The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

The CloudX Project

Professor:
Dr. John Sargent

Oscar Ramos
Oscar Camarena
Jorge Longoria

SPRING 2019
Background
The CloudX team, for academic purposes known as CloudX, performed in total 38 interviews to
business owners and managers from the Rio Grande Valley, with the objective to introduce
them and test the viability of the CloudX idea. Those interviews were divided into two different
stages.
In the first stage, the team conducted 23 interviews with local businesses that gave some
ground to comprehend the current situation of how IT-savvy were the small businesses in the
RGV region. This outcome was presented earlier in the semester.

In the second phase, the efforts were focused to get feedback from the customer segment
provided by the board. From the business owner’s database, the team reached out to a total of
72 local firms, resulting in 15 business owner interviews. It is worth to mention that 29
businesses were called more than three times to get an interview, getting unsatisfactory results.
10 businesses refused to provide us with information and not accepted meeting with the team,
and the rest were unable to contact. The achieved interviews provided satisfactory feedback to
make assessments and conclusions which are included in this report.

Second stage results

The following list includes the 15 business names and their type of industry. Each lasted an
approximate of 45 minutes.

The team decided to include preliminary questions before approaching the questions over the
features set proposal. This was made in order to get more qualitative information face to face
with the business owners and managers about their current and preferred communication
methods, systems or platforms that they use to do businesses with vendors and suppliers,
moreover; to set an introduction for the interview.

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 INTRO QUESTIONS OVERALL RESULTS

1. Communication with suppliers vendors

The preferred method of communication was by phone with 79%, following by vendor’s website

with 57% and 43% by email. Please refer to the following graph.

2. Programs, software or platform mentioned by businesses used to communicate with

vendors

3. What keeps with their current systems

When the sample was asked about the reasons why they keep their current systems, these
were the reasons:

● They expect to last many years with the current platform. It does what they want and a
quick call away from resolving any issues.
● Used to an old-school system, will not change.
● The Owner is not willing to change to something better and more effective
● But it must be approved by the Home Office in Saint Louis
● The owner is married to the current system they have, not looking for any change at the
moment.

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 ● They won't because corporate makes those decisions.
● I'm happy with the facebook site, I can monitor my competition and be in contact with my
customers.

It’s understandable that the tested businesses, that currently use a system to communicate with
suppliers and vendors, show great satisfaction levels since they are used to their system, so
they perceive difficult to try another software or platform.

4. Consideration about switching to a different option

For those businesses using a system to communicate with their vendors and suppliers, 57%
have considered switching to other options, while 43% said they have not considered it.

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 FEATURE SET OVERALL RESULTS

CloudX FEATURE SET Overview

Do you use Are you Current Price Current Price
Features this feature? interested? Price Desired Price Desired
Total Average Weighted Average
Communication
Contact Manager 40.00% 40.00% $11.33 $26.33 $69.99 $65.83
Call Back Scheduler 13.33% 33.33% $11.33 $21.33 $85.00 $80.00
Review Monitor 53.33% 40.00% $4.67 $12.00 $70.00 $45.00
Staff Management 46.67% 40.00% $48.00 $22.93 $180.00 $86.00

Connections
Online Lead Generator 26.67% 46.67% $13.33 $19.33 $200.00 $58.00
Advanced
Engagement/Call to Action
Options 6.67% 46.67% $13.33 $24.67 $200.00 $74.00
Online Booking Manager 40.00% 40.00% $0.00 $46.67 $0.00 $116.67
Facebook Ad & App
integration 40.00% 60.00% $10.00 $18.00 $150.00 $90.00

Commerce
Coupons & Deals 46.67% 46.67% $0.00 $15.00 $0.00 $45.00
Product & Service Catalog 40.00% 46.67% $14.00 $13.00 $105.00 $27.86
Online Sales & Order
System 6.67% 33.33% $0.00 $12.33 $0.00 $37.00
Invoicing & Estimates 13.33% 33.33% $0.67 $11.93 $10.00 $35.80

Combine
$89.17 $63.43
Including Security
International $1,500.00 $346.67
All-in-One Platform Adjustm
ent $202.50

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As seen in the figure above, Security International was removed from the All-in-one desired
price due to its high value of $1,500. Therefore, was considered as an outlier for our purposes.
After the adjustment, 202.50 dollars is obtained as the average price that interested business
owners are willing to pay for the entire CloudX platform.

Assessment

An important note was found in the variety of industries recollected. Different industries create a
bigger challenge for comparing results across the board. Therefore, we recommend comparing
these results across companies within the same industry in order to get more insights. After
interviewing 15 different businesses, our team discovered that 9 of them were willing to put a
price for the entire CloudX service. Such price equaled 202.50 dollars which adequately meets
the Premium level plan on CloudX. Generally, owners seemed interested to increase their
customer base and were willing to try a better option that could integrate well with their current
operations according to their unique industry. During the interviews, some owners provided
elevated amounts for features that were most used in their practice but then adjusted their
mindset when asked for the desired amount of the entire CloudX platform. This means that
emphasizing the hot features owners would like is an effective strategy when promoting/selling
CloudX’s levels.

The weighted average is more accurate than the total average because it analyses the amount
of money decided owners are willing to spend in their business. This metric only takes in
consideration businesses who provided an amount for the selected feature. Still, the total
average amounts provide further insight because it divides the total amounts by the total
number of interviewed businesses.

More information about the CloudX Feature set overview table will be sent to the board for
further analysis. Owner quotes about their live reactions during the interview are provided in the

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slideshow presentation which will also be sent to the CloudX board.

Conclusions

● Staff management is the most significant feature in the Communication Set since the
sample is willing to pay more between the rest, and has a high desire percentage. On
the other hand, 53% of the sample uses the review monitor and would like a cost
reduction.
● Online booking manager represents an opportunity since the sample told that they are
willing to pay more if CloudX offers improvements compared to the current tool.
● Since the interviewed sample was from different industries, they showed low interest in
the Commerce Set.
● Changing the mindset of the target market to look for local tools, instead of global
companies like facebook and google, is a challenge CloudX will face when launched.
● Based on the collected data and analytics, our team recommends the board to continue
investing in the CloudX project since business owners are willing to pay for the highest
level on the platform. This creates financial tranquility for investors and the board.
However, it is recommended to keep interviewing more owners in order to increase the
sample size and make a more educated final decision.
● This study contains a randomized set of industries, results showed that owners came
very close to the $200 mark for the entire platform, now we recommend to further the
study by talking to unique industries in order to find the best place to start CloudX.
● The above point can also damage CloudX’s purpose since this platform aims to serve
multiple needs in the market and not only focus on one industry. Executive decisions
must be made to proceed with caution and get the greater return for the shareholders.