Introduction
This is the
second of three articles about Great Plains resulting from TEC analysts
attending the Great Plains partners' meeting, Stampede 2000, in September.
The meeting provided the opportunity for in-depth research on how Siebel
and Great Plains operate. The TEC analysts were able to interview both
Great Plains managers and partners.
Event
Summary
On September 18, 2000, Great Plains (Nasdaq: GPSI), announced the expansion
of its Application Service Provider (ASP) initiative. Great Plains has
evolved its ASP partner program to better meet the diverse needs of its
ASP partners and their customers.
Great
Plains now has three relationship partner tracks for ASPs that host its
solutions: strategic ASP partners, approved ASP partners and approved
data centers.
Organizations
attain the strategic ASP partner designation because of their brand recognition,
significant channel focus and demand generation investments in Great Plains'
channel strategies. Strategic ASP partners work with Great Plains' channel
to deliver ASP services and programs and offer hosted Great Plains eEnterprise,
Solomon or Dynamics e-business solutions. Each strategic ASP partner has
unique strengths, and collaborating with them allows Great Plains to meet
the various application deployment needs of its customers and partners.
Great Plains' strategic ASP partners include Agiliti, Digex, FutureLink,
IBM Global Services, ManagedOps.com, PSINet Consulting Solutions, RSM
McGladrey, Inc./ASP Solutions and Winstar.
Approved
ASP partners are members of Great Plains' partner channel that have
allocated significant resources to deliver hosted solutions. These ASP
partners either self-host or contract a Great Plains approved data center
to host applications. Many approved ASP partners also work with Great
Plains solution developers and other channel members to offer highly specialized,
hosted vertical applications. Great Plains presently has 29 approved ASP
partners.
Approved
data centers deliver ASP infrastructure services to customers. They
host applications and work with authorized Great Plains partners to sell
and implement Great Plains solutions.
Market
Impact
The Great Plains ASP initiative represents a focused approach to outsourcing.
Leveraging relationships, techniques and business strategy refined within
their channel sales architecture, they are making solutions available
via the Internet. By working closely with their sales partners, continually
refining their offerings and maintaining high "customer touch points"
they are providing different delivery options.
As
the upper market players like Peoplesoft, Oracle, and SAP struggle with
comprehensive solutions, pricing architectures, compatible versions and
limiting channel sales conflict, Great Plains is embracing their sales
network. The company's recent Stampede event is testament to their dedication
to partners for mutual success.
Endorsing
partners such as ManagedOps.com who deliver rapid deployment and "gold
standard" efficiencies benefits both companies. In an evolving market,
which is estimated to reach 22 billion dollars, this focused delivery
solution helps customers select applications and utilize Internet delivery
methods. (For more information on ManagedOps.com see ManagedOps.com
- 13 Years and 93,000 Square Feet.)
User
Recommendations
If you are considering a Great Plains solution, we recommend evaluating
their latest 6.0 Release. If your organization does not have the time
or resources to host the application(s) internally, we suggest you explore
delivery options available through their ASP network. The Great Plains
ASP program is over a year old and through the evolution of their offerings
they are helping to innovate their partners business models. The business
strategy is not necessarily revolutionary, but the results may very well
be.
For
more information on Great Plains see the following articles:
Siebel:
Great Plans for Great Plains
Great
Plains - An SME Leader, But At What Cost?