As a Managed Service Provider (MSP), the opportunities arising from your customer’s move to cloud services are huge. Your customers know the business and economic benefits of the cloud and are ready to switch their spending from legacy, on-premises systems to cloud services. Yet, while the cloud appears simple at a surface level, marketing, selling, designing, deploying, and supporting new cloud apps often demands skills that might be outside of your current capabilities. Many MSPs are deciding to work with cloud service partners (CSP partners) to help them fill in the gaps. To ensure success, make sure you tick every item on this list when you consider a CSP partner.
- Does business your way, not their way – CSP partners that invest the time and resources to understand your business, your skills, and your customers to do business “your way” are optimal partners. Stay away from CSP partners that treat all MSPs alike and force you to do business their way. Look for a partner that focuses on you, gets to know you, and does business your way.
- Helps you sell more – Creating that winning proposal isn’t always easy, but it’s essential to your success. For this reason, you want a partner that supports you with a quote system, proposal templates, and even sales decks that give you the winning edge as an MSP partner.
- Gets you answers and resources fast with your own dedicated partner portal – A comprehensive portal that makes it easy to find exactly what you need will increase your efficiency and let you complete tasks quickly. A portal that includes key information and tools lets you get things done quickly to grow your business. A CSP partner should make it easy to bill, quote, and provision licenses in one unified space to reduce the “time to solution” for your customers and increase your sales.
- Gives you the experts you need, when you need them – Perhaps the most important question to ask is, “How committed is this CSP partner to my business?” A committed partner supports your success by making the most appropriate expert staff available to you as soon as you need them. Getting the right answers quickly enhances your ability to support your customers and build your business.
- Helps you deliver customer delight with cohesive and complete solutions – You want a partner that focuses with you on delivering a complete solution that meets all of your customer’s needs. For example, the Office 365 partner program provides a comprehensive set of cloud managed services, that give your customer a total cloud experience. Best-in-class Microsoft partners also have their own IP that improves the customer experience.
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- Ensures that your cloud migration projects go off without a hitch – Once your customers become excited about moving to the cloud, you must be sure you can get them there without problems or delays. A CSP partner with a proven track record of successful cloud migrations guarantees success. The right partner with an MSP program will successfully complete much of the “heavy lifting” for cloud migration projects. You’ll also benefit from getting margin on the work the partner does during the migration project.
- Provides you with your own virtual “support team” – Support can make or break your customer relationship. A CSP partner that will “white label” support services can make it look like you have your own deep and experienced support team. When you can rely on a partner that will pick up the phone, acting like they are part of your company, and say, “You’ve reached MSP ABC, how can I help you?”, you have a real partner that furthers your success. Your customer’s confidence and trust are increased, knowing that you have the resources necessary to meet any challenge.
- Handles complex licensing issues for you – It is easy to be derailed by cloud managed service license complexities. Making a mistake in all the legalese can hurt your business. With a Microsoft partner that knows the nuances and can give you the optimal licensing options for your customers helps you succeed selling managed cloud services. For example, the nuances of Microsoft cloud services licensing are not obvious. Imagine the time you can save by having a Microsoft partner that will navigate licensing complexities for you?
- Makes it easy for you to get new certifications and develop new skills – Acquiring new skills and certifications is an important part of broadening the number of solutions you can sell. Your customers will gain trust when they see a long list of certifications. A partner with the best in online training and certification programs that are tailored to your needs delivers a foundation for success.
- Turnkey marketing programs that dramatically expand your presence – Marketing has become complex and includes many different activities. A CSP program that can provide a social media presence, blogging, marketing brochures, complete marketing campaigns, and advertising helps you sell more business without burdening you with a lot of new tasks. Turnkey marketing programs provide real results with very little demand on your time.
Learn all the advantages of being a Sherweb partner with our infokit
Sherweb is dedicated to creating a successful CSP partnership with you by ticking all these 10 boxes and more. We start each MSP relationship by truly understanding your business, skills, and customer needs. From there, we bring sales, marketing, and our own IP to help you grow your cloud business. We’re at the ready to help customers migrate and operate new cloud services quickly, and our proven migration, deployment, and support programs will augment your own capabilities to ensure your customer’s success. As a Direct CSP Partner with Microsoft, Sherweb gives you access to best-of-breed cloud services. If you want a partner committed to helping you achieve long-term wins, dive into our InfoKit to learn more.
