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This morning I found an email in my inbox from dell promoting their upcoming show on what is working inside their PartnerDirect Program.

I have to admit that I have not put a lot of time into understanding their program or if they are going to launch a master MSP play so I am curious if anyone else out there is working with Dell in their MSP programs?

I know the technology they bought gives them all of the tools necessary to provide a master MSP offering and I guess we will know in time if this is a road they are going to go down.  (On a separate note I am surprised that none of the master MSPs out there or anyone working with one commented on Mikes post from last week - let us know your thoughts if you are out there).

Anyway, check out the blog talk radio show if you have the time and let me know what your thoughts are!

JC

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Join Stuart Crawford from Calgary’s respected DELL Partner IT Matters and DELL’s channel chief Greg Davis as we discuss what is working inside the DELL ParterDirect Program and how IT professionals can win with DELL.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/smb/2008/07/25/Partnering-with-DELL

Deskless worker is Microsofts branding for their hosted Exchange and Sharepoint programs in their software + services play.

I have written about Microsoft’s software + service programs in the past and today everyone out there has written something about todays new anouncement. The best two blogs I have found on the subject are listed at the end of this post.

I think the most interesting part of the program is the pricing model built to encourage you and I (the channel) to continue selling their services even though we will lose a large portion of service revenue that comes from installing their products on site for clients. If you take this view on losing revenue rather than adapting your service and offerings to capture new revenue you will end up left in the dust.

I am a big beliver in recurring revenue which they are going to share with us but still believe that smart providers will build value added services on top of implementing these products for clients in order to have continued success in the future. I am not worried about clients going direct to Microsoft and cutting a company like Everon out of the picture because they will just be a piece of the solutions and services I aggregate and provide to my clients. (Mike has written about this move to utility computing and the role of the aggregators in past posts).

The power of being an MSP is owning the relationship, let me say that again, the power of being a MSP is owning the relationship. We all need to focus in on value added service for the small business, such as CTO programs, rather than the focus of turning the screws to install and manage technology.

Our customers demand to know that we have vetted the best vendors out there and are providing them the best strategic investments for their business. Becase we understand their business and are experts in what we do they quickly come to believe we are an indispensable part of their team.

So whether we are building services around Microsoft, Amazon, Google or any of the other large SasS players out there we need to be thinking about what’s next for our business and how we fit into the SaaS picture.

Best posts for catching up on today’s announcements:

Best post I have found for a simple overview of Microsoft’s Deskless worker.

Best post for staying ahead or at least on top of MS news as it is released about this program.

JC

So simple yet so cool, Google now allows you to list out locations and in their online spreadsheet and a gadget then places them on a map.

Now I don’t usually get caught up in “cool” technology. I am a big believer in letting the other guy work the bugs out and adopting one step behind the cutting edge - less likely to get cut that way. But as Google takes steps to make their online applications useful to the small businesses around the world I think they hit on something that is powerful for you and me.

We recently started to map out our clients in a Google spreadsheet and it is powerful to see the way they layout around the country or around a particular region. Not only is this cool but it helps our dispatcher as we direct partners around a region to our clients sites to perform work. If implemented properly we should be able to create efficiencies that allow us to drive billable utilization rates beyond the industry norm.

What are you using to track your techs, their routes, their idol time, etc, to drive your utilization rates up? I know it makes sense to create compensation plans that reward utilzation rates, but what are you doing to help your engineers reach these goals?

One of the things we are always working on with our partners around the country is how to make their business and in turn our business more profitable. And I truly believe that tracking traffic patters, knowing locations as you direct a tech from one client to another, having minimums for on-site visits, and empowering your people make this possiable.

Anyway, I am starting to veer off into another subject so check out the Google blog post on their feature and let me know your thoughts:

http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2008/06/featured-gadget-map-it-in-your.html

JC

I have to take my hat off to the crew at Autotask. I recently asked some questions of those working with them and I am shocked to see the response from the community.

Not shocked that they are involved in the community but rather shocked that so many in the community took the time to stand up and speak about their overwhelmingly positive experience in working with them.

We all are busy growing and running our businesses each day and as small a task as it seems it can take a decent effort to share our experience about a vendor. In my experience you are much more likely to have someone take the time speak up about their negative feelings in working with a vendor than to take the time to share a positive experience.

Some one that has had a bad service experience is likely to tell everyone they know about it (these are detractors) while someone who has a good experience is likely to remain silent about it. It is only the user that has a remarkable service experience that takes the time to say good things about the vendor (these are promoters). These promoters are worth their weight in gold when it comes to growing your business and having credibility in the market.

% promoters minus % detractors equals a companies net promoter score.  This comes from Net Promoter Score and is what we utilize at Everon to measure our customer satisfaction. I encourage everyone to use the measure as it brings great clarity for your employees and fantastic insight into your business. I truly believe as stated on their site that “net promoter score is the single most reliable indicator of a businesses ability to grow”.

I do not know if Autotask uses NPS in their business but I would suggest based on the response to my post that they would have a high score in the community indicating a continuation of their fantastic growth and success.

Congratulations to everyone at Autotask and thank you for being out there helping MSPs succeed.

JC

It may seem like a funny question on the surface and as we always say at Everon “what’s the question behind the question”?

Well I am curious if they are easy to do business with?

My experience to date has been with their product evangilists - ever wonder why it seems you see Autotask everywhere, well beyond a big marketing budget they hire independent consultants to be out in the marketplace talking them up.

At first I was impressed that they seemed to respond to blogs and be involved in the community, so much so that I proposed they participate in our blog as Connectwise, Dell, and other have done but things just seemed to go into a black hole from there. Perhaps they don’t feel that a bunch of smart, highly educated, good looking, business minded folks like you and I (that is how I like to think of our readers) are the approprate target audience for their tool?

I am very interested to know if their involvement in the community is just on the surface or if they are truly out there contributing to the community they are so desperately trying to move to their product. One thing I have always been impressed with working with Connectwise is that Arnie- love him or hate him - is out there looking out for each and every one of us day after day.

Anyway, I am curious if anyone else has had a similar experience or if this was just my experience.

JC

As Mike said - sorry about the long time period between posts we have been moving our Boston office and as always there are bumps to be overcome and people to get settled in.

That being said we should be back in action this week so stay tuned.

Anyway, i am curious if you all have had a chance to check out Dell’s guest post on why the channel should want to work with them? Are you all keeping up on with the Dell Channel blog? Are you finding value there?

I am curious as someone that has always been skeptical of Dell, is this helping you all feel more comfortable with their MSP play?

Let me know your thoughts when you have a moment and as always feel free to email me if you would prefer a private conversation: jclifford@everonit.com

Thanks,

JC

Digging into Dell’s Managed Services

 

Amie Paxton, Dell Channel Community Manager

 

If you Google “Dell’s Managed Services,” you’ll find a ton of articles that put Dell’s Global SaaS Business Director Mike Menegay in the hot seat. He’s continually asked about the conflicts inherent within Dell’s Managed Service Provider (MSP) program, and it’s interesting to read his responses. Over and over again, Menegay stresses we will not compete with partners who bring qualified deals to Dell that get registered and that the ultimate goal is to have each side help the other.

With years in the channel and hands-on experience as a solution provider, Menegay has the chops to make our MSP program unstoppable. Previously, he looked to the automotive industry as a model for successful partnerships. And this is still applicable today.

Special Programs and Savings

In our MSP program, Menegay and team are creating a web of specialized programs to support Partners, while also creating a web of segmented partnerships. Over the next year, Partners will start seeing Dell’s latest acquisitions, SilverBack and Everdream, uniting under a common integrated platform, providing common graphical interfaces and reporting systems – as well as integration to service ticketing systems. Dell’s MessageOne acquisition, an on-demand email continuity and crisis management solution, will also be available for sale through our channel partners. These product offerings are supported by specific certification programs for each offering; requiring various levels of commitments for each program certification between Dell and the partner. For instance, each certification track requires the partner to commit to training, technical support and sales enablement engagements of varying degrees.

Key Benefits for Dell Partners

• Lower costs as Dell moves the infrastructure requirements off the Partners plate and into 24/7, ISO certified data centers with industry leading SLAs for performance

• Cloud based, on demand services that lower the investment of partners and provide variable costing aligned to a partners revenue stream

• Acceleration of new offer sets through Dell’s own internal development efforts and the integration of industry-leading acquisitions

• Integration of acquisitions (products) into a common integrated platform

• Worldwide channel certifications for a partners scalability

• Industry-leading partner portal with specific partner friendly programs; deal registration, certification tracks, collateral, partner communications/blog, etc.

• Access to Dell’s sales force providing MSPs new business opportunities

While industry critics question the vitality of the SMB target audience, Dell feels confident about using this market to help fine-tune our services offering. Plus, we’re going to stay focused on developing mutually beneficial relationships with Partners through our Deal Registration program and the continuous buildout of our internal processes.

By visiting our PartnerDirect portal, you can both register as a partner and take advantage of Deal Registration. The latter protects your deals from competition by Dell’s direct sales teams and other partners — helping to increase your sales pipeline and reduce any channel conflict.

This topic of conflict has been of interest to bloggers and industry sites for some time, and rather than repeat what’s already been said, I’d like to clarify Dell’s position within the MSP space. We will continue to listen and grow our Channel program here at Dell. Please visit our Dell Channel Blog to join the conversation and offer feedback.

I have to say that I have been impressed that Dell has been showing up all over the place in blogs that I read. I have been equally impressed with the number of blogs the giant has launched to communicate with the world.

Corporate blogs can be a mixed blessing as they often start with the best intentions and quickly turn into a wasteland of infrequently updated information. I hate to pick on Kaseya but has anyone been watching their blog? I am still not quite sure why they bothered to launch it rather than just putting up a ‘recent news’ section on their site.

Dell on the other hand seems to have a fleet of bloggers out there, I have even heard from their “Chief Blogger” on occasion, responding to comments and spreading the message Dell wants the public to hear.

Only time will tell how effective Dells new channel / partner blog is with the community but regardless i have to applaud them for their blogging efforts.

I ran into a blog post that wsj.com put up about Dells blog strategy that is worth takeing a few minutes to read:

http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/06/03/dell-incites-internet-buzz/

I have to admit that for as hard as I am on Dell they are a brilliant company and implementing this blogging team is a cool move on their part.

JC

It is still too early to tell how successful dell will be in engaging MSPs on their new blog but at least it is a good sign that the blog is finial off the ground.

http://direct2dell.com/channel/default.aspx

Day one content is the basic ‘why we are doing this and who is involved’ type entries but I look forward to what they have coming down the line.

I believe that they tools they have put together could provide a great platform for partners if they engage us and bring us into their overall strategy by making us feel valued and safe in their program. The challenge they will face is keeping the partners (us) engaged in offering their services to our customers.

Ultimately I believe the tools that are used in managed services, monitoring, inventory, filtering, etc will be free to the world. They will be built into every chip set that goes into a computer, available with every operating system that is installed, and offered at no cost when ‘other’ services from the vendor are consumed (certainly understand if you don’t agree with this, it is just my opinion).

Keep your eyes out over the coming days to see what dell has in store. Perhaps they will start answering all the questions you and I have been asking.

JC

We spend a lot of time talking about our culture at Everon. We have created a service culture, one where service skills and customer feedback are rewarded ahead of tech skills.

We have spent five years “getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus” which committing to is not as easy as one might think on the surface. We have been very successful over the years creating a place where everyone likes coming to work the majority of days – we all have the occasional I would rather not be at work moment. So why in the last handful of months (we opened our second operations office in Colorado about 8 months ago) has our culture become one of discontent for some employees?

This is a question I have found myself asking and I believe it was best captured by one of our senior employees that I was talking to: “when things are perceived as fair they become more than that to people, they become good.”

On the surface this did not seem like a particularly important insight, having studied psychology I was familiar with the concept, but it got me to thinking that for the first time in our five year run at Everon things were out of balance.

In our case it was the perception that the Colorado folks did not work as hard as the Boston folks. Now I can tell you that this is not true in anyway especially since I spend most my time in this office, but we were able to figure out where the perception was stemming from by talking to our people and listening to what they had to say. It is always amazing to me what one can learn when they enter a situation with an open mind and from this situation we realize that there are a few things out of wack and we need to make some adjustment to make sure we don’t have people jumping from the bus.

So why am I sharing this experience you may be asking and that is a great question. Partially because it is what’s on my mind today as a wrap up and get ready to hit the sack and partially because we all spend a great deal of time thinking about our people and our culture as we grow our businesses. For those of use focused on a culture of excellence it is important to remember that “fair is good” in the eyes of our employees.

There is almost nothing Mike or I would not do for our people but if we are not constantly listening and keeping thing fair in their eyes we will eventually lose good people and that is something we don’t want to happen if we can avoid it.

JC