CDW Berbee's Microsoft Practice VP, Liz Eversoll, was recently quoted in the Redmond Channel Partner story "Navigating Microsoft"

Navigating Microsoft

Microsoft is a massive, complex organization. Finding your way through it isn't easy, but savvy partners know it's essential to their success.

Redmond Channel Partner
April 01, 2006
by Rich Freeman

Ask Liz Eversoll to name a time when knowing her way around Microsoft paid off, and she'll tell you it happens every day. Eversoll is vice president of the Microsoft practice at Madison, Wis.-based CDW Berbee Information Networks Corp., a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with six competencies and offices in 11 cities. Press her for a specific instance when understanding who's who in Redmond profited CDW Berbee, and she'll tell you about the time a major customer considering a wholesale move of its infrastructure onto Microsoft technologies began voicing doubts. With the deal in jeopardy, Eversoll called someone she knew in Microsoft's consulting organization for help with the pitch. "We were able to take a stronger story to the customer and get them to buy into the entire platform upgrade," she recalls.

Stories like Eversoll's are anything but rare. In fact, many partners call a deep pool of personal Microsoft relationships an essential asset. Filling your Rolodex with Microsoft contacts, they say, usually translates into more referrals, better assistance with sales opportunities, and earlier access to new product releases.

Alas, making acquaintances at a company as large and complex as Microsoft's isn't easy. The software giant employs more than 63,000 people worldwide and its headcount has been growing by an average of 11.4 percent annually for the last five years. "I have about 15 direct reports that have to overlay with hundreds of Microsoft folks," says Eversoll.