African proverb“If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.”
Introduction
The proverb above has never been truer for IT Service Providers.
Technologies like Public Cloud are enabling even small companies to rapidly deploy solutions that would have been the preserve of large enterprises only a few years ago. To remain competitive, businesses are turning to IT to be efficient and differentiate themselves across most vertical markets. IT Service Providers are the backbone that enables businesses to realise their IT dreams. As customers demand a greater breadth of solutions, Service Providers have the impossible task of delivering an ever-increasing solution set whilst maintaining their quality of customer service. It is impossible to recruit and train people fast enough to keep pace with every customer demand, so Service Providers are increasingly looking to partner to enable them to deliver all the solutions their customers require.
Forming partnerships is time consuming and comes with some risk. From identifying the right partners, conducting your due diligence, and managing the project with third party staff involved, there is a lot to consider and much that can go wrong.
Why do Partner to Partner engagements go wrong?
One party is not commercially strong enough when checked by the customer.
One party lacks the right credentials to deliver solutions in a way acceptable to the Customer. e.g. use of Cloud Adoption Framework
One party doesn’t have relevant reference customers for the opportunity.
One party lacks the vertical market expertise including and regulatory hurdles.
Operational issues in creating back-to-back Service Level Agreements and aligning Support hours etc.
Commercial issues not thought through in advance:
- Who owns the customer billing and commercial relationship?
- How is presales activity to be funded, this can be one sided and needs consideration.
- Alignment of day rates and other costs in a fair way.
Trust: even with all the above covered, introducing a third party to your customer comes with a degree of risk, if things don’t go to plan (which is likely in any complex IT engagement), how will the two parties find amicable solutions that both agree are fair.
How can TD SYNNEX help?
TD SYNNEX is in a strong position to address many of the issues that IT Service Providers face when looking for other providers to partner with.
With thousands of companies buying solutions from us, we have a wide pool of potential partners, each with an existing commercial relationship which gives us a clear view on credit history, solution competency and financial stability. In addition to this we have close relationships with Vendors including Microsoft. One area of work that we perform on behalf of Microsoft is helping Partners achieve their training and certifications and prove competency across the Microsoft solutions. With this knowledge, we are ideally placed to help Service Providers find a partner with the relevant skills and capabilities whilst ensuring that any suggested partner has the required financial stability.
When it comes to the element of trust, this is an area where our involvement can provide peace of mind to both partnering organisations. By working with partners who agree to the principles of the TD SYNNEX Partner-to-Partner program, and qualifying their credentials and references, most of the pitfalls should be avoided. If issues were to occur, we have the resources and mutual relationship to ensure that they are solved amicably and fairly for both partners.
TD SYNNEX have a track record of helping Microsoft Partners work with each other.
For several years, we have run a program for Microsoft Dynamics 365 partners which includes a Partner-to-Partner element. The complexity of the Dynamics 365 solution suite has made it an area where Partners have always recognised the value of working with other organisations that had the relevant skills to deploy solutions to their customers. As the solutions available within the Microsoft CSP program continue to expand, and customer demands become more sophisticated, the need to Managed Service Providers to reach out for complimentary skills is increasing. We recognise this and have built a program to help.
How is AI influencing the Partner-to-Partner requirement?
The dizzying pace of AI making its way from niche applications to the mainstream of IT will have an impact on the need for Partners to work with organisations with other skillsets. In their Q3 results, Microsoft stated that 7% of the 31% growth in Microsoft Azure was attributed to the impact of AI (1). June 2024 will see the launch of a range of AI PCs from all the major manufacturers which will accelerate the adoption of AI across all customer sizes and industries (2). The Microsoft 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report found that 80% of AI users in SMB companies are bringing their own AI solutions to work if the company is not providing them (3). Not only is AI a new technology that customers will need help from a Service Provider to deploy and manage it comes with its own challenges. One of the key requirements for an AI system to provide useful output is the quality of the data it uses whether this is for Machine Learning or input for processing in an AI environment. Poor quality data can have huge impacts on the behaviour of AI systems and the output they give. Any partner deploying an AI solution for a customer should pay close attention to the area of data cleansing to ensure that the system functions as expected. With AI being such a rapidly growing and highly complex area, partners may want to consider teaming up with other companies that specialise in AI, Data Science or both.
How do you get involved with the TD SYNNEX Partner to Partner Program?
- I am a Service Partner looking for complimentary skills to increase my revenue per customer.
- I am a partner with niche skills or IP looking for a new revenue stream from selling through other Partners.