This last week I have assisted several customers by combining their services and helping them save money. On the surface, combining services and saving money sounds great! What is under the surface? What am I missing? I am happy to report that we have all the bases covered. I spend most of my time working with customers on their internal IT and Telephony infrastructure. Lately, I have been working with vendors who have made their focus helping the Small and Medium Business (SMB) market. SMB companies are an interesting group. They have all of the needs of a larger business but are unable to afford to buy the large expensive solutions which mid-sized companies can afford to purchase. Since these companies often are working with a smaller budget, they sometimes end up choosing the cheaper solution. This makes sense when a business is just beginning. When I was starting my business, we used Yahoo calendaring to coordinate the activities of our engineers and staff. Compromising functionality for price made sense until we were more established. At some point, we had to purchase our own server and run Microsoft Exchange which increased our functionality and efficiency. As a business flourishes, there is a line you cross where cheap just does not make sense any more. Even so, small growing business are starved for cash so what is a person to do?
This is where combining solutions on to one platform can really make sense. Cbeyond is a national voice and data services provider. Cebyond came to Minneapolis in April of 2008 and delivers Voice/Data bandwidth, DNS hosting, Web hosting, Managed Antivirus, Hosted Exchange, and many other services. Also, there are products like Microsoft Small Business Server which allows companies to take most of these same services and put them on a server and on site at the office. Both of the solutions I've mentioned have sizing and pricing designed with the SMB budget in mind. These products help businesses simplify the technology platform while improving the performance of the combined products. Now this makes sense! The key to successfully implementing these types of solutions is finding an organization which will guide you to the right products for your business needs. I believe it is difficult to go directly to the service provider or manufacturer and expect them to be unbiased. I am a big fan of working with a channel partner (reseller who also reps other products). This is because I have been working as a channel partner for the past 15 years and I agree with this philosophy. Manufacturers and service providers must sell to the partner who then sells to the customers. Channel partners have the best interest of the customer in mind. They look for vendors who offer high reliability and excellent product support after the sale. They must carefully select the best vendors to suit their customers. If they choose poorly they could have unhappy customers.
So in the final analysis. I am confident there are excellent products and services available today which allow companies to combine functionality on one platform. This can be done while increasing overall value and functionality to the end user. I think the best way to find these solutions is through a value added reseller who has multiple products and services to pick from for the clients they serve. This gives the client the best opportunity to purchase the right solution for their company.
Thanks and have a great week!
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