Bull's Eye Award: Channel Support Service of the Year
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OnForce
Solution providers have often traded talent and capacity in delivering services to their clients, but often in an ad hoc way. OnForce pioneered the model for connecting solution providers with excess capacity with those who needed temporary help through an online exchange. Since its inception, no one rivals OnForce’s ability to foster transactional and persistent service relationships.
OnForce’s service took on greater importance and value in 2009 with the full onset of the recession. As businesses on all levels trimmed their IT spending and staffs, they looked to solution providers to fill the gaps and optimize their IT capacities. OnForce helped cash-strapped solution providers find the temporary talent they needed at affordable prices to meet their customers’ needs. And OnForce became a welcoming home to many talented technicians and IT professionals who found themselves out of work; they were able to leverage the OnForce platform to find a steady stream of project work.
OnForce continues to lead the market in connecting solution providers. In 2009, OnForce logged its 1 millionth work order. Its community swelled to more than 13,000 service providers and registered users. And it's forged strong ties with companies and industry associations such as Microsoft, Autotask, CompTIA, the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association, and Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association. And it continues to attract talent that runs the full spectrum of business and consumer electronics needs; its community boasts technicians with certifications from industry-leading vendors including Cisco, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Samsung. The OnForce model and quality safeguards ensure the service buyer gets the work they need and their customers are satisfied; and the service supplier works with the confidence that they will get paid for services rendered.
While OnForce has detractors who say its open bidding exchange of work orders commoditizes services pricing, OnForce continues to prove that the service it delivers to solution providers in uncovering new talent and opportunities is second to none in the business. For these reasons, OnForce has received the Channel Insider Champion Bull’s Eye Award for Channel Support Service of the Year.
Lawrence Walsh is editor of Baseline magazine, overseeing print and online editorial content and the strategic direction of the publication. He is also a regular columnist for Ziff Davis Enterprise's Channel Insider. Mr. Walsh is well versed in IT technology and issues, and he is an expert in IT security technologies and policies, managed services, business intelligence software and IT reseller channels. An award-winning journalist, Mr. Walsh has served as editor of CMP Technology's VARBusiness and GovernmentVAR magazines, and TechTarget's Information Security magazine. He has written hundreds of articles, analyses and commentaries on the development of reseller businesses, the IT marketplace and managed services, as well as information security policy, strategy and technology. Prior to his magazine career, Mr. Walsh was a newspaper editor and reporter, having held editorial positions at the Boston Globe, MetroWest Daily News, Brockton Enterprise and Community Newspaper Company.