The answer was to shift focus from product level to the solution level.

Case in point: earlier this week I spoke to the managing director of one of our longtime partners – let’s call him Lars – and he had fantastic news to share. His company has just won its first major deal with an end customer to supply IT as a service.

I’m so thrilled for Lars and his team, because winning this deal is the result of a significant shift his company has made during the past several months – from reselling IT components (hardware, software, licenses, cloud storage and so on) to selling complete, tailor-made IT solutions built around his company’s own core competencies and intellectual property.

The real beauty of this new deal – and the new business model that Lars is pursuing – is that it’s win-win.

The end customer wins because he now has a single IT supplier to deal with. There’s just one contract, one interface. If something goes wrong, it’s very clear where the responsibility lies. There’s no more time wasted with various suppliers pointing fingers at each other. No major investments are required upfront – it’s pay as you go, with no unpleasant surprises.
Managing the IT budget goes from being a never-ending nightmare to a relaxing mid-afternoon daydream.

And best of all? The end customer doesn’t have to pay a penny until the solution is up and running and generating value.

As for Lars and many of our other partners, this new approach to selling IT is a major win because it helps them differentiate their companies from the competition. In Lars’ case, his company has been in business for decades and has a great reputation, but in recent years he started noticing that it was getting harder to differentiate his company’s
offering from the competitors. Suddenly everything seemed to come down to price, and there was almost always someone somewhere able to offer components for less than Lars could.

He needed to find a way to make the intangible – all of the knowledge and expertise he and his staff had gained through the years – tangible for his customers. But how?

The answer for Lars was to shift focus from the product level to the solution level. Since Lars and his team have a deep
knowledge of the industry vertical in which they operate, they are able to design IT solutions that are truly best-in-class for their customers. That expertise is what needs to be front and center in the sales quotation – not a long list of industry-standard system components.

Lars knows that not all of his customers are ready for the shift to IT as a service – not yet, at least.

But that’s no problem, he says. “The key word for us now is flexibility,” he stresses. His company can offer customers the
full spectrum of IT solutions – everything from traditional hardware and software purchases to fully inclusive IT-as-a-service contracts. His advice to his peers? “Customers like to know what their options are. Ask yourself who should be talking to your customer about flexibility – you or your competitor?”