The GSI Continuum

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I am not sure about you, but for me there has always been a bit of imposter complex across my career in different roles as I took on new challenges, or just thought differently about problems than others. I am happy to report that it's been no different the past 6 years when it comes to focusing on Global System's Integrators and Alliances. I'll come back to this great machine in a minute, but first a bit of background.

After shifting to the Vendor side in May of 2000 and embarking on what would be a wild adventure with EMC, I quickly got to see the different roles and how they operated across all segments in an ever-growing market; Enterprise Storage. EMC was at heart a hardware company - flagship storage platforms - that would morph through time into greater software and eventually services offerings. Software was the 'stickiness' factor of the platform - the more it was used in the customer environment, the greater value and therefore harder it was for another storage 'box' seller to replace the incumbent. This is pre-SaaS. We became real good at selling software, VPA's and then services in the Enterprise market. Services became the glue of the solution. How fast could we bring value to the client - whether an implementation, migration, or stitching together of multiple components was key. It's also where I had my first foray into seeing how channels worked - in the beginning it was primarily VAR's and some other nice providers that wrapped some small services component around our tech.

As time went on I had the opportunity to engage in more avenues of services either directly (productizing them myself) and/or leveraging other providers that knew the business applications, data and solutions space. I was able to see how the best of the Solution Providers and Systems Integrators really provided value and differentiated from others. At the tail end of my time at EMC/Dell-EMC I had a great team that consisted of multiple functions across business applications like SAP and Oracle, Virtualization, Platform experts as well as Channel SE's. This team of Channel SE's brought great solution value to clients jointly with their Reseller/SP counterparts at mostly regional providers - and they made a point to understand more than our platforms. I also had the opportunity to get more interaction with the Global Systems Integrators - GSI's for short.

At that point I shifted gears in my career to jump in and help incubate a new form of digital engineering at Cognizant in their revamped Cognizant Digital Engineering. For the first few of us in on this great team incubating this business, we wore all hats - GTM in all forms from Client Executive and Marketing, Speakers at conferences, to helping define this new wave of service offerings we were bringing to market. Another group of peers crafted our labs experience - revamping onboarding and our smart PODS structure. This is where I first was able to experience what a GSI really was, and how the machine operated. It also allowed me to see first hand the critical nature of how the practices engaged, the many moving components of large enterprise client teams, and the amount of activity both proactive and reactive at the biggest of the F500. There are always competing priorities inside a GSI, be it the teams selling, delivering, client fire drills, resources, etc. There is always a need to balance how teams executing are being continuously educated - and on what. The value and depth of relationship I was able to experience inside the largest of Financial Services, Insurance, Healthcare and other clients was eye-opening. Sitting at a table with 7+ Business line CIO's and CTO amongst others and being in the hot-seat for what our offering was and how we were going to execute was not an odd event - and you had to be prepared.

Learning #1 GSI's have a seat at the table.

This is a core pillar and value of GSIs out there that have $50-100M+ relationships at their clients - They have a seat at the table. To continuously earn that seat - they are expected to know the business, know the processes, even know the applications and gaps - BEFORE they bring an idea of a solution to the table. Any solution be it people, process or technology must be tied to expected returns/outcomes.

After the mainstreaming of the new CDE, I moved over to Pivotal for my first formal "GSI Alliances" role. Primarily I managed the Accenture Pivotal Business Group [APBG] relationship with our team at Pivotal and colleagues on the other side at Accenture. A joint mission - help our clients accelerate digital transformation with a combination of:

• Technology - Pivotal Application Service [Cloud Foundry]
• People/Process - Intelligent Engineering - Leveraging the prescriptive practices that came out of Pivotal Labs (Extreme Programming [XP], Test Driven-Development [TDD], small batch release, CI/CD and more) combined with Accenture's differentiated approach and scale focused on Application Modernization and Greenfield development. The enablement of teams, integration into their onboarding processes and Knowledge Exchange is something quite remarkable. This takes commitment and vision within your champions, and demand from clients looking for those types of services.?

Whether landing a small initial team, or scaling a program - the process is always a focus. In larger scopes, change management becomes such a key pillar of how they execute.?Technology is an enabler, surely differentiated in ways, but success lies in the marrying of the technology enablement, accelerated delivery and knowledge transfer, and focus on outcomes. GSI's exist to bring strategy and vision, de-risk complex problems for clients and execute at scale.

Learning #2?Technology is great, but everything is tied to outcomes.??

If you want to be meaningful to a GSI?- show them how your technology can accelerate or grow outcomes for their clients, cut costs, reduce risk or enhance innovation. If you can show them how they can differentiate even more from their peers - even better.

After VMware's acquisition of Pivotal I also had the opportunity to manage the ATOS and HCL relationships which brought greater visibility to how different GSI's operate, with different models and prioritization of practices, industries or methodologies. It also opened my eyes to how the different practices may focus on different parts of the customer journey.? This becomes a bit of an art, as you will learn that the same practice in two different regions, or at different scale at two large enterprise accounts may be focused on different priorities.?

Learning #3 What stage of the customer journey the practice specializes in is key.

Understanding the core offerings and where your champions are focused is key to building value in these relationships.?A GSI could have a $100M+ relationship annually within a prime target of yours, but if the technology and outcomes you bring do not align with the practices or the part of the customer journey they are focused on in that client, it can be a fishing expedition that kills time and creates noise on both sides.

Leaving Pivotal eleven months after the acquisition by VMware,?it was time to go to an earlier stage startup.?Focused on great founders, culture and a platform customers loved - I was fortunate to land at Amplitude crafting the GSI relationships and program at the earliest of stages.?The canvas was wide open with just the beginning of any relationships present.?The VP that was hiring for this role knew the commitment and runway it would take and had experienced it prior with a large MarTech brand. We set the foundation and began a grand business development set of activities that prioritized time across 5 of the major GSI's as well as a National Solution Provider.?This activity went across 50+ practice/region's of the different GSI's, and in parallel aligned with client teams directly. This highlighted the earlier learnings that the same practice in different regions can be focused on a different part of the customer journey.?

Amplitude is focused on helping great companies build better digital products. They do this via core offerings of a Digital Analytics Platform, CDP, Experimentation and an engine that powers personalization. Their goal is to democratize behavioral insights across product, marketing, sales and other teams with dozens..100's and even 1000's of users of the platform inside an org drawing hypothesis and collaborating - seeing the impact of changes. I mention that because it could be easy to assume you would focus on one specific practice at a GSI, and possibly the same across GSI's.?While there was some commonality, each GSI and the value prop to them stood on it's own based on their priorities, capabilities and the champions that really leaned in.?In one it might be broad data & analytics strategies, another focusing on augmenting Google Analytics, and yet another focused on the Product offerings and how to bring visibility when they launch new products for clients.?This emphasizes again the breadth of where value can be found for different GSI's with the same platform or technology enabler.

Learning #4 Defining the Services-Market-Fit for specific GSI's is gold.

After all, that truly is what is important when crafting these relationships with the different groups - What Services and offerings of theirs intersect with your platform and what outcomes does that bring/accelerate to your joint clients. No different than a startups journey finding product market fit, this aspect of building something with GSI's is crucial and maps back to practices, the customer journey and the art of the possible.?You can also start to glean this notion of a current state of where a client is at, what the future state could look like, and how your GSI friends map in. Services, services, services - that is the glue.

An indirect theme should be coming through here - GSI's in a general sense are not there to sell your platform.?Period.

Learning #5 GSI's are not there to SELL your platform

Will they include your solution or make a recommendation at times? Sure.?

Is that what you should count on? No.?

Will they focus on de-risking and building a program based on the client's selection and leaning? Absolutely.?

Your goal is to create the most differentiated and value based outcomes and approach with the customer AND map that to the GSI and their capabilities and offerings.?It's also important to understand that while GSI's may have a group focused on resell of software and your platform which can be helpful, the rest of the organization is focused on services. Leveraging human capital and methodologies to de-risk for their clients. Get to the promised land.

An important component of this across all GSI's is understanding what their appetite for starting small vs landing large programs is as well. If you are focused on bringing them opportunities of 50K in implementation services, and they are focused on programs encompassing strategy, COE and execution to the tune of $1M+,?there is misalignment and your time is better spent with regional providers, unless your platform is so critical to success.?As mentioned before, this can vary across regions, practices and the stage of the client relationship with the GSI. A practice that is focused on assessments vs another on managed offerings are two different animals.

And this leads me to the main topic - The GSI Continuum.?

I've given more thought to the GSI space, commonalities and experiences across my past three roles in and around these massive machines and in preparing for what is next (announcing soon!).?One of the things I have wrapped my head around is this notion of the GSI Continuum.?Maybe in some ways this would be better served in a quadrant or break it out by practice, but for now in a simple sense this GSI Continuum starts to provide a manner to speak about the GSI Landscape with Executives and peers in Revenue, Marketing, Customer Success - and other teams within your organization if you are in the Alliances and Partnerships space. It also can create a foundation of the WHY and WHAT you will focus on for Services-Market-Fit when creating or enhancing a program around GSI's.

There are no hard lines here, and GSI's and their practices may sway from one side to the other through time. Group A is no more important than Group C, but your focus can help prioritize where you go.?In essence, the far left may typically garner larger engagements, solve for higher risk and be focused on programs, while GSIs (or practices for that matter) on the right may be more willing to start small, provide staff augmentation and land initial deals with growth in mind.?The absoluteness is not important, but coming up with what and where all the players align for your specific industry and focus is.

For more context, I have also provided a view of revenue of the different GSIs in visual form from most recent Annual, half or quarterly announcements.

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I hope this article has been helpful in someway, the learnings and the notion of the GSI Continuum!?Always open to discussions and feedback.?Thank you and be well, James