OVHcloud Business Case for Seneca Polytechnic – 2024

1. Introduction

Challenge Overview

The Case Competition, organized by the Seneca Innovators, offers students the opportunity to
engage in high-level problem-solving by addressing real-world business challenges. This event is
designed to connect students with industry professionals while promoting critical thinking and
innovative solutions.

Participants will collaborate in teams of 2 (min) to 4 (max) to develop solutions for business
cases sourced from key sectors such as Financial Services, Healthcare, Education, Sustainability
& Energy Transformation, and Technology. The competition emphasizes practical, creative
approaches to solving issues currently affecting SMEs and large corporations. Each team will
analyze the case, formulate strategic recommendations, and present their solutions to a panel
of industry experts.

The Case Competition not only enhances participants with opportunity to showcase their
collaborative and critical thinking skills but also provides valuable networking opportunities and
exposure to potential employers. At the end of the competition, participants are expected to
demonstrate their business acumen and gain industry insights, which will contribute to their
academic and professional journey.

About OVHcloud

With a strong presence in Canada since 2011, OVHcloud is a global player and the leading
European cloud provider operating over 450,000 servers within 43 datacenters across 4
continents to reach 1.6 million customers in over 140 countries.

Spearheading a trusted cloud and pioneering a sustainable cloud with the best performance-
price ratio, the Group has been leveraging for over 20 years an integrated model that
guarantees total control of its value chain: from the design of its servers to the construction and
management of its data centers, including the orchestration of its fiber-optic network. This
unique approach enables OVHcloud to independently cover all the uses of its customers so they
can seize the benefits of an environmentally conscious model with a frugal use of resources and
a carbon footprint reaching the best ratios in the industry.

OVHcloud now offers customers the latest-generation solutions combining performance,

predictable pricing, and complete data sovereignty to support their unfettered growth.

OVHcloud has a 12-year-old datacenter in Beauharnois (Quebec) and has opened one just this
year in 2024 in Cambridge, Ontario. These important investments are in-line with OVHcloud’s
strategic expansion in Canada, from East to West.

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 2. Case Background

Industry & Market Trends

The cloud industry has been experiencing significant growth in the past years, especially with
the growth of the SaaS market. This growth is now accelerated by new technologies that have
high demands in computing power, such as AI technologies. However, technology is a fast-
paced industry and information coming from the tech industry can become saturated.

The Canadian cloud industry will continue growing, supported by ongoing digital transformation
of companies, government policies encouraging innovation, cloud adoption and data
protection, and the expansion of cloud infrastructure by global and local providers. With a focus
on security, compliance, and advanced technologies, the cloud landscape in Canada is dynamic,
but also very competitive.

OVHcloud Background

Some extracts from our corporate presentation.

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*43rd data center missing from this map, as it was opened after this version.

Note: we have been innovating since our early days and patented watercooling-technology
early-on. We have not used air-conditioning in our data centers since 2003.

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 Customer Segments:
• B2C
• SMEs
• Large corporations
• Institutions
• ISVs (Independent Software Vendors)
• MSPs (Managed Service Providers) & solution resellers
• Startups & scaleups

Sectors:
• Tech User • Non-tech User
o Large tech o Public Sector
o Mid-size tech o Large corporations
o SaaS o Non-profits
o MedTech, Fintech, Quantum,
AI, Newspace, Gaming,
Blockchain/Web3

3. Current Situation

The challenge we want to bring to Seneca Polytechnic is the following: How to improve our
brand’s awareness in Canada, especially our online presence in an already saturated digital
media space dominated by GAFAM?

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Our actions such as digital campaigns, social media campaigns, have had mixed results in
Canada. We have targeted all groups of audiences and sectors but have not found groups that
particularly perform better than others.
Often, social media campaigns’ success can be directly tied to how much budget is poured into
paid ads. However, even though we do invest some, we do not want our marketing budget to
flow into endless paid-ads in an endlessly saturated ad-space. Consumers see so many ads a
day, and we have a hunch that pouring more money into grabbing someone’s attention for a
product such as cloud may not be the smartest approach.

We think this business case is the opportunity refresh our online strategy. We would like to find
a way to attract more attention with our campaign and grow our audiences.

4. Objectives & Goals

The objective is to find a smarter approach to improving our online awareness, grow our
audience, and explore creative ideas to resonate with our audience. We want to “do more with
less” in an ever-growing tech industry, and an ever-saturated online world. We would like a
strategy to improve our given metrics while keeping budgets stable.

In this year’s context, we want to make the launch of our new Datacenter in Canada a success,
and for this boost to justify even more expansion from East-to-West.

Scope:
• Canada only, with a strong focus in Ontario.
• We have several ranges of products, but we want to focus on our Public Cloud (what our
competitors typically just call “cloud”) offering.
• More focus on LinkedIn and X.
• You may include Facebook if there are interesting opportunities.

5. Data & Analysis

Some key metrics and relevant data:

• Impressions (usually: the more a post is sponsored, i.e. the more budget is added; then
the more impressions a post gets)
• Clicks
• CTR (this is a particular focus for us, because it speaks to the quality and relevant of the
post. A definition of success for us is CTR > 0.3%)
• Budget spent (stabilize at $15K per campaign)

Assumptions or constraints to be considered:

• Solutions are B2B
• Our visibility / brand awareness is very low in America (and very good in Europe)
• No particular budget increase, due to macro economical context

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Here are some performance metrics of recent campaigns (adjusted and fictionalized for
confidentiality purposes):

Campaign 1 – General

A brand awareness campaign that used materials and messaging from our 4 key messages: Data
privacy, Sustainability, Price performance, and Innovation.

• Duration: Always-On campaign from September 2023 to August 2024

• Performance:
o 550,000 impressions
o 2,500 clicks
o CTR 0.38%
• Budget spent: $15K

Campaign 2 – Targeted

A campaign to raise awareness regarding the launch of our new data center in the Toronto
area, focusing on our Canadian expansion.

• Duration: 2 months from April 2024 to May 2024

• Performance:
o 300,000 impressions
o 1,000 clicks
o CTR 0.33%
• Budget spent: $20K

6. Expectations

Some key expectations:

• We expect students to use their research and describe the mechanics of online
presence. For example: the algorithms at play behind socials like LinkedIn and X.
• We expect students to give their take on the cloud market’s online presence and
propose their report on key similarities and differences of major cloud providers (Google
Cloud, Azure, AWS, OVHcloud, Alibaba Cloud, Digital Ocean, Scaleway, etc.).
• We expect students to consider some of the key customer considerations and behaviors
in Canada when it comes to cloud, especially in B2B.

Inclusions in deliverables and guidelines:

• Make sure to always site your sources. A recommendation for this is to keep a table
with key information, the source and link, and include this table in the deliverables.
• Back-up proposition with a market study, and when possible, add concrete examples of
successes (from competitors or others in the tech industry).