The Partner Ecosystem Radar

In the last blog we explored how managing multiple partner organizations can be a daunting task.? Without a clear framework in place, partner fiefdoms emerge, cross collaboration stagnates and “value in the seams” is missed. Let’s tackle that today by exploring three big boulders slowing your partner org evolution; 1) building the leadership and working teams, 2) discovering companies you partner with and want to partner with, 3) creating a tool to monitor partner evolution and cross connections.

Building The Leadership and Working Teams

This seems simple enough - Call a meeting of all your partner org leaders and tell them to start working together.? Well, yes but if it were that easy, they’d already be doing it.

We do need to call a meeting with our partner leaders and then get a few things right.

• Clearly state the problem: As a result of having multiple partner teams, we are overlapping efforts, creating inefficiencies for us and our ecosystem and as a result are missing business opportunities.
• Declare the team’s mission: Build a working framework to improve cross collaboration and measure the value of an integrated partner strategy.
• Make sure each leader comes to the meeting ready to propose the value their team brings to and will receive from the new framework.? Yes, some leaders will be reluctant to do this, all the more reason to push them to find their own reasons why this makes sense.

Have your team propose the business development and alliance professionals in the organization that can help discover all the partners you’re currently working with and those you should be considering.? Encourage them to discover “what we don’t know” and promote a culture of collaboration and communication within the cross-organizational team. Encourage brainstorming sessions, and knowledge sharing to facilitate idea generation, problem-solving, and decision-making.? We’re in the storming/forming phase here, let it run a little free, but make sure it is a time bound phase with the explicit goals of forming a leadership governance team, a set of working teams and a clear picture of the full partner ecosystem.

Discovering the Full Partner Ecosystem

In the early stages of forming the integrated partner organization, encourage your leaders to cast a wide net.? Of course find all the partners you currently work with by checking your CRM, partner portal, event sponsors, etc.? But then, really start digging.? Who are their competitors?? Who are their partners? Which companies are being tapped by your product engineering and R&D teams? What about in-region partners that haven’t bubbled up to the corporate level?? Where do you have venture capital investments?? Who’s the M&A team looking at?? What companies do your sales teams hear about from your customers?? And, what about your competition - can you answer these questions for them?? Now ask the same questions of your strategic alliances.? You’ll have thousands of channel partners and probably hundreds more that don’t transact business with you.? If you have less, you probably missed some.? The final task will be to filter out those you need to focus on, the ones you need to watch and the ones you need to watch out for.? You’ll also need a tool for tracking and evolving these partners cross organizationally.? Get excited cause here it comes, but first one quick note.? This is a good time to do a little housekeeping.? Invariably, you will have discovered a slew of stale partners where initial good intentions dissolved due to lackluster sales, minimal technical gains or just being a bad match.? Re-purpose the resources supporting them to this new activity and the new partners it will develop.

Monitoring Partner Evolution

Let’s just give it to you up front? . . .?

The Partner Ecosystem Radar

I’ve seen many different frameworks developed to give a bird's eye view to the entire evolving ecosystem, but I’ve come across and designed some form of radar map at many leading companies that are excelling in their partner strategy.? It’s particularly effective because it displays:

1) which organizations are involved and what they contribute to the process

2) what industries and sub segments you’re focusing on?

3) which companies are in your sites?and where are they headed.

The concentric circles of the radar show the depth of relationship and which organizations are most involved in progressing the partnership.? You can decide how many rings your organization needs, but I have included four in this model

Watch - This is where your sales organization and the product business units are providing intel on companies that are players in your market and adjacent industries.? They could be start ups, competitors or complementary technologies.? A good place to start is the Gartner Magic Quadrant for each sub segment.

Invest -?This is where you're looking to get some skin in the game and at least an observation seat on the board. ? Strategic investments from your VC team will offer you deeper insight and the ability to look at integration opportunities and competitive threats.

Partner -?Whether it’s just a co-sell play, technical integration or strategic alliance, this is where you formalize the nature of the partnership, resources to support it and assign it to one of the partner organizations.

Acquisition -?Most companies never get this close, but as you work through the “build, buy or partner” decision sometimes it’s just easier to own the technology and the brilliant minds that brought it to market.??

The radial lines divide the radar map into industries and sub segments.? In IT, Cyber Security is a good example.? That might make up a large portion of the map and then be subdivided for: perimeter defense, zero trust, endpoint detection and response, identity and access management, and threat identification platforms.? You may even find you need a full radar map for each industry.

Finally, you’ll want your teams to plot companies and their vectors on the map to show where they are today and the direction they expect to move.

Of course this is just a broad overview of the entire ecosystem.? You’ll want teams to dive into detailed explanations of the relevant industries and sub segments as well as the players in each.? While at Cisco, our radar map was in fact nearly 100 pages long, but it all started with one overview very similar to the one pictured above.

Once you’ve removed these three boulders and developed a comprehensive and detailed ecosystem map, you’ll need to create a governance model to continue the good work, stay on top of emerging and evolving partners and take full advantage of the opportunities they present. At a minimum, you’ll want the map updated by the teams quarterly accompanied by a quarterly business review designed to make decisions on what you need to do to grow or shrink the partnerships.? Develop similar mechanisms to facilitate separate organizations like sales and M&A collaboration.

While this is a heavy lift that requires a realignment of some resources and focus on a new activity, it will yield enormous benefit in proactive management of your potential partners and competitors, quicker decisions for building or buying new tech and first mover advantage on emerging trends.