Blog

By Diane Krakora, CEO of PartnerPath

I talk about recruiting, enabling and managing indirect partners all the time. The goal of 99% of all technology companies is to leverage indirect channels for increased sales reach, market penetration and customer satisfaction. But there has been a shift that greatly affects the traditional channel model and some vendors are feeling the change.

Are you culling the herd or protecting vulnerable partners?

In our recent channel chief virtual roundtable event, we discussed the effects of the global pandemic on partnering plans and programs. Accelerated digital transformation ushered in by social distancing practices is driving all ten participants to change some aspect of their channel model. Framework adjustments include new compensation plans, shifting to virtual education platforms, delaying program launches and changing criteria for spending MDF. But the most divergent conversation regarded what to do with small and medium partners who are financially struggling during these uncertain times.

In this month’s PartnerPath Trailblazer Forum, seven participants discussed elements to consider when designing a SaaS partner program. From the attentive and lively discussion, it was clear the elements fall into six buckets – and that each element depends on several factors such as company goals, product complexity, end-customer target, history of channel relationships and overall size of partner ecosystem. Think about these six elements and know that ultimately your SaaS partner program will be unique to your situation. There is no one right answer for how to deal with these elements.

6 Ways to Adapt

As an extrovert, today’s milestone of one month stuck at home is particularly traumatic. The San Francisco Bay Area was among the first to receive orders to Shelter in Place, and I’m going a little crazy. To distract myself from missing large gatherings (or any gatherings), I’ve been pondering: how is the COVID-19 pandemic affecting the solution provider ecosystem and the vendors that rely on indirect channels?

This month, CEO Diane Krakora attended the Cisco Partner Summit in Las Vegas. In this short video, listen to her chat about Cisco DevNet, the developer program that delivers APIs, SDKs and sandbox to developers. It's critical that partners have the ability to build solutions and create customer outcomes.

This month, CEO Diane Krakora attended the Cisco Partner Summit in Las Vegas. On day two, she listened to numerous roundtables where the terms customer experience, customer success, customer satisfaction and customer lifecycle were used interchangeably. AHHHH! Listen to her short video explaining why these are all different and then focus in on the critical element of customer success.

This month, CEO Diane Krakora attended the Cisco Partner Summit in Las Vegas. On day one, she attended the keynote from CEO Chuck Robbins and found several of his key points interesting, in particular the idea of engaging different types of partners and examining unique partner value. Listen to her quick take on the day.