For the second time in a month, Avnet Technology Solutions is building on its cloud enablement background.

Late last month, the distributor launched cloud-centric training for resellers looking to build out cloud practices. Now, it’s introduced new cloud strategy workshops and cloud assessment services for VAR’s end users, options for resellers to offer customers looking for help in the journey towards the cloud.

The services come about as a result of more customers asking “what’s next” around cloud, according to Dan Allaby, director of managed and cloud services for the Americas at Avnet Technology Solutions.

“Many customers are looking for that next step, that cloud strategy, and that’s what these services are targeted at,” Allaby said.

Cloud workshops are designed to be one-day facilitated strategy sessions, bringing together key stakeholders from across the business with the solution provider involved and Avnet’s solutions architects team to understand their business, where they stand now, and build out a plan for a broader engagement.

The sessions focus on education about the cloud, identifying opportunities that make sense for the particular business, the “gaps” in the business’ technology infrastructure, and their long-term goals and objectives. Allaby said it’s designed to help the partner build out a long-term strategy to support the client’s move towards the cloud.

For those looking to move, and now, to the cloud, the assessment services are a three-week package of professional services where Avnet’s solutions architects work on-site at a customer’s location and help them gear up for and implement cloud services.

Both are built around Avnet’s Cloud Maturity Model, a key portion of its CloudReady initiative from the get-go, and delivered by the same team that last month introduced customized cloud training services for channel partners.

Allaby said the workshops can fit “across all market segments,” and can be customized based on the needs of the end user – a discussion of integration of existing investments and private or hybrid cloud solutions for the enterprise, or a study of public cloud services that may be beneficial to the small business. The assessments are more designed for the enterprise customer.

And while the program was designed with the new-to-the-cloud solution provider in mind, Allaby said the company is working with “all kinds of partner capabilities” and has seen equal interest across cloud neophytes and veterans. It would appear, even for those who are building cloud solutions, that the company’s cloud maturity model, the background for all of its CloudReady services rolled out over the last 18 months, is the “secret sauce.”

“The approach we’ve taken gives them a repeatable, scalable framework that they haven’t had before,” Allaby said.

Cloud strategy workshops are available today across North America, but the company isn’t yet offering cloud assessments in Canada. Assessments will be launched here in around September, after Avnet builds out “the right skills” in Canada for it to be able to execute.

“The type of consulting capabilities required are petty high-level, and we want to make sure we have the skills ramped up and in place and the ability to scale with it as well,” Allaby said.