Partner Programs: Transforming and Aligning for Growth
Companies continually strive to refine their selling models to provide predictable revenue streams. It goes without saying that the “bottom line” is what every business prioritizes. In the highly complex ecosystem of enterprise technology, many companies work with a diverse set of partners, resellers, and distributors to bring their products and services to the market. This multidimensional approach is a natural evolution of the traditional “company sells, customer buys,” model. In today’s environment, marketing leaders must understand that how a company achieves that target sales stream is as important as the revenue goal, itself. In many cases, a company must realign its business model with how customers buy.
Today, simply trying to “sell more” isn’t the sole objective. For companies, it’s a matter of building sales processes, programs and infrastructure that leverage a company’s strengths. This is then backed by a team that is committed to transforming the company to make that distribution model a reality.
Partner programs must continually evolve to better serve both partners and end customers. Through the process of building channel or partner programs and capturing the ongoing feedback, leaders learn lessons that allow them to be more agile, flexible and responsive to the different customer needs in various markets.
As a marketer, I can’t offer a one-size-fits-all tutorial on how to build programs that will benefit a company’s sales model including its aspirations for growth. No marketer really can without context. What I can tell you is that a partner program that seeks to achieve these dual goals — increasing revenue while transforming the company model — must be specific to the constantly changing market needs and business capabilities.
This past June, Unify announced a series of major changes. Transforming from a hardware-oriented company to a software and services company is a transition that requires a deep understanding of the evolving customer needs within the unified communications (UC) industry.
In response, Unify has taken a dual-pronged approach in transforming the company’s distribution model, while also launching a partner program that enables partners to achieve greater margins while adding greater value to end-customers. The launch of the new channel partner program achieves several goals. First, it rewards partners for increasing their expertise and specialization. Partners can invest in the areas that best match their own business model. This allows partners to differentiate themselves within the marketplace, and leverage their core capabilities. In turn, this drives more predictable revenue streams at greater margins, along with increased customer satisfaction.
Managers who work closely with your partners and channel representatives are the real agents of change for company transformation. They can be the ones who dictate how channel strategies are executed since they are the point contact with customer. These employees also fully grasp the needs and pain points of end-users, thereby helping a company better understand how programs should be structured. When investing in company transformation, customer-centric or partner-centric programs will help a company evolve with an industry symbiotically because they will always be in-tune with its audience. Continuous end-customer and partner feedback is absolutely key.
Always think outside in, and design your sales and organizational model to how customers buy, not how you prefer to sell.
From your perspective, what are the best practices of your favorite partner programs? What do these vendors offer that enables you to differentiate yourself in the marketplace? Join or start a discussion on LinkedIn’s New Way to Work page.
As senior vice president of global channel marketing at Unify, Bob Clinton is tasked with assisting the company in expanding its routes to market, growing the geographic footprint and providing Unify distribution partners with the marketing programs and tools to be successful. Clinton has more than 25 years’ experience in global marketing, technology and the channel, the majority being in senior management and executive positions. In his previous role as CMO at Westcon Group, he helped define and drive a customer-centric approach to the market. Prior to that, he drove a number of key strategic business initiatives at CA Technologies and Motorola.
