May 3rd, 2012 by Amy Thomas
On May 16, 2012, we are hosting a Managed Services webinar led by GreatAmerica Leasing Corporation. The webinar will focus on why Managed Service solutions not only make sense for your business and your customers but also why it is becoming a ‘must’ in your solution portfolio to effectively compete in the marketplace.
Leading up to the webinar we will be posting a few blog articles that will talk about Managed Services for your business – both telephony as well as IT focused. The intent is to Read the rest of this entry »
April 25th, 2012 by Hazel Lychak
UCStrategies, an online resource for information on unified communications has announced its plan to conduct a new study (a follow-up to an IN-Fusion Group study in 2000) that is intended to focus on some of the challenges facing the unified communications and collaboration channel, and what each of the channel partners need to be more successful. UCStrategies is encouraging interested VARs/SIs to participate in the study via completion of an online and telephony survey. Read the full article: UCStrategies and the Channel – From the UC Summit to a New Channel Study
April 4th, 2012 by Amy Thomas
Many vendor partners (resellers) have available MDF or Coop funds through their vendors. In fact these funds are typically ranked as one of the most popular for vendors, but are they as popular among the resellers?
In the past, these funds have primarily been used for training and traditional marketing activities for partners, with the “approved” use of the funds being somewhat limited. In addition, partners are not often aware of the MDF programs the vendors offer or what funds they have available for use. This has resulted in funds going unused or programs being unsuccessful.
According to a recent blog posting by Channel Champion, the 5 most effective reimbursable activities from MDF have been training, demo equipment, events, trade shows and incentive programs. If an MDF program is carried out effectively, these funded activities have proven to be successful in the past. They key factor for continued success however is flexibility – being open to new uses of the funds for activities that have proven to add value to vendor partners.
Read the rest of this entry »
September 21st, 2010 by Brian Cors
As mentioned in an earlier post, we’ve added a third integration between SalesDoc Architect and Tigerpaw. In addition to being able to push contact information from Tigerpaw to SDA and quote information from SDA to Tigerpaw (described in another earlier post), you can now import parts/pricing from a Tigerpaw quote into SalesDoc Architect. All three integrations are available at no additional charge to our clients.
Most of the parts that users will need to quote should be resident in the SDA database or can be imported from a vendor configuration tool such as Mitel’s Sales Workbench or ShoreTel’s QMS configuration tool. In some cases, however, those parts might not exist in either source. The new integration enables SalesDoc Architect clients to use Tigerpaw’s database, which maintains the list of all parts ever sold or quoted by the Tigerpaw software, as another source for parts and pricing information. Read the rest of this entry »
September 13th, 2010 by Brian Cors
We’re excited about the upcoming Tigerpaw User Conference that’s taking place October 6-8 in Dallas. We’ll be exhibiting at the show, and I hope that readers who attend will take a few minutes to drop by the booth to say hello.
For those who don’t know, Tigerpaw makes CRM/ERP software that helps technology resellers to increase sales, provide better service, produce bids, order and track materials, manage projects, and bill faster. Our software, SalesDoc Architect, enables companies to auto-configure complex solutions and generate descriptive proposals, scopes of work and other sales documents. Both solutions complement each other well.
Last week, we distributed a news release talking about our relationship. We share numerous mutual clients, and both companies specialize in working with resellers of complex technology solutions.
Our products are also integrated with each other. For the past year or so, users have been able to push contact information from Tigerpaw into SalesDoc Architect and, once the customer has signed off on a proposal, push quote information back into Tigerpaw. In this month’s SDA release, users will be able to export part/pricing information from quotes they’ve done in Tigerpaw and import that information into SDA. Read the rest of this entry »
September 9th, 2010 by Brian Cors
In early August, I was privileged to be invited to GreatAmerica’s annual Dealer Council Meeting. The focus of the meeting was to provide a forum for dealers to share best practices with each other, and to invite dealers and other companies to present best practices on a particular topic. I was invited to talk about best practices with regard to our specialty, proposals and sales documents.
What struck me most about the visit to GreatAmerica’s headquarters was the company culture that I experienced. GreatAmerica is very much organized around customer-focused teams. Instead of co-locating employees by function, different functions were interspersed within teams that were co-located by customer geography. The other aspect of the culture that struck me was GreatAmerica’s willingness to “go the extra” mile for their customers, dealers and partners and to design programs and develop solutions that are not “one size fits all.” The result of this approach is that GreatAmerica offers truly unique solutions that help their customers, dealers and partners to stand out in a very competitive marketplace. Read the rest of this entry »
