Just four partners to join Office 365 support and billing scheme

Microsoft is calling for its partners to vie for just four spots in the newly announced Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) Program.

These four CSPs will take a greater responsibility for support and billing of small to medium Office 365 customers, said Steve Miller, ‎Microsoft Australia Office division business group director, who revealed the CSP strategy during a standing room-only session on the final day of Microsoft Australia Partner Conference.  

The nomination process starts at midday on Friday 4 September and closes on 27 September, just over three weeks away. The entries will be whittled down to 10 shortlisted partners, which will then need to pitch for one of the four available spots.

These four are expected to be up and running by November. The initial four partners are just the first wave – Microsoft will open up more CSP spots in the future.

While the CSP scheme is currently only focused on the reseller tier, Miller did say that in future it could be opened up to a two-tier model. There is clearly an opportunity for distributors, which specialise in complex billing arrangements.

The CSP scheme is aimed at the SMB space and will not affect larger customers on Enterprise Agreements.

To be successful in their bids, partners will need to offer three things: monthly or annual billing; "programmatic lifecycle maintenance"; and 24/7 end customer support – both billing and tier-one and tier-two technical support.

CRN spoke to the directors of two different partner companies immediately after the session, who both assumed the CSP program would help Microsoft outsource Office 365 support desk and billing enquiries.

However, Miller told CRN that the scheme was largely driven by a desire to give partners more control over the whole customer lifecycle – something they have been asking for since the early days of Microsoft's exclusive deal with Telstra.

Program criteria include things such as marketing, sales and support, but these are just the baseline – in order to top the field, partners will need to prove they can offer creative "optional" value-added services on top, said Miller.

He offered examples of these optional differentiations, for instance: vertical experience around a specific industry, such as healthcare; horizontal experience, such as HR or accounting; or an ability to integrate specific ISV solutions.

Miller said these "optional" areas would be where partners could stand out.

"Really think about that optional piece as being a necessary piece – something that really delivers difference and really offers something compelling so that customers come to you and not others," he told the audience.

Speaking to CRN later, he said consortiums could bid for a spot. For example, the lead partner could work with an ISV to add some unique software piece, or collaborate with a billing specialist.

This focus on creative, added-value services ties into Microsoft's renewed focus on "usage" of Office 365. It's no longer good enough for partners to just resell seats: they are now incented on driving customers to consume multiple parts of the Office 365 stack – such as SharePoint, Yammer and Lync – as part of the new Cloud Competencies announced at World Partner Conference in July.

The CSP program is an addition to the existing models for partners to sell Office 365. The other methods – via Telstra, through Open licensing and via the newly launched Microsoft Online Portal – will remain unchanged.

CSP is starting with Office 365, but it will roll out to Azure, InTune and CRM Online in future, added Miller.

CRN was an exhibitor at Microsoft Australian Partner Conference.