What are the best practices for managing a global channel partner program?

Managing a global channel partner program involves strategic planning, effective communication, technological enablement, and a commitment to ongoing improvement. Key best practices include clearly defined program objectives, localized strategy, comprehensive onboarding, effective communication, robust partner support, collaborative goal setting, attractive incentives, technology enablement, regular training and enforcing, market development funds, joint business planning, clear channel policies, regular performance reviews, compliance and governance, data analytics for insights, adaptability and flexibility, global scalability, risk management, diversity and inclusion, ethical leadership, and continuous improvement.

Start with why you want a global program in the first place. You need to be clear on your main objective and also what you can give back in return. Most companies want to expand in order to open up new revenue streams. The second part is the trickier one though. If you don't know what you can commit to giving back to the partner, and also able to validate that this is enticing enough for them, you will not be able to scale out your program properly. Validate what value you can offer to the partner with your internal stakeholders and get their commitment. If you don't have the various teams all aligned, you'll end up offering things to your partners that you can't deliver on and you'll fall short in your expansion.

Start small and refine the playbook before expanding. If you're expanding to a new market that you'd like covered by the channel, make sure you spend a lot of time looking for the right one. Be open and transparent about what your expectations are and what you can give back in return. Once you've committed to a partner in this new market, you want to be certain that you're aligned on what everyone's roles and responsibilities are in order to make the partnership successful. Only once you know what success looks like and what value you can bring to the partner, should you start expanding your program to recruit more.

If you're in a startup/scale up environment, it's likely your product and messaging are constantly changing. I've seen that the best way to enable partners is by working side by side with them throughout the process. This can be done by assigning internal sales people to support your partners in the first deals. Once they're comfortable navigating the sales cycles on their own, you can migrate to a more scalable approach through a portal or formalised training program. Before you do that though, you need to be in the process with them to see what challenges they come across and what could be valuable in a certification/training program.