How IaaS helps 1C franchisees: 1cloud experience

    “1C” became the most popular franchise in the past year, RBC reports. In 2016, 659 companies joined the network of franchisees and 1C partners, and over the entire 20-year history of the franchise - 7.5 thousand organizations. The market for ERP-systems is gaining growth and is approaching the pace of 10-15%. 1C owns a third of this market, and 90% of the revenue for the company is formed by partners.

    But not all organizations cope with new tighteningrequirements and leave the affiliate pool of the franchise holder. This mainly concerns small franchisees, whose quality of service is not in the first place. This is evidenced by the record number of terminated contracts for 2016 - 68. We will figure out what difficulties the company faces in the 1C-franchisee market, and how IaaS provider can help solve them. / The Flickr / perzon seo / CC




    1. Turnaround: dubious companies are easy to enter the market


    A few years ago, the market was full of small and unscrupulous 1C-franchisees. A sufficiently low entry threshold - up to 500 thousand rubles - opens the way for microenterprises.

    Sergey Danishevsky, head of Unitek24 , a company providing solutions based on 1C: Enterprise 8 and 1C-Bitrix Site Management to more than 1,700 businesses around the world, notes: “In general, the market is quite active, saturated with various players, since it’s relatively easy to enter the business ".

    On the one hand, this is good: small teams have the opportunity to earn money and there is no need to invest in promoting their own brand. On the other hand, problems arise - the desire to "survive" in a highly competitive market in some projects prevails over responsibility to customers and partners. Such businesses periodically spoiled the reputation of the entire network - their employees were represented by 1C, and after that they damaged the business of others.

    The “blind” introduction of products — without training specialists — is well known , widely debated, and, unfortunately, has no final solution other than the intervention of a franchise holder. Now the franchisor has tightenedrequirements for partners, and unscrupulous companies on the network have become less. However, spoiling the reputation is easier than restoring it - companies that do not pay enough attention to the quality of services cast a shadow not only on their business, but also on the entire network of enterprises operating under the 1C logo.

    2. Dumping: in order to survive, franchisees reduce the price of services - sometimes at the expense of quality


    According to the founder of "1C" Boris Nuraliev, the hour of work 1C-programmer in Moscow is estimated at 2200 rubles. According to other sources, in the regions it costs about 1,500 rubles. Since “1C” does not dictate its terms on the margin of software and the cost of implementation services, the franchisee has an opportunity for dumping.

    Competition is especially felt when implementing standard solutions. Small franchisees are ready to increase the burden on subordinates, achieving the minimum cost of services. An example is a programmer’s story about working in a small company, where one person combines three positions.

    Total savings give some franchisees a price advantage. However, this process has a flip side - the employees who have to combine several positions at once are more likely to make a mistake and simply “burn out” at work. Naturally, such situations will negatively affect the quality of services. And this, again, casts a shadow over the entire network.

    Another problem for franchisees is competition from the “pirates”. Unlicensed analogues of 1C products appeared at one of the first stages of the company's development and accompany it to this day, despite the criminal liability for distributors.

    3. Result: an impeccable reputation has to be proved constantly


    Reputation is an invaluable asset in a competitive market where someone periodically makes mistakes on behalf of the brand. It is easy to lose without meeting customer requirements. And if the franchisee does not provide services at the lowest prices, you have to constantly prove to customers that the required level of quality is really worth it, despite the abundance of cheaper offers.

    The most important customer requirement - 1C services should always be available. No one will figure out if the franchisee failed the employee, server, or if there was a global failure. If something goes wrong, you don’t have to rely on understanding. And this despite the fact that providing high quality services is necessary not from case to case, but constantly:

    “Customer retention in this area is often calculated over the years, which makes it necessary to comply with strict internal quality standards if the partner plans to work in the market for a long time and increase the customer base.”

    - Sergey Danishevsky, Unitek24


    What to do (and how IaaS can help here)


    So, to earn and defend the reputation of high-class 1C-franchisee is not easy. Sergey Danishevsky on the example of his company identifies three important factors that will allow this to be achieved:

    1. New service delivery models and integrated solutions


    To “rebuild” from other franchisees, companies have to study the market, offer new solutions that are more convenient for customers compared to the standard set of services:

    “For example, we were the first in the Russian market to use CMS 1C-Bitrix“ Site Management ”in the cloud, according to SaaS models, while integrating online stores on Bitrix with cloud 1C and Bitrix24. Of course, we fully accompany all this infrastructure, from system administration to services to finalize each product to the needs of the client. Offering comprehensive, ready-made cloud solutions, we easily get ahead of small franchisees, better and better satisfying the needs of the market. ”

    - Sergey Danishevsky, Unitek24


    This allows you to compete with actively dumping players - they simply do not have the resources (both technical and “human”) for the implementation of complex projects:

    “In my opinion, a company competing in the quality and variety of additional services will always beat those who dump with the goal is to take up at least some kind of work. ”

    - Sergey Danishevsky, Unitek24


    What does IaaS have to do with it: “repackaging” the usual services, the emergence of new services requires the involvement of specialists. And this means that some of them will have to start a new project and stop fulfilling their current duties (there is definitely no question of combining three posts here). And all this in conditions of need to provide the most reliable service.

    In this situation, the company can be helped by the IaaS provider: the cloud infrastructure first of all eliminates the need for hardware control, thereby significantly reducing the burden on system administrators (who can do other, more important tasks). APIs that automate the deployment of servers for new clients are another opportunity to implement complex resource-intensive projects without attracting additional specialists and without “burdening” employees with additional responsibilities.

    In the case of Unitek24, this approach to sharing responsibilities between the franchisee and the 1cloud IaaS provider turned out to be fully justified - franchisees are much more interested in developing their own services and not spending their own time on routine:

    “At the initial stage of the project, we calculated the budget for the project to build our own cloud and came to the conclusion that it would be more profitable and more efficient to find a reliable IaaS partner by focusing our internal resources on the development of the service.”

    - Sergey Danishevsky, Unitek24


    2. Reliability, fault tolerance and data protection


    One of the most important characteristics of a conscientious 1C franchisee is reliability. As Sergey Danishevsky rightly observes, service unavailability for a client can very often be critical. Naturally, after such an incident, the client will think about whether to take risks again, and the French will have to convince him that this will not happen again.

    What does IaaS have to do with it: the first thing you can offer the franchisee in this case is to control everything yourself, using your own facilities and equipment. Unfortunately, this option may be more expensive.than working with an IaaS provider. And this entails an increase in the cost of services for customers (and here we are talking about basic functionality, and not about new products or services). In a market where competitors are actively dumping, such a choice can be risky.

    When choosing an IaaS provider, Unitek24 advises you to pay attention to the following points:

    1. Protection of customer data - without this, the work of the franchisee is impossible.
    2. Service availability level - this includes not only 99.9% availability, but also round-the-clock technical support, the ability to work with fault-tolerant distributed storage, scalability and interchangeability of resources
    3. Availability of API for monitoring and managing servers.

    “At the moment, we use the IaaS infrastructure both to serve our customers and for our own needs. Our company works with the same software products and on the same platform where we offer services to customers. ”

    - Sergey Danishevsky, Unitek24


    3. Data Recovery Solutions


    According to Sergey Danishevsky, most Unitek24 customers understand the need for backups and are happy to transfer this responsibility to 1C-franchisees. However, in conditions of dumping and fierce competition, not all franchisees can provide backup services in the required quality, while maintaining low prices, especially since many customers are not familiar with the details of this procedure and are ready to take the franchisee to the word:

    “It is rare [of clients] ] thinks about how backups are formed and whether there is a guarantee of their formation and integrity. Therefore, it is very important that backups are created regularly, without errors, and the necessary time is stored securely. ”

    - Sergey Danishevsky, Unitek24


    What does the IaaS have to do with it:reliable data storage is one of the direct tasks of the IaaS provider. For example, 1cloud users have the ability to both configure automatic backups and create snapshots . Developing a similar infrastructure with your own hands for a franchisee can be difficult - especially when competitors, relying on the trust of customers, save in this direction.

    All these solutions allow the franchisee to achieve the main thing: to provide the client with a stable and reliable service and concentrate on their immediate tasks and create new services without increasing the price tag.

    Our work experience: what else can be important 1C-franchise


    Based on communication with customers, we have compiled a list of technologies and solutions that are now especially in demand among the 1C franchisee. If you decide to move to the cloud, you should ask your provider if it provides these features:

    • Creating and storing your own virtual server reference images and using them to deploy new virtual servers

    “In 1cloud, this task is implemented on the basis of a configured server - the user creates his own template, from which you can then deploy new virtual machines. To get a new assembly, upon request for support, you can "mount" the client ISO to an empty virtual machine and deploy the required version of the server OS. The function of hot copying the server is also supported (the current state is copied without stopping the server) ”.

    - Sergey Belkin, head of development department 1cloud


    • Creation of new virtual servers and management of existing through API

    • Connect to the infrastructure of your own data warehouses through the necessary protocol (for example, SAMBA or FTP / SFTP)

    “The 1cloud client receives full administrator rights on rented virtual machines and can open all the necessary ports and configure data exchange using the protocols he needs.”

    - Sergey Belkin, head of development department 1cloud


    • Ability to migrate existing virtual containers (e.g. LXC), use container management solutions (Docker / Kubernetes)

    • General performance testing of processor cores and disk subsystem using images of machines of highly loaded franchisee clients

    “One of the options for testing system performance is the Gilev test. Despite the fact that this test is synthetic, it is quite suitable for an initial assessment of the equipment used by the provider for the suitability of working with 1C. Therefore, the Gilev test in the 1C community is one of the most popular and reliable assessment methods. ”

    - Sergey Belkin, Head of 1cloud Development Department



    An example of the performed Gilev test for 1C with a file database on a virtual server 1cloud.ru

    How to organize work with a provider


    There are several options for how a franchisee can organize work with an infrastructure provider (and save):

    1. All leased facilities are consolidated under a franchisee account. In 1cloud for replenishment of the account he is entitled to a bonus of up to 25% of the amount received.
    2. Referral program. In this case, clients are placed under separate accounts and pay the cost of renting the servers themselves. Franchisees, by agreement, carry out their configuration and support. The most pleasant part is that all account replenishment in the client’s office is tied to the affiliate franchisee account . He receives a fee of 10% of the total payments of his client during the first year of his work with 1cloud, and 5% for all subsequent years.
    3. White Label Partnership. Large franchisees become independent resellers of provider services. Using a branded control panel, they can attract new customers and assign the final cost of services. WhiteLabel - the ability to organize an additional line of business using an IaaS provider.



    PS We also prepared a material in which we talked about the difficulties that web-hosting providers help to understand.

    PPS And here are a few more materials from the 1cloud corporate blog:


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