How should solution providers think about building a compensation plan around cloud for their sales team?

VICINANZA: I think it starts with looking at the total lifetime value of a contract because a lot of cloud services are sold on a monthly recurring basis. Let's say you have a contract for $5,000 a month. A lot of times, people look at it like a $5,000 sale, but really that $5,000 contract is going to generate $60,000 a year, and over a five-year period, it's a $300,000 value to the company. I think it's important to consider that compensating my sales personnel starts with understanding that a $5,000-per-month contract is really worth $300,000 – not the same as the stated contract value. That's the value of recurring contracts, especially in the cloud arena, where they tend to be a little bit stickier. Some types of services are more costly to substitute one vendor for another, and cloud is one of those services where there are high switching costs.