5 reasons why verticalizing is the key to success

A few years ago, organizations didn’t have many options when it came to an ERP solution. There were a few vendors that had a tight grip on the market and an expensive custom solution seemed to be the only way forward. Swapping solutions seemed like a ridiculous choice for organizations after such a huge investment. How different is the world of software today.

The number of applications that can be purchased online and implemented with little to no consultancy is increasing. Developments that have a major impact on the way most software vendors earn their money. Especially if you’re selling “horizontal” solutions that require little to no specific industry knowledge.

If you want to be and stay successful, you’ll have to differentiate your practice from the wide and growing variety of competitors in the market. Because, let’s be honest, the competition is no longer just other IT channel partners in your territory. You’re competing with IT partners worldwide.

If you can’t be big, specialize 

As a Microsoft partner, you’re always searching for the balance between focus, efficiency, and profitability. Which activity is the moneymaker at this point? Should we put more resources into this activity? Which horse to bet on in the short and the long run? It’s a continuous balancing act.

Nowadays the incoming stream of business requests is huge, the workload is big and as more and more different business comes in, your team grows. With that inefficiency grows which starkly pushes your revenue on billable hours.

In addition, the strategy of tacking every business opportunity is a big pitfall. Nowadays, it seems that everyone can do almost everything even for a lower price! 

With the uprise of globalization and digitalization, your customers don’t even have a challenge in getting as much  “bang for a buck” anymore. Even on common goods, service isn’t a key differentiator anymore. Look at Amazon, Uber ed.

Between you and me: It doesn’t take an accounting team to determine that the “working on billable hours” strategy is a dinosaur. We don’t see many of them walking around these days.

The question (aspiring) partners need to ask themselves:

Am I ready to invest time and money in a vertical solution and with doing that bringing the revenue of the team as a whole to a new level?

This is exactly the reason why Microsoft is gently pushing companies in the direction of verticalizing their businesses.

What is verticalizing and why is it so important?

The Quora website puts it as follows:

“Business verticals are narrow markets whose specific needs make them especially likely to want your offerings. If your products or services appeal to a targeted niche, you’ll have a smaller customer base but each potential customer will be more likely to buy.”

5 benefits of verticalizing:

• More focus
• More repeatability
• More probability for success
• Specialized skills and knowledge result in more in-depth and meaningful customer engagements
• All above result in more success and therefore more revenue in the long run!

We at Boltrics chose to build a vertical solution over a decade ago. With success. Over 250+ customers use our solution every day to streamline their logistics processes. We are looking for partners that want to pick up the glove and be part of our success story.

Did I get your attention? Feel free to take a look on our website  or send us an email. Or just stay tuned for more blogposts with more information about ‘becoming a successful Boltrics Partner’.