Top Gun 51: What Makes a Next-Gen Channel Executive?

… an influencer within their organization and our industry,” said Kirk Robinson, U.S. chief country executive at Ingram Micro. “More often than not, a channel chief works across the organization – sales, marketing, product management, financing – to ensure that everyone is working together to do right by the partner.”  

What stymies a channel leader?  

Ingram Micro’s Kirk Robinson

“Working for a company that’s not channel-friendly,” said Robinson.

That’s not a problem that plagues our Top Guns. After all, prime time talent doesn’t stay where it’s not appreciated. But masters and disties see plenty of internal push and pull that doesn’t end up in the channel’s favor. 

“If you have too little support and too few resources, you find yourself focusing more on executing and less on leading, which doesn’t allow you to be present and in front of your partners as often,” said Heather Murray, vice president, security and new vendor acquisition, at Tech Data. 

Adam Knudsen, vice president of sales operations at TBI, agrees that channel executives are facing big challenges if they don’t have the company behind them to support and help execute on a new agile philosophy. 

The Need for Speed 

In what seems like the blink of an eye, the partner channel has shifted from a transactional, quick-sale model to one built on forming long-term customer relationships and understanding the goals and strategy of the end user. Here’s a dose of reality: Eighty percent of the 7,500 partners that Microsoft is bringing on monthly are non-transacting. Guess that’s why Top Gun Gavriella Schuster of Microsoft told partners the company “can’t afford” free internal user rights. (She reversed that decision on July 12.)

Similarly, Salesforce announced it needs to bring on 250,000 new partners to double its company — and, at the same time, shut down its resell program. That means that 100 percent of those new partners will be non-transactional partners.

The non-transacting side of the overall partner business is growing at 10-50 times the rate of traditional reseller programs, according to McBain. That means we’re seeing channel leaders set up dual tracks.  

Forrester’s Jay McBain

“One will be resell-based, gold-silver-bronze, pyramid scheme-type of program, the one that’s been around for 37 years,” said McBain. “The smart ones are now creating a parallel program, which when you look at the 90 different things that go into a channel program, such as the onboarding, educating, training, the incentives, motivation, loyalty, co-selling, co-marketing … all of the motions are still there for the non-transacting partner, but the money doesn’t flow the same way.” 

The growth of a non-transactional channel is leading to the rise of affiliate programs, advocate programs, influencer programs and alliances that lead to deeper, more meaningful and more lasting customer relationships.  

“A great channel leader has the ability to [create dual channels] in parallel,” he said. “You can’t shut down your reseller channel, but you have to, in parallel, spread the focus to all different types of partnerships.”  

In light of this disruption in the channel, agility is a critical trait.  

“You have to be flexible enough to engage a wide variety of partner types in a programmatic and repeatable fashion,” said Krakora. “It’s a tug of war between flexibility and scalability in today’s and tomorrow’s channel leaders.” 

PlanetOne founder and CEO Ted Schuman agrees. His master agency, for example, is seeing big growth with MSPs.

“The role of the channel chief has become …