During the last eight years, NetTeks Technology has built a solid networking and IP telephony business, selling both services and product, in the New England area.

Eventually, customers started asking the Boston-based reseller to manage the security on their networks. So, NetTeks Technology Consultants Inc. had to make a decision: Either make the infrastructure investment to handle managed security or find a partner already set up to deliver the services. NetTeks opted for the latter.

“It wasn’t core to what we were doing; it wasn’t one of our focuses,” NetTeks Partner Ethan Simmons said.

The company teamed up with Netivity Solutions, a pioneer in the managed-services business, located in Waltham, Mass.

NetTeks now provides its own customers with managed security, using part of Netivity’s NOC (Network Operations Center) to deliver the service.

The NetTeks/Netivity arrangement is one of thousands of examples of resellers, VARs, integrators, service providers and solution providers getting together to fulfill customer needs.

Partnering was once a troubling prospect for channel companies, who were leery of introducing a potential competitor into a relationship with customers. But as more and more companies join forces to mutual benefit, the overwhelming majority has found they have nothing to worry about.

“I work directly with a competitor and I don’t care,” said Gary Redshaw, CEO of Future Vision Inc., in Raleigh, N.C.

Redshaw has partnered with other VARs and integrators a handful of times in recent years, and predicts that the future of his company holds more such partnerships.

It wasn’t an easy arrangement to accept, he said. Four years ago, VARs and integrators were still too suspicious of each other. But as word of successful partnerships started to spread, more resellers decided to give it a shot.

Read details here about the growing importance of managed services.

Partnerships flourish typically as a result of a customer need that a particular VAR or integrator isn’t equipped to immediately fulfill, as was the case with NetTeks. Sometimes the need is a technology requirement, but other times it has to do with geography.

PMV Technologies in Troy, Mich., for example, needed to support one customer, a financial services company, in the Troy area and at multiple sites across the country.

Unable to manage the geographic reach on its own, PMV forged partnerships with a dozen other VARs and integrators to guarantee the financial institution 4- to 6-hour response seven days a week for equipment repairs, said Executive Vice President Scott Goemmel.

“We partner with organizations in 40 states. Our business model involves leveraging strategic partners for the on-site delivery of services throughout North America in support of our customer base,” he said.

Click here to read about VARs in the managed-services security market.

Through its web of partnerships, Goemmel said, PMV handles 2,500 customers’ sites across the country.

One of PMV’s partners is Synergy Global Solutions Inc. of Amherst, N.Y., which handles the Western New York State region.

“We were able to provide services PMV needed at a price that was competitive for them to succeed,” said Jose Rivero, Synergy vice president of service operations. “We go on-site to provide maintenance services.”

As a result of partnerships similar to the one with PMV, Rivero said, Synergy has expanded its reach beyond the Western New York area and has added 25 to 30 percent to its top-line revenue.

Next page: Greater reach means more customers.