D&H Cloud Marketplace launches in Canada

Eighteen partners are initially available in the Canadian marketplace, and D&H is giving every partner a credit of $100 on account on their first transaction.

Jason Bystrak, D&H’s Vice President of Cloud and Services

It has been a while – the next-generation D&H Cloud Marketplace in the U.S was launched in February 2019 – but D&H has launched its transactional marketplace for partners in Canada.

“We have had a cloud program in the U.S. for a number of years, and then in June 2019, we launched a new next-gen cloud marketplace in the U.S., which was purpose-built for MSPs,” said Jason Bystrak, D&H’s Vice President of Cloud and Services. “That was not available in Canada.

“When Ian Cumming came on board in Canada in early 2020, we announced a cloud program in Canada,” Bystrak continued. “But there was no marketplace then. We were selling cloud services the way we sold other things. Now the cloud marketplace is available in Canada.”

Bystrak said that the lengthy delay in getting the marketplace into Canada reflected the normal issues in getting distribution programs done across boundaries.

“There were a number of steps to go through,” he stated. “We had to hire Ian to manage and build up the relationships. We also had to get the vendor agreements and make them North American. That’s never a quick process. We are now at the point where we can bring the quality of the US program into Canada.”

The marketplace lets D&H partners purchase, provision, manage, and invoice multi-vendor cloud and service solutions to customers. It does this through a Device as a Service [DaaS] option over a multi-year, subscription-based term that covers procurement, deployment, device management, services, and lifecycle management.

“I feel we have a differentiated platform,” Bystrak stated. “It’s purpose built for MSPs, and contains some features not generally available from other providers. This includes the ability for partners to create their own services like help desk monitoring as well as offer our bundles. We also let the partner white label this, and not every distributor does. It’s integrated with common PSA invoicing systems. I also think the interface is superior to what else is available.”

Out of the gate, eighteen vendors are available in the Canadian marketplace. This includes Cisco, which Bystrak termed an absolutely critical one, because they are moving their portfolio to cloud and SaaS-first. SignNow, an e-signature provider which recently rebranded from Airslate, is in the marketplace. The others are Acronis, Axcient, Cameyo, CharTec, ConnectWise, Dropbox, Intermedia, Liongard, Perch, RingCentral, SignNow, SkyKick, SonicWall, Vade Secure, and Webroot.

“It’s never going to stop, and we will be adding other vendors,” Bystrak indicated. “Wherever possible we will be signing vendors to North American agreements to simplify things. That’s the goal. At present, we have about 80-85% of the vendors in the U.S. marketplace available in Canada.”

Ian Cumming, D&H Canada’s Senior Cloud Development Manager

“Our partners are quite excited as many of them have been asking for this,” said Ian Cumming, D&H Canada’s Senior Cloud Development Manager. “We have had a very good response and our inbox is filling up quickly.”

Cumming indicated that D&H Canada is offering a special incent to introduce partners to the marketplace.

“We are giving every partner on their first transaction on the marketplace a credit of $100 on account,” he said.

Partners can also leverage D&H’s exclusive “Success Path to Cloud” program.

“It’s a channel partner transformation program which provides subject matter expertise and tools to help partners optimize their cloud practice,” Bystrak said. Although D&H built the framework for Success Path, we brought in a lot of industry experts to ensure we provide industry-leading content. We now have an online version of it as well where you can consume the modules in bite sized chunks.” Topics range from how to build a solution and select vendor partners, to pricing models, financial planning, and sales enablement.

D&H Canada is running a webinar on December 10 at 200 PM ET at www.dandh.ca providing an overview of the Cloud Marketplace.