Y Soft Introduces Framework that Eases Partner Transition to Software Sales and Support

A big hurdle for many dealers considering the addition of software sales to their offerings is the learning curve needed to properly deploy and support a solution. Some software vendors offer the option of providing their own implementation and support services once the dealer makes a sale. Y Soft has taken that approach a step further by creating its Global Operational Excellence (GOE) Framework, announced on October 25.

The Y Soft Proactive Care dashboard

The GOE Framework provides a methodology for Y Soft partners to help ensure a successful implementation and effective preemptive care of its SafeQ Workflow Solution Platform for print management and document workflow. This is done through the framework’s set of services and tools that map to ITIL certified processes.

At the core of the GEO Framework is a set of four closed-loop project management deliverables:

• Discover, which includes the customer’s requirements, current capabilities, and expected ROI
• Design, which includes project scope, proof of concept, and the development team
• Deploy, which includes resource scheduling and how to verify against acceptance criteria
• Proactive care, which includes technical solutions reporting, active monitoring, and support operations

A Proactive Care dashboard monitors and analyzes the deployment post implementation. The dashboard monitors the customer’s print infrastructure. If system conditions fall outside of ideal ranges, an alert goes to the customer and Y Soft or the partner, depending on who is providing support. The monitoring can reduce time to resolution or possibly fix a problem before the customer realizes it exists.

Through the GOE Framework, Y Soft and the partner can help ensure that the customers requirements during customer engagement, solution design and deployment, and support. There are two levels of collaboration between Y Soft and its partners:

• Delivery Management, where Y Soft fully manages the deployment and proactive care.
• Delivery Review, where a partner has been through a few projects and has shown it can perform in compliance with the GOE Framework methodology. At this point, Y Soft steps back and reviews only the GOE Framework’s key milestones.

“The YSoft GOE Framework can help partners that are deploying the YSoft SafeQ platform to deliver an industry standard approach to implementation, ensuring consistent and proactive service delivery,” said Louella Fernandes, principal analyst at market research firm Quocirca.

“Y Soft sells 100 percent through the channel,” said Martin deMartini, senior vice president and co-founder of Y Soft. “The vast majority of them are printer and managed services providers.” deMartini said that Y Soft understood that some channel partners were not fully prepared to sell software solutions. He added that overall software deployments fail, by some measures, at a rate of 68 percent. “We wanted to change that.”

deMartini also believe that partners can shorten the sales cycle by using the GOE Framework. “[The framework] helps make sure the customer realizes the value, and that with constant care [the partner] is not going away after the deployment.”