Become an Instant Expert at Software Licensing

The market outlook couldn’t be more optimistic for IT product resellers. According to an October 2010 report, Forrester Research indicates U.S. computer hardware sales will increase by 19 percent, while software sales will rise by 9.1 percent. The discouraging news is that despite a continuing industry dialog among IT managers, blogger rants and calls for licensing standardization, selling software still remains such an enigma that many resellers refuse to deal with it. However, by not selling software are you inadvertently avoiding a lucrative opportunity to increase revenue and grow your business?

Traditional Challenges of Selling Software
Software licensing and pricing are exceptionally complex, and that complexity creates a serious roadblock to software sales for many resellers. Some of the key challenges and issues include:

• Lack of standards for software licensing – To find the right license for a particular end user, resellers must search through thousands of part numbers, multiple brands, bundling packages, and ever-changing promotions and upgrades.
• A lengthened sales cycle – In today’s typical software delivery model, an IT product distributor may have to interact with a reseller’s software order multiple times to resolve errors before it can be filled and invoiced.
• Handing software sales to the competition – Many resellers simply avoid selling software because of the time-consuming nature of the process, but this leaves the door open to competitors who sell both software and hardware, gaining a foothold in their customer base.
• Missing out on revenue from value-added services – After the initial software sale, larger resellers with dedicated software sales resources generate additional revenue on training, annual maintenance support contracts and other value-added services. Resellers who avoid selling software are missing out on these longer-term and more lucrative revenue streams.
• SaaS and other Web-based programs are just as complex to sell – Although SaaS and other Web-hosted software solutions promise an easier way to deliver software, resellers still must determine and then track the right subscription-based billing agreement for each type of end user customer.

Enter The Software License Selector
To attack the crux of the problem of procuring software, Tech Data has developed an online tool, called the Software License Selector. Unlike an individual vendor’s product configuration tool, the Software License Selector built on the StreamOne℠ platform supports more than 200 licensing programs, or 99 percent of the software products sold through Tech Data.

Using this tool, you can select the appropriate part number in just four steps because all of the complex, rules-based activities—like end-user industry, number of licenses required, order qualification, order correction, tracking and reporting—are accurately selected through easy-to-navigate filters and prompts. This means you spend less time researching each vendor’s unique software licensing requirements and more time supporting your customers’ IT needs with the added benefit of generating more revenue through software sales.

4 Easy Steps
The Software License Selector makes any reseller an instant expert at software licensing in four easy steps:

• Step 1:  Select the end user either by type (Academic, Non/Profit, Commercial and Government) or from a name in the reseller’s integrated “End User Address Book.”
  
  
  
  
• Step 2: Select vendor or software category. If the name of the vendor is known, select it from a drop-down menu. If the vendor name is not known, select a software category from a drop-down menu.
  
  
  
  
  
• Step 3: Select a product from the Product Results list. These can be narrowed down by using filters. Users also have the option to show all descriptions for the entire Product Results list by selecting the Expand All option at the top of the screen. Click the “Select” button.
  
  
  
  
• Step 4: Get the product number and price. Narrow down the part numbers to the correct one by answering a set of qualifying questions that have been created dynamically based on previous information that was entered. Based on the answers to these questions and the quantity of licenses needed, the tool will find the correct part number and price. Click on the “Find Part # & Price” button.
  
  

The details of the part number and price will appear on the next screen, along with any alerts that the order may not be complete. For example, the tool will alert the user if a certain quantity must be ordered to satisfy the terms of the license. The tool also will alert the user about opportunities to increase the quantity to achieve the next discount level. It will also automatically recognize a vendor’s cumulative discount and change the pricing to the better rate before checkout. After the quantity and discount level are confirmed, the user simply clicks “add to cart.” When the shopping cart screen appears, they can then check out or save the order as a quote.

Automated Order Qualification And Vendor Integration
The Software License Selector’s intuitive order qualification functionality addresses the core problem of a lengthy sales cycle for software caused by errors or missing order information. The underlying StreamOne platform has built-in logic and rules that prevent an order with missing or incorrect information from being submitted. For example, if you forget to put in a required end-user ID—a mistake that would trigger a rejected order and delay delivery to the end user—the Software License Selector detects that error, alerts you and stops the order from going through until it has been corrected.

Providing yet another layer of built-in error prevention, the Software License Selector is integrated with Tech Data’s software vendors’ systems so validation agreements and authorizations can be processed quickly and accurately.

In addition, the Software License Selector eliminates the need for two separate order systems—one for hardware and another one for software. Now, you can procure both hardware and software on the same order, increasing opportunities to up-sell software on your hardware orders.

The result of the Software License Selector is that software orders are right the first time, thus making the entire order, invoicing and distribution process more efficient and beneficial for resellers, vendors and end users.

For details on the Software License Selector, please visit www.techdata.com or contact Tech Data at 800-237-8931 and speak to your sales team.