Mimecast Forges New MSP Program

Mimecast’s new North America Managed Service Providers Program is aimed at making it easier for MSP partners to deliver its cloud-based email management services to its customers. Mimecast’s Unified Email Management services include security, archiving and continuity.

Although Mimecast has worked with MSPs in North America for many years, it did not have a formal program until now, said Kate Saunders, Mimecast’s global MSP program manager. The company wanted to roll out a more formal program to recognize the unique needs of the MSPs, she added.

The new program provides MSPs with a flexible contract, an online provisioning capability and a central management portal that lets them access Mimecast’s tools and administration console from a central location. This allows MSPs to manage the email environments of a diverse range of customers from a single, centralized administration console. It also enables them to quickly add and provision customers online.

The program was designed to give MSPs the tools and flexibility they need to be more successful in managing email customers, said Saunders. One key benefit is that MSPs now have the ability to view and manage a customer’s network, and directly access a customer’s administration console without the need for additional credentials.

“Their business model is different from our normal reseller market or our direct market, requiring central management capabilities to manage many diverse customers with different service needs,” said Saunders. “They needed to have a quick view of central management to get that information quickly, and they needed the on-boarding process to be more efficient,” she added.

In addition to the new tools and services, Mimecast also formed a dedicated MSP team to service its MSP partners. The team is comprised of dedicated sales and business development members as well as account managers “whose sole purpose is to work with these MSPs from the start to full partnership,” said Saunders.

Account or relationship managers enable the team to be subject-matter experts for the MSPs, said Saunders. “It allows them to specifically listen to our MSPs and not lose any of their insight or feedback, and to make sure we can capture those great ideas and implement them into the program. It also allows us to respond in the most direct way to the MSP concerns so they know they have an advocate.”

MSPs can add new services quickly to their portfolios as Mimecast rolls out new value-added services, Saunders said.

“It also gives the MSPs the option and more flexibility to grow and up-sell their customers. We give them the opportunity to provide all of our services because we recognize that not all of their customers are necessarily in the same business,” said Saunders.

Gina Roos, a Channel Insider contributing writer, specializes in technology and the channel.