vendors

Edit: Followup post: http://www.roer.com/node/417

Alan Shimmel at StillSecure answered Michael Farnum (correct name this time, I hope...) and Mike Rothman yesterday. 

The discussion is in regards of what can a vendor expect from a VAR SE in terms of technology expertise, and also adds who should do post-implementation. 

They seem to agree the fact that a VAR SE has a large amount of products to understand and know. I wonder, can you really use that as an excuse not to build competence at the layer closest to the customer? Sure, you might never be the deep specialist - but I believe that if you (the VAR) is not able to build enough local expertise of your products, you are not helping your partner.

Worse even - you are not helping your customers either. They expect you to be the source of knowledge. They expect you to support and maintain them. So I think it is just fair that your customers also should expect you to be able to help them out. So if you have an SE, you need to help him/her to build the competence required to do the job right.

The other part of the discussion is about who should do the post-sales and implementation. There are two reasons I choose to go with Allan here.

1. As above - many VARs are not interested/able/willing/whatever to invest the necessary time and effort to have the required competence.  Thus, someone else needs to.

2. The vendor has all the required competence, and the required deep specialist knowledge. They do not need to invest in competence in many other product areas, as does a VAR. Thus, it makes perfect sense to me that the vendor of a specialist product also does the implementation. If the vendor chooses to share the revenue of the work with the VAR too, now that is what I call a bonus!

I know first hand how hard it is when you have sold a complex solution, and it turns out your SEs do not have the required competence.  And it might just have been one of the cases Allan complains about - we had sold a few of his products to a key test customer in Norway. And my SE at the time just could not get the stuff up and running. 

I had to calm the customer, who was in the Defence industry, and was supposed to become a key account. No matter what we did, we could not get the things working. And being on the other side of the Atlantic, just flying in technical resources is not that easy either. 

We managed to get most things going after a long while. We where not able to invoice the implementation work - as they rightfully thought it to have taken too long.

In this case, there where only losers.  The client got the solution 6 month late. The VAR lost a large amount of work, plus credibility and the client. We (at a distributor at the time) lost the VAR, the client and lost interest in what we though where a hard-to-use and unfinished product. 

If the vendor had run the post-sales, this would most likely never had ended this way. The case would have been a key reference, and everyone would be happy.

Both vendor and VAR need to look at both short-term and long-term revenue. If you get too shortsighted, you loose in the long run. There must be a balance, and with increasingly complex solutions, not all VARs are able to build and sustain the required competence.

Thus, I welcome the move by StillSecure to handle the post sales.

Recently, there has been a raise of FUD in the blogosphere. In the beginning of the discussion of Dominic and Alan, I just laughed. I welcome any health discussion of technology.

But then they started to bring out the guns. Accusations and rocks (imaginary ones) flew, and soon thereafter more bloggers jumped in. When it all burned out, the outcome was as every time - they are both wrong, and they are both right. And they have areas of disagreement. Nothing new at all. 

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I used to work as a whore. A product whore. I went out there, lifted the rocks and preached the (current) truth. The truth of whatever vendor paid my bills. Never caring about what the client actually needed, or what would fit in the existing infrastructure. The all important matter was to sell sell sell.

And I admit, sometimes most of the sales information you got from the vendor where FUD. Even if the vendor did not give me FUD to feed the client, there where always enough information around to create the FUD myself. 

At some point I met myself in the door, and had to choose between actually helping the client, or helping the vendor to sell.

Needless to say, I did quit the selling. 

So when I read Dave Lewis ranting about vendor bullshit and FUD, I relate to it in more ways than one. And I am so happy it is not me sitting there with a HALO-playing techie. Knowing I have moved on, and actually am adding value to my clients - and not only as a nice word in the marketing materials.  

I do not believe we have seen the end to FUD, but I do believe that if we try to focus on true value, innovation and the needs of the clients, we can reduce the amount of FUD to only apply to non-serious players. 

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So Alan, Dominic, vendors out there -  technology changes, evolves and adopts all the time. It is not always easy to hang on to the changes, and follow all the new features and options and their impact. Especially when the competitor comes up with something different AND better.

To help the client choose the best tool, you do yourself a favor by focusing on the relevant issues and facts. Relevant for the client, that is.

When the FUD starts to surface, many clients do just like Dave. And some call me.

And I am on their side now.