Resellers: A purpose-built sales organization(s) focused on third-party products. Resellers tendto be regional or national champions that focus on speciifc technology practice areas, e.g.security. Instead of a vendor building the relationship and trust, they work through these organizations with established enterprise relationships. A few examples of Value-Added Resellers (VARs) include Trace3, Evotek and Ahead. One layer removed is a distributor, or disti. Distributors sell a third-party technology through a proprietary network of hundreds or thousands of VARs. An example is Ingram Micro. ITOs / MSPs: Information technology outsourcing (ITOs) and managed-service providers (MSPs) run technology on an enterprise’s behalf. For example, instead of running a security-operation center it is common for enterprises to hire an MSP. They buy/build a platform, handle staffing, etc. so that the enterprise doesn’t have to. Under this model, the MSP or ITO selects the underlying technologies to deliver the service. As the diagram below illustrates, the tech company sells to the MSP (who is their customer), and the MSP runs the sotfware on behalf of the enterprise. Product Led Sales Direct Sales Technical Partner Marketplace Enterprise Customer Tech Company Solution Partner VAR Channel Distributor Reseller MSP “A key to success across the partner landscape is understanding the current landscape of vendors and the gap(s) you can ifll. It will keep you from chasing the wrong partners.” 28