Seeking Backstage Resellers
November 13, 2017 • Chris Marriott
Successful IT consultants tend to recommend products and services that protect their bottom line. This isn’t easy. For years, the margins on hardware and software have shrunk from triple, to double, to low single digits -- to the point that they’re too slim for most consultants to survive on. Many folks in our industry saw the move to cloud computing and SaaS as a return to dependable recurring revenue and healthy margins. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out that way.
Google and Microsoft’s SaaS offerings are good examples of this trend. Both companies are huge players in cloud services. Both operated very aggressive reseller programs that boasted fat margins and big bonuses for resellers. Over time, as they gained more and more customers, both began to sideline their reseller partners.
Resellers have no place in Google and Microsoft’s long term strategy for cloud services. From the beginning, their goal was to use reseller partner...