If a company’s clients came for risk management, how does it convince them to stay to gamble on digital innovation? Newer trends in cloud computing and digital and social marketing are racking up proof points to convert even those with much to lose.

Openlink Financial LLC is a leader in the market for trading, treasury and risk management software and solutions, serving top-tier clients such as Chevron Corp. and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, across industries like energy, agriculture and financial services. The 25-year-old company built its brand around hypersensitivity toward risk.

“That’s been our strong point as a company for a long time — and we serve the clients through … advanced analytics that provide them with that capability,” said Openlink Chief Executive Officer Rich Grossi (pictured).

Increasingly, however, a desire to reduce total cost of ownership is driving customers’ information technology decisions. This, in turn, is leading Openlink and its customers to explore cloud computing, Grossi explained. He spoke with Stu Miniman (@stu), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at theCUBE’s Boston studio. (* Disclosure below.)

Watch the complete video interview with Rich Grossi below:

Public cloud’s infrastructure as a service can cut the cost of ownership with a pay-as-you-go operational expenditure model. This holds obvious attraction to budget-conscious customers. But, historically, cloud has raised pesky questions for companies burdened by strict security and compliance regulations. Now as providers prove the cloud is indeed secure by winning finance and other cautious customers, cold feet are warming.

Clients’ attitudes toward cloud security have changed dramatically in the past two years, according to Grossi. “Some of them were concerned about the security of their trading data being out in something like Microsoft Azure,” he said.

The company just announced Openlink Cloud, which runs in Mirosoft Corp.’s Azure cloud environment. It optimizes Openlink software and services to offer customers greater business efficiency. It combines the latest technology and services to provide greater speed, integration and real-time risk assessment.

The company’s clients are stampeding to Openlink Cloud — even those unconvinced of cloud security just a couple of years ago. “Many of them recognize today that the security benefits of a Microsoft Azure, as an example, could be far greater than what they’re doing in-house today,” Grossi said.

Digital disruption democratizes marketing

Sticking to tried and true IT and business models can be anything but safe, given the pace at which innovative, digital companies are disrupting incumbents.

“You’re either being disrupted or your’re disrupting your industry,” said Nancy Pearson, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Openlink.

This disruption extends to the marketing sphere; sometimes a better website or stronger social media presence can give a company the leg up on competition, she explained. Pearson helped to modernize Openlink’s own digital marketing strategy. For instance, she and her team revamped the website to take visitors on a personalized “client journey.”

Watch the complete video interview with Nancy Pearson below:

As scary as the term digital disruption sounds, there is an upside, “because digital levels the playing field for companies,” according to Pearson. Any company will get out of new digital marketing methods what they put into them.

“You don’t have to have the same budget; you don’t have to have the same size business. But if you know how to use the digital tools today, and you know how to create incredible content, you can have an equally powerful voice,” she stated.

Openlink’s customers are often curious, yet clueless, about the return on investment on digital and social media marketing, Pearson stated. “A lot of large enterprise clients struggle with that,” she said.

Surveying how modernized digital and social marketing enlarge a brand’s presence suggests they are missing out the longer they dither. “The ones that have really learned to use it as a tool really well and targeted [it] can extend their reach triple-fold out in the market and really get their story out in a way that they couldn’t previously,” she concluded.

(* Disclosure: Openlink Financial LLC sponsored these segments of TheCUBE. Neither Openlink Financial nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE