Certified and Gold Certified Microsoft partners will benefit from a revised joint business-planning process that is likely to reduce paperwork and better align partner and Microsoft marketing efforts. Based on an approach used in Europe and several other regions, the revised process will be rolled out in the United States in 2006.

Business Planning Concerns

Joint business planning has been an important part of Microsoft's partner relationships for many years. Such plans typically outline the partner's Microsoft-related marketing activities, specific goals for both the partner and Microsoft, investments (such as training or marketing expenses) that both the partner and Microsoft will make, and how the partner will fit into Microsoft go-to-market (GTM) campaigns, among other things.

However, many partners believe that the effectiveness of the planning process has decreased in recent years. Common complaints include the following:

• Burdensome paperwork required to submit two separate plans, one for the Enterprise Partner Group (EPG) and another for the Small and Midmarket Solutions and Partner (SMS&P) Group, each year, for each partner office—for example, an organization with six U.S. offices would need to file 12 business plans
• Inconsistent planning documents, even within regions, making it impossible to repurpose a business plan in many cases
• A lack of follow-up on plans, which brings into question the value of producing them in the first place
• Planning organized around Microsoft's July-to-June fiscal year, rather than the way that partners organize their businesses
• Segmentation between enterprise and midmarket customers that may not reflect how the partner views the same customers
• Trying to fit partners into GTMs even if the campaigns don't reflect partner priorities
• A focus on selling products to meet Microsoft sales goals, when many partners get most of their revenue from services.

New Process

The existing process is being refined with processes initially developed in Microsoft's Belgium subsidiary, and it includes the following changes:

• A single overall business plan for each partner, supplemented by any number of Partner Solution Plans that focus on partner solutions related to particular market segments, vertical industries, marketing campaigns, or Microsoft products
• Shorter and more consistent documents
• More detailed planning to execute partner priorities on partner business cycles, and less weight for Microsoft's sales goals and fiscal year
• Measurable objectives that must be reviewed by Microsoft at least quarterly
• Field and partner group involvement in development of GTMs, which were previously driven mainly by marketing groups.

A few regions have already implemented the process, but full implementation depends on each region, and on the readiness of the SMS&P Group and EPG in that region. For example, the process is now in place for SMS&P partners in Microsoft's Latin America and Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) subsidiaries, but the Asia-Pacific region is just starting it, and U.S. regions probably won't be ready to implement the process until 2006.