Dan Wensley, LPI Level Platforms

Channel Chief Name	Dan Wensley
Channel Chief Title	VP, Partner Development
Company and Division	LPI Level Platforms
Markets Served:	MSP
Company's overall 2007 revenue:	Grew by >350%.
Percentage of revenue from solution providers:	100%
Number of years with the company:	3
Number of years involved with indirect sales:	12
Number of employees in channel organization:	64
To whom do you report in your organization?	Peter Sandiford CEO/President
Does that individual report to your CEO/president?	n/a
Describe your channel organization's major accomplishments over the past year:	a. Growth. Last year Level Platforms grew 350% and was solidly profitable. b. World wide product adoption. Our solution provider partner base has grown to well over 2,600 partners in 29 countries c. The level of awareness and interest we created in the Channel for managed services. Level Platforms has consistently worked with the best in Channel venues to communicate with MSPs, Vendors, Distributors, and Educational Alliances. Examples of major industry events include CMP channel events. d. Increased Vendor Collaboration. Our deep collaborative network architecture provides a vehicle for vendors to participate in the managed services business opportunity, painlessly with little or no financial investment or staff commitment from the vendor's product engineers. We have created monitoring templates on behalf of 50 of the top hardware and software vendors covering more than 150 specific products. Level Platforms has also developed APIs for deeper integration with external products and services that SMB IT service providers use to create their unique service offerings meeting the needs of their end customers. e. Co-founder of MSP Partners. MSP Partners is a vendor alliance formed to educate managed services providers. Founding members are Cisco, Ingram Micro, Intel, Level Platforms and Microsoft. In less than 6 months after launch MSP Partners has attracted thousands of service providers and broad industry sponsorship. f. CompTIA Advisory board. Dan Wensley has been invited to sit on the Advisory board for CompTIA for 2008. g. Awards. In 2007 Level Platforms had become widely recognized as the industry leader by the service providers themselves; voted winner of 5 of 7 awards at the CompTIA Small Business Summit including best software, best technology, best presentation, best channel strategy and overall best-in-show. Level Platforms was also the recipient of the 2007 VARBusiness 5 Star Partner Program winner and CMP XChange Tech Innovators Xcellence Award for Best Software Solution and Best Revenue Generator.
List up to 10 of your top products sold through the channel:	a. Managed Workplace b. Hosted Managed Workplace
Describe how your partner community has grown over the past year:	Over the past year, Dan was pivotal in driving Level Platforms' partner base growth 350% and ensuring it was solidly profitable, with over 2,600 managed services providers in 29 countries using Level Platforms software.
Name the one individual who has had the most profound impact on your life:	The individual solution provider business owner! Each of these individuals amazes me to this day with their ability to build a strong business in this industry despite its rapid pace of change and innovation. They are the Channel elite, I am just proud to be able to work with them and call them partners, colleagues and customers!
Please name the single most innovative initiative for which you were responsible for the past year?	MSP Partners Dan spearheaded, researched and wrote the business plan and value proposition that delivered MSP Partners to the market in March of 2007. Dan continues to demonstrate a keen sense of emerging industry trends and how to leverage them, while providing continuous value to the channel. As an MSP market innovator and champion he recognized that the market was evolving and had the vision to establish MSP Partners as an education response and opportunity for vendors and solution provider alike. MSP Partners is an alliance of leading IT companies that recognize the importance of managed services to their channel partners. The founding members of MSP Partners, became Cisco, Intel, Ingram Micro and Microsoft along with Level Platforms, who have joined together with a common dedication to the development of their solution provider communities by creating a comprehensive source of education for MSP success. This program operated under Dan's direction utilizing a great team of LPI staff and feedback and input from the sponsoring vendors. MSP Partners is committed to: • Educating (the channel) solution providers about the benefits and implementation strategies for successful managed services. This mandate was covered by Dan contracting and leveraging IPED's resources and market awareness; including new research as well as custom content that would help solution providers take an immediate ROI approach to a MSP deployment. Dan worked with the IPED team to ensure solution providers received data and an opportunity review but most importantly how to implement managed services into an existing solution provider business with out being disruptive. • Assisting solution providers in taking the first step into managed services and providing new growth strategies for those that are already on their way. This mandate is covered by using partner success stories (not vendor testimonials) showcasing how solution providers have made the successful transition to managed services, covering their history, mistakes made and core areas to ensure success. • Providing industry best practices for successful managed services featuring vendors' products and services. Dan worked with Vendors joining MSP Partners to again provide non traditional vendor education to the channel. The vendor presentations available on MSP Partners demonstrate collaboration of vendors to showcase how solution providers can manage all the vendors they support in the market.
What were the key channel partner investments you made in the past year?	Dan was instrumental in building the Level Platforms foundation with the various tools we used to communicate with the channel and our partners: a. All Partner Events delivered through live interactive web-casting b. Extensive participation in face-to-face industry events c. Technical and business support with online training and support materials Building on this solid platform Dan led the communications and the road to success for solution providers through: a. The collaborative integrative network architecture of Managed Workplace. b. Level Platforms has grown our technical support team by 55% and increased our hours of operations to support international partners. Mon.-Fri. 6:00 -- 22:00 EST We have also increased our sales team by 46% for our international sales efforts. c. The enhanced Business Support with white papers, new case studies, revised and new marketing templates that can be re-branded by the solution provider. d. The delivery of two newsletters, one for Level Platforms' partners and one for Level Platforms future-partners.
How are you attracting the next generation of solution providers?	Dan successfully helped launch initiatives that include: a. Eliminating the high upfront costs for solution providers by maintaining our simple site subscription model. b. Offering collaborative network architecture with a comprehensive list of vendors that have integrated capabilities and an extensive templates library that bridges the capabilities of the vendors programs with Managed Workplace. c. Enhancing Technical Support with extended hours and assigned personal support teams for partners. d. Enriching our partner services offering with expanded business and technical training programs. e. Consistent face-to-face presence at more than 70 key industry tradeshows, key note presentations, panel participation, MSP educational webinars, article submissions to leading industry publications, participation in Virtual Tradeshows, and more.
What is the greatest challenge you overcame in the past year?	There had been a tremendous amount of hype and corresponding confusion regarding managed services and how to successfully introduce the benefits into solution provider business models. The major challenge was to overcome this hype by helping partners launch a successful MSP business model based on a low risk, high return evolutionary approach - adding net new value into their existing businesses with little disruption while setting the foundation for expanded growth.

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