Darren Duke July 7 2010 05:25:16 AM
I hear the "I couldn't find a Lotus BP in my area" at least once a month and for the last few weeks I've been giving serious thought as to why. I actually think the answer is complex and I can't really do it justice in a single post, but hopefully this will provides food for thought.
Prologue Over the last 5 years I been lucky enough to be part of a team that has built a reasonably successful Lotus-focused business. As with most Lotus BP's when we started out, we were not a dog turd on IBM's shoes until 4 years in. There is a reason for that, but that is not for a public post. After much work, 14 hour days and gnashing of teeth hoping we'd be able to pay the mortgage we've, at least in my mind, "arrived".
Prior to 2005 I worked for on the of the bigger Lotus consulting shops in the SE USA, the now defunct Eagle Technology Consultants. I started there in 1999 and there were literally a plethora of Lotus BP's in Atlanta. At least 6-9 I can think of even now. Now I can think of 3, two of which are multi-national conglomerates, and
my company. So in the space of a decade the number of BP's in the Greater Atlanta area that I can rattle off has decreased by 50-75%. Why?
I also think this somehow plays into the "No Notes jobs" fever going around right now. Who do you think hires Lotus peeps? Lotus BP's and customers.
The Bigger Problem There is no single reason for this rather sad state of affairs. There are many. And I'm pretty sure you'll add some more in the comments section.
1) The IBM web site I remember when
Lisa started at the company back in 2005. She was tasked with, and has done an incredible job of, building the IBM relationship. We sat down and went to the "
Locate an IBM Business Partner" area on the IBM site and entered a search criteria of Atlanta, GA within 25 miles and selected Lotus as the technology. Of the top 10 (at the time) 6 of them had disconnected numbers. I can only imagine what it must be like being a customer trying to find an IBM sanctioned Lotus expert.
Even today, the same search brings back 34 results. 34? Hum.....OK, let test. The top one returned is a company called "PeopleTrain". I tried their phone number, disconnected. OK, next one, "Emtec". I went to their website and not a single Lotus related item out there. Nada. Dick! Then Softchoice, Ho-hum, only one of the largest re-sellers of Microsoft technologies in NA, and (thanks to
LinkedIn) the place most people go to work for after Softchoice? MS . Now you know how that customer phone call will go, right? Rounding out the top 5 is
an IBM hardware vendor with no Lotus skills. How many more calls is this customer (or potential customer) going to make?
Mr Customer, you are "shit out of luck" on finding an IBM sanctioned BP that will be able to answer any questions you should have. It is the equivalent of telling the customer not to bother. Call MS, call Booble. *shakes head*
IBM you need to clean up the partner page. You need to start making mock calls into your "Premier" BP's as potential customers and see where the conversation goes. Prepare to be surprised and angered. I would love to know how many migrations are kicked off by talking to the wrong BP.......I know of a few.
2) The Walmart effect - reverse it and support a "real" Lotus BP If all you really care about is price, use SendMail. My value to a customer is provided at various levels:
- I'll make sure you are licensed correctly either up or down (we saved one customer over $20,000 on stuff they didn't need)
- I can get you what you actually need, as opposed to making some "sales quota"
- I am you advocate with IBM
- I can absolutely make your stuff work or work better. On any platform. Period.
- You read this blog, download my presentations and white papers, listen to This Week In Lotus and watch Tips In Two
All of the above is a massive time and education investment. As a customer, I respect your decision to purchase from CDW, Softchoice, Agilysis or some other corporation (be aware a puppy dies each time you do),
but don't be surprised that when you need expert help, it is not there. You are effectively voting with your money and that is why "You can't find a Lotus BP in my area (worth a crap)". If Mr Customer continues to purchase or re-new Lotus related products from the Walmart's in the software business then eventually, the skilled BP's will move elsewhere. I guess to make up for the loss of revenue I'll need to raise my services rates.
Mr Customer, support a real Lotus BP with your purchases and renewals.
3) The IBM renewals process By far the most irritating part of being an IBM BP is that IBM
insists on elbowing their way into the renewal. Get this, if you come to STS for, I dunno, let's say a new 500 seat Domino install, we'll we fulfill both the services (as we are experts) and licenses on the deal. In fact, most of the time it is STS that created this opportunity, directly from the ground up. You know what happens when the renewal is due on year 2? IBM send the "new" customer an invoice for the renewal a whole 30 days
before we can even get a price. My customer is now being invoiced for stuff I sold directly from IBM. How f'd up is that? I guess to make up for the loss of revenue I'll need to raise my services rates.
That's right, a customer we developed, from the ground up, is promptly stolen by IBM. Symantec send us a nice little spreadsheet each quarter with our up and coming renewals. IBM just steals them. Trust me IBM, it is because of STS, and not because of IBM, that my customer is using your software.
IBM you need to stop stealing the renewals. Every piece of revenue you take from partners makes then look elsewhere.
Epilogue When I started this post, there were 9 reasons. On reflection the final 6 were just re-iterations of 1-3. Basically IBM and Mr Customer are both, in part, responsible for the issue of "I couldn't find a Lotus BP in my area".
Until you both change, don't be surprised if you have even further deterioration in the next decade. Just saying.
