IT Assessments: Nothing for Free

More opportunities

While each solution provider within the channel determines how assessments fit into its overall business strategy, some are further along.

Connecting Point, of Las Vegas, is one of them. A year ago, the company wasn’t charging for assessments, but today they are a “nice, additional source of revenue,” said Lester Keiser, company president. Connecting Point, whose core market is SMBs, recently had about six assessments in progress and had done about 20 before that. The solution provider charges $750 to $16,000 for an assessment.

Keiser said Connecting Point has differentiated itself by hiring a vice president of business continuity who has credentials and certifications in disaster recovery and business continuity and is also an expert in health care, financial and legal verticals. “He can point out to the customer how they’re not meeting regulatory or compliance requirements in HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] or the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, for example,” Keiser said.

Click here for exclusive channel research from Amazon Consulting.

Resellers such as AllConnected and See-Comm report that because assessments can help cement their relationship with customers, they’re often asked to do additional technology work in areas outside their core expertise.

“One of our customers asked us to put in a phone system, but we weren’t doing phone systems,” said AllConnected’s McDonald. However, being a member of the VentureTech community, McDonald partnered with another reseller on what turned out to be a $300,000 phone deal, adding that he’s done 10 such deals since. “We do the infrastructure piece, and our technology partner does the telephony system,” McDonald said. ´

Lynn Haber is a freelance writer in Norwell, Mass. She can be reached at lthaber@comcast.net.