International Expansion for Microsoft Dynamics ISVs: Direct or Indirect?

Planning Ahead

Whether you are an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) with an innovative application and a vision to bring its benefits to millions of small businesses around the world or one with an ingenious way to enable large enterprises to become more competitive, choosing the right business model to expand internationally will be critical to your success.

Now that you have done your homework - determined which customer segments to target, refined your value propositions, researched the best countries to enter and analyzed your global and local competition - one key question remains: do you go direct with a local sales office or do you sell indirectly through partner channels?

Going Direct

Going direct with a local sales office is good approach when you have a high value solution, say over $250K per sale for software and twice that for services together with tightly defined customer segment(s) e.g. stock exchanges, the military. Typically, a Business Development Manager (BDM) can prospect about fifteen clients in a year and win about five. If five sales per BDM per year yield enough returns then this may be a valid model for you.

The benefits of a direct selling sales model include giving you the necessary control to guarantee focus and commitment to marketing, selling and supporting your solution. Having control over the quality of people representing your company and solution as well as being able to hold individuals accountable and review progress as often as you want. Customer needs and concerns can be escalated virtually instantly to maximize every opportunity and grow customer satisfaction. Importantly, you keep the entire software and services sales margin without having to pay a third ...