So how do MSPs, CSPs and other service providers decide which vendors to choose, and what is the right mix? If partnerships are rushed into without careful consideration, providers may experience relationships that do not produce an ROI or do not generate new business. TCC research shows that 50-60% of vendor partnerships do not get off the ground after contract signing.

One of the most significant opportunities is getting the business strategy and vendor mix right.

Often times, a strategy session is needed to map out the solutions offered and the verticals in which success is experienced to uncover where the opportunities for growth. Helping clients make the transition from on premise to cloud continues to be an incredible opportunity; assisting customers in determining what they need to do for sustained success in the cloud is more and more important.

Specialized new cloud-based services are emerging every day. Sometimes these specialized vendor players can make a huge impact on our ecosystem; or it’s an industry with a new cloud offering that can best assist us.

Building and prioritizing key growth areas for new services is essential. Take for example, some of the more interesting services highlighted in a recent post in MSP Mentor.

7 Managed Services Offering Trends to watch in 2016:

Remote monitoring for BYOD policies and protection
Enterprise Mobility Management for mobile devices
Internet of Things for everything connected
Identity and access management for two-factor authentication
Cloud backup services for data protection
Compliance as a service for meeting regulatory compliances
Remote monitoring and management

Building a rich and trusted ecosystem with the right mix of partners is essential:

Hardware and Software Vendors
Service Provider Vendors
Contracting Services Companies
Two Tier Distributors
Other Managed and Cloud Business Service Companies

Combining the right relationships from the right types of partners enable our customer base, differentiate us from our competition and enable our top line growth.

In addition to technology, product and solutions, here are some other considerations.

It’s important to evaluate the entire “partnering experience” with the vendor.
What is the commitment the vendor has to the channel?
Would this new vendor put us in the position to have to balance a potentially competitive relationship?
Will we need to consider competitive aspects, either with another partner or vendor in our ecosystem, or with a vendor’s direct sales organization?
When these competitive situations arise, how will we manage ongoing successful sales engagements?

To fully consider our vendor mix, we need to have careful considerations in all facets of this relationship including:

Vendor Strategy
Vendor strategy ideally lines up with go to market strategy and existing services offerings. Do service providers choose go with many different, smaller best of breed partners, or one large significant player that can offer many different services? There are pros and cons with both strategies. Providers should evaluate the exact value proposition, the verticals served and what benefits can be expected from the different strategies, then make a choice.

Vendor’s Partner Experience
What is the partner experience like? Are they a partner-centric organization where all of their business is done with partners, or do they also have a direct sales organization? What percentage of their revenue is done with partners? Also look at partner program features: cloud programs, like deal registrations, conflict management policies, partner account managers, support and executive sponsorship. Can we gauge the level of their partner commitment by looking at their website and other public-facing materials? Do they have a vibrant partner ecosystem themselves? If partners are not a priority for them, then it may be tough to get the partner experience needed to be successful.

Partner Program Service and Support Model
From what we know about the vendor’s program, what is the expectation for training and certifications and what is the method and quality of their training programs? Some of the smaller players might not be as mature as the bigger market leaders, but what is really important to the business?

If there is a clear and defined onboarding and ramping plan, can service and delivery teams get what they need out of it and for what investment? Ultimately, will we be able to profit from this program, or will we struggle to even come up to speed for the investment cost estimates?

Quality of Service and Support
When considering any vendor, providers must look at their overall quality of service and support. This is the time to really test the extent of their technical and sales support. Are the vendor teams quickly available on the phone, or does it take 10 minutes just to get someone live? How well is the vendor staff trained and ready to help? Explore and test-drive the tools they offer, the online capabilities, community supported knowledge base and any analytics they offer.

When we are live with a client solution, we need to be sure we have a partner at our side.

Compatibility
Consider compatibility with the other services offered. The tight integration between service offerings will directly affect the services delivered to clients. Do the vendors together offer interoperability certifications or programs; are there reference architectures of different service offerings on which to capitalize?

Marketing Support
As you continue to build out your brand, will the vendors aligned with support that goal? Within their program, does the vendor offer marketing support? If so, what type and extent are they willing to help? Will they provide content for marketing efforts? Are they going to help with lead generation, or even pass on leads? What kind of extended support or concierge services can be expected from them? The extent of the support given here will directly impact the entire vendor experience.

The last key area is ensuring the vendor also fits well into the business’ broad partner ecosystem around cloud services.

This brings us to another key area in the go to market model: building out the ecosystem. Not only will it stand to differentiate the provider in the marketplace, it also creates space for a significant trend in this industry, which is, partners, within the same ecosystem, partnering together.

Collaborations between MSP or cloud partners can strengthen offerings and increase competitive position. When new solution offerings are built, it may create opportunities for complementary partners and services to work together.

For example, I was recently at a conference and led a discussion about security. Two MSPS; an integrator focused on storage and networking explored the opportunity to partner with a highly oriented security and compliance as a service MSP in completely different geographies of the country. This example highlights how MSPs and solution providers working together can be a strong value proposition with the right negotiated terms and rules of engagement up front. .

Having collaboration, trust and unified goals to ensure alignment, along with a customer experience that is supportive, smooth and very successful, are key for these relationships’ success.

That is just one example. Service providers could have on premise solutions collaborating with cloud services, analytics services partnering with compliance services or hosting partnering with communications.

Whatever the mix, having a common set of goals, and building a track record of successful clients will strengthen the overall proposition and ultimately our ecosystem.

This post explored the overall vendor mix and compatibility strategies when building an ecosystem, what they might look like and some of the challenges in building our vendor/partner relationships. In part two of this series, we will look at the best practices in managing vendor/partner relationships and successful ecosystem communication strategies.

Join me at HostingCon July 24-27 to explore partnerships in even more depth.

Source: TheWHIR