AVG outlines UK MSP programme plans

AVG is to bring its MSP partner enablement programme to the UK, following positive results in the US.

AVG’s director of enablement, Mike Byrne, set up the initiative in the US in February and has now been brought over to the UK for six weeks to ensure the programme gets off on the right foot.

Byrne says the purpose of the programme is to take all the guesswork out of building a partner’s go-to-market solution.

He explains one of the biggest challenges MSPs have is developing their pricing model due to a lack of consistency: “There are a lot of entities within the space that try and profess that they should charge a specific amount per user or per device, but when the rubber really hits the road, it’s virtually impossible for there to be one consistent pricing within the industry.”

The Enablement Programme comprises four stages spread out over a series of phone calls, shared WebX sessions and GoToMeetings.

“There’s a first call where we walk them through what the programme provides and it gives me and my team an opportunity to understand the nuances of how they support their customers,” Byrne says.

He explains it’s about understanding what tools and resources each partner will require to make that transition, which segues into the second call, helping the partner build out their SLAs, which is a foundational component of building out their actual go-to-market solution.

The third step walks them through how to develop the quotes based on the pricing models they’ve decided on and the last step focuses on AVG’s commitment to providing service for the duration of the lifecycle in helping the partner go to market.

“SMBs want to know that for as long as they own the platform, they have access to someone on the business side. The go-to-market varies in terms of what the partners’ sales skill sets,” he says. “Some folks really have the sales mapped down and they don’t need a lot of sales support and others really need a lot of sales support.”

Three UK partners have already completed the steps to become an enabled partner, but now the company hopes all of its partners partake to improve their performance.

Adds Mike Foreman, general manager, SMB at AVG: “We’re not trying to directly put our North American practices on to the people. We can localise with it, so that’s really kind of exciting and what I think is great is while Mike [Byrne] is over here, he will have three weeks to be working on the channel that’s core to our business and so that’s great.”