manically focused on continual innovation and doing
things better. We never rest on our laurels and we
know that we can always do better and improve the
way we operate and serve our clients.
Looking to the future we see an excited time ahead
and we all firmly believe our brightest days are ahead
of us. Our product roadmaps look exceptional, the
products already built can be evolved, and we have
cloud E-commerce market places in every Asia
Pacific market, great people and excellent customers
so the fundamentals look strong.
The other exciting prospect we have moving forward
is that this market is in its first decile of maturity so
we have 10+ years of double digit market growth
ahead of us with very attractive CAGR’s so there
is only opportunity ahead and with Europe and
American expansion, new products, new services
and new capabilities in our pipeline. Growth looks
attractive and the opportunity to truly make a
difference to our customers business remains real
and increasingly relevant.