Recession-proof your business
2008-12-02 14:12
Cape Town - Recession. Down-turn. Cyclical financial markets. Tough times. Call it what you will, the result is the same: less money, longer sales cycles, even longer payment terms and more bad debt.
The question for channel players is how to find better, faster, cheaper and more secure ways to increase revenue.
As an answer, Mimecast SA has launched the Top100 Channel programme for Microsoft accredited channel partners across Africa.
Mimecast Unified Email Management (UEM) is Software as a Service (SaaS) offering that customers want and which doesn't require capital investment in the form of hardware, software or expensive training while providing guaranteed monthly annuity income with protected margins.
"The response we normally get to this is - yeah right!" says Garth Wittles, managing director of Mimecast South Africa.
Subscription based
"But it's true. That's what Mimecast offers. It's an opportunity to recession-proof a business because its subscription based - meaning repeatable and predictable income.
"By predictable I don't mean just for the duration of the contract. With a renewal rate of over 99% over the past four years the return would be sixty times the monthly value."
"The reason behind a channel programme specifically for Microsoft, is that Mimecast works well with all mail solutions, but works exceptionally well with Microsoft Outlook, Exchange and Windows Mobile.
"The Outlook MAPI plug-in integrates the two systems so that archive email searches can be carried out from within Outlook, without the user needing to use a web browser," says Wittles.
The plug-in also enables seamless failover to the Mimecast system in the event of an email system failure, so users are able to carry on using Outlook or their mobile devices for sending and receiving email even though their Exchange server may not be working.
"It's a very smooth experience for Outlook users. To be honest, one of Mimecast's biggest marketing issues is that most of our users don't even know it's Mimecast they are using!" says Wittles.
As a bonus, and a way to help ensure understanding of Mimecast's technology all Top100 channel partners will receive the Mimecast UEM service for up to 100 users free of charge.
Mimecast UEM is ECT Act compliant and provides anti-spam, anti-virus, long-term free unlimited storage, instant email continuity of service and corporate ID management to all customers.
Protected, monthly annuity revenue stream
"Our customers really believe in this technology and we are absolutely confident that once our channel partners experience the full offering they will have no problem selling it as they will understand the value we add," says Wittles.
Other than getting Mimecast at no cost and accessing a protected, monthly annuity revenue stream, other reasons to become a partner of Mimecast services include:
- Income protection: "renewal poaching" is deterred by imposing an overriding discount reduction for any non-incumbent partner
"Dividend programme: If for some reason a client comes to Mimecast directly, the company will put the portion that would have gone to a channel partner in a dividend trust.
"This money is then shared with the top ten performing channel partners each quarter."
- No upfront investment: No upfront investment is required, which ensures immediate entry to a lucrative business opportunity with no cash flow implications.
- Short sales cycle: The quickest sales took two days with the implementation completed in hours.
"Mimecast believes in finding remarkable ways to support our channel. The strength of our partnerships represents the strength of our position in the market so there is an almost permanent focus on improving our delivery to our channel partners," concludes Wittles.