Intermedia
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Name: Michael Gold
Title: CEO
RCP: What do you call your program?
Gold: We do not have a separate name for our CSP program because it's so tightly integrated into the suite of services that Intermedia partners resell.
Our Private Label Reseller program has existed for many years and offers MSPs and VARs the ability to resell Intermedia's Office in the Cloud suite of integrated cloud services under their own brand, while controlling billing, support and the complete customer experience.
Enabled by CSP, Intermedia integrated Office 365 into the Office in the Cloud suite of services for our Private Label Reseller program. Initially, we integrated the Office 365 Business and ProPlus plans as Intermedia Office Apps powered by Office 365. Office Apps gives Intermedia Private Label Reseller partners the ability to resell Office 365-powered Office together with Intermedia-powered e-mail, voice, backup and file sharing, security, and other cloud services. In the future, we will integrate other Office 365 plans in our product lineup.
What do you call the CSP resellers in your program?
Private Label Reseller partners. These are the MSPs and VARs that resell Intermedia services through our Private Label partner program.
What requirements does a partner need to meet to be a reseller for you?
There are no requirements for an MSP or VAR to become a registered Private Label Reseller partner through Intermedia. Once in the program, there are additional benefits that accrue to the partner based on achieving sales targets and training objectives.
Is there a cost involved?
There are no fees or costs involved for an MSP or VAR to become an Intermedia Private Label Reseller partner. Once you begin to resell services, you are billed according to the services you have sold to your customers.
One of the attractions of the CSP program is that Microsoft does not own the customer billing. But has a reseller substituted Microsoft owning the customer billing for you, the CSP distribution partner, owning the customer billing?
No, with Intermedia's private-label partner program, our partners own the billing relationship with their customers. Partners are cross-selling Office apps with the services they currently offer, as well as using Intermedia's Office in the Cloud services together with Office apps to win new business. We offer savings on Office apps when sold together with our bundles, with bigger discounts for the bundles with more services. In all cases, we give our Private Label Reseller partners the ability to be the face to their customers, and they own the sales, marketing, support and billing relationships.
What protections or assurances have you put in place to reassure the reseller that they own the customer relationship?
In our Private Label Partner reseller agreement, we detail the responsibilities of both the partner and Intermedia with respect to billing and support. Additionally, we message the fact that Private Label Reseller partners own the customer relationship extensively throughout program and product materials. We have even created this video which highlights this assurance with our Partner First pledge.
Do you offer a white-label billing option or white-label support options? Is there a fee or different participation requirements for partners to use a white-label version?
All services sold under the Private Label Reseller program are white-labeled. Partners can choose whether or not to reveal the Intermedia brand or sell under their own brand. However, under this partner model, they must provide Level 1 support and billing to their customers. If partners wish to resell Office apps and other Office in the Cloud services, but utilize billing and support from Intermedia, we offer an Advisor partner program.
In addition to distributing Microsoft cloud keys and billing, what benefits are you providing to the resellers that they can, in turn, offer to their customers?
The CSP program enables Intermedia to integrate Office apps with other industry-leading services and support, so that our partners can offer unique bundles such as Office Apps plus cloud phone service. Intermedia's cloud management platform, HostPilot, provides resellers with a common interface to provision and manage their Office Apps service along with e-mail, voice, backup, security and all of Intermedia's Office in the Cloud services.
Leveraging Microsoft's CSP, Intermedia allows MSPs and VARs to offload the burden of application management and integration to us, so they can focus on customer relationships. We manage the services, integrate Office apps, perform onboarding, operate a 99.999 percent SLA environment (for non CSP-provided services) and provide the support.
Intermedia partners improve their economics in two ways:
- They can add even more unique value on top of the value we're already adding (our platform is more flexible than the Microsoft CSP platform, as it includes more services, the ability to white-label and create unique bundles, and more).
- They can redirect their investments from maintaining hardware to selling new services and improving their relationships.
What differentiates your CSP distribution offering from the other CSP indirect partners?
Compared to other CSP distributors, Intermedia provides a great deal of value through its Private Label Reseller program, including 24x7 technical support to our partners, free migration and onboarding support, sales and marketing support (including assistance at the individual deal level), a powerful and easy-to-use control panel, as well as the aforementioned white-label capabilities.
How much demand are you seeing from resellers?
We are seeing broad demand for Office apps when purchased together with our Office in the Cloud bundles.
How many resellers have you signed up so far for your CSP program (United States and worldwide)?
Intermedia currently has over 6,000 active partners and our highly differentiated Office apps experience helps attract many new partners every month.
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