Microsoft Partner Solution
Partner Solution Case Study
Start-up Improves Support and Pre-sales
with Microsoft Partner Network’s Benefits
Overview
Country or Region: Argentina
Industry: IT Services
Partner Profile
Circo Studio is a company based in
Buenos Aires, Argentina and dedicated to
providing technology services and
solutions related to project management
and collaboration.
Business Situation
Circo Studio was looking to empower its
employees with product knowledge and
the right tools needed to respond quickly
to pre-sales enquiries and deliver
effective solutions on its own.
Solution
Partner Advisory Hours provided Circo
Studio a cost-effective opportunity to
receive direct support from Microsoft for
technical enablement and technical presales and advisory needs.
Benefits
 Add customers across new
technologies
 Lower reliance on external IT
consulting companies and save
approximately U.S.$10,000 per bid
 Realize productive hour savings of 50%
for pre-sales tasks
 Lower customer response time by 50%
 Speed up new technology learning
curve
“[Partner Services] is valuable to us because not only
did we win a project, but we have also won a
customer.”
Daniel Cundari, Software Manager, Circo Studio
Circo Studio is an Argentinian IT services start-up that delivers
collaboration and project-management solutions for clients. The
fast-growing Microsoft® Silver Competency partner was focused
on adding new clients and expanding its service offerings to
include cloud services. Circo Studio leveraged Technical Pre-sales
and Advisory Services from Microsoft Partner Services to gain an
understanding of new technologies and to better respond to
customers’ pre-sales and technical issues. Through the use of
Partner Services, Circo Studio was able to gain traction in the
marketplace and also compete against large and experienced IT
services firms and win new customers. Circo Studio was also
able to reduce its costs responding to bid requests, and provide
superior quality of service to its clients.
"Windows Azure is a new
technology for us, so we
didn't have all the
answers for the
questions that the client
raised. We were able to
make a strong pre-sales
presentation to the
customer after receiving
support from Partner
Services."
Federico Pomesano, Software Architect,
Circo Studio
Successful Beginnings
Circo Studio is a Microsoft® Silver
Competency partner headquartered in
Buenos Aires, Argentina. The startup
company was formed in 2011 with a focus
on collaboration and project-management
solutions and services. More recently, the
company has been seeing a push towards
cloud services, including Windows®
Azure™ and Microsoft Office 365, and has
already added these technologies to its
offerings.
In a little more than a year since forming,
Circo Studio quickly added many new
clients across industries such as
telecommunication, petrochemical, and ecommerce; and has grown at an
accelerated pace – adding both employees
and new services to its portfolio of
offerings. As Circo Studio kept growing, the
company looked for ways to empower its
employees with product knowledge and
the right tools that would help them
respond quickly to pre-sales enquiries,
deliver effective solutions to its customers,
and reduce its reliance on third parties for
support.
Circo Studio was introduced to and first
used Advisory Services in early 2012 and
started benefiting immediately from the
high quality and the speed at which they
received responses from Microsoft. As a
Silver competency member of Microsoft
Partner Network (MPN), Circo Studio was
entitled to 20 Partner Advisory Hours, as
well as unlimited pre-sales advisory support
for any deal worth U.S.$3,000 or more — a
cost-effective opportunity for Circo Studio
to receive email or phone support directly
from Microsoft technical consultants on
pre-sales and advisory requests.
The pre-sales assistance gave Circo Studio
convenient access to the right information
needed to close deals. This included
guidance from Microsoft consultants on
developing a business case, competing
against other products, understanding
solution features and capabilities, and
proving the solution’s value to the
customer through proof-of-concept
documents. For example, Circo Studio
relied on Partner Services to support a
cloud services project for an e-commerce
customer specializing in online payments
facilitation. On this particular pre-sales
opportunity, Circo Studio was also
competing against other experienced IT
services companies in Buenos Aires. The
customer was searching for cloud-based
solutions, and needed a quick assessment
on whether Windows Azure was a realistic
option for its business. With Technical Presales Assistance, Circo Studio was able to
leverage Microsoft support to rapidly
ramp-up on new technologies, and act
quickly on the bid that demonstrated
complete understanding of the technology
being offered. Circo Studio won the bid.
Federico Pomesano, Software Architect at
Circo Studio explains in reference to this
opportunity, “Windows Azure is a new
technology for us, so we didn’t have all the
answers for the questions that the client
raised. We were able to make a strong presales presentation to the customer after
receiving support from Partner Services.”
In early 2012, Circo Studio looked for
advisory support while working on a highvalued project for a large
telecommunications company in Argentina.
The work involved migration of Microsoft
SharePoint® Server 2007 and Microsoft
Project Server 2007 solutions to the latest
2010 version of these products. Project
Server’s integration with the customer’s
various client applications and processes
made the migration task a complex project
requiring extensive planning and design.
Pomesano says, “For such a project, we
have an exploration phase that can take
“We were surprised by
the response time and
the direct contact we
received from the
Partner Services team
and the local Microsoft
subsidiary. Our
interactions with the
local subsidiary have
increased. We consider
our relationship with
Microsoft strategic, and
plan to magnify it in the
future.”
Federico Pomesano, Software Architect,
Circo Studio
two months and the migration itself can
take a year.” Circo Studio was able to utilize
its Partner Advisory Hours to receive onthe-job training, and expert deployment
and development guidance from Microsoft,
which helped them design and deliver the
right solution for this customer’s needs.
Solution Benefits
With the help of Partner Services, Circo
Studio has been able to gain new and key
customers, lower its operating costs, and
improve its quality of service. Following this
success, over time, Circo Studio increased
its reliance and now makes use of this MPN
benefit at least once every week for
technical pre-sales assistance, migration
assistance, and solution architecture
guidance. The company now considers
Partner Services as a strategic tool for
growing its business over the long run.
Pomesano says, “We were surprised by the
response time and the direct contact we
received from the Partner Services team
and the local Microsoft subsidiary. Our
interactions with the local subsidiary have
increased. We consider our relationship
with Microsoft strategic, and plan to
magnify it in the future.”
Gain New Business
Partner Services helped Circo Studio gain
experience and confidence in new
technologies, to pursue opportunities and
expand its current offerings. The partner
received extensive support using Advisory
Services that allowed them to identify key
considerations such as scope, best practices
in deployment and migration, and others
related to the Windows Azure project for
the e-commerce customer. Backed by the
technical support received, Circo Studio
was able to generate a detailed pre-sales
bid within a week and respond effectively
to all the questions that the customer
raised. Eventually, the quick response and
the solution knowledge shown by Circo
Studio turned out to be the key
differentiator in winning the bid against
other larger competitors. Daniel Cundari,
Software Manager at Circo Studio says,
“Our company did not work on Windows
Azure projects before. This opportunity was
almost lost. But after the training and presales assistance we received from Partner
Services, we could include Windows Azure
services in our consideration and convert
this opportunity to a win. This is valuable to
us because not only did we win a project,
but we have also won a customer.”
Lower Operating Costs
By relying on Partner Services, Circo Studio
has been able to reduce or, in some cases,
eliminate its reliance on external IT
consulting companies. For example, in the
case of the upgrade project for the telecom
customer, Circo Studio received migration
and architecture guidance from Partner
Services that allowed them to better design
and size their customer’s hardware
requirements. Circo Studio was able to
accomplish the same task in only two
weeks, compared to the external
consultant’s estimate of one month, and at
less than half the costs compared to the
consultant’s quote; thus saving more than
U.S.$10,000 in consulting fees for the
project. Circo Studio expects more savings
coming from similar projects in future.
Increase Team Productivity
Taking advantage of their MPN benefit of
Partner Advisory Hours for Technical PreSales and Advisory Services, Circo Studio
has been able to gain time in investigating
new technologies and finding answers
quickly to customer issues or requirements.
This allows the partner to shorten the time
invested in generating pre-sales bids, and
Circo Studio works on an average of three
such bids a month. In the past, the fourmember team would typically require two
“Circo Studio’s practice is
to first incorporate the
technologies that we will
later offer to the clients.
This way we can have
better know-how when
offering those services.”
Federico Pomesano, Software Architect,
Circo Studio
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft
products and services, call the Microsoft
Sales Information Center at (800) 4269400. In Canada, call the Microsoft
Canada Information Centre at (877) 5682495. Customers in the United States and
Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing
can reach Microsoft text telephone
(TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234.
Outside the 50 United States and
Canada, please contact your local
Microsoft subsidiary. To access
information using the World Wide Web,
go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about Circo
Studio’s products and services, call +54
114 941 4493 or visit the website at:
www.circostudio.com
This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published July 2012
weeks or approximately 320 man hours for
completing each such bid. However, with
the support of Partner Services, Circo
Studio has been able to reduce this time
required by half. This represents an
expected annual total time savings of
nearly 6,000 hours that Circo Studio can
invest towards pursuing more
opportunities in the future.
365, and SharePoint Online for its own use.
This helped the partner to reduce the
learning curve for these and other new
technologies and better serve its customers
by shortening implementation time.
Pomesano says, “Circo Studio’s practice is
to first incorporate the technologies that
we will later offer to the clients. This way we
can have better know-how when offering
those services.”
Improve Quality of Service
Circo Studio has always aimed at providing
solutions aligned with its clients’ business
needs in a timely manner. With Advisory
Services, Circo Studio has seen a response
time to customer issues of only a few hours
to less than a day. The quality of response
is also ensured as Circo Studio can count
on receiving first-hand information
validated by Microsoft. Moreover, Circo
Studio can now save and share this learning
for future similar support questions from
clients. Cundari explains, “Every time we
have consumed Advisory Services, we were
able to respond to the client in a shorter
time, and also efficiently. The offered
service is aligned to what we expect. Based
on the last advice we received from Partner
Services team, we have managed to reduce
the resolution time for our customers by
50% on average.”
Stay Current on New Technologies
Even before Circo Studio started working
on cloud services for its clients, it was
already working with Partner Services to
internally evaluate Windows Azure, Office
Software and Services
Microsoft Partner Network
 Windows Azure
 Microsoft SharePoint Server



Microsoft Project Server
Microsoft Office 365