VARs Tread Carefully on Raising Service Prices

With the long winter of the 2009 recession
seemingly behind us, everyone has got an eye out for signs of spring—job
creation, more hiring and more contracts. Is there also room for higher
technology services prices?

The answer seems to be a qualified yes.

For
five essential tips to follow before you raise your price, click here.

More competition for fewer services jobs over the past few years has driven
prices down. Many a VAR saw customers close
up shop, shut down spending or negotiate lower rates for services during 2009.
As OnForce CEO Peter Cannone tells Channel
Insider, "There’s been a price resetting. It’s going to be a slow recovery
in terms of increased pricing."

Cannone says jobs that used to command $300 are now getting $175.

"For a lot of services jobs, pricing has become commoditized," he
says. The good news is that the price decreases that have characterized the
market over the last couple years seem to have stabilized. So that means the
big question is, Will pricing stay where it is now, or will we start to see it
climb again?

"I do see it coming back," Cannone says. "But it will take a few
quarters. And it won’t come back to the levels we saw in 2007 and early
2008."

Cannone says he expects it to increase by 7 to 9 percent over the course of
2010 for typical OnForce work events.

How are VARs handling the pricing issue as we tiptoe into recovery? Carefully.

"Based on the economic climate, we have not raised our prices to existing
clients, but we are not offering some discounts we’ve offered in the past on
services except in cases when a client pays us in advance for either six or 12
months of service in order to get that discount," says one VAR
representative who asked to remain anonymous. "We are increasing our
prices on certain service elements on new contracts, however." Those are
service elements that the VAR believes now
have been underpriced previously.

Another IT solution provider also expresses caution.