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PanTerra Partner Success Story: IS Support, Inc.
WorldSmart Awards
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Position a Service Business For Success with PanTerra Networks’ WorldSmart
"We chose to partner with PanTerra based on its SaaS industry leadership, seamlessly integrated suite of unified communications services, and lucrative recurring revenue stream. We have seen tremendous demands from the market for the flexibility, scalability and protection that this cloud-based solution provides."
A successful channel partner relationship provides a solution that meets the needs of a desirable target market and provides a partner to add value to existing service offerings. On top of this, a channel partner needs the leads, tools, and support to close sales. For IS Support, this has been the basis of a successful relationship with PanTerra Networks as a value added reseller for the WorldSmart cloud-based services.
A Dynamic Marketplace
Headquartered in Houston, Texas, IS Support has been focusing on helping small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) integrate and manage technology solutions for the past six years. With over $2M revenue in 2007 and 40% to 45% annual growth in the past few years, IS Support is always evaluating and adopting leading edge technologies for its clients. IS Support maintains thousand of workstations and hundred servers as an IT equipment reseller. However, as market demands for high value flexible and scalable communications services have grown in the recent years, IS Support realized that building networks and manage IT infrastructures was not enough to maintain profitability in the long run.
Adding Software As A Service (SaaS) To Portfolio
In 2005, IS Support decided to add hosted voice services to their portfolio. It started building reseller relationships with some voice service providers. However, some partner challenges such as hardware capital investment and software licensing cost are very difficult to conquer with a traditional telephony service delivery model. Furthermore, it creates new difficulties for resellers with already thin service margins and fierce competitive pricing battles. IS Support foresaw that the typical partner business model of trying to be successful at the end of the supply chain will not work for them.
"I am a big believer in the hosted service model, which provides zero upfront capital cost with the best disaster recovery solution for our customers," says Mr. Combs. "When PanTerra presented their WorldSmart™ SaaS services, we were immediately attracted to their unique services delivery framework. It is because the PanTerra platform was highly customizable and scalable. The flexibility of working with any device, high end, low end, or any type of phones was exactly what we were looking for."
It is obvious that the PanTerra solution has a significant impact on productivity and quality for companies who rely on a communications solution to keep the wheels of their businesses turning without interruption each and every day. IS Support sees the cloud-based model is what the market desires. WorldSmart™ is exceptionally flexible and works with any broadband connectivity. That makes it extremely easy to sell. The Bring Your Own Broadband (BYOB) model enables the option to sell any broadband access based on customers’ needs. This device agnostic service empowers IS Support to integrate any device that best fits their customers’ financial and technical requirements.
"PanTerra services are completely unified. The WorldSmart Call Center is a key differentiation for us to partner with PanTerra. Furthermore, the service is seamlessly integrated with other applications such as communications, collaboration and messaging. I have never seen other providers have the capability to bring all of these together in a solution."
In early 2008, IS Support decided to join the PanTerra Smarter Partner program and grow its business and revenues as a leading edge Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) unified communications service provider. PanTerra’s program enables them to sell a co-branded service to its end customers without investing in building and managing a complex datacenter. IS Support sells a branded version of WorldSmart™ services, while PanTerra hosts, supports and actually delivers the service.
PanTerra delivers a combination of voice, secure instant messaging, web collaboration, audio conferencing, enhanced mobility and remote desktop management services from a single fault tolerant, scalable platform. Very quickly after receiving its training and administrative tools, IS Support already sees significant advantages in the PanTerra Smarter Partner program.
"Another important thing I really want to point out is about people. I am extremely impressed with PanTerra’s talented and experienced people. How easy they are to do business with. Any relationship starts with people" Mr. Combs noted. "When I first met PanTerra’s CEO who leads a team of exceptionally seasoned industry professionals, I knew that we would be building a great business together. I have never met the CEO from my previous partner even once. It makes a difference and you know you are working with a highly focused partner."
No Cost, No Overhead, Pure Profit
PanTerra has demonstrated many of the benefits of the WorldSmart™ SaaS offering and its ability to provide SMEs with easy access to the critical business communications and collaboration they need to efficiently run their businesses. The service is affordable and enables small businesses to manage business functions around the world. To resellers, it is a pure profit center. There is no upfront investment to start the business, no network infrastructure to maintain or upgrade. PanTerra takes care of all the operational burdens.
"I have over 300 clients today. I have more stability in my business as a result of our PanTerra relationship because I am generating recurring revenue for the business that is much more lucrative. PanTerra develops and owns the software code. There is no licensing fee to them. They provide a better commission plan. I have not seen any other providers offer a better incentive plan than PanTerra. To us, there is no cost and overhead. We don’t have to manage a datacenter, maintenance and upgrades, and there is no software license or any operational headaches. PanTerra's WorldSmart is the perfect addition to our existing product portfolio."
PanTerra enables resellers to grow their business faster and more profitably by taking all the operational burdens away from its partners. By hosting all the communications services with an intelligently designed multi-service SaaS platform, PanTerra is able to offer a single bill and single customer support number. There is no ambiguity in regarding to partner responsibilities. PanTerra assumes all of the support, training, infrastructure and security risks.
Business Benefits
- Making more money: With the PanTerra Smarter Partner program for SaaS, there is no set-up cost and profitability from the recurring revenue stream builds long term business success.
- Quick implementation: PanTerra WorldSmart™ startup tools allow resellers to automatically provision phones in minutes. Total deployment time is counted in hours, rather than weeks to months with traditional on-promise equipment, or with other providers that mandate bringing their broadband connectivity to customer sites. Total cost of operation is at least 50% less.
- Lower implementation risk: There is initial cost, no overhead efforts, no operational cost, and no obligation. With the PanTerra SaaS model, the expense and risk of implementation are greatly reduced, and the return is great.
- Healthier partner relationship: The return on services occurs over the long term rather than through front-loaded costs. Therefore, there are more opportunities and incentives for both PanTerra and resellers to continually improve the partnerships.
About IS Support, Inc.
IS Support is a private company focused on helping small to medium size businesses integrate and manage technology solutions. It offers services, builds networks and manages IT infrastructures in order to promote profitability for small businesses. IS Support maintains thousands of workstations and several hundred servers in the Houston metropolitan area.
About PanTerra Networks
PanTerra Networks, Inc. is a leading provider of cloud-based unified communications with its WorldSmart™ software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution. The company is privately held with its headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, and Research and Development located in Hyderabad, India. For more information, please visit www.panterranetworks.com or call +1 408.702.2200.