Partnerships Unraveled
The weekly podcast where we unravel the mysteries of partnerships and channel to help you become more successful.
Partnerships Unraveled
080 - Innovate or Sink: The Roadmap for Enablement in Ecosystems with TIDWIT
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We streamed an engaging panel discussion in October featuring TIDWIT's CEO Wissam "Will" Yafi, Channext's CEO Rick van den Bosch and VP of Revenue Alex Whitford, as well as the Ecosystem Partnering specialist and author Ard-Pieter de Man.
Tune in as our guests unravel:
📈 Scaling partner programs in spite of limited resources.
👩💻 Understanding and managing the growing complexity of partner ecosystems - the role of cross-collaboration and technology for better efficiency and outcomes.
💸 How your partner programs contribute to revenue growth and how to measure success beyond revenue markets.
💬 Co-marketing, Integrations, AI - demystifying all the buzzwords and how to utilize them for your partner ecosystem?
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Ecosystem Enablement and Growth Strategy
Speaker 1Will Yaffe , founder and CEO of Tidwit , Really happy to be here in Utrecht . Thank you for the invite for having us . It's good to have you .
Speaker 2Do you want to give us a little bit about what Tidwit does ?
Speaker 1Yeah , tidwit is basically focused on ecosystem enablement and we're one of the oldies in our segment , I suppose . So we've had some really interesting experiences that I hope I'll share with the community , but very excited about where it's been , where it's headed , and looking forward to learning a little bit from Art-Peter and from Rick here as well Awesome .
Speaker 3Art-Peter . Yeah , so thanks for having me . I'm Art-Peter , and from Rick here as well . Awesome , Art-Peter , thanks for having me . I'm Art-Peter de man . Two days a week . I work at the Freie Universiteit in Amsterdam . Three days a week , I work as a consultant and on both places I'm interested in partnerships and ecosystems and the impact of digitization on collaboration . Excellent .
Speaker 4Rick Rick van der Bos , founder and CEO of GenX , ran the marketing agency for five years prior to GenX , where we were all around marketing and enablement for partners . I think that's also where I found out how hard it would be , which led to founding GenX eventually and their partner marketing automation platform . I'm very excited today to talk more about how you label the partner ecosystem .
Speaker 2Awesome . Well , I'm going to kick us off with the first question , which is , I think we're all saying after the end of COVID a significant recession is landing . That's changing a lot of the economy , how it works . We're looking for a new way to win in the partner game , but with more limited resources . Well , I'm going to come to you first . What do you think ? 2024 , with that tightening of budgets , tightening of people , what's that going to make for the partner and ecosystem landscape ?
Speaker 1I think what most of our customers are looking for is to do a lot more with less , and I think ecosystems can help them do that . All the experimentation if I may call it that over the past few years of ecosystems has proven the case that ecosystems can actually deliver massive ROIs Within ecosystem enablement . Specifically , we're seeing up to 15x ROI , and so organizations can now do a whole lot more with much less , saving thousands of hours in manual stuff that they couldn't do and really reaching out and empowering partners to do a whole lot more than they were able to do before as well . So that's really the mantra that most of our customers are looking for doing a lot more with less through their ecosystem .
Speaker 2Now I think it's a great point . One of the misnomers with the recession is that everyone loses . It's not that the economy loses , but there are some really huge win-losses People who can work out how to do more with less . They're the ones that exit the recession with the great cash reserves , the great customer base , and they're the ones that really see that growth . 100% . Rick , coming to you next . What do you see 2024 providing some change in terms of what we should see ? What do you ?
Speaker 4see 2024 providing some change in terms of what we should see . Yeah , I think around that , maybe to go a little bit further on doing more with less . I think what you really see there I think this purchase , our cut resource , our cut the book . We see on the other side , we still need to recruit more partners , make sure we enable more partners . Revenue targets are growing , so I think that's really finding the balance there and be like how are we going to do such a thing where we need to facilitate and enable more and more partners and make sure that we go and achieve that growth that we're all longing for . And I think that's where we're really boxed . Smart with new technology , new processes , ways of working , we really need to rethink how we are working and enabling our partner ecosystem to make sure that we can facilitate to your point , exit the recession as strong as possible .
Speaker 2Excellent , Peter . Any other thing you want to add to that ?
Speaker 3Yeah , I think it's a lot about optimization and being more efficient , and a lot of technological solutions are coming in the market that help companies also to increase their bandwidth . The number of partnerships can be increased because of technology and also learning can start taking place . I think it used to be . We have these partners , but what interventions work and which do not work , that has always been a big question , and now we can track much better data . We can also find out what are the right things to do , also in terms of enablements to get into a specific segment and get to a certain solution to the market . So I think a lot of the technology is going to support that growth of the ecosystem .
Speaker 2Yeah , I think what's really interesting about that is you sort of mentioned efficiencies . I think a lot of people think about partnerships and ecosystems as a very inefficient way of doing business in terms of time and money , but hugely scalable . I think you're absolutely right . If you can get the technology aspect right , then suddenly you can get the scale , but with the improved efficiencies and 15x ROI 100% and scale I love that word and within ecosystem enablement , we have a slight term for it , which is footprint .
Speaker 1Imagine if you were able to multiply the footprint that your organization has within your partner by 10x , 15x , 100x . Can you do that ? And the answer and empirically is yes . You could do that if you're able to connect directly with your partner and kind of deliver it within where they are , as opposed to forcing them to do business the way you want them to do , and so there's a paradigm shift happening here . But the cool thing is over the past . The experimentation that's happened over the past few years has now , basically , which was proven within the IT segment , is starting to really kind of dip into some of the other segments and other industries , for example , automotive industry , health insurance industry , government industry , educational industry , and so this is really what we're so excited about . It's not only to limit ecosystems within IT , but also see it expanding as the platform to empower a lot of different partnerships across multiple different industries as well .
Speaker 2The greatest businesses and the greatest leaders in the world . They understand one thing better than anyone else , and that's leverage right , which is how can I get the most return for my action . And that's the great thing about an ecosystem is I can put something in and get the multiplication of multiple mouths , multiple hands , all pushing in the same direction . I think it's really interesting . You're touching on the point different ecosystem growth . Arpisha , I'd love to come to you . What do you see in other ecosystems ? What habits have they picked up from IT that you think are landing really well ?
Speaker 3Yeah , I think if you look at ecosystems , obviously IT was one of the first to do that , but you see that IT thinking and platforms and software they're now in any business and in any organization you already mentioned automotive and health insurance but also in a not-for-profit . For example , I came across a great example in the port of Rotterdam , which is the biggest port in Europe . Well , the port has been around for 500 years or so , so it's not really that you say this is a new business . But yeah , they really restructured part of the business to better fit with the ecosystem . So they identified a couple of issues like how can we improve import ? How can we smoothen the export trajectory ? There's a lot of documentation that has to go with that .
Speaker 3It's really complex , and there's the tax issues , and so now they're co-developing with people in the port , companies that work in the port . They're developing new apps to smooth the entire export process , import process , but also the logistic processes , so that you already know that when a ship comes in , you can give a signal to a truck driver and say , okay , at 3 pm the container is going to be lifted from the ship and you should be there then and then the container doesn't have to stand on the cane , take up expensive space and those kind of things . So you see that partnerships and ecosystems , they're no longer on the outside of the organization , they also in fact affect the internal organization structure . Yeah , if you see that in a not-for-profit business , a government business , you can imagine that this is also working in the for-profit business .
Speaker 1I'll pick up on this with your permission , but I really like what Art Peter just ended with , which is ecosystems don't limit themselves to outside and channel and partners and in a lot of cases with organizations , you see internal ecosystems now being this efficiency that was lacking , ecosystems now being this efficiency that was lacking . We're working with even IT companies that have had massive organic growth but that really operate as multiple companies within one big company . They're an ecosystem but they're not very efficient and they don't see themselves as an ecosystem . So that's an example of an internal ecosystem . Then you have the external ecosystems , which is channel and partners , et cetera , and the really interesting thing is to find ways to connect , both because that's when really kind of growth hits a second gear , and third and fourth gear , because you're taking all the efficiencies of this organic and you're multiplying it , projecting it to your partners and increasing foothold and knowledge across the entire ecosystem . Barrierless is kind of one term that we were talking about before we went on air .
Speaker 2Yeah , I think what was really interesting about that is sort of sales philosophy One . You want salespeople talking to salespeople , marketing talks to marketing , ops talking to ops . My life in distribution has been forever just connecting people who , frankly , know far more than I do with each other and watching the relationship prosper as a result . Rick , I'd love to come to you in terms of let's message to the direct organizations out there . They'll tell me a partner's complicated , a channel's complicated , an ecosystem's complicated . Why in a recession , why , when budgets are being cut , would I look to be building a channel ? Why should I take that risk ?
Speaker 4Yeah , very good question . We were just touching upon , indeed already making the comparison between direct and there and channel or parker , when we just recorded the podcast around that . And one of the things we were discussing and it is by look at your school customer journey really looking into , okay , what type of areas do we want to fulfill ourselves and where is the right place for our partners and our partner ecosystem . And I think , looking at your example with Port of Rotterdam , it's super interesting . You see , this central hub which is the port , and then all around it you already mentioned some import specialists , export specialists , truck drivers so many different types of partners around that ecosystem evolve into that .
Speaker 4And I think that's where you see , on one hand , there's this complexity thing within partnerships because , yes , it will be very easy to do everything yourself , but it's impossible . Look at the board , and you can't do it yourself . If you really want to scale , if you really want to become big , you need to look at partnerships . And I think , especially in a recession , yes , partnerships isn't tough not to crack , but it's the highest reward with actually the lowest risk eventually , because you work with your partners and you reward each other once you're growing together . So that's why I think a lot of companies are steering towards partnerships and channel and then we only see that growing at the moment instead of a direct organization .
Speaker 2I think you're absolutely correct . One of the things that I'm consistently fascinated by . You talk about a big network or a big business . I much prefer this term , a deep network , because it casts roots into the economy . What we're seeing is you can't have a macro strategy . Lots of minor micro plays right , and that's where the partnership network works so well is . I can be a specialist in manufacturing in the northeast of england because I've got my network and I've been working there for 30 years . Or I've got a 500 year old pool . It's a . It's a very specialized environment . It's no good just having a californ , california-based US strategy and hoping that that's going to transcend the world . You need that local knowledge , that local understanding , to really clean the valley .
Speaker 1A hundred percent .
Leveraging Ecosystems for Industry Innovation
Speaker 1And one thing where I differ with some of my ecosystem segment colleagues is that there's been a hesitation in our industry , in our segment or industry , to go across into some of these , into our ecosystem industry , to go across into some of these non-IT industries . And in reality , from our experience we've seen that as a natural progression of things . And before we went on air , I was giving them an example of a very large global hyperscaler that wanted to essentially drive upskilling and enable it in a specific segment and they wanted to do it with non-traditional partners like universities , incubators , accelerators , that kind of stuff . And so they came to do it and we had no idea how to get into the educational business . We didn't have a single sales exec targeting education , but they drove us in that direction .
Speaker 1And so one of the things that , for example , in the events and we've been together in certain events and Eric and I have had several conversations is I'd love to start seeing more and more of our segment starting to work , teach , exchange ideas with some of these non-IT industry and kind of pass on some of this knowledge . I think it's going to come back and benefit all of us because at the end of the day . It means more consumption for our platforms right but that is what we're looking for now and again it goes back to doing much more with less , because , through the partnerships that we're establishing in these non-traditional industries , what we're able to do is reach segments that we don't really have presence , but that they have years and years of experience in saving us time , investment and providing us an ROI that's just off the charts . That's how we see the importance of partnerships and some of these exogenous industries . I love that .
Speaker 3I think that also helps in remaining distinctive in the market and because I think there are laws . Certainly , if you look at the bigger system integrators , it's kind of the same solutions . So in the end it's down to price competition if you offer the same solutions . But if you look across industries you can come up with completely new value propositions and you may be very distinctive there as well . So I think also competition is going to force organization in that direction if they're already moving into those other industries and think of new value propositions there .
Speaker 2Yeah , to me I think that's critical . Right , I'm a big believer in we can learn a lot from other industries , even if it's slightly intangible . And I think what we see in the ecosystems is there's a lot always to learn from other players . The two big drivers for the economy have always been first , military improvement right , that's where technology is born out of , because that gets the first funding , especially in the us . And the second is then how does that flow into technology and then how does that flow into the rest of the market ? But I think what we will see is that , oh , hang on into a non-profit organization . Oh , we're seeing they're using that slightly differently . And then what can an aws , what can a big partner in the typical IT channel learn from that ? To pivot the conversation slightly to the big buzzword of the moment AI , I think that's where we're seeing huge improvements in efficiencies , especially in the direct go-to-market , because when you own your whole ecosystem , when it's just an internal ecosystem , you can make those changes much more effectively .
Speaker 4Personally , I predict massive change to the channels coming from ai rick , I'd love to come to you your thoughts on ai . Yeah , I think one of the core challenges I always hear around enablement doesn't matter whether we're talking about technical enablement or marketing enablement sales enablement is the creation of content . And I think also back to the example of Port of Rotterdam . If you only know how many different types of partners there are , a truck driver needs completely different information and knowledge than the import specialist in Africa and all the ships , et cetera . It's such a diverse set of partners and that's what you see everywhere , especially in an enterprise environment . We've got 10 different acronyms for all the different types of partners and within those partners they are focused on different verticals . Some want to add their services on top of it , some don't . And I think that's where you see , the better you can segment those partners and personalize their experience , the stronger it is .
Speaker 4And I think prior , the point where I'm heading is generative . Prior to the big launch and the big bang of that , it was every discussion like it's also a beautiful rig and I can sit with everything until the deepest . I had no resources to create content for that , and I think that's where there's such opportunity that you can take your content that you add and , in a very scalable way , scale that towards multiple partner segments and multiple different types of go-to-market strategies . I think that's where there's a massive opportunity and we talked .
Speaker 2We started the show with uh , do more with less . I think ai plus ecosystem that's doing more and more with even less and less . I'd love to hear how that could work .
Speaker 1I think it's a massive opportunity . Where I might slightly disagree is in where it could be applied . Yes , for content generation , but I think there's also in where AI is applied even for knowledge acquisition . I believe B2C AI is a lot of the companies and organizations . I was just on a call yesterday evening one company , massive IT company so they're going to be selling AI or at least deploying AI , telling us , as their provider , we have massive AI restrictions inside of our company and it was curious because they're an IT company and they know the downside and the upside of AI . The reason for this is because they're looking as most people across because AI is so new . They're looking at AI as a B2C function .
Speaker 1So you have the brain , but the content is everything everywhere , and then AI applies that brain on everything and , in certain cases , hallucinates and does all that kind of stuff that you have very little idea where they're applying it . I think what's going to change with that is the following You're going to have , through ecosystems , a high level of curation of content and AI is going to follow the content curation
AI and Ecosystems in Partnership Programs
Speaker 1. So I do agree in terms of curation , or at least content creation , as being one of the key elements of AI , but I think content curation is going to be even more important . Why ? For three very quick justifications . Oneation is going to be even more important .
Speaker 1Why ? For three very quick justifications . One , it's going to be walled gardens of content , so you know where the AI is being applied . Right , you know the brain is there , but that brain is being applied to this specific set of knowledge . If you ask it anything else , it says I don't know . Second , because you have this level of control it's going to be sanitized , it's going to be updated and it's going to be very , very , very accurate information . And third , which is equally important , is you can control it . So be it for GDPR . Whatever you're feeding , it is under your control .
Speaker 2So , for all these reasons , I think ecosystems are the perfect way to actually provide a smarter , more efficient and scalable AI usage , because you can train AI on particular content , right Scripts , and then I can just reimagine that script in a different setting and AI has been a huge disruptor and a huge threat to how that ecosystem can work . But I think absolutely , if you can put a walled garden I like that image and really train it on a very , very specific set of information , then you're going to get very deep knowledge , that's less threatening , yes , less than I have one .
Speaker 4So , interestingly , I would think about that walled garden , which I think is a good way to visualize it . But how do you see that in an ecosystem , then , where you're going to connect multiple companies , for example , in this way with each other , how does this specific company can still protect their walled garden or gives the right because you're going to exchange the information and knowledge there ?
Speaker 1The secret sauce is in the nodal architecture that allows you to bring in multiple walled gardens and create a bigger walled garden created of multiple walled gardens . So , essentially , you're walling your walled gardens based on what you need , right ? So that's how you do it , but you keep control . Now , company A .
Speaker 4That's that curation piece .
Speaker 1Correct . Company A might have the components of a walled garden . Company B might have , maybe overlap , but some others and each one are going to have different AI being applied for their user base .
Speaker 2You need to think of it as then diagrams right , there's going to be some overlap . Exactly Correct .
Speaker 3That's actually the Port of Rotterdam where he works already . So companies still own all the data , but some of it is shared . Some of it is shared with the Port of Rotterdam and they can also use in the system indicate who will we share the information with or not . So that works . I think another actually interesting application of AI could be on the partnerships themselves . If you have so many channels and we gather a lot of data about where sales is happening , what type of enablement are we doing , in which industries ? You can run AI across the data and find out what works and also optimize your partnership with that . And maybe it makes sense to do more education for salespeople in the pharma industry , but financial incentives may work better for the automotive , for example , and those kinds of patterns , of course , can also emerge from 100% .
Speaker 2Yeah , I think generative AI is really impressive , so it captures a lot of the news , right . When you see an image created or what it looks , it's very appealing . But I actually , for me , the data-driven AI is going to be the one that changes the game . If you're going to speak to anyone who works in investment banking , they are interested to know what information can I plumb in that gives me an edge on the market . There's been a poor crop yield due to weather patterns . Right , I'm buying oranges , right . That's what . They're much more interested in a data edge than any content generation , because when we talk about doing more with less , if I know exactly when to point an engineer , or exactly where to point a salesperson or a customer success person to the right time , the right place all of it because the data is giving me an insight there is a threat here . That's where you're going to be able to allocate resources most effectively . Rick , any more on how you think AI could be trimmed into the channel ?
Speaker 4I think the thing we just spoke about the latest was really that predictive AI , and I think that's a need that you can start predicting also in terms of your partners . I think that's what we see more and more . We are managing more partners with fewer resources . We can't talk to every single one of them all the time . A lot of it is managed by our distributors . That's getting wider and wider as well . So I think that's one of the pieces If we can predict future outcomes of that partner . Indeed , on one hand , in terms of enablement , but also in general , what type of actions do we see they take and what is that going to tell us about future growth In terms of revenue ? I think that's where it becomes really interesting , because then you can serve as a lot more partners in a digital way , but then step in with the human touch where the AI tells you to do so . Yeah .
Speaker 1Here . What I would do is I would be careful with one thing , because most of the AI that's getting pressed these days and I don't know if you guys agree with this is LLM and those are based on language , so they're very content driven . I don't think anybody's yet 100% sure how good these models are on the data , and we started some testing on Tidwit . We've got some reports , et cetera , and you would feed those reports into the model . We've got a mixed bag of results .
Speaker 1What I'd be careful about as part of our industry within the ecosystem segment is to over-promise based on language models to deliver AI within specific predictive analytics . I'd be careful about that . Will it emerge ? Probably . Will the LLMs be where it emerges ? I'm not sure , but I know that we can deliver today in a lot of the things that we've been discussing , which is regenerative content creation , porting knowledge and all that kind of stuff . Ai can deliver 100% curation , all that kind of stuff . Assured the analytics . I'd be careful with that because I don't know if it's 100% there yet on the predictive analytics side and we need to be careful to commit to that because you can get all kinds of results .
Speaker 2And do you think because I'm certainly reading very good analysis , but this might be a bit predictive based on a walled garden ? Right , the narrow you can make your data set , the deep you can make that data set , then you can make very , very specific uh predictions that typically uh tend to work very well . Obviously , where the ecosystem gets well , how good is your data ? How much data is it statistically relevant ? That's when it starts to become more fragile and , like you say , the last thing you want to be doing is making data-informed decisions based on bad data , because that's how we make horrendous mistakes .
Speaker 1Yeah , and here the biggest thing is that we're LLMs specifically , and we can see the emergence of a lot of different types of AI and we will models that feed into ecosystems , and so the way , for example , that Tidwit applies AI is we can basically plug in any of those LLMs and non-LLMs into the ecosystem platform that we've got . This is how we developed it architecturally . This said , right now it's very early in the game for the mathematical element of AI that delves much more into the BI space , which has been around for a while , but the AI predictive analytics based on certain LLMs that's a big question mark . So it's a mixed bag of results . At this point , I don't know if you've seen that or if you guys have done testing . We've done testing and we've seen some mixed bag of results .
Speaker 4Yeah , I do understand what you mean . I think that's coming to your point indeed , like if you analyze the wrong data , or like that's what you need to be crystal clear on Do we have the right data ?
Speaker 1And do we have the right model to understand that data ? Yeah , because you could feed it a lot of different types of data . But if the model is not properly , you know you could have a doctor , you can have an engineer , and both of them are brilliant but you put the engineer to solve a medical problem . I wouldn't want that doctor to be treating me , or vice versa . I'd want the doctor to build a bridge for me . I wouldn't want that .
Speaker 2And I think we're going to see and I want to see if I can fuse these two messages together I think we're going to see partner programs develop development massively change over the next years as we deepen channels , as we try and access more markets using ecosystems more effectively .
Speaker 1Can you talk to what you're seeing in terms of partner program development ? In terms of enablement ? Yeah , what we're seeing is particularly let me focus on IT , sure , because that might be a little bit , because in other industries it might be slightly different , but within IT , what we're seeing is kind of there were traditionally three types of well . Let me summarize them in three . You've got the reseller type , partners and disties , as well as the FARs . You have the technological partners and then you've got the GSIs and the SI partners right . What is happening right now ?
Speaker 1As the industry has grown , there's a lot of less emphasis on the transactional side and a lot more emphasis on the servicing side , particularly on the larger partners .
Speaker 1They're focused a lot more on being able to deliver higher quality services , and so that will have direct impacts on enablement , because those large guys are prioritizing enablement over everything else .
Speaker 1The smaller SaaS players and we were talking about this a little bit earlier on are always going to be more focused on the transactional , what we call EcoSsell or co-sell . It's interchangeable for us , eco-sell kind of initiatives , and so we're in a segment where we're sitting right in the middle . We can kind of service the transactional by empowering them with a lot of content and we can service the larger guys by providing them a whole lot more content . I think there's a shift in terms of that to the larger guys , and those guys are looking for massive enablement initiatives , and to us that's great because that's what we've been doing all along . The smaller players will continue to do the transactional , but I tend to think that the industry is kind of moving in terms of , like you know , there's a move towards some of those largest . The tech partnerships are a totally different piece that we can talk about later if you'd like .
Speaker 2Rick , I'd love to come to your partner programs about it .
Speaker 4Yeah , maybe to touch upon that a bit more . I think , on one hand , indeed , everyone wants to work with the GSIs and I think because they are the largest . But there , immediately , we also state the problem Everyone wants to work with the GSIs . So I think that's what we see in a lot of conversations we're having with families who are creating enablement programs and thinking , well , are we going to enter it ? It's actually really difficult because there's such competition
Strategic Channel Development in Tech
Speaker 4there .
Speaker 4We actually also see a different trend where more and more people are really looking at how can we serve long-term or how can we be there at a very early stage and we always prefer to compare to football here in the Netherlands or in the UK like scout the talent as early as possible , create a lot of loyalty , create a good relationship there and then grow together in something big . And I think that's a very interesting way of looking at that . And therefore also going back to the doing more with less the only way you can serve that long tail of partners is with doing more with less . You need still , you need digital , you need AI and need to generate a lot of content for them , and I think that's in terms of Parker program . We see a lot of focus on that long tail to do that properly , also because sometimes it's difficult to get in in the right way with with the gni yeah , it's about again how do you build a distinctive position ?
Speaker 3because if everybody's doing the same thing , that's going to be difficult , and so what I see is that companies starting to ask question more about why , why , why , who and what . Why do we want this ? I mean , what , what , what is the goal ? That's really doing the same as a competitor , or is it to drive sales and disk order , or is it a more long-term thing ? Next question is then who do we need to enable ? Is it just two sales guys at the partner , or do we want every consultant within one of the big four to be aware of our offering , which requires something completely different . And the rest is what ? What do we do to enable them ? Is it provide information ? Is it give sales incentive ? Is it training ? I mean , the diversity has become huge . So I think we also need to think through much more strategically why we do things and with who we want to do it , and then what we need to offer .
Speaker 1Yeah , I love the way that you , you know the who , why and what . I love the way that you , you know the who , why and what , or the who , what and why . I love that . And you'll find , with different programs , a different focus . And , you know , the latest blog that I wrote basically is EcoCell or Eco-enabled chicken or egg . I called it . That was the blog .
Speaker 1And you'll find some companies investing , you know , putting more effort into the eco-sell for the transactional part , and others checkboxing the eco-enabled because , if they , we're interested in going into the GSI segment , but they won't even give us the time of day , what is it that we need ? Well , we told them , listen , I mean , what we can advise you is what others are doing . And if you can't enable or co-enable at scale with these GSIs , they're so massive that they won't even give you , you know , at the time of day . They need a solution that will touch , as you well said , maybe or you also alluded to it a second ago tens of thousands , hundreds of thousands of people . If you come in with a solution that's going to engage with a hundred of their potential , you know , consultants forget about it it's just not going to scale enough and it's not enough interest to them . The smaller guys prefer the transactional bit and so you kind of have to see that strategy which our Peter just you know I like that .
Speaker 2Yeah , For me , I think one of the huge mistakes that I see people making within the channel is they're trying to dip their toe in and it's like , oh , we're going to
The Evolution of Partner Programs
Speaker 2try it . And it's like , well , that's guaranteed to fail . Because when everyone else is fully committing and they're building deep and rich partner programs focusing on sourcing deals , supporting deals and really driving progressive growth , why would a partner be interested in working very closely with you when you're up against a Microsoft who have built their entire go-to-market motion on building the best partner program they can possibly build , and you're going to dip your toe in and then blame your partner team or that area of the business for not winning that land ? It's crazy .
Speaker 4I think if there is one trend that I see is that there is no one generic partner program anymore . I think , looking at the examples we're giving here , global system integrators like Deloitte and Accenture require such a different approach and enablement strategy as what you see with the local SMB companies , the value-added resellers , managed service providers , and therefore that segmentation of partners is so crucial really finding out what do these with , the why , how , what . You need to do that for every partner segment and then you can really drive with the right strategy in mind and the right outcome . You want to drive your enablement programs towards that partner and you're going to make the way more happy because they receive the type of content they want actually and therefore the end users are more successful and everyone wins in the ecosystem yeah , our peter .
Speaker 2I'd love to get your thoughts on on where you think partner programs should be developing . What competitive edge would you be if you're running a global program ? What would you be looking to iterate on ?
Speaker 3Yeah , I would be interested in specialization and delivering different business models for different partners , which tied into what you just said . I think I remember , yeah , still 10 years ago , we only had the bronze silver . Well , you're already laughing a bit about it . They're completely gone , which leads to your point that you need to step up your game and also for your partners , you need to come up with an interesting business model instead of only pushing things out .
Speaker 3I think another thing that ties into that is are we really only going to measure sales ? Because , again , for different business models , you may want to do different things , and perhaps for the first year , it's much more interesting how many people have come to our training session . It could be a more interesting indicator than how much sales did they bring in , than how much sales did they bring in . And certainly in IT , there's a lot of focus on sales , and I think that's not always a good thing . Some solutions require some development time and there may be quite different indicators that you have to measure instead of just looking at what are the dollars they bring .
Speaker 1Yeah , and here the multifaceted element of ecosystems , I think , are usually missed . That was maybe in the early years , where some people think ecosystems and ecosystem platform tools are just about EcoCell , or others think it's just about EcoEnable or Eco , for example , in terms of marketing functions et cetera . I think it's a mix of all of these and there might be an order , but ultimately you're going to actually have to do a bunch of all for you , kind of like a mix of all to get to the goals that you're trying to achieve here . What's really important , what we've seen from customers is not where they start , but where they see themselves ending and then kind of putting all the puzzle pieces of the puzzle together to get there .
Speaker 1Putting all the puzzle pieces of the puzzle together to get there . If they just bet their eggs on one , they're going to fall short because of what Art , peter and Rick just mentioned . They might need co-enablement , but really all they knew about was co-sell . So sales were coming in . Hey , our ecosystem strategy is not working . Well , that's not the right conclusion , right , and so setting the strategy is really important , lining up the goals is really important , and getting the tools in place holistically is also super important .
Speaker 4But they need to add an example to what our leader said . They need to round measuring the right things Like . What's booming in SaaS right now is technology partnerships , and everyone has come from partner source revenues , so they need to bring referrals and of course , that's very important , like that's the number one objective eventually , but it's the outcome we're driving long-term . Let's say , you're building a program , you're enabling those partners . Actually , what we should be looking at way more is how many integrations do we already have with a partner ? What does this do to our product usage with those partners ? And then what does that do to net revenue retention , upsells , and then , if you see positive results there , you have a very strong business case to drive that into the rest of the company of your partner . Look at this we drive more net revenue retention , more upsell , more product usage . Csms will be happy , account executives will be happy and everything else becomes easier if you have a lot more grip on those leading metrics .
Speaker 2I think one of the things that I often see within a partner program is this fallacy that you build it and it's done , you've got to build it and then great , we're locked in for the next 10 years . And I actually want to take a question from the audience , because I think it ties into this very clearly . Because obviously , you don't build a partner program and it's done , but how do you ensure channel marketing strategies remain adaptable in the face of market and changing market conditions ? Rick , given that you're our marketing guru , what do you think we should be learning from how we still maintain agility within an ecosystem ? Because I think that's one of the real challenges that we face is when you run a direct organization , we want to change our marketing strategy . It's very fast . So how can we ensure that when market conditions change , we're able to drive that messaging and those changes through our ecosystem ?
Speaker 4Yeah , it's a very valid question . Looking at the end of the question , simply , when is it proactive versus static ? That's a really good question . And then , because it's all about sentiment , right , and how your partners eventually adopt it , and then also the end-chance , of course . I think , looking at that , it's always really important to look at what's happening in the world , both in the positive side , with trends like AI where you can maybe jump on , but also , indeed , around the recession .
Speaker 4I can speak from personal experience . At JamX , for example , we were also figuring it out at a certain moment , but then we found out , yeah , everyone needs to do more with less . So you need to wrap that message into everything you do and show how can I provide value to you if you do more . Show how can I provide value to the thing you if you do more with less . I think the same as if you're in a channel marketing role , let's say , at an IT event there , whether it's hardware or cyber security or whatsoever .
Speaker 4Look at what type of trends , what's happening in the world and how can we tie that into channel marketing program , always in our with the end goal in mind . Stay very close to your own core values and what your end goal is which are company , which are program , and there you tie in the trends to get the traction , because it just works in marketing to teach you up on the trends . But stay true and close to yourself and the end goal in mind . Otherwise it can feel like it's just like pivoting really hard all the time .
Speaker 2Yeah , one of the things that I think really , really I see sometimes and you're right to an extent with that marketing right , you've got to jump on on some of these trends but you can really tell when it's the core , is what someone's speaking about and when it's a fluffy thing that we're just gonna talk . Every business I now see is an ai business and you can really separate the ones who . This is ingrained in what in what you do , versus oh , we've done something a bit flashy . And in my mind , that's a very risky behavior . Right , because the last thing in an ecosystem , the one thing we need , is integrity , because once that integrity is broken , the ecosystem dies . Right , and so well . I'd love to get your thoughts on how do we maintain agility , how do we drive that into the ecosystem and continue to maintain that integrity at the same time ?
Speaker 1Well , I'm going to try and hit three birds with a stone , because the prior question is on blockchain and ecosystem , and I think I have an answer to this and it answers . It also touches on the integrity issue . I've seen blockchain being utilized within things like badging tools and things like that . You know , just from an architectural perspective , the problem with blockchain is , for the most part , is you have to put your data out on the blockchain , and that is a big no-no for a lot of organizations , and so the platforms that we're seeing that are deploying ecosystems excuse me , the organizations that are deploying ecosystem platforms they're not asking us for blockchain . Blockchain is not a requirement . In fact , in my opinion , it would be a turnoff for them if we said your data is going to be out on the blockchain . This also applies for AI . Some of the cases that came out in the news is , for example , was it Samsung or one of those large Korean k-retsus ? They were so excited about AI , they put a bunch of their data on AI to run reports , etc . And then those reports became accessible , and so they panicked . And so I think , from that perspective , ecosystems are , I think , the middle of the way . You're not going full-blown B2C , opening it up , be it AI or blockchain or any of that , and you're not keeping it closed to such a degree where you're really kind of almost clogging any type of innovation .
Speaker 1And that answers the second point , which is about the marketing . I think the question of keeping marketing strategies . Marketing strategies are going to shift . The question is how do you keep everyone aligned ? And you could do it without the ecosystem , without having an ecosystem , or you could do it having an ecosystem . In my mind , having an ecosystem , for example , in marketing tools such as what ChanX offers , is amazing , because what you're able to do is you're able to . Essentially , if you have to shift your strategy wisely , so , as opposed to in a panic mode , then you could shift it and everybody else is up to speed that same instant . That is a very different approach from shifting a strategy and having to wait two years for it to deploy , two years for it to deploy . So I think timing , from that perspective also is a key people and keeps the integrity within your channel , because your message is controlled to a certain degree but , at the same time , opened up to your channel for them to push it out .
Speaker 3I think to the IJR question . I mean , you assume that's all pushing out . We have to change our partners . You could also say you know our partners are also a source of information and they give us an indication about where the market is heading and that keeps us agile . Because if you simply think about your ecosystem as , oh , we have to push something to them and they have to know they can also be a source of change and information , so that also , when you have to push out a different message , it works because they already know where the market is at . So we shouldn't see the ecosystem as a that was a one-directional .
Speaker 1And an example of this I agree 100% . An example of this is a large telco in the US . I don't know if you know that case , but for us so that very . It's a massive telco in the US . They deployed an ecosystem on Tidbit enablement with some of their largest 20 of their largest global partners . And what they did is they said we want it to be bi-directional . And so we said , well , yeah , you could exchange knowledge . And they said , well , it's not just about exchanging knowledge , we want the solutions that have been built by the partners on our technology to be searched by our internal people as well . So it became a bi-directional flow of knowledge from them to their partners and back , you know , for a showcase of those partners into their own ecosystem as well . 100% .
Speaker 4Partners are closest to the market eventually and therefore the best source of information . No matter what type of program you want to build around enablement , marketing , technical , et cetera they know best what's playing with the end use . Matter what type of program you want to build around enablement , marketing , technical , etc .
Speaker 2They know best what's playing with the end use and therefore co-creation of your program and enablement is a really strong thing to do and to me it's just an example of and we often joke here at channex is that you know the channel can work the same way I did in the 90s , right , it's like we pick up the phone , we call the partner , hopefully they do some business , and we call them next quarter and hopefully they've got a deal for us , and it's just technology letting us down . Because if we could have the bi-directional communication work really well we're going to have the data flow work really well then we wouldn't work the same way , we wouldn't make a decision on high and push . It would be a far more collaborative and , I think , a much more accurate experience . Because , as Rick says , if I'm based in the Netherlands , I have no idea what the Brazilian economy is doing , right ? No real indication on how market forces are different over there . I'll tell you who does , my partners who live and breathe there , and we need to get that communication working backwards and forwards .
Speaker 2Another question from Teresa . So what would a good first step or next step be for companies to integrate co-enablement sale and marketing into their strategy ? How can a smaller company benefit from these ecosystems ? Well , you've obviously spoken a lot about co-enabled co-sale . Is that only for the top performing businesses , the biggest businesses in the world , or can smaller businesses benefit from it as well ?
Speaker 1No smaller businesses can benefit as well . I mean , we've got some SMBs deploying it . I think the smaller businesses have the advantage of not having legacy systems that they have to kind of rip and replace or integrate into , so they have less baggage to carry . So size in that sense doesn't really matter that much .
Ecosystem Strategy for Driving Partner Program
Speaker 1Now I think to Teresa's question , which is co-enable , co-sell or core marketing .
Speaker 1I'd go back to what Art Peters was highlighting with respect to the strategy , and Rick pointed to it . If they have enough resources to deploy multiple workloads , if we call each one of them a workload , then perfect because one feeds into the other . For example , if you can get visibility into which one of your partners are the most co-enabled , you know that that's going to be the partner that's going to likely be the best to co-sell . So you apply more MDF in their direction . As an example , right , believe it or not .
Speaker 1Organizations , global chip makers I won't mention their names . Us-based organizations , global chip makers I won't mention their names US-based will still , to this day , distribute MDF without realizing ex ante . So , in advance , they dish out all of this MDF marketing funding without really knowing or having a guide for which one of their partners are going to perform better . What is the best leading indicator for that , for example , is you know again , you would deploy , for example , co-marketing or co-enablement and then you would tag along with CoSell . Now , if you have to make a choice , that's when you start looking at the order of things . But ideally it's a mix of these three together and I regard co-enablement and co-marketing as kind of like siblings . Co-sell is a little bit more focused on just sales , execs and alliance , whereas co-marketing and co-enablement is really org-wide for us . So it's a matter of order , it's a matter of resources , but ultimately a mix of all of these will be what drives the partner program ecosystem strategy towards success .
Speaker 2Yeah . So for me , balance across . Those three are what makes them and we touched on Microsoft earlier and anyone who's listened to partnerships on Rebels will start laughing , because I'm such a huge fan for how they go to market and what you see there is . They know it's not just a marketing strategy , it's not a sales strategy . And it's not just a marketing strategy . It's not a sales strategy and it's not an enablement strategy . You've got to pull those pieces together because it would be like , oh well , we only have AEs but we don't have BDRs . We only have BDRs but we don't have AEs . No , the ecosystem works because we need everyone to understand how to sell it , how to market it , and actually know what they're talking about . Rick , in terms of your perspective , how can we drive for smaller businesses in particular ? I'd love to double-click on the marketing element . How can smaller ecosystems or smaller businesses really leverage marketing to drive into the channel ? That's a good question .
Speaker 4I think , before I dive into that , what I was thinking about just now is again , really , with our business framework , why , who , what you start with your why , which is usually very end-user focused as well , what kind of value do we want to bring to the end-user ? And then , what type of end-user ? If it's very SMB focused , you're probably going to work a lot more with value-added resellers . The more smaller part this is where enterprise folks will be leaning towards global system integrators etc partner , but it's a shared enterprise focus . We'll be leaning towards global system integrators etc . And if I would be a small company that doesn't have a lot of resources and I need to choose , I would first be extremely clear on what end-user customer do we want to service . Based on that , what type of partner fits that most well , and then , what kind of enablements does this partner need the most ?
Speaker 4And I think Will just taught me actually that in GSIs they don't want to start selling before they are trained . So there it's fairly simple you need to start with enablement and upskilling before you can even get into the co-selling motion . And then bringing that back to the SMB motion , there you work with value-added resellers , with managed service providers . The biggest difficulties they all had is generating demand . They have great technical people , they have quite a sales army , but then usually less than one FTO marketing that needs to drive opportunities with multiple vendors and that's very difficult for them . So if I indeed towards SMB partners , there should be a lot of focus on co-marketing . How can I help them to generate opportunities so we can start the co-selling motion as such and I agree with Will in terms of the siblings Co-selling is the result of the goods and the co-enabler of the co-marketing . So find out what type of partner we're going to serve and then pick your battles , if you had to choose one , but indeed I agree that the combination is best .
Speaker 3And sometimes they also need to change their mindset because they say , yeah , but then we have to talk to these partners . It costs a lot of time and we don't have time and I say , yeah , okay , but that's the time in the beginning , but after that we can use the time of your partners and you will save a lot of time on marketing .
Speaker 1But that's what I hear a lot with the smaller businesses we don't have time yet One thing I would add to this is that when we're starting to move into the industry space now , we're seeing less emphasis on co-sell because some of these industries are not in the sales function government , for example , education you mentioned nonprofit , et cetera .
Speaker 1So when we talk about you know , one of the questions is well , where does co-enablment start and where does it end ? And you know , to me co-enablment is essentially is all the functions before marketing or , together with marketing , right before the sale . So if sales is not what these organizations within industry are looking for healthcare , for example healthcare might be hospitals looking to interact with one another , et cetera , share data while protecting it for GDPR or HIPAA or whatever kind of stuff they're looking to create ecosystems that share knowledge , but they're not really selling to each other . So it's not a sales function . So one thing I would also kind of highlight here is , as we start moving our solutions beyond IT into new arenas like industry et cetera , there might be a slight shift of emphasis from just ecosystem EcoCell or EcoCell into some of the other kind of workloads , like whether it be upskilling , whether it be workflows , whether it be ecosystem workspaces , a whole bunch of workloads that sit squarely within the eco-enablement and the eco-marketing space .
Speaker 2I really like what you're saying around eco-enablement and eco-marketing being siblings , because if you really think about it , when we market , even in the IT space , to end users , we are giving the end users the information that triggers a buy-in . You are enabling the end users with information . So it's really the messaging vehicle . But whether we're doing that into an internal ecosystem or an external ecosystem , we're trying to take the right message to the right user and I think if we , if we are constantly obsessed in ecosystems with how do we maximize value and I think this is where sometimes people get it very wrong and they go how can we monetize them right ? It's not , it's how can we provide value to the partner who then provides value to an end user ? That's when suddenly we build partnerships that really stand the test of time and work very well . Peter , I know you think a lot about ecosystems , not necessarily in the IT space . Do you see that big shift away from co-sell , especially , I suppose , in non-profit and far more focused on marketing in the neighborhood ?
Speaker 3Yeah , I think you see it across all kinds of industries . I've done some research based on LinkedIn data to look at where do we see this most ? Obviously , IT and tech , but automotive , for example , banking , are really big . Where we see it still less is more in construction and chemicals . We need more on special industries , Although , surprisingly , even there I find organizations who do this and will invest also in ecosystem and in digital ecosystem , because , surprisingly , also in chemicals there's a lot to do . So I think we've only scratched the surface . If we only look at IT . Going back to the discussion we had earlier , you see it across the board .
Speaker 2Sorry , Jens , I'm going to put you right on the spot because we have two minutes left . I'd like to get 30 seconds from each of you around why we should be optimistic about ecosystems over the next 12 months .
Speaker 1Well , it's a massive opportunity . I mean not only IT but all of the industries , and we're very happy with where we are in eco-enabled . I'm extremely optimistic and bullish for the future , although there might be with recession and stuff like that , but that's just short term . Long term , extremely bullish for our segment , for our different solutions and for the readiness of the market to start assuming them .
Speaker 3Well , I think all companies start to turn into ecosystem companies , and even those that don't want to . I've also worked with companies that go direct and say , yeah , but let's see what are your partners , and then it turns out they have much more partners than they actually realize . They're just not making any use of them . So it's also getting that mind shift and board level , and I think that's really happening across a lot of different industries .
Speaker 2Well , I'm certainly a career man , so it'd be a mistake if I didn't give my boss the final word . Excellent .
Speaker 4I think there's nothing better to scale eventually as a business than partnership and the channel , and I think what I like so much about the ecosystem is that you're multiplying network effects and that's the thing what's happening . I always think in vertical partnerships , which is , channel , and horizontal partnerships between companies and alliances , and you get like all of these cross relationships and it just when I visualize it in my mind . That's where it's like this is going to be an amazing opportunity for everyone in our system .
Speaker 2Well , first off , I'd love to thank you all for your insights . I appreciate we've missed a few questions , but we will follow back on all of those after the session . Thank you very much for tuning in and listening and we'll see you next time .