A Salute To The Best

Answerthink is the first of about a dozen solution providers that will be honored at partner shows this year in CRN's Best In Show awards series. The rationale behind picking Answerthink was simple: The solution provider boosted its IBM business by 300 percent last year by working closely with IBM Global Services (IGS), a $35 billion behemoth.

Answerthink's relationship with IBM is deep and multifaceted. It is one of only four interactive agencies of record helping IBM build its ibm.com Web site. The company is also a certified IBM Pervasive Partner, providing critical feedback that helps the vendor make decisions on its mobile products and strategies.

The Big Kahuna, however, is Answerthink's Lawson Software practice. The enterprise solutions expertise that Answerthink built with Lawson led to a partnership with IGS that is paying off in big dollars. The partnership is a perfect example of how solutions that are being brought to market by CRN readers are pulling along millions of dollars in hardware and software. The bottom line is that the customer doesn't care what hardware, software and other technology is brought to the table. That's up to the solution provider. The client is buying a solution.

As part of the Answerthink-IBM partnership, the two companies collaborated on an implementation for Waste Management, which led to the sale of a whopping $6 million in IBM software and hardware. Now, in conjunction with IBM, Answerthink has developed an accounting solution that has the two companies jointly going after 25 new accounts.

Of course, partnering with IGS is not always easy. For every success story, there is a horror story. That is why vendors like IBM have to do a better job communicating their specific channel programs and strategies and what is expected from partners. And solution providers must do a better job collaborating and executing.

If both sides work at it, as they did in this case, the big winner is always the customer. With that, we raise our glasses to both Answerthink and IBM. Congratulations.

Which vendors and partners deserve Best In Show? Let me know at (781) 839-1221 or [email protected].