Channel Investment
CF: You mentioned this emphasis on organic growth going forward. Do you think that leads to them seeing the channel as more important?
KB: Yes, very much so, and that’s kind of the third point of why I came to the business. There was a top-down channel commitment from Ernie to Don and obviously Jim Delis. We’re all believers in the channel. The market has shifted and will continue to shift, [increasing] the importance of the partner community. The trusted advisers are positioned to lead that success.
The investment in the channel is one of the key areas of growth that the business sees. Obviously we have other channels as well, but this is the one that they’re putting emphasis on and that I and Jim are now charged with working to create a world-class channel organization. As I said earlier, I’m starting from a really strong foundation. I was very pleased to come on board and see the type of tenure that exists regionally at the leadership level in the business. I was pleased to see that they have dedicated channel resources. They call them customer advocates and customer success managers. They’re there to take care of customers and support them. They are channel-specific; they are aligned with the partners, with the regional sales leadership and the regional sales people. And there’s a tremendous dialogue there to take care of customers within the channel. I just did a call with our dedicated solution architect team, which is there to support efforts as need be, whether it’s on a deal level, or training, support and best-practice sharing. There’s a dedicated channel project management team. We typically get involved in projects versus a transactional activity. That group is dedicated to channel, and from my experience (and the same with Jim) we get the fact that it’s not just a one-to-one with the partner and the customer. There’s a triangle there, and the triangle is collaboration and communication with the partner. To have organizations that know the partners and vice versa is important. There are also dedicated channel marketing resources. We look to build from there as part of what we’re doing to grow the channel.
