Service the complete customer lifecycle
Bill monthly if desired
Directly provision customer subscriptions
Meet a growing customer
expectation of a cloud
subscription model
With in-product tools, directly manage and
modify customer subscriptions
Build a monthly annuity
revenue stream
Speed the sales cycle to get customers up and
running quickly
Which products can I sell in this programme?
You can sell all major commercial suites and standalone
products for Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Intune, Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft
Dynamics CRM Online.
What is the difference in channel incentive programs with Open, EA, and Advisor?
Microsoft Cloud Solution Providers earn upfront margin
through a wholesale price list. The Open, EA, and Advisor
programs have channel incentive programs based on sales
and/or performance.
What are my risks?
As a partner, you own the billing relationship and assume
the credit and collections responsibility with your customers.
Since you directly provision, monitor, and manage the subscription, customers will contact you with related provisioning, help, and how-to questions as well as all issues related
to technical support. You must be able to provide quality
24/7 end-user support to varying call volumes.
What are my revenue opportunities in the
CSP model?
You receive access to a wholesale price list that can
recognize upfront margins at the initial sale and with every
subsequent renewal, you have the opportunity to attach the
initial deployment and migration services, ongoing maintenance, and support to every subscription. And because
of your ongoing customer relationship, when a customer
has questions or wants to make a change in their subscription, you will have a greater opportunity to drive adoption
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First point of contact for all
customer needs
Increased touch points help identify
needs for new services and solutions
No need differentiate Partner’s
support from Microsoft’s
services, customisation, and upsell. You can also consider financing customers’ initial deployment and migration
services to spread upfront costs in exchange for a long term
commitment for ongoing managed services.
What prevents Microsoft from taking my
customer direct?
This program was designed to place partners at the center
of the customer relationship. You own the billing relationship
and are established as the first point of contact for your
customers. Microsoft will not communicate directly with your
customers about the services they purchase through you.
When will Microsoft communicate directly with
my customers?
As a general principle the expectation is that partners
manage the communications with their customers. Since
you own the customer billing relationship, Microsoft will not
send communications directly to customers related to their
subscriptions. Microsoft may communicate directly with
customers as it relates to operation of the service, such as
important information on service incidents. Note that many
customers have existing commercial relationships with Microsoft, and Microsoft will continue to communicate directly
with these customers related to these other products
and services.
What happens if this doesn’t work for my
business? Can I move my customers over to
another model?
Customers make a 12 month commitment that must be fulfilled. At the end of that period you can sell your customers
an EA, Open, or Advisor model at your discretion.