Solution providers go strong on productizing services

The solution provider community is slowly waking up to the grim reality that

selling services purely as a concept is not work-ing out. As a result, an

increas-ing number of partners are now looking at the option of produ-ctizing

the same.

Most of the solution provi-ders whom we spoke to, affir-med that the trend to

offer products and services together as a bundle is getting obsolete.

"Customers are now offered quotation for products and ser-vices

separately," said G Bala-krishnan, Director, Ontrack Solutions.

Partners are fast realizing that services have to be packa-ged and sold like

a product in order to match increasing customer expectations. And hence, they

are actually offering various service components– each priced individually.

"This way, the customer is also clear as to what he can expect from us and

at what cost," remarked Ponnanna Uthappa, Country Manager (Services),

Allied Digi-tal Services.

This is a clear deviation from the trend prevailing until rece-ntly, wherein

a partner would sell a product and give a variety of services, all at a

composite cost. However, in order to fight the competition, partners started

discounting their service costs from the product price. "These players were

recording big turnovers and yet suffering losses. They failed to realize that

they also have to bear a cost while providing services," stated Dharmesh

Anjaria, Director, Dynacon.

Now, most SIs arrive at some well-defined Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) in

consul-tation with their clients. This method gives customers a clear idea about

the kind of deliverables, they can expect from the partner. "By defining

SLAs, we are overcoming the typical customer mindset, that along with products,

services should come for free," expla-ined Uthappa.

He further added that initia-lly, customers are a bit reluc-tant, as they are

not used to paying large sums for services. "But once we start offering

them a cost-analysis and show them the RoI, they are more agreeable to pay for

services too," informed Uthappa.

Another visible trend is that customers are being made aware of the fact that

an annual maintenance contract doesn’t bring the deliverables of a faci-lities

management services (FMS). "The customer mindset was to get all benefits of

an FMS by signing up an annual mainte-nance contract. This myth is fast breaking

up," explained Anjaria.

Even principals like HP have realized the growing signifi-cance of selling

service as packs and have spruced up its efforts on Carepaqs. The company has

even gone to the extent of pub-lishing the prices of each of the Carepaqs for

various products on its website.

Goldie


Mumbai


(CyberMedia News Service)