This week CEO Diane Krakora attended Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Las Vegas. On the last day of the conference, the crowd thinned a bit and but there were still plenty of channel conversations to be had. Diane recorded this video highlighting three topics from these discussions. Spoiler, the three things are (1) specializations, (2) customer success and (3) next generation programs. What is their significance? Take a look.
This week CEO Diane Krakora is attending Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Las Vegas. Jay McBain, principal analyst, global channels at Forrester Research, gave the keynote on April 10. He shared ten trends in channel transformation that are disrupting business. Diane shares three of those trends and what they mean for your business (in less than three minutes!).
This week CEO Diane Krakora is attending Channel Partners Conference & Expo in Las Vegas where she sat in on a vendor’s partner advisory board with master agents and agents. Their primary topics of conversation revolved around how they see their businesses morphing and evolving and what vendors can do to help support those changes. Watch Diane's 5-minute video running down the 5 biggest takeaways from the dialogue.
As I was winging my way back from a week in Las Vegas at the Channel Partners Conference and Expo, I reflected on several insights from the event. In addition to the ever-present life lessons you gain at a large conference like: drink lots of water (seriously, lots), wear comfortable shoes (but still look good) and don’t mix hard alcohol and red wine (this is key) I came up with ten takeaways from the event. In no particular order:
One of the most persistent issues in the vendor/channel community is the level of relationship between the two. Specifically, how deep should vendors and their channel partners be in each other’s business? If a vendor is too hands-off, its channel partners might accuse it of not helping—or caring—enough to make them successful. If the vendor is too hands-on, its channel partners might accuse it of trying to steal their customers and sabotage their success.
This week, hosts Charlene O'Hanlon, channel industry editor & writer, and Diane Krakora, CEO of PartnerPath, discuss one of the data points from our 2016 State of Partnering report: What are the top vendor priorities for growing and managing their partner ecosystem in 2016?
Last week I discussed a few eyebrow-raising comments Chris Rimer of IBM made during our most recent webinar. Chris, one of two guests during the webinar, positioned that vendors are not responsible for funding partners’ shift to the cloud.
It’s no surprise the cloud has impacted every facet of the IT space, from the way technology is built, sold and delivered to the way vendors and partners interact. It’s also no surprise that the number of partners that have the ability to support a cloud-only business model is disappointingly low. That’s why the question, “What is the role of partners in an increasingly cloud-focused world?” is being asked regularly—and often with different answers.
This week, hosts Charlene O'Hanlon, channel industry editor & writer, and Amanda Hawkins, Marketing Director at PartnerPath, talk about a new infographic showcasing the changing funnel in the new customer lifecycle. Vendors and partners both can benefit from understanding the change from a traditional funnel to an new ongoing sales and marketing cycle. In the second half of the discussion Charlene and Amanda focus on what steps marketers can take at each stage of the customer lifecycle to keep customers engaged. What do you think of our five steps to get started?