Take a look at this excerpt from our 2018 State of Partnering report and feel free to geek-out with our 2018 survey data* on program elements. How do you stack up to other vendors?
The next highest ranked enablement priority is effective pre-sales discovery, with less than half of the responses of #1 (selling value and differentiation). Surprisingly, on the bottom of the vendors’ priority list is enablement for partners to develop a vertical solution and selling to a broader set of customers. That’s too bad as these two things would help vendors expand their overall sales in a differentiated way and with higher value (prices).
Just over a fourth of the vendor respondents require some sort of certification to access their products – which may seem like a lot. However, we regularly see certification required for access to advanced technology, new products or cloud-based solutions. It’s surprising more vendors didn’t indicate certification was required for product access. We are also shocked and a bit miffed only half of the vendors indicated certification is required to progress up the program levels. We really hope the other 50% aren’t only using sales volume to advance partners into the upper tiers. After ten years of extolling the virtues of value-based metrics such as certifications and customer success in advancing partners into the higher program levels, if 50% of vendors are solely using sales volume, there is still a lot of work to do. And yet, 28% of the vendors indicated partners need to be certified to offer even their own professional services around the vendor’s product. What right do vendors have in dictating qualifications a partner must have for offering their own services and support to their end-customers?
Vendors are missing a big opportunity to grow their partner sales, satisfaction and success by not putting a higher priority on vertical market opportunities. Solution provider businesses are becoming more differentiated as cloud adoption grows. They are creating niches of expertise in vertical markets, line-of-business selling and specific technology solutions.
Where do you fall in these vendor metrics? Are your enablement priorities helping partners to be successful? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
*For 2018, our annual State of Partnering study surveyed 114 vendors and 220 solution providers on the continued adoption of cloud-based solutions, the effects on the growth of the channel ecosystem, program priorities and investments. Download the full report here.