If you are relying on just the same old tired channel programs then you are missing what is a seismic shift in the IT landscape.
Customers are demanding Instant Return On Investment (IROI) on their technology purchases. That means they are looking for an instant return on every IT dollar they spend.
So what are IROI channel programs? Any program that allows you to play in the Software as a Service(SaaS), cloud computing or managed services with a monthly recurring revenue participation.
Salesforce.com, to its credit, has come out with a first class IROI program and has backed it up by letting the VAR own the customer relationship.
In Salesforce's IROI channel program, partners are wholly responsible for annual customer renewals. At the end of each month, Salesforce will bill partners for the number of licenses they have in production.
Cisco is also pushing forward on the IROI front by retooling its managed services channel program to accommodate a larger number of partners.
Cisco Senior Director of Programs and Strategies Surinder Brar says the updated program lowers the barrier of entry for partners and also opens the door for more partners to join and reap the financial benefits of managed services offerings. He sees the market opportunity for partners continuing to grow at a rate of 16 percent to 20 percent annually.
VMware, which is hosting partners this week at its massive VMworld conference, is one of the foundation companies in the IROI movement. The virtualization market leader, in fact, was the spark behind the IROI phenomenon.
VMware this week upped the ante in its IROI assault with new IROI application initiatives including vCloud Express, a platform to provide pay-as-you-go infrastructure and VMware vCloud API, a collection of APIs that allows applications to be written so they can be easily moved between internal and external compute clouds.
There's hundreds of IROI channel programs that will get you into monthly recurring revenue rather than infrastructure or point product sales. Are you taking advantage of IROI channel programs? What vendors have best of breed IROI channel program
