As more US vendors depend on the channel to drive sales in what are slow economic times, some companies have begun targeting resellers with business services.
These offerings, spanning marketing and sales activities to professional services automation tools, promise to offload some business function from resellers' cost infrastructure.
For example, US-based consortium RevBridge in the first quarter will formally launch a portfolio of sales and marketing services aggregated from specialist firms in specific niches.
RevBridge rides a wave of services claimed to help resellers better market their services and establish their own brands.
A consulting firm, Sirius Decisions, a provider of benchmarking tools for sales and services, is a member of the program. So is RTM, a consulting firm focused on go-to-market and distribution strategies, Xplane, a marketing communications consulting firm and Delphin, a firm focused on sales recruitment techniques.
Others include Cambridge
Other US companies offering services that target the channel include OpenAir, which has upgraded its application service aimed specifically at helping resellers get a better handle on the services teams. That ASP has added support for mobile devices and enhanced billing services on behalf of VAR-type customers.
'We use OpenAir to reduce our investment in the software we need to track our time,' said John Carr, vice-president of operations at ICS Florida, a consulting firm specialising in PeopleSoft/JD Edwards projects. 'And because we can now get bills out to the customer faster, we can close the quarter in three days instead of two weeks so our cash flow is better.'
Carr said that working with OpenAir prepared ICS Florida to work with other ASP packages. 'Hands down, this is the best piece of software we have ever worked with,' he said.
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