Consolidation Of Billing

Just as with services procurement and support, customers want a single, consolidated bill across their portfolios.

About 70 percent of SMBs polled said they would prefer to pay for all their cloud software through just one bill that originates from their telco. Almost as many like the consolidation idea, but would rather buy from a local IT consultant such as a VAR or managed service provider.

But regardless of the channel, streamlined, simple billing can be important for partners looking to sell to the SMB market, according to Aric Bandy of Agosto.

"We've found that one of the key elements of offering a SaaS portfolio is to make payments really easy," said Aric Bandy, president of Google partner Agosto. "That becomes even more critical as businesses leverage more … services so they're not receiving multiple bills for all of their services."