Sales WinWire – SherWeb Accelerates Partner’s Office 365 Go-to-Market

Win Summary

Niveau3 Informatique, a Quebec Managed Services company, wanted to introduce Office 365 to its clients. Offering this new service would require the company to invest a lot of money in hiring and training so it could provide 24/7 support and migration. Niveau3’s main challenge was to control growth and keep risk to a minimum. The company accomplished its goal with the help of SherWeb, a CSP Indirect partner in both Canada and the US.

SherWeb was introduced to Niveau3 by Frederic Senez, Niveau3’s Partner Sales Executive for Microsoft Canada’s SMB division. Mathieu Leblanc, SherWeb’s Director of Business Development, met with several of Senez’s partners to explain how they could leverage SherWeb’s partner program to go to market faster with Office 365.

Challenge/

Niveau3’s first Office 365 client was using Exchange 2007 on-premises for 120 users. The hardware was causing frequent problems, they were running out of space and their Internet provider stopped supporting the SMTP relay.

Niveau3 wanted a solution that would allow it to upgrade its client email platform, but also transition to a managed services business model. The company needed an easy option that could be implemented fast and didn’t require a large initial investment. Niveau3 had considered joining CSP directly with Microsoft, but they felt that offering a 24/7 support service would be too risky and expensive.

Solution

Niveau3 won the deal by teaming up with SherWeb and offering Office 365 Enterprise E1. By becoming a co-branded partner with SherWeb, Niveau3 was able to provide the services its clients needed and still control its expenditures. Under the terms of SherWeb’s co-branded partner model, the partner owns and bills the customer and SherWeb provides migration services and direct technical support for the end client. Since Niveau3 didn’t have to worry about upfront investments or the costs associated with technical support, it was able to focus completely on expanding its client base. Leveraging SherWeb’s ready-to-use white-label sales collateral was another important factor in Niveau3’s product launch.

“Teaming up with SherWeb was a true accelerator,” said Carl Krog, President of Niveau3. He added that the company signed its first deal in January 2016, only 2 weeks after signing up as a SherWeb co-branded partner. Niveau3 began to see profits shortly after.

Sales Strategy

Niveau3’s strategy for profiting from Office 365 is being carried out in two phases. In the first phase, the company is cross-selling Office 365 to its customer base with on-premises Exchange servers. Niveau3 has managed to transfer one quarter of its clients and have more than 200 seats in the sales pipeline, including another 60-seat customer that is already deployed. In the second phase, Niveau3 aims to expand sales to new clients using the sales and marketing tools offered by SherWeb.