The Secret To Sizing Your Customer's Data Backup Appliance: Part 2

By John Pearring, sales manager, STORserver

Previously, we looked at parameters pertaining to your customer’s business that you should consider before recommending a data backup appliance — with an emphasis on your customer’s present situation. In part two, we’ll focus on your customer’s future needs, which are equally important to selecting the right data backup appliance. To begin, how quickly are your customer’s industry data expectations growing? You should estimate at least 10% growth simply due to the typical increase in digitized information.

Industries and individual companies expand at separate rates. The faster an industry is growing, the more the organization’s data will likely expand. But, even datashrinking industries may be expanding digitally. For instance, U.S. banking’s earnings per share (EPS) as an industry has been up and down, but lately shrinking over the past few years, and sales have been flat. Dividends, however, have remained positive. The education and healthcare sectors are typically leaders in growth, and have continued steady expansion. Most industries, though, report continual increases in conversions of information to digital formats. Only the customer can estimate its own growth rates, regardless of how its overall industry is performing.