The Evolution of 'Solution' – Do You Know Where YOUR IP is?

In 2011, Microsoft made history by introducing Dynamics CRM 2011 Online before releasing the version for installation on premise. This was the first time that an online version of anything had rolled out first.

Bill Patterson, then Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM product manager explained that, over the next few years, we’re going to witness what he called “An Evolution of Solution.”

Patterson explained that when most “Solution Providers” in our channel talked about a “solution” back then they were referring simply to more infrastructure. Have a problem? We have a solution; throw more infrastructure at it.

A Rush to Relevance

He went on to say that customers would not be tolerant of that much longer.  Even then he saw customers clamoring for “solutions” that were “business-relevant.”  By that they meant relevant to the operation of THEIR particular business. Things that would clearly increase revenue, decrease costs, or both.

As cloud has consumed much of what was the infrastructure requirement of those times, and customers continue to become more sophisticated, Patterson’s words become ever more prophetic. Today’s customer wants solutions to their specific business challenges. They’re not impressed by infrastructure or even by technology itself. They want what the technologies can do for their business in definable, quantifiable metrics.

What Will You Sell Them Tomorrow

Another Microsoft executive, Corporate Vice President of the Worldwide Partner Group Phil Sorgen, gives us another glimpse into the future of the channel.  Sorgen was recently quoted as saying, “Our one and only job at Microsoft is that we deliver a platform that partners can be successful on in delivering their solutions."

The clear implication is that the platform itself is no longer the province of the Solution Provider. Microsoft will handle that. The concomitant “one-and-only” job of the Solution Provider is to provide solutions that run on that platform.

Over the past thirty years our channel has made major transitions from primarily selling products to primarily selling products with attached services, to selling infrastructure services and, most recently for some, selling consultative services. At each stage some of the old has fallen away. Now infrastructure as a whole basically separates and burns up re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

Many will still sell network infrastructure services such as on-premise routing, switching, and security. But in general we’re watching server, storage, and related compute infrastructure disappear as a way for Solution Providers to make money.

Intellectual Property

Instead, you’ll need to make your money selling intellectual property.  To be more specific, selling YOUR OWN intellectual property.

“What intellectual property?” you ask. 

Great question.

In fact, it’s THE great question you need to spend the next several months and years answering.  What IS your intellectual property?  What are the unique and definable solutions you bring to your customers that they will happily pay for when they’re finished paying Microsoft for the platform to run it on?

Your survival as a business absolutely depends upon answering this question and answering it robustly.  If you haven’t already, gather your team together and ask them what intellectual property your company owns that is highly marketable.  What will you be selling to your customers next year and the year after that? Custom applications? Boutique managed services? Analytics? Automation in the Internet of Things?

The great news is that the answer lies within your own company.  Your challenge is to find it, develop it, market it, and make it replace infrastructure and hardware and software and all the things you used to sell.