Larger Sales, Services Roles for Consulting

Placing technical consultants with sales teams and creating prepackaged consulting offerings will align Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) more closely with the company’s field sales force. The changes will make better commercial use of knowledge gained from consulting efforts, but the consulting offerings could be a mixed blessing for partners-they could commoditize high-end consulting and integration on one hand, but could also expand consulting and integration opportunities to many more partners. In either case, partners will have a new opportunity to make their views known-for the first time, MCS will measure partner satisfaction with its consulting services.

MCS Priorities

Microsoft has been careful in defining the roles that MCS plays because the consulting unit has often been a lightning rod for complaints from partners who view it as competition to their own consulting efforts.

MCS has performed the following roles:

• Demonstrating how new technologies can help customers and