One small tweak can change everything … overnight.
A partner is a partner because it makes business sense for them. There might be other tangible and intangible factors, but the number one reason a partner is a partner is because it makes business sense. Which usually relates back to revenue.
Key Factor: Partnerships should be a dialogue. Not a monologue. (click2tweet)
Below are three simple scenarios for partner planning, engagement and success. (click2tweet)
- Setting the Stage
- Paving the Streets
- Partner Checkup
Setting the Stage
In order for it to make business sense there needs to be structure. This is where the platform provider can and should set the stage.
A Platform Provider to me is the vendor that is building the partner ecosystem – whether they are a huge multi-national or an industry, region, or product specific small firm.
Setting the stage is different for every platform provider and even for partners that partner with others (e.g. Master Resellers / Distributors). It's worthwhile to evaluate and understand all the aspects of that while it's being set up and defined.
Partnering is not hard. But, it does take time to think through each and every aspect to insure the program delivers what is expected … for ALL parties.
Paving the Streets
A partnership is a little bit like paving the streets in your town. You can’t just pave them once. In order to do it right you need to make sure you have set aside some budget and some time to maintain them and eventually re-pave them.
Don't pave the cow paths …
One of my favorite business books is "Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers” by Robert Kriegel. In it he talks about a lot of things, but one memorable section talks about NOT paving the cow paths.
The effort of paving the streets is a commitment. A commitment to the partner that this is serious and being built for the long haul. But, because things change everyone knows nothing lasts forever … an implied commitment that the ecosystem will be maintained.
Amazon, Box, and Salesforce are making the effort to do things differently as I wrote about in Agile Partnering.
Partner Check Up
As noted above a partnership is a little bit like paving the streets in your town. But, in another sense there are different scenarios that are more akin to a doctors visit or a visit to your dentist.
No one, well most people, don't want to go to the dentist or to the doctor. But, in order to provide preventive maintenance and to avoid a more complex and costly problem farther down the line it's important to have preventative care visits.
So, why is a partner a partner?
It's a combination of setting the stage today as well as planning for the next “re-paving event” while keeping in mind the preventative maintenance visits during check ups.
It all falls into the Partner Experience (PX).
(click2tweet)
Where one small tweak can change everything … overnight!
Microsoft, SAP, Google, Salesforce, Amazon and many other platform providers spend a lot of time, money and effort trying to insure the partner experience is rock solid, predictable, and repeatable.
What Have You Seen?
- Why do you think a partner becomes a partner?
- Why do you think they STAY a partner?
- What are the most critical factors to a successful partner experience
Drop your thoughts here. Let’s get a dialogue going about partnering. It’s becoming both easier and harder in today’s era of instant communications and flattened hierarchies for information gathering. The next 5 years will define what the next 20 will look like.
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Comments
IMO, Microsoft's PX has always been suspect and with the new OCP it's failing in the minds of many small partners. Someone told me last night they believe it's Microsoft's strategy to eliminate about 30% of the current partner ecosystem from the bottom. They may very well be right. I saw a similar strategy from Microsoft in the Dynamics community circa 2012 when they flat out told partners they had done an analysis and determined that the top 10% of Dynamics partners delivered almost 90% of revenue. They eliminated Partner Account Managers for the majority of the community and shifted to most partners being "tele-managed" which was a debacle if you were a small partner. Unsurprisingly, it dramatically shifted the partners' perceptions of their relationship with Microsoft. Sounds very similar to OCP...
One of the outcomes of that was that many partners, both large and small realized that there was no benefit to being Microsoft exclusive and took on competing product lines. When you don't feel valued by your partner, you become open to other options. Loyalty has to run both ways.