At a time when enterprise customers look for the next level of innovation in order to achieve better synergies and enhancement of business processes, Value Added Resellers and Managed Service providers or MSPs can come together to create the big value that enterprise is looking for.
As it is extremely difficult for a solution provider to do it alone all alone, MSPs can help in creating the common fabric on which technology can drive business solutions for the enterprise community.
And hence, today’s SPs needs to be focused on a particular set of areas and then be willing to partner in other areas with VARs and help their enterprise customers on the long term.
These partnerships can have two flavors of enhancing geographical presence or by enhancing technology services and expertise. Both these areas are quite critical from an enterprise support standpoint. And in either case there are some fundamental industry best practices that need to be considered regardless of the type of business arrangement.
Due Diligence
It is very important for all SPs to thoroughly scrutinize or examine any other business they are going to partner with. Market reputation and credibility should also be considered before partnering on a long term. This process should clearly include, understating the financial history, credit report and customer testimonies for the partner.
In addition to the above, a potential business partner for VARs and MSPs also needs to bring something to the table that a partner does not have in its portfolio. In some cases it could be the geographic reach. And hence, the whole relationship needs to be complementary whereas together the VAR or the MSP organizations offer more strength in the form of better managed services to their enterprise customers.
The idea would be to create better synergies amongst the partner themselves so that their end customers get the big benefit and that can help increase the customer value and its loyalty for the VAR as well as the MSP.
