Vega telecom operator expanded its services with ITGLOBAL.COM partnership program
One of the biggest telecom operators of Russia, in a framework of White Label partnership program, added self-branded cloud services to its IT portfolio. Today Vega offers IaaS on ITGLOBAL.COM platforms, earning 30% from each payment of its customers.
The Company
Vega is the integrator operator, providing telecom and other IT services to legal entities and private clientele. The company operates since 2002 and is in Top 20 biggest operators of Russia. Company headquarter is located in Saint-Petersburg, branch offices are in Moscow and Kazan. Subscriber base of Vega totals 10.000 legal entities and 40.000 individual subscribers both in Russia and abroad.
The Task
Vega is always striving to enrich its service portfolio. As per Mikhail Telegin, Head of business development and customer service of Vega, “the company was never interested being merely “a duct provider”, offering third parties’ services with no control, no warranty, at customers’ own risk”.
Vega gathered the team of professionals that helps customers to solve any issue of any service in no time. The company maintains the services where Vega staff is highly competent by itself; some other cases are handed to professional partners.
When it became clear that the market is ready for virtual services, including IaaS and VDI, Vega decided to add them into the portfolio.
Partner selection included two key parameters:
- Team professionalism: experience, cooperation comfort, decision making speed, pace of technical staff getting involved.
- Profitability: only the partnership with apparent and attractive financial component could be taken into consideration.
The White Label partnership program
In the program framework partners obtain self-branded cloud platform and can sell IaaS from ITGLOBAL.COM under their own brands. Partner share is 30% from each customers’ payment. Note that the majority of hyperscalers cannot offer more than 5% profit.
Considering cloud market perspectives, the partners can draw new customers and/or shift loyalty of the existing ones, and carry out UpSale. The program does not require ample financing; Marketing Dept. efforts are sufficient. In fact the platform sells itself – this is completely the click&buy solution. The client only needs a console access, where he/she can purchase services on his/her own.
ITGLOBAL.COM guarantees to its partners:
- project’s full technical maintenance (Data Center, equipment, virtualization and administration);
- platform’s user interfaces branded with a partner’s logo;
- platform’s efficiency;
- platform’s updating;
- 24/7 customer support.
Marketing procurement, Sales Dept. training and functional B2B client database are on partner.
The platform’s principal functionality includes:
- tariffs’ application and billing;
- pre-paid and post-paid systems;
- interaction with technical support;
- e-mail creation and sending;
- knowledge base support.
Vega had no issues with technical integration of the service. There were, however, slight managerial impediments on early stage: the operator had to provide additional trainings for both sales and technical staff. Immersion into product specifics was called for. Apart from that Vega introduced positions of pre-sale managers and fully optimized internal training processes.
ITGLOBAL.COM keeps providing the partner with help on technical and pre-sale topics.
“We like the way you’re supporting us, — said Mikhail Telegin. — All issues that emerge on our side are solved promptly and on time, and we appreciate it. It is exceptionally important for our business. We had ineffectual examples building collaborations with some companies – where we were witnessing reaction time non-satisfactory both for us and our clients. With such partners we had to part”.
The Outcome
The cooperation lasts for about a year, now it is at the stage of development and active growth. The perspective of White Label is already evident for Vega. Expansion of service offers allowed turnover growth of $15K per month in less than 6 months.
Mikhail Telegin:
“I see great growth zone, including growth of our expertise, expansion of service offers, or, simply put – the number of services sold to one customer. I see us moving to the target we set from the very beginning”.
The Future
Apart from the current basic B2B sales model carried out by Sales team, Vega plans to commence yet another, differently branded, cloud platform. The main dissimilarity of the new project is the absence of sales managers, with full-fledged promotion by marketing means only. There will be no need for the clients to interact with Vega personnel: one sets up an account, chooses suitable VM configuration, recharges that account and starts using a service.
Many Vega customers prefer self-service, they need no managers or some other intermediate links. Such users can actively operate on their own, tune their services and work out their tasks. Currently Vega conducts the preparatory works: developing marketing campaign, running-up sites, prototyping personal accounts. Launch is planned for early 2021.