Partner Influence on Sales Gets Recognized

Partners who influence Microsoft volume license sales will be recognized by a new program that records their involvement in sales through large resellers. The initial impact of the program is mostly symbolic: Microsoft has yet to outline the benefits it will provide, other than to say that sales commissions will not be one of the early benefits. Nevertheless, it marks the first time that Microsoft will use its own ordering system to collect data on partner influence, and that data alone will benefit both partners and the Microsoft account managers who work with them.

Tracking Partner Influence

The new Partner Influence Program, which will initially collect data on only U.S. partners, does not provide partners with a share of the revenue they generate for Microsoft, but it nonetheless is an important first step toward giving partners tangible rewards: until now, Microsoft has had no programmatic way to track a partner’s influence for sales that go through resellers.

In the United States, Microsoft restricts the sale of Enterprise Agreements (EAs) and Select volume licenses to only 18 companies, known as Large Account Resellers (LARs). Customers purchase volume licenses through a LAR, which reports transaction details about the licenses and customer to Microsoft.