microsoft optimization - Redmond Channel Partner

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SPECIAL PULLOUT SECTION
A PARTNER’S GUIDE TO
MICROSOFT
OPTIMIZATION
ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL AUSTIN
New resources and deeper
commitments provide
partners with step-by-step
roadmaps to develop their
customers’ infrastructures
into models of efficiency.
By Scott Bekker
Redmond
ChannelPartner
OPTIMIZATION
Growth and Opportunity for Microsoft Partners
“O
ptimization ... brought a significant increase in revenue streams from our
professional and managed services divisions and helped us up-sell Enterprise
Agreements and justify the added spend on licensing.”
— Anton Jooste, GM Operating Environments and Messaging, Dimension Data
Take Advantage of the New Selling Opportunity
Organizations need to optimize their IT infrastructures
and application platforms to better manage escalating
IT costs and develop the agility needed to support
rapid business growth. By focusing your customer
conversations on, “How do we optimize your IT
investments to meet your business goals,” you can dive
deeper into your customers’ organization to create new
opportunities and build solutions that meet a broader
set of business needs.
Capitalize on Industry Standardization Efforts
As the standardization of IT capability maturity
frameworks from organizations like the Innovation
Value Institute gain broader acceptance in the industry,
Microsoft and its Optimization partners will have a
competitive advantage in helping customers create
more business value through IT enabled innovation.
Microsoft Partners Optimized for Growth
To help partners align with the Microsoft sales force
and become Optimization-relevant with customers,
Microsoft has developed a partner on-boarding
program called the Optimization Sales Connection
(OSC). OSC offers a set of training, tools, and resources
to help partners succeed using Optimization with
customers.
Microsoft OSC partner Intergrupo reports that,
“[Optimization] assessments ... often lead to services
contracts to help customers improve in target areas ...
Last year our Infrastructure Optimization business
unit increased its revenue by 70 percent.”
DON’T WAIT—Begin NOW!
1. Go to the Microsoft Optimization Partner Resource Portal at www.microsoftio.com for in-depth
guidance, resources and information for Microsoft Partners regarding Optimization.
2. Complete the Microsoft OSC registration at www.microsoftio.com/osc.
3. Help your customers complete the Optimization Self-Assessment at
www.microsoft.com/optimization.
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B
ecause Dimension Data is one of Microsoft’s
highest-profile managed partners, you
wouldn’t suspect that the company isn’t always
100 percent on board with every Microsoft initiative.
“Anytime Microsoft announces a
new program, we’ve been a little skeptical,” says Curt Wheadon, global vice
president for Microsoft Solutions for the
Johannesburg, South Africa-based IT
services company and Gold Certified
Partner. With $3.7 billion in 2007
revenues, operations in 40 countries
and myriad practice areas, Dimension
Data is too busy to jump on what could
be tail-chasing ideas.
At first blush, Microsoft
Optimization sounds like it might be one
of those fuzzy initiatives. The program’s
description is filled with “models”
and “frameworks” and “stages” and
“capabilities” and “best practices.”
But for Dimension Data, which
began following the optimization model
in 2005, the initiative has actually helped
the company focus.
“It changes our conversation with
a customer,” Wheadon says. “As a
customer gets to the point where they
understand—hey, I can improve my
[infrastructure] maturity; I can reduce
the cost; I can enable my company to do
more—then you can become more of a
strategic partner.”
The company credits the Microsoft
Optimization models with contributing to
its growth rate of nearly 30 percent per year
in 2006 and 2007. “It’s the right approach
because, frankly, there are too many
Microsoft products to talk about,” Wheadon
says. “Now we talk about priorities and
we’re aligned around our solutions.”
Dimension Data is among the
early adopter partners for Microsoft
Optimization, a 4-year-old initiative
intended to move customer companies
toward flexible, dynamic infrastructures that maximize the business
value in their IT investments. Microsoft
executives say fiscal 2009, which began
on July 1, is a big year for the initiative,
with broader and deeper engagement
with the partner community, new
efforts to reach down to midmarket
customers and better integration of
the initiative throughout Microsoft’s
product groups.
WHAT IS MICROSOFT OPTIMIZATION?
Samm DiStasio, director of Microsoft’s
worldwide optimization strategy, laid
out the central pitch on Microsoft
Optimization in a letter to customers
earlier this year:
“Optimization solutions from
Microsoft include resources, guidance
and technologies to help you optimize
your IT infrastructure and application
platform including:
✱ Models and best practices that can
help you streamline the management of
your infrastructure and platform.
✱ Solutions that incorporate technologies, products and services—driving
a people-ready business.
✱ Worldwide community of qualified
partners to assist your organization when
implementing optimization solutions.”
The central idea behind optimization
is simple: Customers can, and should,
get more value from their IT investments.
In practice, Microsoft has sliced and
diced the problem into a complex grid of
smaller problems.
DiStasio’s description makes clear
that partners play a key role in Microsoft
Optimization. In fact, much of the
incubation for the company’s initiative
occurred within Microsoft’s Enterprise
Partner Group (EPG). The largest
partner companies, the kinds of
managed partners that are deeply
engaged with the EPG, can handle
consulting on optimization across the
entire range of possible optimizations.
“Microsoft Optimization basically puts
us in a state of solution selling in a
horizontal capability level.”
Peter Boit, Vice President for Enterprise Partner Sales, Enterprise Partner Group, Microsoft
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I N F R A S T R U C T U R E O P T I M I Z AT I O N
“A lot of our products are very rich,”
says Peter Boit, vice president for enterprise partner sales in the Microsoft EPG.
“In order for us to be able to describe the
business value, you have to do a solution
sale. Microsoft Optimization basically
puts us in a state of solution selling in a
horizontal capability level. Most people
think of solution selling in a narrow,
vertical sense.”
On the other hand, especially as
Microsoft starts to push the optimization
effort out into the 400,000-member
Microsoft Partner Program and down into
the midmarket, more specialized companies with more vertical capabilities can
pick and choose from the Microsoft
Optimization grid to push optimization
for their customers within their narrower
areas of expertise.
At the highest level, Microsoft developed three models to facilitate optimization. They are:
✱ Application Platform Optimization
✱ Business Productivity
Infrastructure Optimization
✱ Core Infrastructure Optimization
All three models share four stages of
optimization: Basic, Standardized,
Rationalized and Dynamic. The stages
describe a continuum. In the Basic stage,
IT is considered a cost center. In contrast,
at the top-level Dynamic stage, IT is seen
internally by executive management as a
strategic business asset that enables
growth. (For more details about how these
stages can describe the maturity level of
an Infrastructure Optimization initiative,
see “The 4 Stages of IO,” p. 4.)
Each model is also broken down into
five capabilities.
Application Platform Optimization
capabilities include:
✱ User Experience
✱ Business Intelligence
✱ SOA and Business Process
✱ Data Management
✱ Development
Business Productivity Infrastructure
Optimization capabilities include:
✱ Unified Communications
✱ Collaboration
✱ Enterprise Content Management
✱ Enterprise Search
✱ Business Intelligence
Core Infrastructure Optimization
capabilities include:
✱ Identity and Access Management
✱ Desktop, Device and Server
Management
✱ Security and Networking
✱ Data Protection and Recovery
✱ IT and Security Process
PUTTING THE APPROACH
INTO PRACTICE
Dimension Data has worked the optimization model deeply into its entire customerengagement process.
“We’ve fundamentally changed
the dialogue with a customer to stop
talking about the ins and outs of licensing and start talking about the value of
the software,” Wheadon says. “We work
toward having a deployment plan at the
time of purchase.”
When Dimension Data begins talking
to a customer about a Microsoft Enterprise
Agreement, the company introduces the
optimization methodology, emphasizing
how optimization can add value to the
three-year licensing agreement.
Next, the partner company uses a
questionnaire to interview staff about the
customer company’s IT infrastructure,
whether the applications it owns are
installed and whether those applications
are being used.
Dimension Data also evaluates customers using the Microsoft Operations
Framework and the IT Infrastructure
Library, two standardization frameworks
for achieving operational reliability.
The final step in Dimension Data’s
process is analyzing the data and inserting it into the Microsoft Optimization
ENTER
THE OSC
New for this fiscal year is a set of resources
to help partners become Optimization
Solution Providers. The kit is called the
Optimization Sales Connection, or OSC
(www .microsoftio.com/osc). While any
partner can offer optimization solutions,
those who qualify for the OSC receive
additional benefits that aren’t available to
other partners.
REQUIREMENTS
Partners wanting to participate in the
OSC must:
✱ Have a partner account manager (PAM)
✱ Complete an Infrastructure Optimization
(IO)-related Partner Solution Plan (PSP)
with that PAM
✱ Develop, profile and validate a solution
that maps on IO models or capabilities
✱ Complete IO-related training
✱ Attain an IO-related competency in the
Microsoft Partner Program, such as
Information Worker Solutions,
Networking and Advanced Infrastructure,
Security, Custom Development/ISV
Solutions, Data Management Solutions
(BI), or Business Process Integration
BENEFITS
Partners participating in OSC can expect
benefits in several areas:
Sales
✱ Inclusion in the Partner Capability Report,
distributed to the Microsoft sales force
✱ Access to the IO-ROI Tool
✱ Aggregated, IO-assessment data
✱ Sales training
Marketing
✱ Early access to IO Business Optimization
Framework materials
✱ Priority consideration for co-funding for
marketing activities and case studies
✱ Ongoing partner IO communicationsand
news through the OSC partner Web site
✱ IO co-marketing kit
Technical
✱ Microsoft IO and technical
demonstration tool kit demos
✱ Review of IO solution by a Microsoft
technical specialist
✱ Workshops, IO-related webcasts
and other training
SOURCE: MICROSOFT
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“We’ve fundamentally changed the dialogue with a
customer to stop talking about the ins and outs of
licensing and start talking about the value of the
software.”
Curt Wheadon, Global Vice President for Microsoft Solutions, Dimension Data
models. Once the partner develops
some recommendations about moving
the customer from the Basic stage to the
Standardized stage or from the
Standardized stage to the Rationalized
stage, it’s back to the customer with priorities and plans for achieving the gains in the
lifetime of the Enterprise Agreement.
According to Dimension Data,
Microsoft Optimization is providing
context for ongoing conversations with
customers even after the initial projects
are complete.
For managed partners, the process is
an opportunity to get Microsoft engaged
in large customer opportunities as well.
“We work with our partner to develop a
roadmap on how to go from the customer’s ‘as-is’ [state] to a ‘to-be’ [state],”
says Microsoft’s Boit. “What we found is
it’s a break-through way for us to come
through with our partners on a customer
agenda. Very specifically, it’s a way for
partners to map and align their services
to our sales initiatives.”
MICROSOFT OPTIMIZES OPTIMIZATION
Boit describes Dimension Data as a
thought leader on optimization, up there
with other early adoption partners like
NetPro Computing Inc., Avanade Inc.,
Quest Software Inc., Citrix Systems Inc.,
Dell Inc., InterGrupo and Computacenter
PLC. Through July, Microsoft had
worked with 335 partners on optimization and characterized 45 of those as
highly qualified. Ultimately, Microsoft
channel officials say they’d like to see
1,500 managed partners participating in
the enterprise space.
“We’re doing a lot of work to enable
and educate more and more partners on
the approach, which has really moved
from incubation to mainstream,” Boit
says. More than 330,000 people in the
partner community have taken training on
the optimization models, he says.
Microsoft has had optimizationrelated partner resources online awhile
(see the Microsoft Optimization Partner
Kit at www.microsoftio.com). This year,
Microsoft packaged a new set of resources
for managed partners called the
Optimization Sales Connection (OSC)—
see “Enter the OSC,” opposite page, for
more details. Offerings include exposure
to Microsoft field sales representatives,
access to an ROI tool, sales training, comarketing funds and technical assistance,
among other benefits. Only managed partners who have undergone optimization
training and cleared a few other hurdles
are able to access the OSC kit.
Microsoft channel executives are also
courting the larger swath of partners that
serve midmarket customers. The company
is primarily reaching out to those partners
via the Worldwide Partner Group, the
Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP) and
the self-service Microsoft Partner Portal.
One element in that outreach has been to
make optimization concepts and practices
central to many Microsoft competencies
(see “The Competency Map”).
“The fact that it’s within MSPP now
basically unlocks a lot of potential adoption,” Boit says.
In addition to drumming up optimization business through the Microsoft
field, Microsoft is also trying to generate
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demand via a customer-focused Web site
(www.microsoft.com/optimization),
which encourages customers to invite a
partner into a deal.
The MSPP is only a small part of how
Microsoft is taking optimization mainstream. Boit says that since the Microsoft
Optimization program began, product
groups have been incorporating the maturity models and optimization concepts
THE
COMPETENCY
MAP
Microsoft recently mapped its three
optimization models to several Microsoft
Partner Program competencies:
Application Platform Competencies
✱ Custom Development Solutions
✱ SOA and Business Process
✱ Data Management Solutions
✱ ISV/Software Solutions
Business Productivity Infrastructure
Competencies
✱ Information Worker Solutions (Portals)
✱ Networking Infrastructure Solutions
✱ Advanced Infrastructure Solutions
✱ Data Management Solutions (BI)
✱ ISV/Software Solutions (BI)
Core Infrastructure Competencies
✱ Information Worker Solutions
✱ Networking Infrastructure Solutions
✱ Advanced Infrastructure Solutions
✱ Security Solutions
✱ Custom Development Solutions
✱ ISV/Software Solutions
SOURCE: MICROSOFT
NOVEMBER 2008
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I N F R A S T R U C T U R E O P T I M I Z AT I O N
THE 4
STAGES
OF IO
In Microsoft’s view, you
can judge the maturity of
an IO initiative by looking
at it in four stages:
Basic, Standardized,
Rationalized and Dynamic.
Basic: This is where most IT organizations start, and, unfortunately,
where many remain. At this level,
an IT shop adopts technology on
an as-needed basis. For instance,
when a Basic shop runs out of processing power or storage space, it
tosses in a new server from the
low-price vendor of the week.
Basic shops often buy software
based on price and features, not
considering how applications integrate with its infrastructure or fit in
with a long-term architectural
vision. Any management is done
manually. Microsoft calls such an
IT shop a “cost center.” Some are
better termed “sinkholes.”
Standardized:Although only one
step above Basic, this level repre-
into the products. Many current-generation products have been designed with
optimization in mind, rather than having
it bolted on as an afterthought, he adds.
Dimension Data’s Wheadon says he’s
impressed to see the product groups
climbing aboard. “They’ve got the product
groups aligned to the business value,” he
says. “That’s like turning the Titanic.”
Meanwhile, the effort isn’t limited to
Microsoft’s on-premises software. As
Microsoft begins to offer Software plus
Services across more product lines, those
hosted products can plug in to the optimization models, Boit says. “This optimization
approach works regardless of how that
software experience would be delivered. If
a customer wants collaboration to be across
the enterprise, the partner might make sure
they’ve got the right migration path and
augment it with SharePoint Online. The
optimization model is agnostic to how the
actual software experience will be consumed by a customer.”
Boit says that kind of flexibility, and
Microsoft’s growing commitment to the
concept, means that the approach will survive beyond current product releases and
software delivery paradigms. In fact,
4 Redmond Channel Partner
sents a huge leap up. As the name
indicates, Standardized IT shops
put thought into buying products
that adhere to industry standards
and fit into an overall vision of how
things ought to work together.
Standardized shops are managed, but they lack the automation of higher-level shops. While a
shop at this level is still a cost center, Microsoft labels it a “more efficient” cost center.
Rationalized:Here, IT systems are
managed and well-automated
and the company has consolidated
key pieces, such as servers and
storage. IT is considered a strategic
asset and a “business enabler.”
Dynamic:In this top level, in
Microsoft’s view, IT is a strategic
business asset and a driver of
growth; management is “fully
automated.”
This hierarchy isn’t meant to suggest that all companies should
shoot for the Dynamic level. In fact,
getting there is too expensive for
some smaller companies; in those
cases, it’s not worth striving for
more than Standardized.
—Doug Barney
The central idea underlying
optimization is simple: Customers
can, and should, get more value
from their IT investments.
many aspects of the optimization model
are relatively IT-agnostic, and the processes will work with other technologies nearly as well as with Microsoft’s.
Another element Wheadon finds
helpful: research and recommendations
from Microsoft.
“One other plug I’d like to give
[Microsoft’s] team would be around the
investment they’ve made in actually
researching what the total cost of ownership ought to be. By aligning with the
model and doing all the research, they’ve
done us a huge service,” Wheadon says.
“They’re showing that, for a certain type of
operation, there should be one administrator for 1,000 employees or one administrator for 100 employees.”
For example, Microsoft worked
with researchers at IDC to get detailed
NOVEMBER 2008 RCPmag.com
information from 140 for-profit companies with 1,000 to 20,000 PCs. A data
point from those studies: Companies
at a Standardized level of the Core
Infrastructure Optimization model had a
per-PC-per-year IT cost structure that was
56 percent less than companies at a Basic
level. The study also found that companies
at a Rationalized level had an IT cost structure 60 percent less than companies at a
Standardized level and 83 percent less
than those at a Basic level. The original
Infrastructure Optimization model was
based on earlier research by Gartner Inc.
and academic work from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s
Center for Information Systems Research.
Microsoft developed the other
two models from its experience with
20,000 customers.
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In a recent column on the Microsoft
Optimization effort, Redmond Channel
Partner magazine contributing editor
Paul DeGroot cites optimization as one of
Microsoft’s smarter sales innovations.
DeGroot, a senior analyst with Kirkland,
Wash.-based analyst firm Directions on
Microsoft, says the tool essentially
enables an IT conversation without
apparent sales pressure.
“Although [Infrastructure
Optimization] aims to sell Microsoft products and services, the analysis is generally
generic and vendor-agnostic. That’s why
the IT person will talk to your salesperson—
it’s not a conversation about products, not a
pitch for money. Instead, it’s a discussion
about the customer’s IT and often about the
customer’s business itself,” DeGroot wrote.
Forgive yourself if you didn’t immediately reach this conclusion. In noting the
hundreds of possible optimization areas in
Microsoft’s models, DeGroot wrote: “IO
isn’t easy to grasp. In my case, it took a couple of years of head-scratching and finally a
moment of epiphany helped along with a
couple of beers, a margarita, a pounding
band and Microsoft’s Steve Guggenheimer
[currently the corporate VP for Microsoft’s
OEM Division] yelling through the chaos:
‘Infrastructure Optimization helps our
salespeople have an IT conversation with
our customers.’”
AN ARRAY OF
OPTIMIZATION MODELS
Following are at-a-glance descriptions of several organizations’
optimization models:
MICROSOFT’S MODEL
Infrastructure Optimization is linked to the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF),
which is a model established to ensure that Microsoft-based systems are manageable,
reliable and supportable. The MOF itself is based on the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL).
MOF is similar to Carnegie Mellon’s CMMI described below. The CMMI focuses on organizations, processes and people instead of hardware and software. MOF seeks to align IT
services and people with key business goals. Taken together, the two models cover the
major issues an IT shop must deal with.
CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY’S MODEL
Carnegie Mellon is one of the earliest developers of an IT maturity model. Devised by the
university’s Software Engineering Institute, its model is called CMMI, for “Capability
Maturity Model Integration” (originally just Capability Maturity Model). On the surface,
this model is more complex than Microsoft’s software-driven model, as Carnegie Mellon
deals largely with organizations, processes and people.
THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY’S MODEL
MIT’s Center for Information Systems Research has a four-level IT operating model.
While Microsoft’s IO moves in a linear fashion from lowest to the most advanced level,
MIT’s model bounces around. The MIT model’s levels are:
✱ Diversification. Minimal integration and standardization (similar to Microsoft’s
Basic level).
✱ Unification. Maximum integration and standardization.
✱ Coordination. Great integration, but poor standardization.
✱ Replication. Poor integration, but great standardization.
—Doug Barney
A NEW OPPORTUNITY
The gee-whiz, game-changing technological breakthroughs that allowed enterprises
to gain competitive advantage by simply
loading a new application onto their servers
have been in the IT industry’s rear-view mirror for several years now. More recent
progress tends to involve narrower advantages: Getting slightly more out of systems
than your competitors. Paying slightly less
for the same capabilities or using fewer IT
professionals to accomplish them. Being
more nimble at bringing customized business applications online.
Part of that trend in the midmarket
and below leads to customer interest in
offloading stand-alone IT tasks through
managed services providers and Software
as a Service solutions. While those
approaches may work in the enterprise,
outsourcing IT isn’t a solution for every
customer—or for many technologies. The
on-premises side of the same impulse is
driving business intelligence initiatives to
better unlock business advantage from
existing data.
Optimization offers the same type of
advantages as business intelligence—the
ability to squeeze every bit of business
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advantage out of technology investments.
Economic pressures look to weigh heavily
on business spending over the next
year or two. Being the kind of strategic
partner that customers trust to make
their infrastructures hum with purpose,
efficiency and possibility is a great role
to play.
•
Scott Bekker (sbekker@rcpmag.com) is
editor in chief of Redmond Channel
Partner magazine.
NOVEMBER 2008
Redmond Channel Partner
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