We all need a helping hand from time to time. Someone to lean on, call upon, an extra pair of hands. It’s no different in business ­ every business in every sector will require support of some form or another at some stage.

For example, having a relatively small editorial team putting toge-ther the leading channel publication every week can cause problems when one of the journalists is off sick or away on a press trip.

With such a quick turnaround required for news stories, being just one person down can put tremendous pressure on the rest of the team. On such occasions CRN can luckily turn to a third party ­ a freelancer ­ to provide cover and support to the team, helping the magazine stick to its deadlines. Knowing that resource is available whenever it is required is immensely reassuring.

The same can be applied to the channel. With the days of box-shifting long gone, resellers are increasingly offering more services and support to end users to bolster margins. At times though, VARs may find they are under resourced, staff-wise, at a crucial point of a contract so they will need to turn to a third-party services provider.

Smaller VARs may even use such companies on a regular basis, not just when they are under-resourced. For example, it is probably more viable for a smaller reseller to use a third-party support firm to provide services as and when required, rather than investing in training its three engineers to provide a raft of services. Nine times out of 10, the engineers will provide the same two or three services to customers so they will become rusty in the other areas they were initially trained in, resulting in the need for refresher courses or yet more training.

The other instance where third-party service providers can come in handy is when a reseller is asked to provide support in an area outside its comfort zone. If a VAR speciali-ses in the installation and maintenance of voice over IP systems but needs to provide a security solution, for example, a third-party services provider will be able to help them plug that skills gap.

The ideal support partners are third-party services firms that only work with resellers, as the VAR will never fear that their ‘partner’ will do the dirty on them and steal their business. These types of channel-only providers will also enable a VAR to label the service as their own, so from the end users’ point of view they are just dealing with one organisation and it appears that the reseller is delivering the service and support themselves.

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