The primary aim of Teams Essentials is to give businesses the full Teams experience without needing to purchase a full Microsoft 365 license.
The service, launched last year, lets businesses dip their toe into the world of cloud-based collaboration without needing to rip out the other technology they already have in place.
But beyond the end user benefit, Teams Essentials is a fantastic opportunity for channel partners to build a pipeline of business.
Teams Essentials (when sold by a partner) comes with the same features as the Teams version in Microsoft 365 packages – chat, unlimited meetings, and cloud storage. But it also comes with a world of opportunity for adding on complementary services – from meeting room support, to voice, to third-party app integration.
Partners can play a crucial role in delivering these additional components, thereby increasing the sales they drive from the customer.
Alessandro Podda, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Teams GTM at Microsoft, said the most important thing for partners to do is ensure they deliver attentive customer service in the months after the client has purchased Teams Essentials.
“The partner definitely has the responsibility to look for ways to drive usage,” he said. “That could be conversations with the customer, workshops, video guidance that shows how to set things up, or even emails after a couple of months to see how they’re getting on.
“Partners need to get customers to the point where they understand the value of Teams and start to use it right.”
Even at this early stage, partners have an opportunity to add more value for the customer by introducing them to third-party apps that plug into Teams. These may be tools around HR, finance, or room booking that the customer already uses but needs help to integrate.
The early opportunity of Teams Essentials lies in the additional services that drive value for the customer and increase the partners margin. Later, even more margin comes from upselling those customers into the M365 suits.
More Microsoft
Beyond the early third-party integrations, there are opportunities to introduce customers to more of the Microsoft stack.
Podda said that partners should focus on Teams specifically to begin with, rather than rushing straight to pushing Microsoft 365. The key opportunities are Teams Phones and Teams Rooms to boost the functionality they have available in the platform.
