Partnerships Unraveled
The weekly podcast where we unravel the mysteries of partnerships and channel to help you become more successful.
Partnerships Unraveled
Patrick Piwowarczyk - Winning with Transparency and Channel Resilience
This week on Partnerships Unraveled, we’re joined by Patrick Piwowarczyk, head of AV integrator channels and alliances at HP, who brings deep, hard-earned experience from his time at Polycom, Plantronics, and now HP. Together, we unpack what it truly takes to lead through change in the channel.
From navigating major acquisitions to launching new products while managing partner expectations, Patrick shares the leadership principles that keep ecosystems aligned and thriving.
In this episode, we explore:
- What separates channel leaders who thrive during integrations from those who struggle
- How to execute new product launches without eroding current momentum
- Why trust, transparency, and long-term relationships matter more than ever
- The art of partner enablement across a broad portfolio from headsets to collaboration tools to PCs
- How HP supports partners in selling smarter, not just more
We also dive into how channel veterans like Patrick are helping partners think more like consultants, focusing on customer outcomes, not just products and what that means for the future of partner programs.
If you’re thinking about partner education, portfolio expansion, or leading through change, this episode is packed with takeaways you won’t want to miss.
Connect with Patrick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patpiwo/
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Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries about partnerships, and channel on a weekly basis. My name is Alex Whitford, I'm the VP of Revenue here at Chanext and this week I'm very excited to welcome our special guest, pat. How are you doing? Doing well, doing well, good to see you, Alex.
Speaker 1:Yes, good to see you. I'm excited about this one. As you know from our prep call, I've sort of drifted in a similar ecosystem at the infancy of my career, so I'm excited to explore some of those topics. Maybe, if they're uninitiated, you could give us an introduction to who you are and what you do.
Speaker 2:Sure Yep. So, pat P Orchik, I run our AV integrator channel and alliances team at HP on the poly side of the HP business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice. Yeah, I was a Polycom funded head all those years ago and so, yeah, it was a bit of a product nerd back in, I suppose, 2018. So it was funny to hear some of the old product names again. You've navigated some big shifts when it came from Polycom to Plantronics and now into the HP ecosystem From your seat. What separates channel leaders who are able to successfully adapt and sort of navigate through those big tidal shifts?
Speaker 2:You know, I think the biggest challenge I think is you want to get grounded and be patient. Things are always not what they seem, so there will always be big rocks that you need to move and sometimes it takes longer. So I think patience is key. Have a good ear, be a good listener. I think that's probably good advice in anything you do. But I'd say, you know, going through integration is always a challenge and it's look, you got to. You have a good face about it and continue to move forward, be vocal and you know. Once again, I think patience is key.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can imagine being a leader in a channel organization during one of those integrations is difficult because you've got to give messaging internally and give that same messaging to partners and maybe even to end users. There must be quite a few spinning plates. I can imagine it requires a bit of a tight grip and a steady hand to sort of navigate through that.
Speaker 2:I have a good way to say it. Yeah, there's lots of plates spinning and messaging is probably continually evolving, based on integration, right? Nothing is truly what it seems sometimes, so you have to adapt and maybe change messaging and really be flexible. So I think that's something as a channel leader flexibility is key.
Speaker 1:I think one of the most complicated things in the channel is new product launches. I always used to sort of wince when I used to hear new products coming, because I sat in distribution and that meant we've got to hold old stock. But we've got to get people excited about the new product but not damage this quarter's revenue while managing next quarter's excitement. Looking back, what are some of the hard-earned lessons that stuck with you around successfully launching new products?
Speaker 2:Well, I'd say it's always a challenge, right, and once again, sometimes it doesn't seem. A plan is a plan and you want to execute against that, but there's things that happen that you can't expect, whether that's delays, whether that is product challenges, right, ready to launch, and then maybe something's wrong with it. So, once again, I think patience is critical in that scenario as well, and I think you need to understand what's the best balancing act you can do, especially with new product introduction, because if that is also coinciding with a particular product going away, that is a serious balancing act, because if the NPI, the new product introduction, is delayed for some reason, then maybe you need to extend the life of the older product, so that becomes a challenge. I think communication is key on that, working with all the answer teams that are with you in the boat, right, so no one's doing this by themselves. It's an exciting time to launch something new. The execution to the field sometimes is a challenge, and I think that's where you've got to balance it all.
Speaker 1:And I can imagine our audience are going to have a lot of sympathy when I say this next bit, but you are having to balance new products, introductions and mergers simultaneously, which I mean of the vector of complexity. That sounds like a real challenge. How do you build that messaging into those channel partners so that they can balance? Hang on a second these brands that I know and trust are coming together and new products is coming.
Speaker 2:I think our channel, you know once again, I think one thing that always stays consistent over the years is the people right. So the business cards change, the name stays the same. I think when you come with credibility and trust and work with your partners, it's key to communicate often, tell them what you can so that they can prepare, and sometimes they need to prepare differently if there's challenges. So I think transparency for the channel is great, being candid with them where you can. We want everyone to be successful. We don't want to hurt them in any NPIs or anything that we do with them in our program. So I think transparency is key and building that trust and sharing with them everything you can and when something goes wrong, make it right, listen to them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I like your imagery there about the business card. But I think the thing I love about this industry is that I don't think there is an industry maybe in the world where your reputation matters more because someone that you, exactly this environment where actually things are a bit unstable and people are nervous, having that level of trust and relationship with your partners, and maybe that relationship's gone back 10 or 15 years. I can imagine, and I know certainly from the Polytimes, that there were really sort of veteran people within that organization. I can imagine that's really helpful to sort of calm the nerves of partners when there is a bit of instability.
Speaker 2:When you yeah, if you want to, in these challenging times, whatever they may be right product launches, program changes, you name it right the economy, the market itself, tariffs, right, I mean everything. There's so much going on All you can do is really continue to work your relationship currency, make sure it's still good, and working with your partners up front, I think, is the most critical thing. And, yes, stability and trust is critical in these times and hopefully the people you work with are still the same people you want to work with, and vice versa, so it's critical.
Speaker 1:Maybe flowing into some brighter and hopefully easier to navigate times, although tariffs are making life slightly complicated as HP's collaboration suite grew more integrated. As you brought those technologies together, how did you evaluate which AV or system integrator partner to truly sell the full portfolio versus those who really should stay within their niche and their superpower?
Speaker 2:You know, I think it always begins with the partner and really what is how they want to see their business grow? I think, yes, with our much larger portfolio, there's a great opportunity for partners to lean in. It has to make sense for them, right? So I think what we try to do is show them the light, the use case, the area where they can make money and really support their customers, and I think that's a great opportunity. I mean, look, we've seen this now a couple of times. We saw it with the merger of Polycom and Plantronics. Right, will partners sell video? Will partners sell headset? Right? They're all different type of partners.
Speaker 2:We had some great learnings there. It sounded great on paper and it takes a long time. Same thing as we're going through that now too. Right, as we have legacy HP partners that are used to selling the legacy portfolio of HP. Now having the ability to sell collaboration, it's also showing them where it makes sense for their business. So it's a big education.
Speaker 2:But I think any partner, there's going to be a couple of things that they care about. One can they make money in this space and investing time in the portfolio? Two, what's the lift for them? Is it a hard lift? How much resources do they need to put against that? And three, are they supporting their customers that they sell to today, or does this provide them the opportunity to sell to new customers? So I think those are the questions that we try to help answer for them, to show them the light. I would say that not every partner says yep, I'm all in for other reasons, but at least we try to bring them to the table and show them where they can make money and hopefully it's good for their business.
Speaker 1:And so in that instance you're almost sat there from almost a business consultancy perspective, right. Yeah, a little bit. I think that's one of the things that I really find M&A really interesting, because let's take Polycom and Plantronics hey, that technology stack fully makes sense, but sometimes the buying persona isn't the same for those different technologies and that's something for a partner that I imagine you have to really take them on that journey to understand that, hey, maybe centralized IT procurement's not the same as the regional office who's able to make certain buying decisions. And you almost have to, as a sort of McKinsey consultant, would take them through that pure commercial understanding away from even product stuff, right.
Speaker 2:Spot on. I just had this conversation just yesterday with a partner. As their business is evolving from moving just strictly AV becoming more managed service, they're looking at the entire stack of that in the customer journey and where they fit. It is a consultancy discussion, I mean to your point, and it's really sitting down with them and showing them where they need to be trained, where they need champions to step up and say I'm going to focus on this other product line. And you're absolutely right.
Speaker 2:I think it is understanding that the customer stakeholder is not the same. The IT CIO making the big decision on video is probably not the same person making the decision on headsets and other things. So I think that's something that is a learning. You can't just assume is the same person and the margin stack is different, right? So the product portfolio is very different. Same thing. When you look at the HP entire portfolio, it's different. But there is a magnitude of benefit when you start stacking the whole portfolio. Our partner program allows the ability for partners to lean in in other areas and get trained up and there is a healthy margin benefit to them by selling the entire portfolio. But you got to show them the journey for sure.
Speaker 1:And so let's say, you've landed that view. I think one of the things I'm really HP, who we partner with at Chanext and I think is one of the most interesting brands I think in the market because it is such a broad portfolio right, headset, pc, printer, security, collaboration that is about, especially from an enterprise perspective. That is about as broad a portfolio, I think, as exists in the market. How do you incentivize but maybe drive partners to understand that hey, maybe I'm used to making very high margin and not so high revenue and now I should chase this high revenue, low margin stack to bring it all together. There's an opportunity, but there's also a defensive play there. Talk to me how you educate the partner on how to do that.
Speaker 2:Well, one, once again, it's a lot of education. One is making sure they understand the targeted customer stakeholder they're selling to. Two, I think we need to show them that there is the ability to sell more. Don't look at them as if I sell this. It's the same margin as that. You need to show them the way and how the partner program can incentivize them as well by selling the whole portfolio, specializing themselves in certain pieces of our product lines. But the other thing you have to start also considering is really what does that mean to the customer? Or what does it mean to the partner when they start talking about the whole portfolio? One thing that they hopefully entrench themselves is account control.
Speaker 2:The reality is, when you look at our entire portfolio, because they're different stakeholders inside a large enterprise customer, as an example, it won't be the same stakeholder deciding headsets, maybe even PCs, versus video. So it's critical to really understand the customer and make sure that if you get yourself embedded and they trust you, then they will. You know they will want you to take on the whole real estate if it makes sense and you have the expertise. And. But the reality is I see this all the time we have partners that go into opportunities. They sell video.
Speaker 2:Don't ask about the headset question, even though they might be consuming. The customer might be buying lots of headsets. I come back and want to educate partners and say, look, you need to tell that entire story, if not there'll be somebody else that comes in and says I can sell you the headsets and oh, by the way, I sell video too. So I think there's an opportunity here for partners to look at the entire landscape in their customer population there and really make an effort to ask more questions, be considered for other parts of the portfolio, so that they can hopefully be embedded and continue to maintain that account control, and that's critical.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think from a partner's perspective, what's the right phrase? The best form of defense is offense. Right, like, if you're not everywhere, in that account, with the different buying personas, you can very easily understand hey, this other partner has offered me a really great price on these headsets and now're willing to do a a deal to go and get more of that real estate. And if you're not everywhere, it's amazing how quickly that first domino can fall and sometimes and and then you're playing really defensively. Maybe you can talk us through. Um, I'm sure you have an example where or a partner has either been kicked out or managed to kick someone else out on the basis of, of playing that most effectively.
Speaker 2:We had a large partner that was 20 years selling this customer and this customer is a very large enterprise and they were focused on video. And we asked them hey, what are you doing about headset? They said you know, I'm really, my customer buys from me. They always buy from me, 20 years, right, and we've seen this movie before and that's great.
Speaker 2:But when it came down to the final RFP, and there was two RFPs one for video, one for headset they weren't really focused on the headset as much because it was call it the video, it was big iron, right, it was a little bit more appealing to what they were working with the customer.
Speaker 2:But the truth of the matter, they had another stakeholder inside the account that was just as I don't want to say powerful, but just as important as the CIO making the decision on the headset. And the partner came very close to losing that account and had a scramble last minute. And the partner came very close to losing that account and had a scramble last minute hey, we do headsets, by the way, no-transcript. And then the customer decided last minute you know, we want a single sources with one partner and they weren't talking about it. So it provided a last-minute scramble and the good news is the partner didn't lose it their long outstanding relationship with the customer. But I think it taught them a little bit of a lesson that you need to turn over every stone and make sure that they see what's underneath it.
Speaker 1:To turn over every stone and make sure that they see what's underneath it, and you know we talk a lot on this podcast around meeting the customer where they are. You can understand from a customer's perspective the value in single sourcing right, there's one throat to choke if anything goes wrong. We've got, I'm sure, improved pricing at the base of buying a far wider stack from you and so having the sort of humility to go okay, we need to really invest time in ourselves into our vendor relationship, to broaden our understanding, our product stack, because we're going to provide a greater level of service to our customer. You know that's, I think, what's so great about what HP are trying to deliver. The value to the customer is so much stronger.
Speaker 2:Great, and I think this is. It's a great time. When I look at everything that we have you know we've been just under three years now I believe we're close to three years that we've been acquired by HP. What we've seen is some amazing innovation, especially from the PC technology that HP has had for years. We see now the value of that. The newest HP laptops are now embedded with the Poly Studio Audio innovations as well as Poly Camera Pro on the camera side, so some real great camera innovations. So we're starting to see that portfolio cross bounds inside the entire HP portfolio, which is exciting. It's an amazing time to see some of those technologies we've been selling for years in collaboration start bleeding over and then getting embedded into the PC stack. So it's great.
Speaker 1:And that's some product innovation which I think. Look, obviously you've got these various very clever engineers in each sort of BU and it's great to see that cross-pollination. What else has evolved from a partner perspective to drive some of that cross-pollination?
Speaker 2:Well, I think what we've seen is we've seen partners that were large legacy HP partners that are starting to realize they weren't probably focused as much on collaboration. They're seeing the value if they did. Now, once again, you don't go into that as okay, I just added to my line card and sell it as is. I think that would be not a great planning for selling a new portfolio. But I think those that have leaned in legacy HP partners, they're seeing that there is value. They do want to set up a practice.
Speaker 2:We're showing them how to fish there in this new area and I think they're starting to see that there's a lot of value from our back-end programs as well as some of our front-end programs that we have. That really provides a really good healthy margin for them with our programs. So I think that's good and we're starting to see a lot of those people come around. I wouldn't say it's for everyone. I mean there are people that have been selling PC or print for a long time. That's their model. They're not interested in going past that. But we've seen a lot of people really lean into the rest of our Poly portfolio and are seeing the value of what it does for them.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Maybe pivoting slightly, I'm going to ask you my favorite question that I like to ask senior sort of veteran channel leaders If you're sitting down with a 22-year-old entering the channel today, what's the best bit of advice you'd give them to build a successful career like yours?
Speaker 2:One continue to listen, always listen. Do say what you mean, mean what you say, stand behind your word, build your credibility from day one. They have to trust you. This entire business is based on trust. My favorite saying I've got it back in the day. I mean this goes back, you know, 20, 24, 25 years ago, right? I mean when IAM was AOL or when I was at another company and we used Jabra. You know Jabra we used. Now we use Teams, we use Zoom. You know, my little tagline is if you say it, you do it.
Speaker 2:I think there's so many people in this industry that say certain things but then sometimes don't stick behind it. They're challenged with you know things and they have to back off from what they said. I feel like you got to build your credibility. So if I was talking to someone just starting out, I'd say you know, be be true to yourself and be true to your partners, stand behind what you say. And and if you say you're going to do something, you got to do it. So build your credibility, build trust right off the bat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's powerful. I had an old mentor of mine, a previous leader. He always said Alex, your reputation is built in the bad times Because I made a mistake, did a quote, took margin off rather than add margin on. So we ended up making a loss on a deal which, in distribution world, is a nightmare. And I wore the mistake, called the partner and said look, hey, I just want to let you know I made a massive mistake. I'm getting a load of flack for it, but look, it's on me. And so I just want to let you know why next time your price is going to be significantly higher. But here's why. And the guy came back and said hey, look, alex, don't worry, what we'll do is we'll flatten that, we'll take it off the next five deals, we'll we'll sort you out. So you make not very much money but across five deals and we'll make it right for you.
Speaker 1:Um, and I had a great relationship still do have a great relationship with that partner, but it was down to me just saying, hey, I made a huge mistake, but that's my fault, and just saying, hey, I made a huge mistake, but that's my fault. And and you know that that's on me. And what's ironic is, I think the humility for a 23 year old to call a senior person with a business and go and that's my bad um actually built more of a reputation than me doing all the things Right. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Credibility means everything. Um, look, you got to stand behind it. Um, you do good, bad or indifferent Right, and I think um forthcoming on some of these things or make it, make it right, and and that probably just shows what you know, their integrity and how things work.
Speaker 1:But I think it means a lot yeah, well, we like, uh, we like building on reputation here and we find that great guests recommend great guests. So we're always looking for an introduction into our next one. Pat, who did you have in mind?
Speaker 2:You know, I think a good friend of mine that I've worked with for a lot of years, Michelle Martin. She's had a competitor of ours but I think it's great to get her perspective. She's a senior leader, really good person, and I think very highly of her and I think she'd be a great guest for you guys.
Speaker 1:Awesome I and I think very highly of her and I think she'd be a great guest for you guys. Awesome, I'm excited to have Michelle on and Pat, thanks so much for sharing your wisdom today. It's been awesome, great. Take care, alex.