In Business With eZ Systems: Being an eZ Partner
Friday 21 September 2007 5:00:00 am
When Nexus Consulting first joined the eZ Partner Program, we couldn't afford our own marketing department. The eZ Partner Program gave us access to the online Partner Knowledge Centre, where we could download and use presentation material, product sheets and training material, and receive support in sales and technical pre-sales.
Sales support is an important part of the partner program. After each customer meeting, we report our potential business in the Knowledge Centre. This way, the eZ crew knows what we are doing, which customers we are speaking with and what we need from them in order to be successful. A trusting relationship like this makes it possible to exchange customer leads, opportunities with other partners or simply signed projects. The number of leads and opportunities you get depends on the level of "Trust and Competence" you have built with eZ, as illustrated below.
Levels of trust and competence
The triangle on the right illustrates the different partner levels (with the Reference level being a non-partner who uses eZ Publish). These represent the level of involvement that the partner has with eZ. The triangle on the left shows how partners move through openness, to sharing, to innovation, by being more closely involved with eZ.
In our case, a lead or an opportunity with a potential partner has proven to be just as valuable as a signed project. Thus, our close cooperation with eZ crew contacts has introduced us to several new eZ Partners. These partners provide expertise that is complementary to our business.
eZ Systems has also been assisting us in partner presentations within the ERP business in Norway. eZ has arranged meetings and literally brought partners and customers to our table. With the backing of a company like eZ, this has provided us with larger projects and less risk, giving us more profit and higher margins. eZ's automatic software maintenance service also makes solutions easy to deliver and provides us with a subscription-based revenue stream.