• Illustration: MBS Target Industries

Partner marketing efforts for the Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) division will be reorganized around 14 specific industries, and MBS will expand its vertical and ISV marketing teams. The changes (announced Mar. 2005) mean that MBS partners, especially software vendors, will get more industry-specific training and marketing resources. This could help improve overall sales effectiveness, based on experience in regions where the new arrangement has already been tried. However, current MBS partner account managers will remain in place.

Under the new plan, Microsoft hopes to classify 50% of current MBS partners into one of 14 specific industries. (See the illustration"MBS Target Industries".) Market data, solution guidance, customer referrals, systems integration tools, marketing collateral, and many other resources will be created to target each industry, supplementing the product-specific resources partners have today.

Microsoft will also create new vertical marketing teams under the heads of its Small and Midmarket Sales and Partner Group (SMS&P) for the United States and the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) regions, analogous to the enterprise vertical sales teams that already exist in those regions, and will add developer evangelists to find ISVs to extend MBS products for particular verticals.

According to Microsoft, the changes are meant to do systematically what Germany, Austria, and some U.S. districts have already been doing on their own: quickly bring in partners with specific industry expertise when pursuing new business. Microsoft believes that such expertise has been important to the overall success of MBS versus the competition in these regions.

The changes do not involve any reorganization of the existing partner marketing organizations—partners will retain their current account managers. However, Microsoft plans to retrain some 800 MBS field personnel to work with the new industry-specific resources.

Partners who would like more information on Microsoft Business Solutions partner tools and offerings should contact mbsprtnr@microsoft.com.