Kati Unplugged: Strategic Partnering Could Be Your Ticket to the Cloud
A Blog Series for Microsoft Dynamics Partners by Kati Hvidtfeldt, US Microsoft Dynamics ERP Cloud Lead.
Every business has its strengths, and partners that limit their offerings to only their core competencies are missing opportunities. Smart partnerships can help businesses reach a new industry or a different region—or the growing market for cloud-based solutions. In this week’s blog we feature Linda Rose, Founder and CEO of Rose Business Solutions and RoseASP. Linda discusses the importance of partnerships in her business—and her thoughts on how symbiotic partner relationships can help businesses prosper.
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From the very beginning, partnerships have been important to our business. With the establishment of RoseASP in 2000, which provides hosting to our partners’ customers, partnering became central. In fact, we just promoted one of our team members to become our first dedicated Partner Channel Manager.
Partnering with a cloud services provider, in particular, can help businesses grow by responding to the needs of the growing market for software-as-a-service. Solutions provided via a cloud delivery model require more infrastructure and expertise than a typical in-house IT operation can provide, including more scalability; secure, reliable and redundant data centers; 24x7 customer support and real-time monitoring.
Strategic, well-selected partnerships are beneficial for a number of reasons:
- No one business can reach out to the entire ecosystem and touch every prospect. By aligning with the right partner, a company can strengthen its position and increase sales effectiveness.
- Customers prefer working with local providers for help with support, training and human interaction. Working with partners who are strategic from a geographic perspective can go a long way in expanding geographic reach to gain new business.
- Partners that offer vertical solutions and industry expertise can help companies expand into new markets.
- Few companies can claim expertise across the entire Microsoft product stack. By working with partners who have expertise in complementary products, companies can offer a complete solution to prospective customers.
- And of course, partnering allows companies without data centers to offer cost-effective cloud-based solutions through secure, established hosting services.
We look for partners who are strategic from a geographic, product or vertical perspective to boost our offerings and serve our customers beyond what we can do as a single organization. And we put contracts in place to establish agreed upon boundaries to ease any competitive concerns.
There are many types and sizes cloud services providers with a variety of expertise. Because each Microsoft Dynamics ERP system has its own nuance it’s important to find a cloud solutions partner that matches your company’s skill set from an implementation standpoint. RoseASP is clearly known for hosting Microsoft Dynamics GP because we have 20 years of product experience, and of course there are cloud service providers with deep experience in other areas.
RoseASP is an industry leader providing hosting for Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM solutions. We want to help Microsoft Dynamics Authorized Resellers meet their year-end goals with a 90-day free trial offer on contracts signed by June 1, 2012. And to reward account execs, we’re awarding an individual sales incentive: a trip for two to St. Thomas, USVI, to the account executive who closes the highest dollar value of RoseASP Microsoft Dynamics hosting contracts between April 1 and June 1, 2012. For more information on these offers click here.
To learn more about how to incorporate cloud-based solutions into your business plans visit the Microsoft Dynamics Countdown to the Cloud page on PartnerSource. Go to www.microsoft.com/dynamics/growyourbusiness for resources that demonstrate to customers how Microsoft Dynamics ERP cloud, hybrid and on-premise solutions can benefit their businesses.