@darius and myself have been working on moving one of our operational plan objectives forward to help grow our ecosystem of Service Providers. Our first efforts have been to come up with a draft definition of what a Service Provider is, and to pose some terms of agreement for what Service Providers should expect. We are looking for feedback, criticism, help, etc on what we came up with here. @mksd, @jslawinski, @wanyee, and other Service Providers - it would be really great to hear your thoughts on this!
Service Provider Definition
An organization that has the commitment and capacity to perform software development, advising, and/or implementation work using and promoting products in the OpenMRS ecosystem.
Some thoughts related to the definition:
Commitment – Mostly through self-attestation, but also by agreeing to the terms when they sign up to be an official OpenMRS service provider. (see terms in next section)
Capacity – will be measured through self-attestation
OpenStack and RedHat differentiate their service providers by Initial vs. Experienced – We think this is a good idea.
Initial SP is a commitment to using and promoting OpenMRS products, experienced SP is those with one or more documented projects in the area they are listing themselves as providing service for
An additional stratification could be allowing some kind of levels (similar to dev-levels) for participation in the community and events, such as SP and SP+ program (or SP and SP-Gold). This would be intended to encourage that participation in the community, as well as, show how involved in the community the SP is for evaluation by the potential customer.
What is not a Service Provider?
Individuals operating as contractors or consultants (why is this? Because our goal with the SP program is to promote the growth of businesses in the ecosystem)
General IT or dev or HIS businesses not using or promoting OpenMRS
Service Provider Terms
Agree to listing on website with a narrative about services they provide that is aimed at OpenMRS products (not other services or products)
Regularly participate in the community through:
Sharing updates on activities and accomplishments via online channels, quarterly project management calls, and/or other means
Allowing OpenMRS to promote or advertise the partnership in any manner OpenMRS wants
Commitment to using and promoting OpenMRS products where applicable
Promoting the participation of the implementation users(?) in the community
Have contact information available, be responsive to requests for information about services
We reserve the right to remove SP from the program who are non-responsive, or who receive excessive complaints regarding service
Question for Terms: Is it acceptable for us to ask SP to promote the OpenMRS SP participation (logo?) on their website and materials
What Do Service Providers Get from OpenMRS
Advertising / promotion via OpenMRS name and branding
Listing on the Wiki and the Website as an official OpenMRS service provider
OpenMRS can use accomplishments in blog postings, case studies, annual reports, which helps promote the service providers brand
Access to use the OpenMRS SP participant logo(?) on their website and marketing materials
Question re: what they get from OpenMRS: Should we work on figuring out how to have Service Provider showcases?
Yes, I think we should ask them to include the OpenMRS SP badge on their site. Some organizations might need suggestions where to place the badge and how to talk about it. Maybe we can include a pre-written blurb about what that badge entails and what the relationship means.
We can include service providers in our Partnering Organization Marketing strategy doc I’ve been working on - that way they’ll get regular promotion through our comms channels!
Thanks for including us. Overall I like the things that I’m reading there
As a general matter of fact we like the fact to provide better visibility to everyone out there as to who could be selected for (sub)contracting or servicing work on OpenMRS. I think we also would like to know more about who else is out there and how service providers can complement each other.
In a way, we don’t want to promote competition too much, but rather complementarity. I can imagine at time large scale projects that could do with a consortium of service providers, it would be great also to promote this kind of servicing delivery.
Thanks @mksd - I love the perspective of finding collaborations / complementary services, rather than just viewing it as competition. I think you made a really important point here! Are there other things we can do from the OpenMRS side to promote that idea more to those needing to hire service providers?
One specific open question that we (still) have (mentioned earlier in the thread):
Do we require service providers to show the OpenMRS Service Provider badge on their website, or is this just an option for them?
The argument for requiring it is that it well help us jointly advertise OpenMRS itself, and that it will limit the SP program to organizations for whom this is a primary/significant business activity.
The argument against is that it would prevent some organizations from participating, who promote OpenMRS in other equally-valuable ways, but for whom this isn’t a primary business focus.
We state the following (which seems like a good guideline):
General IT or software development or HIS businesses not actively using or promoting OpenMRS development or implementation are not eligible for listing. You must actively be engaging in OpenMRS specific projects in some manner.
My own example is that ThoughtWorks uses and promotes OpenMRS, and would want to participate as an official service provider; but we wouldn’t want to put a badge on https://www.thoughtworks.com/. So personally I would hope that we don’t require displaying the badge, but instead allow other ways to promote OpenMRS and demonstrate commitment.
I don’t think service providers should be required to show an OpenMRS logo. It certainly would be good for service providers who meet particular criteria to be able to and encouraged to use an OpenMRS Service Provider logo.
From a marketing perspective, it is highly beneficial for a SP to specifically share the type of work they’re doing and with/for whom. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to request that a SP reciprocates promotion, especially because it’s mutually beneficial.
We should, however, not expect them to design any materials and we should provide them with whatever branding we want them to share.
My understanding was that service providers are entities that have the capability to provide openmrs services to whoever needs them. Requiring them to have a logo, or even have to promote OpenMRS seems like not the real goal. Some one may just not like our logo, or have other reservations.
Encouraging them to do so is fine. We should drive OpenMRS to a point where a service provider is naturally attracted and greatly benefits from doing such, instead of requiring them to.
We decided that we would change the requirements under the FAQ about being listed as a service provider[1] to include “Documented commitment to using and promoting OpenMRS products where applicable” and list examples that include adding an OpenMRS SP badge/logo to their website, published success stories/use cases of OpenMRS, etc. How does that sound to everyone?
@dkayiwa. Thanks for sharing. I have gone through the wiki. I think for SP having OpenMRS logo or badge on their website would help their businesses in terms of visibility and access to market.
I also think that in categorization of SPs, we should include SPs that can provide training and capacity building on OpenMRS implementation and customization. They don’t necessarily need to have implementations but can fast track OpenMRS expansion by way of providing leadership and trainings.
