UK SBSC : Promoting SBSC

Check out SBSC Partner’s Windows 7 Video case study

UK SBSC — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:22:00 GMT

We had to highlight this Windows 7 Video case study from UK SBSC partner, Netlink IT. This video is focused around Netlink IT and it's client, The Health & Safety Partnership, on how Windows 7 Professional has made an impact on their businesses.

Many thanks to Richard Tubb from Netlink IT for rolling out Windows 7 to his customers and proving the successes it has bought to their business.

If you want to learn more about Windows 7 be sure to visit our Windows 7 Partner Portal pages and listen to the keynote presentations at WPC.

Microsoft promotes SBSC partners in Business Today Magazine

UK SBSC — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:52:00 GMT

We thought you would be interested in a recent article published in Business Today magazine which promotes the SBSC partner channel. In this article, Mark Lane talks to Microsoft’s Robert Epstein, considering the challenges facing SMEs in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) arena. Robert highlights that Microsoft understand these challenges to SME organisations and that the Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community are there to help small and medium sized businesses get the most from technology. Here’s a quote:

To read the article in fully, simply visit: http://www.ukbusiness-today.co.uk/, and go to page 25.

Keeping it all together with Windows Mobile – Another SBSC partner is an “Ask the Expert”

UK SBSC — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:23:00 GMT

We thought you might be interested to see where another one of our SBSC partners has acted as an “Ask the Expert” on our Small Business Centre Customer facing website. What’s more, this article was also linked to in the Small Business Customer newsletter which reaches a substantial number of small business customers. Whilst promoting himself, Paul Dadge of PC Paramedics.it has also helped promote the SBSC partner channel – especially visible where he concludes:

“If you have any further questions, I recommend you contact your local Microsoft Small Business Specialist who will be able to advise you further. –Paul”

Here’s a clipping from the article:

Keeping it all together with Windows Mobile

Paul Dadge, Senior Consultant, PC Paramedics.it

Paul Dadge is a Senior Consultant with PC Paramedics.it, a Microsoft Small Business Specialist based in Cannock, South Staffordshire. He has been working with small business customers for 15 years, helping them to ‘go mobile’ and enabling the employees to access company resources remotely.

Question: The current downturn means my colleagues and I are spending a lot more time out on the road chasing business, so we need to pick up messages and keep track of our diaries on the move. Is there a way we can synchronise email, calendar appointments and Outlook contacts between our PCs and mobile phones? - Richard, Brighton

Answer: Hi Richard. You’re absolutely right - staying competitive these days means you really have to be mobile, which in itself can presents challenges – not least staying in touch while you're out and about. That’s never more true than for smaller companies where it’s a case of “all hands on deck”.

The words ‘email’ and ‘mobile phone’ often conjure up the BlackBerry – which is fine if all you need is to send and receive email and texts. But for a small business like yours, there are more cost-effective solutions to help you perform as efficiently away from the office as in it….”

Click here to read more: Keeping it all together with Windows Mobile - Microsoft Small Business Centre

Many thanks to Paul for his input.

If you want to be an “Ask the Expert”, email sbscuk@microsoft.com for more information.

Remember the SMB Insights Survey you participated in?

UK SBSC — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:43:56 GMT

Remember the SMB Insights Survey you participated in back in February? Well, we do apologise for the delay in sharing this with you but are now pleased to be able to show where/ how the insight was used.

On 25th March Microsoft published a press release entitled Microsoft Study Shows SMBs Using Technology to Cut Costs, Grow Business. Click here to read the press release. Following this press release a number of UK press channels followed up and wrote articles. Here’s a list of some of the ones we had visibility of:

Here are some interested snippets from the findings:

“Based on a five-country survey of more than 600 Microsoft Small Business Specialists, Microsoft found that the major concerns driving SMB technology investments are declining revenue, competition from larger businesses and general economic difficulties. In response, many SMBs are focusing on IT investments that directly benefit their bottom line — either by reducing operating costs, improving employee productivity, or acquiring and retaining customers.”…

…“The “Microsoft SMB Insight Report” reflects the insight of Small Business Specialists from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Brazil. The following are some of Microsoft’s key findings on the technologies most likely to drive growth and profitability for SMBs in 2009:

Fifty percent of the surveyed Small Business Specialists identified virtualization or IT consolidation through a small or midsize server as the technology most likely to reduce operating costs.

The Small Business Specialists expect a 20 percentage point increase this year in the number of SMBs that use software as a service.

More than 50 percent of the Small Business Specialists considered customer relationship management (CRM), virtualization or IT consolidation through a small or midsize server as the best investment for maximizing business growth in a down economy.

Nearly 40 percent expect an increased interest in business intelligence and identified it as a critical tool for helping improve a customer’s experience and increase loyalty.

More than half of the surveyed Small Business Specialists anticipate an increase in the number of SMB remote workers, and nearly 60 percent expect that the shift to more remote workers also will lead to bigger roles and more responsibilities for those individuals working remotely.”…

…“Microsoft offers a broad range of business solutions to help small and midsize businesses (SMBs) maximize productivity and expand business capabilities. Microsoft’s partner program includes more than 640,000 local technology experts, including nearly 20,000 Small Business Specialists. Microsoft also provides a variety of financing, flexible licensing programs and other resources to help SMBs grow their businesses and respond to changes in the market.

More information on Microsoft Small Business Specialists and other SMB resources is available at the Microsoft Small Business Center at http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness.”

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those SBSC partners in the UK who took the survey and shared their feedback. We found it a very useful exercise that has shared insight but also promoted the Small Business Specialist partner channel.

Generate sales leads with Microsoft Pinpoint

UK SBSC — Fri, 08 May 2009 12:31:07 GMT

Microsoft Pinpoint is a new lead generation tool that customers can use to find the solutions you offer. Launching in June, it will replace Solution Finder/Partner Marketplace in due course and offers an easy-to-use interface, customer ratings, reviews and partner spotlight features. We recommend you enter your solutions in Solution Profiler if you have not done so already. And if you have existing solutions profiled we recommend you revisit the Pinpoint information page on the Partner Programme site to ensure your solutions are Pinpoint-compatible. We will automatically transfer all compatible solutions to Pinpoint. The Microsoft Small Business Centre will be switching from Solution Finder to Pinpoint for lead generation later this summer, so the sooner you profile your solutions, the sooner they can be found.

SBSC Partner Required to contribute to a mini whitepaper

UK SBSC — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:37:34 GMT

Microsoft are currently producing the next article in our series of mini-whitepapers for small businesses. We’re looking for a partner to comment and add some helpful advice.

Specifically, we’d like a partner who can talk about:

Any evidence of companies getting their first server and seeing either productivity or efficiency gains
Partner best practice comment on how a server drives growth, and an example or two if we can
And lots of good messages about a server solving problems and making things easy.

The whitepaper is distributed to 800k small businesses, as well as being posted on the Small Business Centre web site.

You need to be available for a 30 minute phone interview, and also to approve the partner part of the copy.

If you are able to meet the requirements above please contact kbentley@microsoft.com by end of Friday 8^th May.

SBSC Partners Promoted to 800,000 Small Business Contacts!

UK SBSC — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:50:00 GMT

Thought you may be interested to hear about a direct email that Microsoft sent out to 800,000 small business customers today. In it Microsoft addressed "How to adapt and succeed in the downturn..." and clearly called out SBSC partners as the partner of choice to assist small business customers and highlighted the SBSC blue logo too...

"If you've found some of the topics in this guide interesting, why not discuss them with your local Small Business Specialist partner? As their name suggests, these partners specialise in small business IT, so you can be sure they’ll provide you with up-to-date and relevant advice."

The SBSC links take customers through to the "What is a Small Business Specialist" customer facing web page on the Small Business Centre website. Here partners can understand the true value of using the skills and expertise of an SBSC partner as well as search for an SBSC partner using the Microsoft Solution Finder partner search tool.

The decision to prominently call out SBSC partners was taken as the content suited a strong reason to call out SBSC as a way to get more out of your technology. Within the next few weeks we should be able to assess the customer response rates to this email.

Microsoft need your case studies

UK SBSC — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:54:28 GMT

We have a unique opportunity for partners to provide case studies that Microsoft will fund. See below for the criteria and details on how you can get involved:

What are we looking for?

50-250 users
Products the customer must be using. It can be one or more than one as long as it is the latest version.
- Exchange
- Win Server (2008)
- SQL Server
- Unified Communication tools (e.g. OCS, LiveMeeting, Exchange)
Quality metrics (ROI in time, money, ratio) For example:
- “Using Hyper-V, Evans has been able to trim the number of the firm’s physical servers by nearly 60 percent, from 14 to 6. Electrical costs have gone down, too, by $5,000 per year” Dean Evans & Associates
- “By implementing Windows Server 2008 Enterprise, Hyper-V, and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Maxol is in the process of trimming its server holdings by 80 percent, resulting in a reduction of its electrical bills by U.S.$47,000 over three years. It has also boosted server utilization to 30 percent, simplified server management, and increased server availability” Maxol

Case studies to detail how the company has benefited from implementing Microsoft technologies.
Highlighting specific features and how they improve efficiency for the customer.

What are the benefits to our partners?

Free publicity through the Microsoft case study website www.microsoft.com/casestudies and where relevant through our customer campaigns.
A professional agency created document that the partner is free to use as their own marketing materials at zero cost to you. A document that costs you nothing that you can then print and distribute
Possible promotion of the SBSC brand

What are the benefits to customer?

Free PR/publicity – we may be in a position to distribute our best quality case studies to our PR agency who then feature them in high profile media such as national newspapers.
Identified as innovative and leaders in embracing new technologies

Outline of the Case Study Process

Interview with Microsoft and our writing agency
Main interview with customer
1^st draft produced
Add changes from partner, customer and Microsoft
Continue until final draft produced
Publish on Microsoft case study site and give to customer and partner to use

If you think you have a case study that we are interested in please email sbscuk@microsoft.com.

Promote yourself - Become an "Ask the Expert"

UK SBSC — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:31:39 GMT

The Small Business Centre often receives customer queries on technology issues that are answered by ‘Experts’ – often internal experts but sometimes partners as well. A handful of SBSC partners have already put themselves forward and participated and we’d like to ask for more volunteers from those of you who might be interested in sharing your knowledge and expertise. It’s a good way to demonstrate the value you can bring to potential customers and to get some publicity for your company.

The Ask the Expert articles (ATEs) are put up on the website and also flagged in the customer Smart Business newsletter, which has over 43,000 subscribers. In addition, the Small Business team is also offering out the articles as syndicated content on other sites so we hope to spread reach over the next few months.

Here is a brief list of ATEs contributed by SBSC partners to date:

Steve Wright, Director of BMS Digital Solutions, contributed a story on how small but expanding businesses can benefit from implementing their first server.
Ross McLachlan from Newtwork ROI wrote a great, informative piece on VoIP - what it is and how customers can benefit.
Stephen Allen from Data Systems ltd helped us with an upgrade query for a company wanting to move up from Office 2000, and which wasn't sure what package they needed or the most cost-effective way to purchase.
Guy Gregory from Peak Support Services answered a query on how remote colleagues could best share files and documents for a business start-up.
Brian Reid from C7 Solutions answered a question on cloud computing, explaining what it is and why it's relevant to small businesses.

If you would like to become an ATE, or would like some more information, please email the Small Business team - sbcuk@microsoft.com.

2nd Windows Vista Small Business Challenges Supplement heavily promotes SBSC!

UK SBSC — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:08:07 GMT

Remember the SMB Supplement that was focused on a Windows Vista Small Business Challenges campaign and competition? It called out SBSC partners and was distributed in big name magazine publications including Vista Magazine, What Laptop, PC Plus, Computer Arts, 3D World and .NET magazine. In total these magazines have a subscription base of 203,240 people! Well, the second supplement has just been published and is going out to that very same subscription base. This version has even greater focus on the SBSC partner channel and has even more input from SBSC partners. Let's take a look...

The first thing to point out it that the supplement highlights SBSC partners on every page. We start with the contents page where the editor, James Stables states in his editorial that:

"The SBSC is a fantastic group of experts who understand small businesses and provide specialist IT support tailored to its client's needs."

And in the contents list he highlights that Page 14 gives "six reasons why you should always trust a Microsoft Small Business Specialist" Plus, you can see the SBSC customer awareness banner that we use on the Small Business Customer website and in the customer ready datasheets prominently placed at the bottom of this page.

Each page of the supplement focuses on one of the five winners of the Small Business Challenges competition, who were set a number of tasks and were supported by an SBSC partner. Each of the five SBSC partners who supported the competition are given the opportunity to give their own opinion, which enabled them to highlight their own businesses, but also demonstrates the wider capabilities of SBSC partners.

In addition, on the last page, we have a whole page dedicated to promoting the SBSC partner channel.

This page takes on the look and feel of the SBSC Customer datasheets, but in addition we have included a brilliant quote from SBSC Partner Area Lead, Vijay Riyait, who talks about the value of the community.

Finally, the customer call to action is to visit our Small Business SBSC page on the customer website to find your nearest SBSC partner. This will utilise our partner finder tool.

The investment into this activity was quite substantial and we are really pleased with the outcome. I hope you will agree that reaching over 203,000 subscribers is great promotion for the SBSC channel.

Thank you so much to the following SBSC partners who kindly gave their time to contribute to this activity:

Mike Gibbs - Technos
Lee Evans - Vital Online Studio
Guy Gregory - Peak Support Services Ltd
Gareth Brown - Sytec
Edmund Davis - OLT Consulting
Vijay Riyait - iQubed

We should also point out that these two supplements go hand in hand with some online promotion for the small business challenges competition website. So a big thank you to the Windows Client product marketing team who grabbed the opportunity to work with SBSC partners and helped us to promote the SBSC channel out to the end customers.

If you have any feedback or comments to share about this please send them to sbscuk@microsoft.com.

Small Business Blog from Microsoft : Don't put your trust in ‘Some IT guy'

UK SBSC — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 10:51:38 GMT

Microsoft's customer facing Small Business Blog has recently posted about SBSC partners... have a look for yourself...

Don't put your trust in ‘Some IT guy'

Look for a Microsoft Certified Small Business Specialist.

You might trust your neighbour to give you advice on buying a car and your partner on what colour shirt to buy. But who would you trust when it comes to asking about IT and whether or not you actually need to invest in a technology solution? Microsoft Small Business Specialists have worked hard to earn their SBSC badge, it's not just a ‘giveaway' from Microsoft, and they really are skilled in evaluating the needs of small businesses. Here are 5 very good reasons why, if you're thinking about upgrading or extending your IT, you should consult an SBSC specialist.

You can trust your IT is in good hands

They'll save you from costly and time-consuming mistakes

They specialise in small businesses (and no business is too small)

They have access to specific resources for small businesses

They do what they do best, so you can do what you do best

If you'd like to learn more about how SBSC specialists can help you, and to find one near you, take a look at our new web page, which explains the role they can play in helping you find the right IT solution for your business requirements.

Small Business Blog from Microsoft : Don't put your trust in ‘Some IT guy'

Download the SBSC customer facing data sheets now

UK SBSC — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:15:46 GMT

As part of the SBSC Customer Awareness campaign Microsoft have recently embarked on, we wanted to make you aware of some great new customer data sheets that Microsoft will be using at small business customer events to ensure small business customers utilise the expertise of SBSC partners.

What's more, not only is this generic SBSC data sheet available for you to download, we have also created a template data sheet which you can customise and use in your own marketing and sales activities.

What's the purpose of these data sheets?

To clearly articulate the role and value of an SBSC partner to small businesses through events and sales and marketing activities
To drive small business customers attending Microsoft events to the SMB website, specifically the SBSC page, in order to find an SBSC through the Solution Finder tool.
To provide SBSC partners with collateral for use in their sales and marketing activities, helping them clearly articulate their role as an SBSC
To provide useful creative copy around the role and value of SBSC partners and the SBSC channel to use in PR led activities

Where can you download them?

Simply go to the www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/sbsc. Make sure you are signed in - the documents are on the "Community" page under the "Resources" tab.

Alternatively click on the links below:

How should you customise the template?

Download the template and customise - at the bottom of the page there is room for a customer quote plus your partner logo and contact details.

So, what does a Customer Quote look like? On the generic data sheet we have a customer quote from Marches Care Ltd - customer of an SBSC partner in the Midlands. The quote clearly articulates why they value the partner and the partner's SBSC certification...

‘To say we were IT novices possibly overstates our expertise. Paul of PC Paramedic Solutions (a Microsoft Small Business Specialist) really helped us. He also trained our staff to bring us up to speed on how we use technology, and now offers us an invaluable support service. We chose Paul because he was a Microsoft Small Business Specialist. This means he came recommended by Microsoft, so we knew we were dealing with someone we could trust.’
Mandy Thorn, Managing Director, Marches Care Ltd

Can you get such a reference from one of your partners? Get their permission and use it. Alternatively, if you do not want to include a quote, use this space for your contact details.

Where / How should you use these data sheets?

Download , customise and print locally. There are many mediums in which you can use them, but here are just a few ideas:

Take them to customer events - Microsoft will be doing this too!
Use in your sales packs
Include them in marketing collateral bundles to support your company value proposition

Tell us what you think:

Are these useful? Email your feedback to sbscuk@microsoft.com

Introducing the NEW SBSC customer facing web page

UK SBSC — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:54:32 GMT

Many SBSC partners have fed back that they would like to see Microsoft do more to promote the SBSC partner channel to small businesses. As a result we have engaged SBSC partners in a number of PR opportunities to promote the channel. Alongside this we have recently undertaken a project help build some creative to help customers understand why they should choose to use / work with an SBSC partner.

The first of this creative work is now available...

Today we would like to share with you the new SBSC customer facing web page which as you can see we have seriously revamped! The aim of the page is to clearly articulate why a customer should trust and use and SBSC partner. In addition it helps the customer find an SBSC to work with (through the Solution Finder tool).

So here are the BEFORE and AFTER shots so that you can judge the difference for yourself...

BEFORE:

Feedback from partners and customers: Very boring with a lack of clear bullet points to succinctly articulate why they should engage an SBSC partner. Also, this page was very corporate looking, meaning many customers may have felt they are too small a customer for an SBSC partner to be interested in taking their business.

AFTER:

Hopefully both you and potential SBSC customers will agree that this is far more interesting and colourful. Aside from the visuals, the content is a lot more concise and easier for a customer to understand why they should engage with an SBSC partner. Our strap-line is: "Don't put your trust in "some IT guy - Look for a Microsoft Small Business Specialist." The purpose is to really articulate that although the customer is a small business, they should not underestimate the importance of their IT needs. Just as they would not trust an untrained professional with other parts of their lives, neither should they for the small business IT needs.

So here are our 5 good reasons for choosing to engage with an SBSC:

And the page includes a link to find an SBSC partner by postcode.

In order to direct customers to this site we have created a friendly url: www.microsoft.com/uk/sbsc. You can use this in your own communications to help explain what an SBSC partner is. In addition, there are clear links on the homepage to help customers find an SBSC and learn what an SBSC is.

This web page also follows the theme of our new SBSC customer ready data sheets... Further details will follow soon so stay tuned!

Tell us what you think about this web page - email sbscuk@microsoft.com or join the discussion on the Microsoft Partner Network, SBSC Group.

Presenting the NEW SBSC customer awareness materials

UK SBSC — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 11:55:46 GMT

A number of partners have fed back to Microsoft that they would like us to do more to promote the SBSC channel out to small business customers. As a result, we have recently undertaken a project to build some creative materials to help small business customers understand why they should choose to enlist the expertise of an SBSC partner.

We'd like to take the opportunity to give you visibility of this new creative, and in the next couple of days will show you where we have used the creative and how you can take advantage of the materials available.

So here is a taster...

The aim of this strap line and the creative is to make small business customers think about who they are using to help them with their IT issues... they wouldn't trust an untrained professional with other parts of their lives so why should they with their important IT business needs?

This creative includes better articulation of why a Microsoft certified SBSC partner is the right choice and only choice for a small business customer. We have used it on the new customer facing small business web page, in customer ready data sheets and in a new event banner to be used by Microsoft personnel. We will also be adopting some of this creative to use in PR opportunities.

Stay tuned to hear more and how you can utilise this creative for your own marketing efforts...

Microsoft are looking for case studies on SBS 2008

UK SBSC — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:16:27 GMT

We are looking to put together some customer case studies around Small Business Server 2008. These are two page documents with information on the customer / business that adopted SBS 2008 and how SBS 2008 has helped their company. Essentially we would like to know the key benefits it has brought to that business and why the customer believes it is a worthwhile investment.

If you have any customers who would make a great case study, and you would like the advantage of some free PR for them and possibly you too, please feel free to contact Helen Sweeney at t-heswe@microsoft.com.