BMS Blog: SBS Consulting in the UK

The community really does work! We’ve just engaged with another Microsoft partner who develops financial systems software which allows the end user to view information about their SIPPS and pensions etc. online.

They have invested heavily in new infrastructure which is where we come in. I’ve spent all this week at their premises consulting on architecture and implementation of the new systems. The amazing thing is how much we’ve both learnt from each other about areas outside of each others normal scope. Of much greater value than the invoice I’ll be sending them for the consultancy is the knowledge I’ll be taking away I can use elsewhere. It really does pay to get involved with other partners!

Microsoft seem to be releasing some amazing technology at the moment not least of which is Microsoft Surface. As David Overton says, this is something that really makes you go WOW! It seems though that not everyone is impressed as this parody shows. OK so it’s a cheap shot, but I have to say this did bring a grin to my face. (I still want one though, dammit!)

If you haven’t done so already, get on over to The SBS, Centro and Windows Home Server Community Lead Blog and fill in the 2007 SBS Community Survey. It’s your community - make the most of it

Following on from the last post about spreading the SBSC word, we’ve now had some mouse-mats printed with the Microsoft Small Business Specialist logo! We’re sending these out with every workstation, server and notebook we sell just in case customers forget who provides their support services for them!

I’m challenging the guys here to come up with the most creative place we can put the logo that gets us noticed – I’ve had one or two suggestions already but nothing I can put into print, but I’m undeterred!

From a customer facing point of view, we are finding the Small Business Specialist accreditation gives us more traction with prospects than the Certified Partner status. I think that’s down to the fact it “does what it says on the tin” and of course most of our prospects are SMEs who have 10 – 75 users. Customers immediately understand what it means to them in terms of who they are dealing with. The Certified Partner status although more far reaching in its’ competencies and structure is harder for a customer to get to grips with and therefore the benefits of dealing with a Certified Partner are less obvious at first.

I checked out the Business & Technology Assessment Toolkit some time ago in a previous incarnation and frankly it was woefully poor. I was tempted to take a second look however as there are currently several offers running including a free “for resale” copy of SBS if you submit 5 assessments and the chance to win a mobile 5.0 device (if you’re an SBSC partner). You can get all the details over at the Microsoft Partner site.

Although I initially had issues trying to get the toolkit running on Vista it runs happily on XP Pro SP2 (and it is now running on Vista). First impressions are that it is much improved over the previous versions both in design of the interface as well as the assessments themselves. The questions are now much more relevant to the SME market and you don’t feel so uncomfortable asking your customers. We don’t just run through all the questions one after the other but slot them in to the rest of the presentation. It feels less like the Spanish Inquisition that way! We’ve conducted several surveys so far and they don’t just have to be prospective customers. You can survey your existing customers as well which we have found really useful as it starts the ball rolling on subjects that they maybe haven’t discussed with us previously such as desktop refresh timescales for example.

Conducting the survey is really just the start. Once completed you can then start to spec. up a proposal based on the answers. It’s a great opportunity to open a dialog with your customers and prospects. Don’t forget to upload your assessments once complete for a chance to claim your for resale copy of SBS. You better be quick though as the offer is only on until the end of June!