I speak to a lot of potential new partners each and every day at Insentra and given our unique business model, almost always hear a variation of the same question – “how does it work?”
These may be partners that have been referred to us by industry peers, read through some of our blogs and case studies or even those who have known of us for a while but never before had a need to engage. We’ve successfully delivered projects for over 200 partners and so the below is a quick summary of our Rules of Engagement (or what I like to call “what to expect when you’re working with Insentra”).
What is it like to work with Insentra?
We provide support to help you design, deliver and manage projects where you have a gap either in your capacity or capabilities. Every situation is different, however the majority of work we do with partners falls into one of these two broad camps. Your customer has asked you to provide a proposal for Technology X and although you’re great at this, your bench is booked solid for 6 months – we can help. Or your customer asks for assistance on Technology Y and this simply isn’t something you can do – we can help.
What support does Insentra supply?
We provide support to help you design, deliver and manage projects where you have a gap either in your capacity or capabilities. Every situation is different, however the majority of work we do with partners falls into one of these two broad camps. Your customer has asked you to provide a proposal for Technology X and although you’re great at this, your bench is booked solid for 6 months – we can help. Or your customer asks for assistance on Technology Y and this simply isn’t something you can do – we can help.
Is our client safe with Insentra? Will you try to take them?
We never transact directly with the end-customer, nor do we resell any Tier 1 licenses (ie, even though we’re a Gold certified Microsoft partner and do dozens of Office 365 migrations every month, we’ve never sold a single Office365 or any other Microsoft license – you retain the DPOR). All transactions are through you, the partner, meaning you retain the relationship and can control your margins as needed. It doesn’t mean we don’t interact with and sell to the customer – we talk to end-users all the time during the course of our projects and often uncover incremental opportunities, which are then brought back to you for next steps.
Do you provide pre-sales?
We provide you with pre-sales at no cost, for qualified opportunities. We have an experienced team of architects and consultants that are available to assist you tease out the opportunity and we’re delighted to get involved, however do want our partners to first qualify the basics of the opportunity – ie, what’s the technology, timeframe, budget, approval process etc.
What happens if another partner approaches Insentra?
We support the incumbent partner, however this doesn’t mean we won’t talk with multiple partners for the same opportunity. This is an important point and probably where I have the longest discussions with new partners. It happens that occasionally we have multiple partners approach for the same piece of work and so in these cases, we have a clearly defined process for dealing how to manage the potential conflict. Our intention in this situation is to protect the Partner that engages us first on the opportunity once it is qualified. When approached by another Partner for the same opportunity, Insentra will:
- a.) Inform Partner B that we are already engaged with Partner A on the same opportunity
- b.) Not share the name of Partner A
- c.) Encourage Partner B to have a discussion with the end user client to inform them of the intent to engage Insentra. As Insentra are seldom white labelled, this process is designed to understand why the customer is engaging another partner company and to confirm if the customer would still like to entertain a bid from Partner B
- d.) Advise Partner B that Insentra will be informing Partner A of an approach by another Partner
- e.) Inform Partner A that Insentra has been approached by Partner B (not sharing Partner B’s name) and encourage Partner A to have a discussion with the end user client to understand why the customer is engaging another partner company.
- f.) If the customer would still like to have a bid from Partner B, Insentra will provide Partner B with a price that is 10% higher than that provided to Partner A.
- g.) With respect to RFQ/RFP and tender scenarios, unless Insentra and partner have co-invested to influence the requirements prior to the release of the tender, Insentra will provide price parity to those partners who engage Insentra.
What happens if a project doesn’t go to plan? How do you look after the client?
We have a robust process in place to deal with projects that don’t go to plan. We’re in the services business and whilst we do everything possible to keep things on track, there is always the potential that something , somewhere will happen that requires a reset. For these situations, Insentra has a dedicated Service Excellence Manager (SEM) as part of our Executive team and they will work with you and your client to resolve the issues to everyone’s satisfaction. And – escalation is NOT a dirty word! We encourage all of our client-facing team to escalate any issues, or even potential issues, to the SEM so that they can be dealt with as needed.
Can I give you feedback?
YES! We LOVE feedback and we want to partner with you. In support of our vision to be the number channel services company on the planet, we are constantly learning, revising and in some cases, rebuilding our offerings based upon the feedback that we receive from our partners and their customers. We appreciate and encourage you to share your experiences and to let us know where we could have done something better, but just as importantly, where we’ve done well.
