Sherweb is best known as a cloud service provider and distributor, but the company is now drawing attention to the broader value that it provides to partners.
Cloud distributor Sherweb wants to be seen by its partners as much more than a cloud distributor. Accordingly, it has made some changes to its branding, including refreshing its Web site, and updating its logo [with the new one above]. The key goal is to impress upon partners that they are not just a distributor, but a business partner who will look to their best interests, and a people-first company. Sherweb also wants to educate partners that the services they have extend well beyond the migration and support for which they are best known, and indicated that they plan to roll out new services in the weeks and months ahead.
Sherweb started out hosting websites, and from there moved to providing Microsoft Exchange, to being a CSP provider. Today, it has more than 6,000 partners. The company believes that too many of these are not fully aware of the services and value that they offer. The rebranding effort is the result.
Marc-André Fontaine, the company’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing
“Sherweb has had the same brand for over ten years,” said Marc-André Fontaine, the company’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “We feel that the market in which we operate is evolving in two different ways – either as a distributor of technology or as a value-added partnership. We see a lot of competitors out there. So we are emphasizing that we are a people-driven company and a strong partner.”
Fontaine said that the distinction is meaningful in terms of understanding the services and support that they provide.
“We were seen as more of a service company or a CSP,” he said. “We are more than a cloud distributor. We offer more than just cloud services. We work with our partners as a business partner, not just taking the cloud distributor angle going against Pax 8 or the big distributors with cloud practices like Ingram Micro. Our account sales and management team are trained in business mindsets, to help them diversify, as well as to provide technical efficiency. That’s our Go-to-Market strategy, to emphasize that we have the mindset of a business partner. That’s our strategy.”
Sherweb has revised its Website as part of this strategy, to better communicate the services it can offer to partners. They are stressing that they now have a more user-friendly partner portal, which makes automated billing integrations and data migration services easier.
“We changed the home page and made a few other changes, with an eye towards simplicity, and towards making sure that partners can see the extent of what we can do,” Fontaine said. “Our blog is a good asset, and we get a lot of traffic there, which allows us to add value. We host a lot of webinars, and have our own partner event once a year. We want to show that we are not just a cloud distributor, but a business partner.”
Fontaine emphasized as well that Sherweb doesn’t just offer strong support to their most productive partners.
“We have one-on-one conversations with our top partners, but we have means to meet our other partners as well, and we do assign account managers to those partners who want to work closely with us,” he said. He emphasized that Sherweb staff are trained to help partners set business objectives, and make full use of training resources and MDF funds.
“We have always emphasized our ability to be a one-stop shop, but now we re also emphasizing that since we are a business partner, we will suggest going elsewhere to add products or services that we don’t have.”
Sherweb plans to make the services that is does have better known, and to add new ones.
“A lot of the services that we do offer were less well known,” Fontaine said. “That’s what we are trying to put front and centre in this new rebranding. Some partners only know us for our migration and support. But we also do pre-sales, marketing consulting, and white label support – both Tier One and Tier Two.
“We will roll out more services in the coming weeks and months,” he concluded. “What we are announcing now is just one stepping stone. We will build on that over the next 6-12 months with a lot of new things.”
