Traditionally, businesses monitor things like revenue, leads and phone calls made. All are important items to measure...but they only tell part of the story.
- By Keith Lubner
- May 01, 2011
It's when your business expands more than one degree of separation from your core offering that things unravel.
- By Mike Harvath
- May 01, 2011
There was a distinct cloud slant at some of the major IT players' recent partner confabs, with Cisco, IBM and VMware each rolling out new programs to help their partners transition customers to the new computing paradigm.
- By Jeffrey Schwartz
- April 07, 2011
Building a strategic and effective sales management system is just like building anything else: It takes time, refinement and follow-through.
- By Ken Thoreson
- April 05, 2011
The Microsoft reseller that can implement a process and system to develop opportunities on its own will always win in the marketplace.
- By Keith Lubner
- April 05, 2011
In a channel network that's 640,000 strong, it's a tall order to address the multitude of questions, concerns and grievances that partners may have. Thankfully, the leaders of Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Group seemed eager to hear them all.
- By Scott Bekker
- March 30, 2011
Sometimes, crafting a successful business strategy requires less innovation and more of the tried-and-true.
- By Mike Harvath
- March 01, 2011
The more efficient your PRM plan is, the more efficient and productive you'll be.
- By Keith Lubner
- March 01, 2011
What happens in one part of Microsoft doesn't always sync with what happens in another. And that can spell trouble for partners.
- By Paul DeGroot
- March 01, 2011
If Microsoft doesn't get BPOS billing right, the sharks will certainly be circling.
- By Scott Bekker
- March 01, 2011
Pros and cons, and thoughts on intermixing business and personal on the popular social network.
- By Scott Bekker
- February 01, 2011
Enablement might sound like training, but it provides for a more proactive approach focused on solution selling.
- By Keith Lubner
- February 01, 2011
The two biggest reasons for working with Microsoft are its solid support for partners and the breadth of its product line.
- By Paul DeGroot
- February 01, 2011
To succeed as a Microsoft partner you need to understand what Microsoft -- and often a particular person at Microsoft -- wants.
- By Paul DeGroot
- January 01, 2011
The lower startup and maintenance costs, quicker ROI and increased productivity of the cloud, particularly with Windows Azure, may greatly expand the number of ISVs seeking to build their own channels.
- By Keith Lubner
- January 01, 2011
When it comes to basic market dynamics, the IT services industry can be characterized in economic parlance as a fragmented industry.
- By Mike Harvath
- January 01, 2011
Microsoft needs to reconsider its practice of directly billing cloud computing customers if the company expects to gain serious traction among partners.
- By Scott Bekker
- January 01, 2011
Having financial ownership in a company doesn't mean you automatically have leadership, nor does being a manager make you a leader.
- By Ken Thoreson
- December 01, 2010
The buzzword in Microsoft partner relationships these days appears to be "incentives."
- By Paul DeGroot
- December 01, 2010
I've spoken to a lot of resellers and ISVs over the past several weeks and a good number of you can't wait until 2011.
- By Keith Lubner
- December 01, 2010