Value Added Resellers (VAR’s) come in all flavors, shapes and sizes – they provide a vital service to IT departments who are suffering from severe budgetary constraints, staff and skill shortages and issues in implementing and managing increasingly complex solutions. Successful VAR’s are those who are delivering skills, customer service, bottom line improvement and are cost effective, but unfortunately, customers frequently confuse “cheap” with “value added”.

Cheap isn't necessarily bad - in fact it can be excellent! Cheap is not a good thing when it places constraints on future development and adaptability of the network. It is a definitely bad thing when the “cheap” solution subsequently incurs excessive management costs or worse, a serious management issue because the solution is failing users and business expectations.

No IT manager likes to be in the situation when they are called in to explain why a solution implementation is over budget or worse, considered to be a failure!

Frequently, cheap means that the solution cannot be scaled up if it is a success or simply to meet the needs of a growing company. The VAR usually is the constraining factor in these instances because solution substitution is rife in the IT market – it is not fair to say security solutions are like commodities but it is not a far stretch to make that conclusion from the lofty heights of the boardroom. In practice, it is the VAR you choose to work with who is the constraining factor in exploiting or upscaling a solution for your business.

One typical reason for this is that the VAR is cheap+. Cheapo charging VAR’s do not usually have the financial foundation to continue with developing their own skill sets which you rely upon to be delivered into your own operation. They usually do not have the breadth of support from solution providers – particularly watch for a VAR with only a couple of certifications but who claims to provide a wide range of services.

Cheap also means sub-standard or no realistic SLA when it comes to customer service.

Imagine a solution that the users love where adoption is widespread and the application becomes mission critical to the board and the staf. Unfortunately, the application is hosted by the VAR who is unable to afford enterprise class connectivity. Now you have the telephone ringing incessantly as everyone from the VP Sales closing a deal in California to the customer service reps in your NJ call center suddenly find they can’t do their jobs.

In turn – you make the call to your VAR – ask yourself what you are going to get, a voicemail or a person?

Ask yourself the same question except it is 3am on Christmas Day and the application is delivered over the WAN to 4 continents and every time zone?

This is where “cheap” simply means “bad”. The answer is to focus on cost-effective solutions which demonstrate clear ROI and are backed by a VAR which has the substance to deliver the SLA you need and can afford. In these cases, it is far better to go with a VAR who is charging appropriately for their services, rather than "cheaply".

Selecting a Value Added reseller (VAR) is crucial and requires pain-staking assessment of their capabilities and track record, including those who are already delivering services into a client, even when the relationship has subsisted for many years. IT times have changed significantly, in fact, they are changing fast – let’s use the correct tense!

With all the change there is a further factor – IT budgets are under exceptional fiscal pressure due to the adverse economic circumstances many companies are facing. There are several reactions to this environment – budgets are being severely curtailed; staff shortages in terms of actual body counts and skill shortages are widely reported; implementations are restricted to those solutions with very tangible financial and ROI benefits, typically with much reduced payback periods.

So we have increasing complexity, increasing rate of change and not enough money, staff or skills to manage the situation.

In a nutshell, this is why VAR’s are important, and for a company, how to select an appropriate VAR is crucial.

What are the VAR’s Redundancy and HA Capabilities?

Mission critical applications live online in most business environments. Any VAR or Systems Integrator (SI) who is offering to implement or manage an online business critical application must demonstrate that they have the capability to provide enterprise class HA and secure infrastructure. Consider how much business would be lost if the company’s CRM goes down – and that would be business not likely to be replaced!

A VAR is unlikely to be the provider in this instance, so you need to look behind them to ascertain who that provider is in reality.

Sarbanes-Oxley and eDiscovery

The day of the regulator is with us – and in the aftermath of the worst financial crisis in 60 years, the regulator of everything from paperclips to hedge funds are placing greater pressure upon businesses to deliver failsafe data protection and retrieval functionality. Federal law changes have multiplied the effect of Sarbanes-Oxley, and now any company, large or small is captured by legal rules which can break a company if it falls foul of them.

A VAR must be able to provide the infrastructure to ensure data backup, retrieval and storage will ensure the highest possible security and DR potential. Almost good enough is not good enough.

VAR Location and Operating Footprint

Remote management is fine when it all works but there are times when it simply will not do. You cannot ignore distance or the limitations on connectivity imposed by physical and Murphy’s Laws.

If you operate in North America and the Far East, your VAR must be able to demonstrate an ability to provide on-site capability in those areas too, or you are going to be severely constrained at some point in the future.

The Importance of Customer Service

When email goes down, users don’t want an answer tomorrow, they want an answer now! You can ignore user requests for so long but when the VP Sales is in Hong Kong closing a deal and his Blackberry isn’t working, you’d better have an answer yesterday. You know the situation because you’ve experienced those calls already on numerous occasions.

It is vital that you assess the customer service standards to be expected and whether they can be delivered by a VAR. VAR’s simply providing a voicemail are missing the point of delivering “value added”, and they must provide you and your users with greater choices that are cost-effective not only in delivering customer support, but in removing the help desk nightmare from your shoulders.