Coast Solutions Group, a services consultant for VARs, has packaged 40 of its most popular offerings—a framework of the presales process for services—into technology- and customer-specific packages to speed users' time to market.
The package of guides and marketing materials provides VARs building a services practice or selling a new service offering, an easy-to-choose, easy-to-follow map to market, said Paul Freeman, president of CSG.
"It's the storytelling that goes behind the sell," Freeman said. "It's the conversation you have to have with your staff and your customers to start the process. The greatest challenge to service providers is supporting the solution, managing the cost, handling warranties. It's kept a lot of VARs from penetrating beyond the break-fix model. "We're a turnkey solution to those challenges," he said. "We've already set some of those parameters so no one is starting from scratch… It's the starting point in the storytelling."
Freeman called the 40 packages an out-of-the-box version of what the company already serves a la carte.
Packages include customer-facing collateral, opportunity worksheets to guide the qualification process, statement-of-work forms, a deliverable template and sales and marketing tools.
The technology specific-packages for midsize businesses include versions for security, storage and backup, systems infrastructure, network infrastructure, Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint and Windows, System management, discovery, inventory, and compliance, mobility solutions, desktop deployment, manufacturer-specific services for VMWare, Citrix, EMC, HP, and Altiris.
CSG is working to deploy a similar suite of packages for SMB VARs and service providers in the coming months, Freeman said.
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