I just read an article in eWeek Channel Insider that discusses Dell’s recent publishing of their managed services pricing to a select group of partners. It seems to be causing a bit of a buzz in the industry - everyone wants to know what they’ll be competing against.
Charles Weaver at MSP Alliance made some good points on his blog post about the article. His main point is “Why is everyone being so reactionary to Dell’s move in the market?”.
It’s a great question.
The answer is that people aren’t spending enough time making sure they brainstorm the many ways they can provide better service than Dell can, and using the answers they come up with to train their sales and service team appropriately.
Dell coming into the market should be good for everyone:
- It will be good for the people who decide to partner directly with them - you’ll now have a great source of business
- It will be good for the people who compete directly against them - you’ll now have a major company spending hundreds of millions of dollars promoting the concept of managed services.
If you are going to put yourself in the second camp, resolve to do the following:
- Don’t lower your prices
- Identify and articulate clear reasons for why you have higher prices, or resolve to create those if you don’t already have them
- Rally your company by using Dell as a clear enemy that is attacking the future of your livelihood - people love to have a big enemy to fight!
Either way - don’t panic. Use this as an opportunity to get better!
MRC
