Cloud with clout

ENTERPRISE sales, to Diane Greene, isn't a matter of sweet talking and expense accounts. Rather, it's "really a science", says the chief of Google's massive cloud computing business, which has set its sights on becoming the top cloud provider in the world.

"It's a numbers thing. You've got to have great data and really analyse it, and structure the organisation to make it all work. You engineer a sales operation. I think it's a matter of seeing how everything influences each other. Everything is much more connected than I think people realise," she says, adding that it resembles building a "finely tuned machine".

"You can't go out into the enterprise without everybody reinforcing the work of each other, because we're all collaborating... There's got to be a lot of communication and everybody has to understand the cause and effect of what they're doing so that it can all work together. You don't want one gear turning a lot faster than the other."