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.