Managed Objects seeks UK partners
US vendor hunting partnerships to take its products into new verticals
Social networking or Web 2.0 sites like Bebo are driving new ways of innovating around business applications
Managed Objects is seeking UK partners to resell its business service management (BSM) software into markets it hasn’t previously covered.
Sean Larner, EMEA president at Managed Objects, said that the US vendor had several UK partners but wanted to move into new areas.
“For example, in the UK we have got into the telecommunications and financial sector, so if partners specialising in other sectors – where we are not – come up with ideas, we are listening,” he said.
Larner said Managed Objects has done well with defence customers, particularly in the US, and also wants to make deeper inroads via the channel in that sector in the UK.
“Partners used to long-term sales cycles can be more successful as our product isn’t so easy to sell,” he said.
Managed Objects BSM applications are a solution sell but excellent margins of up to 50 per cent can be achieved, Larner said.
Large or small resellers could both fit the bill in the vendor’s sales plan, which is 40 per cent based on the indirect channel, he said.
The key is whether partners have the expertise and knowledge of customer needs and trust based on excellent customer relationships, Larner said.
Jim White, business technologist at Managed Objects, said Managed Object solutions offered improved visibility of business systems. Consolidation is helping to open significant market opportunities for such solutions.
“A large organisation that might have 10 datacentres spread across Europe and be forced to reduce costs,” he said.
White said a company with a SAP-based datacentre, for example, consolidated from several others might no longer have the human resources in-house to get full visibility on issues such system changes or unexpected outages.
Managed Objects is pioneering Web 2.0 in a configuration management database (CMDB), dubbed myCMDB, which lets all stakeholders comment on or edit – depending on permissions – the database.
White said myCMDB – which includes Wikipedia-like elements -- aimed at making CMDB more accurate and trusted.