Why focus on World Class Service Delivery?
According to IDC’s Eight Steps to partner profitability the standout characteristics of top performing partners vs. others is they are vertically focused, they have higher sales velocity vs. other partners and they deliver consistently excellent repeatable services. The outcome is their profit margins are significantly higher than other partners. If the delivery of consistently excellent and repeatable services is one of the key characteristics of top performance today it is only going to become more important tomorrow.
Service Delivery in the Cloud
Doing business in the Cloud will be very different. Customers will be much more demanding requiring instant gratification. Customers will demand that services are delivered at the speed of a double-click. The trend is for the same set of services and a new generation of cloud based services delivered to customers in a time frame reduced by a factor of 100%. The implication for partners is that Service Delivery excellence will continue to distinguish top performing partners - customers will demand partners deliver more services, more efficiently and in less time.
The Big Opportunity
Doing business in the Cloud provides partners with a market opportunity that is infinitely greater than the opportunity for most partners today. The addressable market moves from mid market businesses located in the business park situated close to your home address to each and every business park in the world.
How to Respond - The World Class Service Delivery Assessment
Partners must take the first step by evaluating their Service Delivery methods and practices starting today. In order to know where you want to get to, you have to know where are you today. The World Class Service Delivery assessment benchmarks the maturity of a partners service delivery methods and processes against best in class. The outcome provides partners with a rich set of analysis that surfaces key gaps that exist in the partners existing approach.
The World Class Service Delivery Workshop
The next step is to engage in the World Class Service Delivery workshop. The workshop is a coaching engagement facilitated by an expert Service Delivery coach. The coach leads a hand picked team of senior executives and well respected thought leaders from the partner through a process that evaluates the results of the World Class Service Delivery assessment. Critical issues facing the partner hindering their ability to make improvements that surfaced from the assessment are discussed and prioritized. Plans are developed that emphasize action and ownership. The plan becomes the springboard for making the necessary changes to improve a partners Service Delivery methods and processes.
Microsoft Sure Step
One of the most valuable deliverables from the World Class Service Delivery workshop is the training partners receive on Microsoft Sure Step. Sure Step is Microsoft’s implementation methodology for developing and deploying Dynamics solutions. Throughout the workshop partners learn how Sure Step can help them address many of the service delivery process and methods issues that surfaced from the assessment. By following this approach partners quickly understand how Sure Step can be of most value to them in terms of helping them to address gaps and make improvements to their existing service delivery practices. Often this leads to partners requesting more detailed training on Sure Step and this can be provided as a follow-on activity after the coaching workshop.