Partner-to-Partner Partnering

The next wave of managed services

Partner-to-partner partnering is gaining momentum and VARs and SIs are recognizing that it is an excellent opportunity for them to change their business models to add services to their portfolios. They also recognized how important the channel is to extend their reach to customers that they do not have today and most likely will never be their customers as most SMBs depend on the local VAR or system integrator for IT outsourced support.

Factors influencing the demise of the old business models:

• Cloud- and network-based investments are growing while the on premise or equipment sold on site is declining.
• Enterprises and SMBs are migrating to cloud to decrease costs and improve productivity associated with their IT investments.
• Partners traditionally selling hardware, software and integration need new models to take advantage of these trends.
  

Vendors and service providers are responding to the trend and creating programs to extend their reach. Companies such as Momentum have launched a new partner program targeting value added resellers and managed services providers.

Presidio Networked Solutions has been profiled for success in its selection of partners to create value with white label programs.

MSP partners such as YouSendIt engaged ACG Research to create their channel plans and strategy. Their partner program represents referral, resell, affiliate and custom ISP partner programs.

Even distributors are reinventing their organizations to enable their assets, VARs and SIs to migrate to cloud offers. Distributors are feeling the pain of the pick-pack and ship revenue decreases. They recognize that vendors, a huge source of revenue (their revenue source for the last 10 years) need to market to VARs and SIs or risk losing revenue as more customers demand new service offers.

Trade groups and organizations are recognizing the need to “educate” the industry. ACG Research recently kicked off and conducted several panels for Everything Channel’s Cloud Boot Camp 2011. Our analysts focused on change management strategies for VARs, SIs, MSPs and SPs to show them how to connect the opportunity for adding profitable services to the traditional VAR and SI mix. We focused on the following:

VARs/SIs:

• Migrate or lose customers to your competitors.
• Alter your sales force to deliver incentives on services over product to gain annuity that is renewable.
• No NOC, No Problem: establish partnerships with MSPs and SPs that increase your portfolios.

MSPs and SPs:

• Increase your reach to inaccessible customers by creating programs to reach 200,000+ VARs and SIs.
• Target not just your customers but the customers of your partners through programs that extend marketing through the partner to their installed base, identifying the cloud initiatives for enterprises and SMB.

Partners have to keep ahead of the next economic pressure that is changing the mindset of their customers by understanding the trends and knowing how their current assets can be leveraged to address these changes. Partner-to-partner partnering allows you to evolve with the changing markets and meet the demands made by enterprises and SMB. It’s either that or lose the customer.

To read more from Lauren Robinette, click here.

Lauren Robinette
lrobinette@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch.net