Are Data Center Companies Becoming Commodity Brokers?

Data center companies face many pressures – from industry compliance requirements to utility costs to staffing challenges to appeasing community leaders.

One of the bigger challenges is for data center providers to stand out from the crowd and to differentiate meaningfully to prospects – basically strangers – who don’t yet know about your company.

Why Most Data Center Companies Miss the Boat on Early–Stage Differentiation

Most leaders of data centers can point to at least a handful of differentiators that their clients experience once onboard.

But in a world where influencers and decision-makers are 60% to 90% of the way through the buyer’s journey before they’re even ready for a conversation with your sales team, it’s critical to get found early and often by the right people and in the proper context.

How Can You Differentiate Your Products, Which Are Seen as Commodities These Days?

The message is that if your home page looks like it's selling a commodity, you’re doing something wrong. Now, wrong is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.

But there is a much better way – if you want to take the price off the table as one of the main factors that will motivate your prospects to decide – one way or another – on whether they choose to go with your data center or the competition.

Getting found early, and being able to be perceived as a helpful, trusted advisor, and providing educational resources that teach how to evaluate the alternatives that are on the market is hugely important to make sure that you never get to the stage where you have to put a price tag, and then another “coupon” – discount or signing incentive.

If your home page looks like the Greek yogurt sale shelf in the supermarket, think hard about the concepts we’re discussing here and how you can correct this for your colocation data center. You don’t want to back yourself into this corner of being forced to discount and compete on price.

How do you ensure your data center services aren’t seen as commodities? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.