Why VARs and Service Providers Must Re-Evaluate How They Do Business

The industry, (myself included!) has already spoken at great length about the shift in the channel - from capex heavy one-off transactions, to subscription or consumption-based revenue streams.

We all understand the changes that have come into play, but how are Value Added Resellers (VARs) and Service Providers (SPs) like yourself managing this shift? And more importantly, how can you turn these changes into a competitive advantage?

In this blog, I will help address some key questions I come across when speaking to VARs/SPs, such as:

• How do I achieve profitable growth in an “as a service” world?
• How do I maximize customer lifetime value and enhance the customer experience?
• How can I gain better control of my business?

Maintaining Control

Many VARs and SPs I speak to, still feel that they do not have complete control over their business. With the volume of customers and transactions increasing exponentially, many VARs/SPs are unable to stay on top of it all. Whilst your commercials and service offering may be perfected, it’s the operational side which falls short, because monitoring and billing consumption-based revenue alongside traditional revenue streams for so many customers, is a real challenge.

As a result, you may be leaving potential revenue behind without even realizing it. You may also be incurring unnecessary costs chasing small deals and thereby negatively impacting your profit margins – a luxury most smaller resellers or service providers cannot afford. 

Uncover Every Opportunity

Gone are the days where you could sign up a customer and move on to the next deal. Nowadays, maximizing every single opportunity throughout the customer journey is vital for the long-term health and profitability of your business. Is there an opportunity to upsell or cross-sell? What is my customer’s monthly cloud consumption? Does their hardware require maintenance? When is their contract due for renewal? How do I make them successful?

In order to achieve profitable growth, you need the right combination of processes, accurate data, and the tools in place to easily track, monitor, and action each of these opportunities throughout the customers lifecycle. It must be executed proactively and seamlessly, without the need to hire more people or allocate more time.

So how can this all be achieved? I’m not suggesting that you embark on a mammoth in-house software build, or that you use brute force with your existing tools to try and make them work better for you. No, you should be using your energy, resources, and innovation to best serve your customers and enhance the customer experience.

Ticking Every Box

An installed base lifecycle management platform such as iasset.com is exactly what you need to realize profitable growth, without slowing you down. By having complete control over your installed base, you will be able to demonstrate further value to your vendors and end customers. What’s more, if one of your vendors or your distributor already have their own iasset.com instance. This means (once permission is granted), the two instances can exchange data automatically, facilitating a fully automated lifecycle process!