Welcome to the Office 365

Starter Kit for SMB Partners

Were excited youre here.
This kit includes great resources
to help you learn about and start
selling Office 365.

How to use the Starter Kit

Table of Contents
1

Understanding Office 365

How to sell to SMB customers

The Partner opportunity

Reselling Office 365 in Open

Understanding the Office 365 plans

How to get technically ready

Put it to Work
Each piece of this kit aligns to a stage of the selling process. The content here is designed to get you started and then provide links to the key information and details for when you are ready to go deeper.

Know the basics

Pre-Sales

Understand what makes up Office 365 and how the cloud changes the way work is done.

Go all in
2

Learn about the opportunity that Office 365 offers your business and how to get started as
an Office 365 partner.

Understand what you can sell

3

Understand the Office 365 plans, who they are targeted towards and the key differences
between them.

How to Sell

Simple selling
4

Learn to transact
5

Deploy

Identify customers ready to for Office 365 and what plan to sell them. Includes links to key
sales and marketing resources available to support SMB sales.

Navigate the basic licensing and operations processes for Office 365 when sold through the
Open Program.

Be a technical expert
6

Find the necessary deep technical training and content to ready your technical staff to
deploy customers on and provide value-added services around Office 365.

Understanding Office 365

Office 365 is cloud-based productivity, hosted by Microsoft. At its heart is Office itselfthe familiar, rich Office
applications customers use and love - now offered as a cloud service, so its always up to date. But Office 365
is also so much more. Its about bringing enterprise-grade services to organizations of all sizes, from online
meetings to sharing documents to business-class email. We like to talk about it to customers this way:

With Office 365, you get the latest Office applications and much more.
Customer receive an always up-to-date
version of the Office desktop applications

1.
2.
3.
4.

Never buy a new version of Office again!

Each user can install Office on up to 5 PCs or Macs
Save to the cloud for backup and anywhere access
Use Office on your smartphone and tablet

Business-class email: Large, 50GB mailboxes that can send messages up to 25MB in size, with contacts,
shared calendars and spam and malware protection that stays up to date. Built with Exchange email technology,
the leading email solution for business around the world. Use your own custom domain for your email address,
connect with Outlook for fully featured offline support, and access via the web through any modern browser.
Available on your PC or Mac, as well as Windows Phone, iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices.
Online meetings: Hold scheduled or ad hoc
online meetings for up to 250 participants, with
screen sharing, audio & video, virtual whiteboards,
polls and shared notes. Partners and customers
can fully participate through any HTML-5 browser

Online document storage and file sharing: 25GB

of space in the cloud to store, backup and easily
share files. Files are accessible from almost any
device, also synchronized offline and available
without an internet connection.

Private social networking and collaboration: A

social network that helps your company stay
connected, share information across teams and
make faster, more informed decisions.

Technical support: Telephone support for setup

and deployment issues, as well as online answers,
how-to resources, and connections with the Office
365 customer community for additional help.

Simplified IT Management: Reduce headaches

by reducing your IT infrastructure. Content lives
safely in globally distributed datacenters with
continuous backup & disaster recovery abilities.

Financially backed SLA: Get peace of mind

knowing your services are available with a
financially-backed 99.9% uptime service level
agreement.

Office 365 & the cloud changes how work is done

Get work done from anywhere: Wherever your
people are, online or offline, they can get toand
work withthe most up-to-date versions of the
files and tools they need to get things done. And
they can do it on virtually any device.

Work better together - simply: Office 365 offers

business-class email, shared calendars, IM, web
conferencing, and access to the most up-to-date
documents stored in the cloud. You can work
together in real time without compromising security.

and how companies consume IT.

Reduce your capital expenditure: Office 365 is
available as a simple monthly subscription. Avoid
large up-front costs for new software while moving
the cost of IT from capital to operating expense.

Be always up to date: Since Office 365 is in the

cloud, it is always up to date. No patches or
software upgrades necessary. Microsoft is adding
new value and capabilities on a monthly basis.

Cut hardware and energy costs: Without

servers to run for email, websites and document
storage, you can reduce energy costs and save by
no longer purchasing new server hardware.

License per user: Simplify licensing while providing

each user access to business critical technology on
5 PCs/Macs and 5 mobile devices. Save money
when compared to traditional, per device licensing.

Scale your business quickly: Office 365 grows

with you - adding a new user is as simple as
buying an additional license.

License what you need: Office 365 provides many

plans to fit the right capability needs and price
points for each user in an organization.

The Partner Opportunity

Selling Office 365 offers your business many different
opportunities for business and revenue growth, and the
ability to deepen your customer relationship.

Ongoing revenue opportunity

Selling Office 365 provides you an opportunity to capture

revenue and profit, either as margin on the license resale or
as commission from the bill customers pay to Microsoft.
Sell products your customers need and want
Eligible partners can also earn channel incentives (rebates
Selling Office 365 allows you to provide your customers with and/or co-op funding).
industry leading solutions that solve their IT needs. Two of
Opportunity to sell new services
the most common IT purchases for SMBs are Microsoft
In addition to Office and email, selling Office 365 opens the
Office and an email solution. Office 365 provides this and
door for new areas of revenue opportunity with services like
more.
SharePoint, Lync and Yammer.
Ongoing customer relationship
Opportunity for value-added services revenue
Office 365 is sold as a subscription with either a monthly or
In addition to the licensing revenue opportunity gained by
yearly bill. Traditional perpetual Office products are sold at a
selling Office 365, there is a huge revenue opportunity for
single point in timeand typically only every 5-7 years. By
partners who provide value-added services. Partners can
building an Office 365 practice and strong renewal muscle,
support moving to and managing the service, especially for
resellers can develop a reliable and profitable annuity
new workloads like SharePoint and Lync. See the chart
relationship as a trusted IT provider and consultant.
below for more detail on the services opportunity.

Increase revenue by providing services around Office 365 sale

Opportunities to attach partner services fall into three categories:
Managed Services and
Deployment & Migration Services
Support
$40-$120 / seat
Sell cloud readiness
assessments

Move email, calendar and

contacts to Office 365

Evaluate customer needs

for advanced compliance
technology like eDiscovery,
archiving, retention policies

Move documents to cloud

Deliver Proof of Concepts

Build internal and external

websites

Install and setup Office

desktop applications & Lync

Add-on Projects and

Solutions

$50-$80 / seat

$40+ / seat

IT admin training

Deliver advanced administration

services like eDiscovery and
setting up data loss prevention
and archiving policies

New user setup

End user training
Office 365 help desk - Tier 1 or
Tier 2 support

Build custom line of business

apps through new cloud app
model in Office 365
Manage app store for customers

For more detail, read the Making Money and Building a Business using Office 365 deck at aka.ms/ResellerBootcamp.

Choose partner model that best fits your business

Partner have the option to sell Office 365 through either (or both) of following business models:

Assist the customer in purchasing Office 365 from

Office365.com
Commission based model partners receive 16-23% of
the sale for first year, 4% each year for life of customer

Purchase Office 365 licenses from a Microsoft authorized

distributor through the Open licensing program, resell
them to customers to capture top line revenue and up front
margin

Simple and low cost to get started

Reseller can use their existing billing, CRM and

compensation systems and have full control over price

Typically best for: new or smaller partners with no

current distributor relationship or existing billing and CRM
systems

Typically best for: existing Microsoft partner with looking

to leverage their existing systems and billing relationships

To become an Advisor: sign up at

http://aka.ms/cloudbenefits

Key
Links

Make Money with Office

Compare partner models and determine which is
right for your business. http://aka.ms/Xsysry

To become a Reseller: contact your Distributor and begin

buying and selling Office 365 licenses

Business Model Comparison Calculator

Estimate profitability for selling Office 365 through
each partner model. aka.ms/lh4fpn

Understanding the Office 365 Plans

One of the key benefits of Office 365 is that Microsoft has built Office 365 plans to meet the needs of many
different customer types, and even different user types within the same organization. Here is a breakdown of
what is available for you to sell.

Key
customer
segments

Office 365
Plans
Advisor
Reseller

FPP

FPP

ESD only

Open

Open

Note: Customers may purchase licenses through either the Advisor or Open program within the same Office 365 account.

Differences between core Office 365 plans for businesses

Here are details on the most commonly
purchased plans for SMB customers. For
more detail or other plans, visit
Office.com/business or Office365SD.com.

Target
Customer

Price per user per month $USD (with

annual commitment)

Small
Business

Small
Business
Premium

$5

$12.5

Target Customer Size

Enterprise
Midsize
Business Office 365 Exchange
E1
ProPlus
Online
$15

$12

$4

1-10

11-250

Any

Seat Cap

25

300

Unlimited

IT Profile

Limited IT

Some IT

IT staff or partner support

Phone support from Microsoft

Install Office desktop applications on up

to 5 computers per user

Standard
Services

$20

Hybrid setup with on-premises servers

Email - 50 GB email, contacts, shared

calendars

Online meetings - Web conferencing, IM,

video, presence

Sites - team collaboration & internal

portals, public website

SkyDrive Pro - 25GB personal online

document storage

Private social networking with Yammer

Advanced
Services

$8

E3

Active Directory integration

eDiscovery of email

Archiving, legal hold, rights management

and data loss prevention features

Voicemail hosting for local phone system

Note: All users in an organization must have an Office 365 plan within the same family (i.e. Enterprise, Small Business, etc).

Understanding the Office 365 Plans (cont.)

Upgrade Office 365 plans easily
Whether to account for a growing number of employees or for changing IT needs, customers may need to
switch between Office 365 plans. This can be accomplished through the Switch Plans Wizard within the Office
365 administration center.
Current Plan

Upgrade Options

Current Plan

Upgrade Options

Small Business

Small Business Premium

Midsized Business
Enterprise E1
Enterprise E3
Enterprise E4

Midsize Business
Exchange Online Plan 1
Enterprise K1

Enterprise E1
Enterprise E3
Enterprise E4

Small Business
Premium

Midsized Business
Enterprise E1
Enterprise E3
Enterprise E4

Enterprise E1
Exchange Online Plan 2

Enterprise E3
Enterprise E4

Who is eligible to upgrade their Office 365 plan?

Customers who have purchased through Advisor or
Syndication partners, or direct from Office.com, may
upgrade their plans. Microsoft is working on a solution for
customers who have bought through other means, including
the Open program.

Office 365 family (i.e. Enterprise E1 -> Enterprise E3), you

can choose to move a subset of users. If moving between
Office 365 families (i.e. Small Business to Midsize
Business), all users will be upgraded, as it is not possible to
have plans from multiple families in the same Office 365
account.

Will upgrading effect all of my users or can I choose

only a subset to upgrade?
This answer depends on what you are upgrading from and
what you are upgrading to. If you are upgrading within an

What about moving between other Office 365 plans?

For more detail about the above, as well as other
Commercial, Academic and Government plans, please visit
Office.com. http://aka.ms/switchO365plan

Additional resources to learn more about Office 365

Office.com
Office.com/business is the go to location for all details
about Office 365, including our service plans, pricing,
answers frequently asked questions and system
requirements. Provides support, training and help
materials for Office 365 as well.
Office 365 Trust Center
Learn how Microsoft, as an industry leader in cloud
productivity services, is continually taking steps to
maintain customers trust in Office 365 at
http://trustoffice365.com.
Office 365 Blogs
Office 365 is continually changing and evolving. To stay
up to speed on product and technical announcements,
and how they effect you, bookmark or subscribe to the
Office 365 business and technology blogs at
blogs.office.com.

Office 365 Service Descriptions

Need to find the answer to a deep or complex question
about Office 365? Office365SD.com explains and outlines
all features and capabilities of the service.
Office 365 Partner Yammer page
As we continue to evolve to a services-based
organization, we are opening up new methods of
communication with our partner community. Join Yammer
to connect with the Office 365 product team at Microsoft
and fellow partners around the world.
yammer.com/office365partners.
Why Microsoft
Read up about how Office 365 stacks up against other
solutions in the market, including Google,
Salesforce.com, Cisco and VMware. Includes information
about how we differentiate at the product level as well as
stories from customers who have made the switch.
whymicrosoft.com.

How to sell Office 365 to SMB customers

Build a pipeline for Office 365 sales today by thinking about your customers through the lens of four key sales
scenarios. These tested profiles will help you identify what type of customer you are talking to, so you can
focus on landing the top two or three messages they need to hear.

Identify customers ready for Office 365

Old Email Server

Growing IT Needs

Running an old email server

Profile:

Old version of Office

Fast-growing with multiple

Worried about security and cost offices
Limited IT staff

Using hosted or web-based

email

Budget is affecting upgrade

decisions

Want to deliver latest

capabilities easily and quickly

Concerned about data

protection

Budget is affecting upgrade

decisions

Lack of modern collaboration

tools

Issues with unplanned

downtime

Limited support for mobile

workers

Users frustrated with unfamiliar

and multiple disconnected tools

Users frustrated with limited

capabilities

Likely smaller customers (high

potential to move to the cloud)

Customers who are using

Office 2003 or Office 2007

Customers who have not

purchased an email server

Customers who are still running

Windows XP

Current IT
Reliability and availability
& business issues
challenges:
Overtaxed IT staff is deprioritizing strategic work

What to
look for:

Hosted Email

Customers who purchased

Exchange Server 2007 or
earlier

Customers who are adding

services and servers due to
growth

Customers who are nearing a

server upgrade

Customers who are using onpremises servers

Using older versions of Office

Only upgrade when needed

Self-service IT, prefer simpler

solutions

Customer who have multiple

Customers with an on-premises email solutions and/or no
UC solution or no UC solution
domain email

Recommending an Office 365 plan

Office 365 provides many different plans to meet the varying needs of customers. The chart below covers the most
common selling situations. To understand the differences between Basic and Advanced IT needs, and to learn more about
other selling situations, review Pitching the right Office 365 plan to SMBs found at http://aka.ms/BEST.
Less than 10 users AND
Basic IT needs

More than 10 users OR

Advanced IT needs

Email in the cloud

Office 365 Small Business

Exchange Online

Office desktop
applications

Office 365 Small Business Premium

Office 365 ProPlus

Need Office + email, or

any other Office 365
service

Office 365 Small Business Premium

Office 365 Enterprise E3

Customer needs:

Sales and Marketing Resources

Office 365 BEST sales and marketing materials
This is your go-to location for content to sell Office 365 to
SMB customers. Includes pitch decks, tele-sales guides,
flyers, compete materials and more. http://aka.ms/BEST.

industry demo guides to show customers Office 365.

MicrosoftOfficeDemos.com.

Get2Modern
Materials that tell the Windows 8.1 and Office 365 better
together story, specifically aimed at moving Windows XP
Office 365 Demo site
and Office 2003 SMB customers to our latest platforms.
Create a personalized Office 365 Enterprise E3 trial
tenant, configured and populated with demo-ready content http://aka.ms/get2modern.
with just a few clicks. Pick from dozens of product and

Reselling Office 365 in Open

Selling Office 365 as a Reseller allows you to sell as you do today, manage the billing process with partners,
and expand your revenue possibilities. By selling Office 365 through the Open licensing program, you can earn
topline revenue and upfront margin, as well as any incentives for which you may qualify.

The Open program

Open is a trusted, established Volume Licensing program from Microsoftmore than 40,000 resellers transact Office sales
through Open today. The Open program consists of three pricelists: 1) Open License (Open L), 2) Open Value (OV), and
3) Open Value Subscription (OVS). Open License is a 2 year agreement that must be paid upfront, Open Value and
Open Value Subscription are 3 year agreements and offer spread payments for customers. Customers wanting to
standardize all the desktops in their organization can take advantage of additional benefits in the OV (company-wide) and
OVS programs.

Buying Office 365 and activating through Open

1

Place Order
Customer
Reseller
Distributor

Reseller
Distributor
Microsoft

For Open L, submission of a PO by a

new customer automatically starts the
Open License Agreement. In OV/OVS,
the contract is set up for the customer
first. Orders can be submitted only after
contract is signed.
Office 365 SKUs in Open are sold as 1
year subscriptions. There is no
minimum order.

Invoice
Microsoft
Distributor
Reseller

Retrieve Product
Keys through VLSC

Distributor
Reseller
Customer

Partners control the pricing and

billing process to their
customers. Upfront payment is
required by Microsoft, and
there are no cancellations or
refunds once the product keys
purchased have been
activated. Existing Open
program terms and conditions
for payment apply.

A welcome email with a link to the Volume

Licensing Service Center (VLSC) is sent
to the customer and the reseller included on
the PO. In VLSC, customers would now
sign the Open L agreement and customers
or the listed reseller can retrieve the orders
5x5 product key.
The subscription term begins when the
product keys are activated to start the Office
365 service, and is independent from the
Open license anniversary.

Subscription Activation
Once the product keys have been retrieved from VLSC, the next step is to redeem them on the Office 365 portal and
get started with the subscription. We strongly encourage you to work with your customer to complete this process.
Step 1: Go to office.com/setup365
Step 2: Enter the 5x5 product key you retrieved from VLSC. If you have multiple product keys for different Office 365
plans, you can add them now by clicking add more product keys.
Step 3: Enter the required information regarding the customer organization. Its particularly important to include accurate
contact information so you can get back in if you are locked out!
You are now directed to the Office 365 Admin Portal. From this dashboard you can assign users to the licenses you
purchased, check the status of your services and subscriptions, download Office, add users, and renew in the future.
Be sure you are listed as Partner of Record in order to receive important updates regarding the customers account,
including renewal notifications, see the customers subscription on the partner dashboard
(partnerdashboard.Microsoft.com) and receive advisor fees if the customer decides to make direct purchases in the future.
You must be a MOSPA partner in order to be listed as Partner of Record.

More details

Office 365 Policy and Activation Guide & Office 365 Open FAQ:
https://aka.ms/BEST (in the Partner Readiness section)

Dive deeper into the purchasing, licensing,

and key redemption processes for Office
365 Open with these key resources:

Overview of Microsofts Open Licensing Program:

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/licensing-options/open-license.aspx

Enable Office 365 Partner Features:

http://aka.ms/PartnerFeatures

Volume Licensing Service Center information and trainings:

www.microsoft.com/licensing/servicecenter

How to get technically ready

There are many great resources available for you to train your technical staff, answer touch questions and get
ready to deploy Office 365 for customers.

Get your business trained on Office 365

Ignite Technical Training
Ignite.office.com is the home for technical training and resources
to prepare your engineering teams to deploy Office 365.
Includes technical workshops, weekly webcast and online
training direct from the Office product team.
Ignite hosts free, 3-day workshops for IT pros, developers, and
partners. Visit the site to see a list of upcoming events.

FastTrack Deployment Resources

FastTrack.office.com is the deployment center for Office 365.
Learn how to get customers up and running, and realizing
business value, quickly. Methodology follows a 3 step approach
Pilot, Deploy and Enhance.
Fasttrack provides advanced piloting features and deployment
funding for qualified partners on deals above 150 seats.
Ignite & FastTrack include material that is relevant for all customer sizes. We are developing SMB-specific content to publish in 2014.

Partner support for Office 365

There are two ways to get access to support for Office 365. All partners can get technical support for Office 365, and all
Microsoft products, through their Microsoft Partner Network membership. For more details on your core support benefits,
visit MPN at http://aka.ms/Giboyx. Additionally, Cloud Accelerate partners have access to dedicated technical support
resources. Details on Cloud Accelerate benefits can be found at http://aka.ms/cloudbenefits.
Note: In order to administer Office 365 (and submit support tickets) on behalf of your customers, it is important enable
partner features in your Office 365 account. A how-to guide for this can be found here: http://aka.ms/PartnerFeatures.

Get answers to technical questions

Office 365 Service Descriptions
Need to find the answer to a deep or complex question
about Office 365? Office365SD.com explains and outlines
all features and capabilities of the service.

Office 365 Community

A community for Office 365 customers to connect with
Microsoft support engineers through forums, wikis and
troubleshooting resources. http://community.office365.com.

Office 365 admin resource center

Resources for Office 365 administrators to get their
organization up and running. Designed as a do-it-yourself
location for customers, but includes great learning material
for partners. http://aka.ms/365AdminCenter

Office 365 Trust Center

Learn how Microsoft, as an industry leader in cloud
productivity services, is continually taking steps to maintain
customers trust in Office 365 at http://trustoffice365.com.

Office 365 for business learning center

End user learning center for Office 365. When a user in an
organization clicks for help in the product, they are directed
to the resources found here. http://aka.ms/o365blc

Office 365 Blogs

Office 365 is continually changing and evolving. To stay up
to speed on product and technical announcements, and
how they effect you, bookmark or subscribe to the Office
365 business and technology blogs at blogs.office.com.