How Microsoft Sells Services Through Global Partners

When Microsoft merged companies including Great Plains, Solomon and Navision under the Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) umbrella, service management had to reexamine business models, assimilate conflicting product support policies, integrate different systems and present customers with a unified global services offering. Here’s a recap of a presentation Jana Reinke gave early in October 2004.

It wasn’t easy. Reinke recalls how each company had a different way of dealing with just about every aspect of service and support. Here are some of the tough decisions Reinke faced: