Microsoft Cloud Partner? How can you drive consumption with your clients?

Consumption is the new buzzword from Microsoft. Over the last couple of years Microsoft has been pushing partners to migrate companies to the cloud. Getting them to the cloud is one thing, getting them to use it and see value is another. Now Microsoft is asking partners for help in driving use or “consumption” of the online services. Obviously, if clients don't see the value then they won't renew the services. But for many partners understanding how to drive consumption is not as easy as migrating clients. While Office 365 is a great platform with many services, it in itself is not business solution. That is the challenge for  many partners.  An article in Redmond Channel Partner magazine said it best:

"It's not enough for partners to drive sales of Microsoft's cloud; now, they're being asked to drive cloud workloads."
- Redmond Channel Partner Magazine article: "For Microsoft's Cloud Partners, Consumption' Is the Order of the Day."

If you are a Microsoft cloud partner who has migrated a number of clients to Office 365, you might be asking what else can I offer them? What can I go back to these accounts with to take advantage of the consumption-driven incentive from Microsoft?

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"Solution providers that can figure out how to efficiently meld consumption into their sales and marketing processes will have a head start. Fundamentally, I can guarantee the systems integrators that can get the attention of prospects and clearly articulate the solutions to their business problems will always be winners."
- Redmond Channel Partner Magazine article: For Microsoft's Cloud Partners, Consumption' Is the Order of the Day

It may be simpler than you thought. Offer SharePoint Online-based Portal and Application templates drive "Consumption" in your client accounts. A partnership with SP Marketplace can do that.

As a software vendor, SP Marketplace is a complementary business model to your service-driven business. Even better our SharePoint and Office 365 business solution templates create more service opportunities for you. SP Business Suite is an out-of-the-box set of portals and application modules anchored by a vibrant Intranet and delivered in a integrated structure with Employee Self-Service and department portals (IT, HR, Facilities, and more). They allow you to go back to your clients using Office 365 for just email and simple document sharing and offer them real business solutions that can turn their Office 365 into an organizational hub for collaboration, employee services, and business processes.   

We know it works because we have over 1000 businesses worldwide on over 500,000 seats already using our solutions. Our partners are able to develop a longer deeper relationship with their clients because they can go beyond technical platforms to offering real business solutions.   When clients use our  out-of-the-box Intranet, Employee Self-Service or department portals, the number of users actually using SharePoint Online skyrockets!  Office 365 is no longer that thing I sign into for email, it is part of my daily operational life.

More Value for your clients, more revenue for you, and Consumption credits from Microsoft
Just giving your clients new found value, and perhaps some additional service business is not the only benefit for you. Your organization also gets to take the consumption seat credits as part of your Microsoft Partnership. There is not a better way to enhance and build your business going forward. Best of all, you can start right away and choose how you want to integrate it into your business.

You can start with very little investment. Our referral partnership allows you to simply refer your clients to  us, and we take responsibility for introducing them to our products, the sales process, deployment and product support. There is no requirement for knowing SharePoint or having in-depth knowledge of our products. You introduce us to your client and you get a referral percentage and the consumption credits from Microsoft.  

Or you may see an opportunity to expand your business with additional services wrapped around our offerings, but concerned your staff does not have the expertise. Our reseller partnership is a full package that shows you how to set up a business solution service business, trains your staff on how to customize the solutions, pays you a reseller percentage, and again you get the consumption credits from Microsoft. This can be a very lucrative service practice and differentiates you from other Office 365 Partners. In this relationship, you do all business consulting and customization services, we do deployment and support the products.

Finally, you can also do what some of our most successful partners do, and package our templates in with your Office 365 initial migration package to offer your clients a full service solution from initial setup to full operational business solution on Office 365.  This is a full Distribution partnership.  Here again we have packaged the technical and sales training required to make our template solutions a value-added offering with your services to your clients. In this partnership you take full responsibility for the sales, deployment, customization's, and first-level support of the products. This type of relationship is great for regional partners outside the United States or those partners who target specific industries.

To learn more about our partnership opportunities go to our partner page.

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