So what should you look out for? Well, most Vendors have a number of Technical Accreditation's and Certifications that partners have to pass in order to attain partner status. Look at how many of those accreditation's your security partner has and also, if they have in-house technical resources. It’s always worth investigating things like the ratio of engineers for that vendor vs. total number of engineers or how many engineers vs. number of total customers. For example, you could have a massive Systems Integrator servicing thousands of customers and they could have 10 Engineers that are certified in deploying a Product. It might seem a reasonable amount – but then when you go to book one, it turns out there’s a 6 week wait for an engineer. Why is this? It will probably be because those 10 engineers are spread too thinly across the customer base and that the partner just isn't focused on investing in more resources for that technology. (Or maybe they just didn't have that many engineers in the first place!)
Some other key points:
- When choosing a support partner – are the re-seller / Systems Integrator taking support direct within their own support centre or are they backing straight off to the vendor? Of course, no one partner will do everything. And for us it comes back to having to make those hard choices – you can’t support everything; and not everything you support will be appropriate for all of your customers. Likewise as the customer it’s about finding the partner who will provide the best fit for you and give you the best service across the board and work with you strategically towards your goals – rather than trying to push products onto you.
- Account management. Now I’m not just saying this because it’s my job, a good AM is extremely important. Especially where there might be one or two products/services that are supported direct with the Vendor (either wholly or partially). You need someone who is going to take responsibility and be accountable. If there are issues with in-house support and service, they need to escalate that and fight for you. If there is a vendor who is slacking, they need to be able to give them a kick and stress how important this issue is and to convey in strong terms how it is affecting their customer (you!).
- Make your Account Manager work! I have always found that putting that little bit extra effort in and taking on problems (some of which you may not even be able to influence massively) will pay dividends – both when escalating with vendors and when reporting back to customers. Communication is so, so important. It’s where great business relationships are built. And destroyed!
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