Channel Customers Seek Complete Infrastructure Picture
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Core Accountability
Enterprises typically now build their IT infrastructure department upon 25 to 30 core services to meet most business demands. -
Well-Defined Services
Channel customers are looking for a comprehensive range of infrastructure offerings that are well-defined by function, service levels and unit costs. -
Detailed Pricing
Customers are seeking "bottom-up" price models to address expenses associated with server, storage and software types, as well as required labor. -
Supportive Products/Services
To establish a "complete view" of their infrastructure, channel needs and expenses, customers are incorporating demand-management/forecasts and tools that compile usage, cost and price metrics. -
Big Picture SLAs
Customers want service-level agreements to be defined at the overall service level—in other words, what they ultimately want from an acquisition—rather than SLAs that simply break down the individual parts (servers, database, storage, etc.) -
Prototype Costing
To ensure long-term relationships, channel businesses should make it easy for customers to prototype IT pricing components such as approach and resulting costs. -
Willingness to Compromise
It's helpful to demonstrate how you can help customers save gradually along the way due to your receptiveness in making tradeoffs that reduce consumption. -
Continuous Improvement
Your leadership and front-liners must respond to customers' needs for continuous improvement, with regular meetings to discuss demand-management planning and implementation matters.
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Why Metrics Matter to the Channel These days, leaders overseeing enterprise IT infrastructure acquisition and deployment are under pressure to increase efficiencies while reducing costs. They're challenged by the wealth of application, network and end-user support that depends upon smart decisions about these purchases. To address these dynamics head-on, more enterprise customers are adopting an increasingly commercial-style model of interaction with their channel partners, according to the recent McKinsey and Company report, "Managing the Demand for IT Infrastructure." This means customers are requiring more information from vendors about pricing specifics, consumption updates and other budget-spend influencers. By going this route and adapting a services-based mindset, they can expect a 15 to 20 percent improvement in efficiencies for new infrastructure investments, McKinsey reports. The following breakdown of how enterprise channel customers are implementing commercial practices is based on 50 discussions with Fortune Global 500 heads of infrastructure.
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