How to Make Money Around Microsoft Office 365 A Guide to Generate New Revenues for Solution Providers, Integrators, VARs, and Services Organizations WHITE PAPER JANUARY 2013 Taking Command of Office 365 Introduction The concept of the “desktop” is forever changing, and Microsoft and Office 365 have accelerated that change. Everything about desktop applications is dramatically transformed from static applications delivered on-premise to desktop and laptops. Today, users access a more dynamic and amorphous grouping of applications; employing a myriad of end-point to devices. These applications are hosted and delivered via ‘the cloud’ – and the corresponding data is stored and managed on the cloud, as well. The market understands how Microsoft makes money. The question is how can your company make money around this new market phenomenon? There are five revenue generating opportunities around Office 365: Assessments, Proof-ofConcepts, Migration Services, Microsoft Fees, and Building Value-Added Services. This paper will capsulize the first four opportunities and focus on this concept of building value added services. Developing a Strategy for Office 365 Almost every organization needs to develop a strategy to incorporate Office 365 into its operations. The appropriate methodology to develop this strategy is to: 1. Assess its current environment versus the environment of its future; 2. Implement a Proof-of-concept to validate its findings; 3. Develop a migration strategy; 4. Migrate to Office 365; and 5. Manage its new applications. Organizations that fail to follow this methodology will also fail to maximize the potential productivity and efficiencies offered by Office 365. Office 365 is not just a new way of accessing Microsoft Office and Exchange (email). Office 365 includes an opportunity to integrate website development; Office web applications; Instant messaging, presence, and conferencing; File Sharing; Managing Projects, Collaboration; and Mobility – in a more secure environment. And, partners of all types can benefit from helping their clients navigate this new path. The channel has devalued assessments and proof-of-concepts over the past two decades – often performing assessments for free – in order to sell commoditized products and services (usually at lower margins). Most assessments around Office 365 can be delivered remotely at a very low cost to the partner. Microsoft has developed programs that are “fee-based” to allow partners to deliver these assessments and proof-of-concepts at little or no cost to their clients and still generate new revenues. Migration services offer real value to clients and, therefore, command new opportunities to build service revenues around Office 365. Migration services in the SMB market range from $5,000 to $25,000 per client (200 – 1,000 users). Migration services to larger and enterprise organizations command upwards of $25,000 - $80,000 (1,000 – 5,000 users). Partner fees from Microsoft for Office 365 are 21% for the first year and reoccurring fees of 4%. Microsoft may allow partners to resell Office 365, but those margins will be 14% unless further discounted by the partner. Building Value-Added Services with 365 Command As more and more companies adopt Office 365, they will face greater pressures to reduce the complexity and costs of managing Office 365. This is the area that affords partners and providers an opportunity to build value-added services around the management of Office 365 for clients. The keys for your organization is the ability to eliminate the administrative burden of managing Office 365; provide an affordable, reliable, and secure cloud management platform; deliver services by being fully mobile to manage on the go, and provide detailed reporting and analysis of your clients’ Office 365 environments. WHITE PAPER - P a g e | 2 Taking Command of Office 365 365 Command is the application that allows organizations to easily manage and gather data from any device, anywhere, and replaces the command line interface of Windows® PowerShell with a rich, HTML 5 web interface. 365 Command enables partners to manage their clients’ environments through a single login to perform common administrative tasks and troubleshoot issues. Partners can provide 365 Command to their clients or use 365 Command and manage their clients’ Office 365 environments that will generate an ongoing, reoccurring revenue stream— greatly, enhancing value to clients. Any level IT administrator can administrate Office 365 using 365 Command. Your organization can reset passwords (with options for never expire), set mailbox permissions, set mailbox folder permissions, set forwarders on mailboxes, create shored mailboxes, and more – from a simple GUI. Organizations can deliver reports with a click of a button with detailed charts and graphs that include mailbox sizes, archive sizes, quota usage, mobile devices, mailbox permissions and more. Make money in three ways – A partner can resell 365 Command; a partner can perform the tasks with 365 Command for their clients … managing Office 365 for their clients; or hybrid Command 365 – resell it to their clients and manage Office 365 using Command 365 as the tool and reporting mechanism. The delivery of applications and data to users has changed forever – and will continue to change. The traditional revenue streams for partners are changing as well. The challenge for partners is to recognize and seize new revenue opportunities in this new market paradigm. What will be the ultimate market share for Microsoft and Office 365? And, how can partners share in the revenue opportunities created by this market shift? Finding new applications and tools, like Command 365, is one vital key to the future of cloud applications and to the success of partners. Learn more by visiting www.365command.com or call 877-788-1617. MessageOps• 791 Park of Commerce Blvd., Suite 200 Boca Raton, FL 33487 Phone: 877-788-1617 Fax: 561-997-4043 www.365command.com WHITE PAPER - P a g e | 3