SES SMB Partner Research

Xinyu Zhang, Peggy Kirk, Celeste Adamson,

SES SMB Partner Research

Shared Engineering Services 2

Background and Agenda1

Partner Profiles2

Key Findings4

SES Opportunities & Next Steps5

Partner Characteristics3

3

Background• With the formation of a new SMB organization under Rowan

Trollope, we formed a team to see what opportunities might exist for SES in the Partner space– Productive and profitable partners are critical to winning in SMB

– SES specializes in cross-product leadership in many areas

– Individual product team focus on their own objectives, missing overarching objectives

– Goal: Align SES with Rowan’s top priorities for FY12:• Deliver Solutions Designed for SMBs• Strengthen our Partner Relationships• Drive Customer Preference• Improve End-to-End Experience

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Background• Two rounds of partner site visits were conducted in October &

November 2011 – 13 interviews total

Research Goals:• Gain knowledge of SMB market & partner needs• Identify partners’ pain points in re-selling and supporting

Symantec products (e.g. processing maintenance renewals)• Gather insights to refine and validate current workflows and

processes• Contribute to SMB knowledge base and promote

collaboration with cross-product teams

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Partner Profiles

• Visited 13 US SMB partners

– 7 Mid-West, 4 East Coast, and 2 West Coast

• Partner Types:

– 1 Large Account Reseller (CDW)

– 2 traditional VARs (Value-Added Reseller)

– 10 that had adopted the MSP (Managed Service Provider) model or were in transition

• Partner Size*:

– Partners had a minimum of 150 clients/active accounts

– VARs had a wider range of client sizes; from 1 to 15K seats

– MSPs were focused on a “sweet spot”: either 5-50 or 40-100

• Primary domains

– County governments, community banks, education, healthcare, law firms, & finance

*excluding LAR - CDW

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SMB Partner Research 6

SMB Characteristics• Moving from a VAR to an MSP model• Partners are clients’ trusted advisors, giving recommendations for

brands that provide the best solutions for their business problems• Not usually any strong brand requests/awareness from clients• Definition of SMB sizes differ; S and M are more like different segments

with very different needs– Smaller businesses usually have no in-house IT, usually 100 seats and under

• In some cases up to 200• Uptick in cloud needs for small businesses

– Often managed or hosted by partners

– Medium businesses usually have some in-house IT, usually 200-1000 seats• In-house IT usually means more customer-side brand preference and desire for process control• As the number of seats get larger, they have a rapidly growing need for virtualization and

environmental complexities

– Verified by interview with SE

SMB Characteristics• Desire for simplification – clients and partners often possess a

“good enough” mindset– Whatever will solve the stated business need is “good enough” for them,

no bells & whistles needed

– Want to “set & forget” products

• Partners compete with bigger fish like CDW by offering more personalized service and individual attention

• “Hybrid” MSP models– Ranging from completely managed and monitored to mixing and matching

levels of partner involvement

SMB Partner Research 7

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Key Findings

• Installation, provisioning, & upgrade workflows are complicated

• Maintenance renewal is not streamlined

• Partner portal (PartnerNet) lacks key functionalities, ease of use, & relevant content

“Since we’ve been with Symantec, the web portal has always been terrible” - Mark Feldman, Sr. Account Executive, ABC Services, West Babylon, NY

• Symantec SMB & .cloud offerings lack key features and product awareness

"Last year we put 30 people on Mosy cloud. I would much prefer to keep it a Symantec shop.” - Cory, CEO, Area-Wide technologies, Champaign IL

• Monitoring status on multi-client installations is time consuming“I want one login to manage all my cloud clients. Some of your AV competitors have that.” -Fred Moore, CEO Moore Computing Saint Louis, MO

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SES Opportunities1. Create partner-centric experience for configuring and managing SMB

products– Usability research and UI design for CMES portal, MSP console and RMM tool

– Focus on Suites and product interoperability

2. Work with Licensing team to fix broken license purchase and renewal process

3. Implement Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to provide solution content for critical partner issues

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Next Steps

• Create, update, and validate SMB Partner personas for use across the Symantec organization

• Extend partner research outside the US: Canada, South America, EMEA, Asia Pac

• Organize a F24H for Suites (focus on product interoperability) and a F24H for Partners (focus on multiple client setup & RMM vendor tools)

• Create SMB-focused social CRM initiative

• Promote ClientNET community

Thank you!

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PARTNER LOCATION CUSTOMER SIZE PRIMARY DOMAIN

CDW Illinois – USA All All

Area-Wide Technologies Illinois – USA TBD TBD

WTI Systems Illinois – USA TBD County Government, not for profits

Moore Computing MO – USA 40-100 Community Banks, Credit Unions

PTC Select Illinois – USA 1-100, 15K Education, manufacturing

Datotel MO– USA 40 Education, Commercial Construction

Valley Network Solutions (VNS) New York – USA 5-50 City government, education

Computer Directions, Inc. (CDI) New York – USA 10-25 Law Firms

Quarterhorse Technology New York – USA 100-250 Not in particular areas

Derive Technologies New York – USA 50-250 Health Care, Finance, Legal

Lincoln Computer Services New York – USA 50-250 Not in particular areas

ABC Services New York – USA 50 & under Not in particular areas

Appendix - Partner Profiles