Solution Plans Define Enterprise Partner Relationships

New partner planning processes are raising the stakes for Microsoft’s enterprise partners, as the company puts more emphasis on annual planning to identify the partners who best fit Microsoft’s sales and marketing priorities. A partner selected by that exercise is assigned an account manager who helps the partner develop not only a Partner Business Plan, a longtime prerequisite for managed partners, but also one or more Partner Solution Plans that outline specific areas where Microsoft and the partner will work together. The plans play a role in Microsoft’s endorsement of partner products and services in given markets.

Selecting Enterprise Partners

The Enterprise and Partner Group (EPG) manages about 8,000 partners and about 90 Alliance Partners, typically large development or integration partners who work in several geographic regions.

Most of these partners are also in the upper tier (Gold Certified) of the Microsoft Partner Program, but that alone does not ensure that they will be managed by EPG. Those decisions are made by an annual segmentation and selection process. EPG teams in each subsidiary review lists of Microsoft partners and decide, based on local customer needs, market opportunities, and a partner’s track record, which partners will get an EPG partner account manager. Annual segment alignment workshops (SAWs), typically held in April, further refine the EPG partner list, based on the following criteria: