How to Sell Office 365 through Open License and Full Packaged Product – What Partners Need To Know
Back in January, I put up a post Announcing Office 365 through Open and the New Office availability! In there I mentioned the announcement we had made about the upcoming availability of Office 365 through Open, which is an incredibly exciting opportunity for our partners everywhere that have been asking for the ability to offer Office 365 to their clients through our Open License licensing programs. In fact, since this offer utilizes the Open License programs, it follows the same sales process you are very familiar with and using already:
In fact, if you look at the Volume Licensing order process diagram I built back in 2008, you’ll notice the same flow for ordering.
From a timing perspective, we are very quickly approaching the availability date for the Office 365 through Open availability in the market, and I have been getting questions about how it works, license administration, etc. As noted in my earlier post on timing:
- Office 365 available to transact in Open & FPP channels March 1
- The Office 365 Midsize Business is available for partners to sell in Open L, Open Value (OV), Open Value Subscription (OVS) pricelists, starting March 1.
- Starting February 1, the Open pricelists previews will include this new SKU and local pricing by market.
- Office 365 Small Business Premium is available on the Full Package Product (Retail Box) pricelist on February 1, with the ability to sell to Resellers on February 15. Resellers can begin transacting on March 1.
To help answer not only the questions I have received, but also give you access to a ton more information on this topic, I am posting here about a bunch of Office 365 Open and FPP partner resource center that contain a plethora of information for you to get you started and help you be successful.
Let’s start with the basics. First, you can offer Office 365 Midsize Business through Volume Licensing with an Open license (Open L, Open Value, or Open Value Subscription), or offer Office 365 Small Business Premium as a full-packaged product (FPP). Here are two great resources to start out with:
Get an overview of Office 365 Open and FPP
- Even includes step-by-step walk-throughs (with screen shots) of VLSC product key retrieval, activation, admin, adding seats mid-term, adding partner of record, and more
Download the Office 365 Open and FPP reseller kit
- A ton of great information in simple, one-pagers, and includes items like: Getting Started, What is Office 365, Why Office 365, Customer Targeting, and more.
Now for some resources to help you learn it, promote it, and sell it:
LEARN IT:
- Office 365 partner and customer value proposition
- Office 365 for SMBs: product overview
- Office 365 economic calculator
- Office 365 product training
- Office 365 Open breadth reseller operational instructions
- Office 365 offerings
- Microsoft Partner Network support
PROMOTE IT:
- Office 365 Best campaign
- Office 365 trial banner ad
- Office 365 medium-business telephone-discussion guide
- Office 365 SMB discussion guide
SELL IT:
- Office 365 Open and FPP overview
- Office 365 Open and FPP purchase and support guide
- Office 365 Open and FPP training
- Office 365 partner features how-to guide
- Office 365 Open end date and SKU mix calculator
- Manage your customers' Office 365 accounts using delegated administration
Here are some additional sessions we have made available in video and PowerPoint formats:
Make Money with Office 365 Open and FPP
Winning the Midmarket Customer with Office 365
Office 365 Licensing and Scenario Overview
In addition, here are the Partner Readiness resources I had shared previously:
- Updated readiness materials including refreshed Disti Bootcamp content can be found on the Microsoft Partner Network portal, including:
- Open and full packaged product (FPP) licensing models for new Office 365 presentation and updated FAQ
- Listen to new recorded sessions about competitive sales scenarios.
- Office demos to use with your customers
- Specific information for our:
- Plus much more…
- Disti Bootcamp content has been refreshed! Click below to register for one of the (4) virtual events:
If you do nothing else, I’d highly recommend at least downloading the Office 365 Open and FPP reseller kit and go through those items to get a good set of info to get you started. Again, that is at the minimum. As you can see, we have a bunch of resources available for you up above, so I would suggest consuming as much as you want as you look to build out your Office 365 through Open business. By the way, if you’re not using Office 365 yourself already, remember that as a partner enrolled in Cloud Essentials, you get access to Office 365 licenses to use yourselves. Discover the benefits and enroll in Cloud Essentials if you haven’t already.
Did you find this information helpful? If so, you may want to make sure you are utilizing all of the areas I share information online, such as:
Thanks again for being a reader of my blog!
Thank you and have a wonderful day,
Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and Facebook
Sales Excellence Program Manager
Microsoft Corporation
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
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