Partnerships NOW: Volume 2

Welcome back to Partnerships NOW newsletter! We are thrilled to bring you the second volume of our monthly newsletter curated by partnership thought leaders who are passionate about elevating ecosystems everywhere. In case you missed volume 1, click here.

In this edition, we're diving into the nitty-gritty of operational partner program processes, covering everything from people and processes to platforms and integrations. As we look ahead to the rest of 2023, we can see that partner ecosystems are continuing to grow, so now more than ever, it's critical to understand the necessities to build, maintain, and grow a partner program.

Forward-thinking partnership leaders like you are constantly evaluating new areas to focus on and uncover untapped opportunities. That's why we're dedicated to providing you with the guidance and insights you need to stay ahead of the curve and succeed in this ever-changing landscape. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more valuable content in the coming months!

For small or mid-sized channel teams who are scaling upwards, what type of role would be a critical hire to help keep up with growth? And for enterprise teams? Are there specific positions you consider the most critical roles that every partnership team should have?

“Every partnership team, even small ones, should have at least one person who’s naturally gifted at strategy. They don’t need to be a former consultant; their title may vary depending on how many hats they wear. But be careful to protect their time. They need space for deep focus on understanding your industry, and an evolving web of existing and potential future relationships. The last three years have made it clear: the partnership strategy you thought you’d be following in a year likely changed. Execution is critical, but I’ve seen first-hand the lost revenue and time from following poor or outdated thinking. In tech in particular, partnership ecosystems are more complex today, with a greater choice of tools, data sources, and platforms to inform go-to-market strategies. To build an adaptive and sustainable partnership function, embed strategy talent in the team.” – John Lojek, Google?

“Regardless of company size, having someone in the role of Partner Experience (PX) is the key to growth and channel success. This role will look different based on the company size, program maturity, and percentage of channel business, but regardless of company size, it is needed. On the enterprise end of the spectrum, Partner Experience should comprise a team that owns PX end-to-end. This team should oversee and take ownership of all partner facing tools and perhaps even partner programs since programs are a core driver of PX. For emerging companies, the PX role will wear multiple hats including platform oversight, communications, and even programs.” – Raegan Wilson, Spur Reply

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“Partner Operations Manager / Partner Program Managers are responsible for the implementation and operations of the partner program. Their core goals should include constantly looking for efficiencies in how the team and the systems work to meet the objectives.

With effective partner program processes, Partner or Channel Account Managers can prioritize building strong connections with partners and delivering exceptional value, paving the way for long-lasting and prosperous partnerships.

Partner Program Operations should be accountable for ensuring that partner teams are equipped with robust processes and systems that extend throughout the organization, allowing for optimal support and collaboration.” – Donagh Kiernan, Tenego

“For small or mid-sized channel/partnership/alliance teams that are scaling upwards, an important hire would be a Partnership Development Manager. This person would be responsible for growing, developing, and maintaining top-down and bottom-up relationships with partners, identifying new opportunities for partnerships (build-with, sell-with), negotiating agreements, and ensuring that all stakeholders across the partnership are meeting their obligations under the partnership agreement. Additionally, this person would be responsible for analyzing partnership performance, identifying areas for improvement, and surfacing key results to executives in established partner reviews (monthly, quarterly, and yearly).

For enterprise teams, the critical roles of a partnership team would depend on the specific needs and goals of the organization but would start with a Partner Development Manager. Additional positions for a partnership team in an enterprise setting may include:

Partner Executive Leader: All partnership positions would roll up to this role and be accountable for the overall partnership strategy and execution.

Technical Partner Manager: This role would be responsible for managing build with engagement that focuses on technical conversations such as integration with partners, ensuring that the integrations meet the company's technical standards and goals, and coordinating the technical roadmap between the partnership.

Partner Marketing Manager: This role would be responsible for developing and executing marketing campaigns with partners, coordinating joint marketing efforts, and measuring the success of marketing programs.

Partnership Operations Manager: This role would be responsible for managing the operational aspects of partnerships, such as entering partner details in Partner Relationship Management (PRM) tools and tracking partner performance, managing partner contracts, and resolving partner-related issues.” – Brian Galicia, Microsoft

What are the top 3 operational functions that should be handled by technology and automation to drive efficiency through a successful and scalable partnership team?

“In today's dynamic partner space, we face a high level of complexity in our evolving portfolio of partners while also being challenged with limited budgets. Assuming the company has set aside a budget for partner initiatives, I would prioritize partner marketing, incentives, and collaboration. These groups must work in tandem for a well-oiled partner team.

A strategy and clear execution plan that covers these areas and drives metrics should be a foundational element for partner organizations, in which the executive team should be invested. Throughout the partner journey, clear communication should be maintained, from onboarding to closed deals, to ensure partners feel the strength of the relationship without being overwhelmed. It's a fine line between providing an excellent partner experience and overwhelming them.

Driving demand and celebrating closed wins takes all three functions: strong sales offers with clear campaign content, incentives that reward multiple activities leading to deal closure, and clear collaboration rules throughout the life of the deal. It's a true art and science to pull this off correctly.” – Kristine Stewart, The Lexington Group

What are the most popular or useful technology integrations in which teams should leverage to improve system efficiencies within a partner program? (i.e., LMS to PRM or a PRM to incentives)

“The most important integration for a partner program is to the CRM. To ensure effective management and optimization of partner opportunities, it is imperative that partner platforms are seamlessly integrated into the company's CRMs, allowing internal sellers to seamlessly collaborate with partners and streamline the sales process. This integration is the first step in the prevention of channel conflict. The second most common integration is to LMS for training.” – Raegan Wilson, Spur Reply

“It's important to offer a range of incentives to match the diverse partners in a company's ecosystem while achieving your objectives. Incentives have evolved from entitlement rebates to outcome-based incentives in recent years. Referral partners can accelerate deal closure with introductions, demos, pre-sale engineering support, or proof of concept implementation. To manage this collaboration, integrate your PRM with a robust incentive and enablement platform. Predicting partner success and optimizing your sales and marketing campaign budget gains executive visibility as ROI becomes more critical. AI/ML technology can analyze partner data, providing predictive analysis and a recommendation engine for peak campaign success.” – Kristine Stewart, The Lexington Group

At what point would you recommend investing in a partner management platform? Are there key factors to take into consideration to explore a solution? Is there a specific stage in your program maturity to reach?

“Investing in a PRM solution will depend on the size of the partnership program you are trying to manage. If scale and complexity are becoming factors, exploring a PRM would be worth the investment to help manage and optimize processes, particularly if there are limited resources to drive the partnerships.

If your organization is having difficulty accessing data to analyze partner performance or scale marketing and sales efforts, a PRM can simplify the process. A PRM can help drive relevant automated workflows and enable data-driven decision making based on centralized data.” – Brian Galicia, Microsoft

“Program readiness and maturity should be the two driving factors for the assessment of partner automation tools. The readiness and maturity levels can vary greatly across the key program areas so a crawl, walk, run approach will often work best. To gauge readiness, start by validating the existence of processes, content, and programs around the functional area you are looking to automate. Consider the resources needed to support the automation, the governance required internally to manage access, change management, and communication needed to inform internal teams of the automation changes and partners. These are just a few considerations that should be assessed while planning. It is hard to drive a successful platform investment without defined processes and programs, assessing those elements upfront will increase the likelihood of a smooth and on time deployment.” – Raegan Wilson, Spur Reply

“Many Tech companies develop their own initial versions of:

• Deal registration forms on top of their CRM.
• Partner onboarding enablement with a basic LMS of videos and downloading materials, coupled with offline training and hands-on support in marketing and selling.
• Asset library/materials download bank.
• Basic login, and minimal functioning partner portals.

The tipping point to considering a PRM comes when...

• The number of partners is increasing and the partner team requires more functions and automation.
• Or when the number of deals is increasing and the support of partners through the marketing and sales processes needs to improve.
• When multilingual is needed, in the materials first and then possibly in the portal interface.

At a certain point, the demands of portal development can become too taxing for a development team to divert their attention from core projects. And let's face it, why waste valuable time reinventing the wheel when you can easily license a proven solution and get back to what you do best: pushing the boundaries of innovation?”?– Donagh Kiernan, Tenego

What are some examples of common partnership activities that slow down pipeline management without a process or automated technology in place?

“Manual data entry combined with limited automation can be a time-consuming and error-prone process. For instance, when data is entered into a spreadsheet that cannot be easily updated and shared across multiple users, it can lead to errors, overwritten data, and a lack of relevant security measures.

In addition, communication may be delayed if relevant stakeholders are not notified of necessary actions or activities through automated flows. Without a central data repository, such as a PRM or CRM tool, reporting can be challenging, making it difficult to identify trends or address issues in a timely manner.” – Brian Galicia, Microsoft

“Poor Sales and management processes require greater expertise and use of people’s time, adding cost and slowing down sales. Implementing software solutions and automation of a weak process fails to deliver value and often adds more admin effort. For example, poorly implemented Deal Registration processes and systems fails to get partner adoption, just asking for more admin effort from partners and resorting to an informal and incomplete collection of pipeline data through partner calls or emails.

Poor partner proposition or support can be a major hindrance to a vendor's success in partnering. When partners fail to see the value offered by the vendor's partnering team or their partner manager, it limits the vendor's influence. Unfortunately, vendors can become too narrowly focused on selling their solution, rather than helping partners build their businesses. This often occurs because vendor partnering teams fail to take the partner's point of view or needs into consideration, and instead focus solely on their own goals. To truly thrive in partnerships, it's critical that vendors prioritize understanding their partners and helping them succeed in all aspects of their business.” – Donagh Kiernan, Tenego

“At large companies, there are typical internal hoops to jump through for activities like co-branding and joint marketing, contracting with third parties, and releasing budgets. Don’t default to your company’s internal operating model. Build capacity to move quickly when partner opportunities come along by setting up internal processes and agreements in advance. A review of past partnership delays usually flags bottleneck areas; target those. See if you can automate lower-value, repetitive tasks, such as putting NDAs in place. Develop standard language and approaches so that most internal time is focused on exceptions that add value. If those exceptions happen twice, incorporate them into the model or playbooks that align stakeholders. Have people on the partnership team be process owners, building internal relationships with different functions. These individuals should also educate their colleagues on the value of partnership activity, which may not be self-evident to functions where goals are reducing risk and corporate exposure.” – John Lojek, Google