Microsoft Office 365
Partner Solution Case Study
Systems integrator adds profitable cloudcomputing services to its business
Partner: Oakwood
Website: www.oakwoodsys.com
Partner size: 125 employees
Country or region: United States
Industry: IT services—Strategic
technology consultant
Partner profile
Founded in 1981 in St. Louis, Missouri,
Oakwood is a strategic technology
consultancy and systems integrator. It is
a multiyear Microsoft Partner of the Year
winner and a Microsoft Office 365 Black
Belt Partner.
Software and services
 Microsoft Office 365
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“Our Office 365 business keeps accelerating: over the
last three years, our revenue increased 683 percent,
and our deal size increased by 60 percent.”
Rob Helvey, Vice President, Oakwood
Oakwood successfully expanded its business from on-premises
systems integrator to profitable cloud solution provider by
adopting a business advisory approach to selling Microsoft
Office 365 as a solution that solves real-world problems for
customers. Thanks to a three-step presales educational
approach that generates business with 70 percent of prospects,
the company’s Office 365 revenue increased by 683 percent in
three years.
With the launch of Microsoft Office 365,
Oakwood began a successful new initiative
implementing the Microsoft cloud vision in
a way that resonates for customers. Since
2012, Oakwood has accumulated 76 Office
365 customers. In those years, its Office
365 business increased by more than
US$2.8 million, with a total of 84,529 seats
sold. “Our Office 365 business keeps
accelerating: over the last three years, our
revenue increased 683 percent, and our
deal size increased by 60 percent,” says
Rob Helvey, Vice President at Oakwood.
“We are working on two $750,000
engagements, representing a change from
our smaller Office 365 deals in the past.”
This story showcases how a wellestablished—almost 30 years—onpremises systems integrator can add a
successful Office 365 business to its roster
of offerings. How did the company do it?
Oakwood embraced a new approach to
sales and offerings all the while working
closely with Microsoft to help market its
technical expertise.
Use educational marketing
According to Tom Brauch, Senior Director
of Marketing at Oakwood, the company
makes progress with customers through
educational marketing. Oakwood hosts
educational sales events, which generate
50 percent of its leads; its webinars add
another 10 percent, along with Loyalty
Marketing efforts where Oakwood offers
free support via its “Microsoft Office Hours”
webcasts for existing clients to learn more
about Office 365.
“Our most successful marketing occurs via a
multi-channel effort including marketing
automation, content, social, and conference
events where we are drawing interested
audiences,” says Brauch. “We use helpful
Microsoft programs as a steppingstone to
propel customers to take the next step via
the FastTrack program or a MEC [Microsoft
Experience Center] lab. The labs generate
about 5 percent of our leads.” The Office
365 FastTrack Planning engagement helps
customers discover how Office 365 can help
achieve their business objectives; the
outcome is a recommended approach to
deployment. MEC is a sales and marketing
program that provides business
professionals a chance to have hands-on
experience with Microsoft offerings.
Sell to solve a business
problem
Oakwood is successful at selling Office 365
solutions because its employees approach
the sales process from a different
perspective than they use with on-premises
solutions. “We trained our sales team to sell
Office 365 as a ‘high touch’ solution that
everyone in the customer’s organization
uses daily,” says Helvey. “For example, to
make the solution relevant for customers,
we don’t talk about migrating mailboxes;
we talk about the business value of
accessing email from anywhere on any
device. It’s about being a business advisor,
not a nuts-and-bolts wrench turner.”
Consequently, Oakwood encourages its 10
sales representatives, who develop longterm customer relationships, to really
understand a customer’s business. “We help
each customer define what the cloud means
for them,” says Helvey. “The more we learn
about a customer’s challenges, the more
opportunities we find to migrate their
processes and data to the cloud.”
Oakwood keeps its sales reps up to speed
on the impact of its services for customers,
so the sales team has knowledgeable
conversations with prospects. “Since 2012,
we have used this approach to sell 21
percent of our existing customers on
Office 365, an increase of 19 percentage
points in two years,” says Brauch. “Back in
2012, 3 percent of our new customers
purchased Office 365 subscriptions; today
we have increased that to 9 percent.”
Invest in presales activities
Oakwood takes advantage of the
Microsoft Partner Seller (P-Seller) program,
a co-selling program that enables the
company to engage in technical presales
conversations with customers and
showcase its expertise in using Office 365.
“The P-Seller program gives us the
opportunity to demonstrate that not only
do we have technical competence but we
also are good at applying that to the
customer’s pain points,” says Brauch. “This
helps us win business; approximately 25
percent of our P-Seller engagements result
in ongoing work for Oakwood.”
Oakwood developed a three-pronged
presales approach. First, it helps customers
calculate the return on investment that
comes with using the various services
within Office 365. Second, the company
helps customers understand how Office
365 can solve their unique business
problems. This might involve a MEC
experience or a Solution Alignment
Workshop to help ensure that Office 365
will meet the customer’s specific
requirements. Third, Oakwood facilitates a
proof of concept, helping the customer set
up a tenant and deploy a few mailboxes to
run alongside its existing environment.
“Our very successful, step-by-step presales
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS
SUMMARY.
Document published May 2015
approach gets the customer comfortable
with Office 365,” says Helvey.
“Approximately 70 percent of these
prospects generate Office 365 business.”
Align offers with sales
approach
Oakwood provides managed services
addressing policy management, user
authentications processes, but these are
not the focus of its Office 365 offers. The
company focusses on aligning its sales
offers on solving business problems for
customers, for example, helping customers
define and manage a hybrid SharePoint
environment that includes Microsoft
SharePoint Server deployed on-premises
and SharePoint Online in the cloud. Such
an environment can help customers
transition to the cloud step by step. “Our
average Office 365 deal size has increased
from approximately $52,000 in 2012 to
$83,000 in 2014,” says Helvey.
A new change management offering that
helps customers transition to Office 365
illustrates the educational approach that
Oakwood finds so successful. “Change
management around Office 365 is a new
revenue opportunity for us,” says Helvey.
“Office 365 has many capabilities that
weave through a customer’s business.
When we help customers use those
features, they see immediate payback in
tangible, everyday ways. Office 365 is all
about the promise of mobility and
productivity, and there’s nothing more
satisfying than helping a customer realize
that promise.”