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No longer a trend, partner ecosystems are the new reality.

Maybe I’m jaded because I’ve been writing about partner ecosystems for so many years. In fact, we’ve mentioned it as a “forward-looking trend” for the last five years in our end-of-year channel predictions webinar. It’s not forward-looking anymore. In fact, we're in year two or year three of the new reality where the people, programs and systems are in place to engage and support large partner ecosystems. Am I insulting your intelligence to keep mentioning the increase in partner types populating partner programs? The increase in the sheer number of potential partners? Here are some facts to support the new reality of partner ecosystems and a few, dare I say forward-looking, ways to adapt to the new reality.

Set goals and expectations to make partners happier (and more productive)

Do you ever think about how influential partners are to your customers? I mean, really think about it? Solution providers (partners) have a lot of power in the vendor/customer/partner relationship. It’s rare for business leaders to have a line item in their budget for a specific product. Instead, they have an initiative with a goal and a desired outcome. They want help from people who know their unique business and who will produce results through technical solutions. Those people are your partners. Make every effort to ensure your partners have a good experience with you and your customers will benefit.

Crafting a Plan for Partnering Success

Any good snow skier knows to look three turns ahead to navigate moguls with speed and agility. If your focus is on the current bump, by the time you navigate that turn, you’re tossed back on your heels and in a scramble to set up for the next turn. If you look three turns ahead, you’ve created a visual path and are now executing that plan. Take this analogy into 2023 – a large and potentially long mogul field.

It’s like in the Harry Potter books, where they refer to the main antagonist as “he-who-must-not-be-named.” As if just saying Voldemort out loud would conjure his presence. No one wants to say the word recession lest they make it a reality. Instead, I’ve heard “economic headwinds” and “a really tough market” with regularity. However, not calling it a recession doesn’t mean we don’t feel the effects of tighter budgets, pressure to produce revenue and a renewed focus on profitability. Rather than pretend it's not happening, or call it by another name, take a few steps to bolster your partnering efforts so you can withstand the storm.

Be proactive in winning over your sales, services & training teams

If you’re struggling to get your company to adopt a partnering model – you’re not alone. In our recent roundtable with twelve senior channel chiefs, we discussed the challenge of conveying partner relevance across an organization. This group of seasoned executives have led channel efforts at some of the largest and most partner-friendly technology vendors – and even they are struggling to get all teams in their companies on board. Even if you have your CEO and board of directors committed to indirect routes to market, it can still be a challenge to get all the other departments aligned to supporting partners. Don’t feel badly if you find yourself regularly facing this fight. Here are some tactics which can be used across any department. We’ve used the sales, services and training departments to highlight how presenting data, telling partner success stories and asking customers can help you overcome a resistance to partnering.

A primer on the differences and why they’re all important

We talk about partner profitability, partner ROI and partner economics ALL the time. (Here’s a plug for our webinar and a research report on these topics.) I often get asked: “Aren’t these the same thing?” To which I answer in classic consultant fashion: “Yes and no.”

The digital age (furthered by the pandemic) ushered in a new model where a customer defines their own buying journey. This journey is typically non-linear and heavily reliant on digital interactions. Since the internet allows a customer to find information about products, pricing, reviews, and expected costs themselves, the value channel partners provide has shifted. Instead of primarily offering product knowledge, partners are implementing, integrating and operating technology solutions. These shifts in the buyer journey have changed the characteristics of the channel and their activities with customers.

At the end of 2019, we predicted that marketplaces were going to start taking hold. Boy, were we right. They grew more in the first three months of COVID than they had in the last 10 years combined.