Partnerships NOW: Volume 8

Welcome to the latest edition of Impartner's Partnerships NOW newsletter, your gateway to the world of successful partnership strategies and industry insights. Achieving harmony between your direct and indirect sales channels is the key to unlocking sustainable growth and unparalleled success. However, partner channel conflicts can occasionally disrupt the harmonious flow.

These conflicts may arise from various sources – overlapping territories, competing strategies, or misaligned incentives. In this newsletter, our aim is simple: to equip you with the knowledge and insights to not only recognize channel conflicts but to address them proactively.

As you dive into this newsletter, we hope you will gain a deeper understanding of how to conquer channel conflicts and nurture long term partnerships.

What are key contributing factors to conflicts between direct and indirect sales channels?

"According to our recent research featuring in Partner Experience through the Journey , the solution providers cite 'Too much conflict with the vendors’ direct sales efforts' as the third reason they regretted joining a vendor partner program.

Conflict between the vendor and their sales channels are pervasive but they don’t need to be. Many say conflict is natural and necessary and the customer wins when organizations battle for their business. I would argue there is a difference between competition on a level playing field and channel conflict which advantages the vendor team.

Over a decade ago, deal registration processes automated through PRM systems soothed sales conflict. Now the new battlefield is the pursuit of lucrative services opportunities. Vendors say they want to perform these services to ensure high customer satisfaction. Solution providers need them as their primary vehicle for profit.

Most channel conflict is the vendors’ fault. They are defining the partnering model, program framework and engagement processes. Here are the top contributing factors to ongoing conflict with partners.

1) Sales team structure and compensation

?? When a vendor has deep direct model culture roots where the sales team is very competitive, even against each other.

?? Compensation neutrality – or lack thereof. When the vendor team is compensated more for their own efforts than working with partners.

2) Lack of partnering acumen

?? The vendor teams don’t understand where along the customer lifecycle the partners add value and how/where the partners make money (hint: in services).

3) Poorly defined expectations

?? Haven’t clearly indicated where you as the vendor will focus your efforts and where the solution provider will have a green field of ‘clear run’ or set up a 'pitch and catch' scenario where each of you are playing a unique role in the sales and services cycle." - Diane Krakora , PartnerPath

How can businesses proactively assess the health of their partner channels to identify potential conflicts early on?

"Understanding the value and actions your ecosystem of partners can offer along the customer's sales journey allows you to answer the question what do we want our partners to do for our customers and what should we keep in direct control of?' Once you've figured that out and committed to it through amending your strategic approach and focus, the drive for value and success with partners should be mainly frictionless." - Amy Roberts , PartnerPath

What are some best practices in effectively communicating to prevent and resolve partner channel conflicts?

"A common strategic alignment of expectations and goals is a critical foundation to be ahead of potential channel conflicts. If a conflict does arise, open communication which includes established escalation points will help to mitigate issues. As a starting point of the conversation, there should be an understanding of the root cause of the conflict and determine if this is solved through already defined processes.

With any conflict, the focus should be on the joint customer and ensuring focus on the value both organizations can provide. Areas to also be aware of are having a clear understanding of pricing, on-going training to ensure the success of the partnership, and how deals are registered when co-sell occurs." - Brian Galicia , 微软

"Effective communication, clear guidelines and trust are paramount in containing channel conflict. Open, active, transparent communication channels encourage collaboration and build trust between all parties. Clear guidelines in policy and process can set expectations and set behavior. However, unless you have trust between the parties neither communication nor policies will help. In a recent client discovery, we uncovered the biggest gap in trust was between the partner managers and direct sellers. This gap was keeping the organization from thriving. Building organizational and individual trust is the #1 thing you can do, and a mindset you can adopt, to prevent and resolve most channel conflicts." - Jessica Baker , AchieveUnite

"Prevent conflict by aligning your compensation structure to support partner profitability. As for resolving conflict, anyone who ever worked in retail will know the first move to bring the heat down in a conflict is to apologise and take accountability for the hurt the person/company is feeling (even when the blame might land on both sides). The next step is to figure out what broken process, breached rule of engagements or (gulp) major strategy caused the conflict - and fix that. Stat." - Amy Roberts , PartnerPath

In a rapidly changing business environment, how can businesses ensure that their conflict resolution strategies remain effective and adaptable over time?

"There are many reasons why conflict can arise in a business environment. Poor communication skills, uncertainty of roles and responsibilities, and different personalities and perspectives to name a few. Addressing conflict head-on, from the start, keeps business moving forward in a productive manner. Conflict resolution starts with creating neutral ground to define the problem and what the parties are trying to achieve, allowing all parties to express their concerns, views, and outcome ideas. From this dialogue, it can be determined if the parties are going to be accommodating - involving one party acquiescing, collaborating - involving working together to come up with a solution, or comprising - where both parties forfeit some of their needs.

Facilitating these roles will foster successful negotiations to reach an agreed-upon solution where both parties feel justified. Once a solution is in place, it is important to monitor and follow-up on the resolution, making sure all parties are working together, and the stakeholders’ concerns are addressed. Each conflict that arises is going to be different, with different parties addressing different conflicts. Make note of what works and what does not in order to continue to evolve conflict resolution strategies within the business.

Each conflict resolution can strengthen relationships, reduce tension and stress levels, build trust, improve communication, and ultimately build momentum for positive change and growth within the organization." - Gina Batali-Brooks , Is Inspired

What are some ways to set clear guidance on?expectations for both direct and indirect sales teams to reduce ambiguity and conflicts?

"Reducing ecosystem conflict requires identifying where the conflicts exists across your partner ecosystem and your internal selling models. You must start by analyzing each of your partner go-to-market motions and look for overlap, then overlay that with your internal go-to-market motions. It is critical to look at every player in your ecosystem for potential conflict and to set proper expectations internally and externally.

The key to success is to create harmony instead of conflict across the overlap. Once the overlaps are identified rules of engagement must be defined for each area incentives can be applied. Then mitigation measures are put in place, systems and tools can then be updated to manage and prevent the conflict.

Conflict considerations include: Updating your partner agreement, defining roles and responsibilities (across the ecosystem), setting territories and/or account lists, defining market segments & establishing a conflict resolution protocol.

With the right tools and programs in place ecosystem conflict can become a thing of the past." - Raegan Wilson, MBA , Spur Reply