Michael Roch - Real Strategies for Building Strong Ecosystems

In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we sit down with Michael Roch, Partnerships Advisor and Founder at MHPR Advisors. With 25 years advising senior leaders on partnerships, alliances, and ecosystems across professional services, life sciences, and technology, Michael brings a rare cross-sector view of what actually makes channel and alliance programs thrive.

Michael opens with the honest observation that the technology channel gets a lot right and leads other sectors in how partnerships are built. Where he sees room for improvement is in three areas most companies quietly struggle with. One partner program rarely fits every partner type. Short-termism in reward structures still overweights the initial deal, when profitable growth comes from adoption, renewals, and expansion. And the partner experience often ends up harder than it needs to be. Underneath all of it, consistency is what most alliance managers underestimate. Institutional knowledge solves the hard problems, and turnover in the alliance seat is one of the biggest risks to it.

From there, Michael introduces the practical tool most ecosystems miss: the partnership health check. He distinguishes it from a structured reset, which is a bigger reevaluation done when something is clearly off. A health check is lighter, takes a week or two end to end, and revolves around five simple questions. Are we still aligned on outcomes? Is the business producing what we agreed to? Is the day-to-day model running smoothly? How is trust? What needs to change? Done every twelve to eighteen months, health checks are how alliance managers spot trends early and keep partnerships on track.

Michael closes with a forward-looking view: the future of ecosystems belongs to quality over quantity. AI-assisted decision-making, coordinated networks, and the discipline to focus on partners genuinely aligned with the business are what will define the next chapter of channel work.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Background

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we dive deep into the mysteries and the secrets of partnerships on the channel. My name is Michelle, I'm head of marketing at 10x and I'll be your host for today. Now, today I'm sitting down with Michael Roche, founder and partnerships advisor at MHPR Advisors. It's great to see you, Michael. How are you doing? I'm great. Thank you. Thanks for having me today. Absolutely. I'm really looking forward to this one. To start off, simple question: could you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and a little bit about MHPR?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Sure, I'd be happy to. So the short version of a long story is that for the last 25 years, I've helped senior leaders in relation to partnerships, alliances, ecosystems worldwide. The biggest topics are around gain sharing, around governance, around strategy. Founded my first business in 2006, invested in a couple of more startups since then. And as you've mentioned, I founded MHPR Advisors as the Partnerships Advisory. We're now about 10 years old, and we advise on partnerships and everything else around that. We do serve clients across the globe, across mainly professional services, lab sciences, tech sector, those are the three big verticals. And I'm delighted to have this conversation with you around channel and ecosystem.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Wonderful. I'm really looking forward to this one as well. So taking a look at your background, hearing what you're saying now, you've worked across joint ventures, strategic alliances, professional services, tech channel partnerships. We tend to talk a lot about the human aspect of partnerships in this uh podcast, and I'm sure we'll touch on that as well. But yeah, while so many partnerships primarily rely on human-to-human relationship building, I want to start off with looking at an area where technology might matter at least equally as much as the human side, which is tech alliances. Tech alliances are generally long-term, complicated engagements with a bunch of moving parts. So, based on your broad experience, where do you see the tech channel making mistakes when it comes to building a future-proof tech ecosystem?

Three Ecosystem Mistakes To Fix

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Yeah, that's a great question. Fundamentally, I think that tech um partnerships, tech channel uh ecosystems don't get a lot of things wrong. So for a lot of other sectors, how the technology sector has built partnerships to go to market to develop solutions is has really been leading and uh has been an example for other sectors. So I want to just get that out of the way first, right? So when you're in the in the technology uh channel ecosystem space, a lot of it is is is is leading for other sectors. Then when we're looking at mistakes, uh you can always sort of you know pick the places where things could be improved. So a couple of big big mistakes, I think, are that you're looking to run one partner program for everybody, right? One size fits all. But why why is that the problem? Because in today's channel, it includes MSPs, service firms, software partners, marketplaces, industry specialists, they're they're somewhat different. They don't all need the same support, they don't all need the same rules, they the incentives work somewhat differently. So having one partner's one partner uh program for everyone is is one topic. The second one that I know we'll talk about more is um, you know, the world, uh in particular the tech world, has become super short-term. So the the focus in terms of how a lot of tech ecosystems reward their partners is very short-term, right? Short-term sales, short-term sales rather than long-term um customer value. And um and that translates to many programs still pay for mostly the initial deal, even though growth really or profitable growth really depends more on adoption and renewals and expansion of services. So becoming less super transactional would be would be one place. And then the third one is a lot of partners, I think, perceive the partner experience to be just too hard, right? So that starts, right? That starts with approvals being complicated, you know, training difficult, rebates, you know, systems too complicated, changing teams constantly, right? Turnover in the partnership space is a huge issue. When you're constantly changing the terms of the partnership, um, you know, this is yeah, wait when you when you're making the partner experience too hard, then I think that's one thing that that that doesn't that does not need to be the way it is. So those those are three things that I that I offer. What's key, I think, for most partners is the consistency by which you show up. And I go back to people turnover, right? I mean, the turnover that we're seeing in the alliance managers and the folks who are making the ecosystems work. Um, you know, in the end, a lot of it does happen person to person, at least in terms of solving big problems. How do you solve those? You don't solve those through terms, you solve those through people getting together to figure stuff out. And when you have a lot of turnover in your system, uh you've got a lot, you know, you you have no institutional knowledge because it's always new people, and that will undermine the quality of your problem. There's a couple of them that um one can one can talk about improving.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Yeah, no, I I really like how you're marrying the idea of those person-to-person relationships, also in tech being incredibly, incredibly important. And and I agree, right? It's really hard to hone in on a very complicated technical alliance if your personal relationship on that side jumps ship, right?

Partner Portfolios And Due Diligence

SPEAKER_00 5:10

It almost feels like you have to build again. And and I'd love to add one mistake I see, and one good thing I see to your already comprehensive list. The mistake I see is that some companies over-leverage like a single tech partnership. So they'll they'll build a very strong alliance with like one or two companies and they'll miss out on a rapidly changing market and many, many opportunities, basically putting their eggs in one basket. Do you see that happen as well, or am I saying something stupid?

SPEAKER_01 5:36

No, nothing stupid at all. Um I look at that as a as a portfolio. If you look at your personal finances, you've got a big base of basically blue chip assets that you're that you're holding. And then you have a couple that that you're holding for future potential, right? So how you look at, I mean, in a very, I mean, for the massive ecosystems, that doesn't quite hold up, but for the for the sort of ordinary um tech, you know, tiers of partnerships will come to that, I'm sure. You want to, of course, build a couple of really deep relationships that you can leverage, that you can rely on for you know further growth for more services, etc. But yeah, at the same time, you want to keep you know, keep a couple of more emerging ones in the mix to see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Yeah. I every single time I talk to someone who has a lot of experience here, I get the best kind of analogies or metaphors in this space. I've had relationships with them, which I'm sure we'll touch on, like human relationships, but now also your banking portfolio makes so much sense. As I mentioned, I wanted to I wanted to say one good thing that these uh that tech alliances bring, and that's that um there seems to be pretty strong due diligence up front because they understand the impact of a good tech alliance. So when they're having these conversations about how to build their ecosystem, I often see that there is more effort up front to ensure that everything is aligned to get going. And I think other partnerships, even though sometimes you just have to hit the ground running or jump in the deep end, it would help to kind of think of the bigger picture and the long-term value before you kind of just jump in and see what happens. I think a tech tech alliances do that well.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yeah, so let me add two things to what you've just said. Uh so really depending where you come from, uh, if you come to partnerships from the MA space, then the partnership is about doing a deal, doing good due diligence, doing a deal, and then you know, it just sort of manages itself, right? But that's not how it works, right? The deal is the starting point, right? And then you you're looking to create a deal that's flexible enough so it can last 5, 10, 15 in the life science context, 30 years, right? Um, but you know, often the folks who come from the transactional side will um either even poo-poo or will um just completely underestimate how much energy needs to be put in on the once the deal is done. That's that's when 90% of the energy happens in long-term relationships, right? I think that's important because I see a lot of people who come to partnerships from the transactional space who either refuse to or don't want to understand that.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Well, I I think that segues nicely into uh another another topic I would like to hit on, and that is how after the deal is done, do you then make sure that it continues to be good?

Structured Resets Versus Health Checks

SPEAKER_00 8:10

And when we were doing the prep call, there was something interesting you mentioned, and that's the need for structured kind of resets or or health checks in partnerships. Yeah. Like I mentioned, I hear a bunch of analogies come by in this podcast, and and one of them is the parallel between partnerships and our relationships with our wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, family, whatever, and obviously the relationships we have with our work partners. And I think a health check is quite similar there, right? Asking how your significant other is feeling is something that everybody should do regularly. So let's apply this to business. What does a real partnership health check look like in practice? And how often should enterprise partner leaders be pushing for that conversation?

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yeah, that's a really great topic. First, I want to probably distinguish between a structured reset and a health check. So your structured reset is something that where you literally, you know, partnership is quite mature, you reva reevaluate the partnership objectives, are trying to figure out where the voids, you know, what objectives do we need to reagree everything around the arrangement that you have with your partner. Now, most larger firms only bother doing that with their biggest tier one, tier two partners once in a while, but um that's a structured reset that you do when you've got when you know that that some something is amiss. Your ongoing health check, and that's already the in the adjective already given it, right? The health check is something much less onerous, and it covers a couple of principal questions that you conduct on a more frequent basis. That should take no more than a week or two, end-to-end. Um, and the question is how often do you do it? Um it depends, right? If you see that there's an issue coming up, or when you have a alliance uh counterpart change, a senior executive change on either side, you might want to do one of those, otherwise, you know, 12, 18 months, something like that. Is it good cadence if you don't have an event-driven reason to do it? And essentially the questions that you're asking is really simple. Five questions. Are we still aligned in terms of outcomes we want? Is the business working? Is the partnership reducing the pipeline, revenue, margin, influence, customer value, whatever that you've sought to achieve? Is the day-to-day model working? Meaning, you know, how we're planning, how we're communicating, how we're handing leads, how we're handling approvals, is that running smoothly? Fourth, how is trust? Do both sides feel respected, treated fairly? Is my partnership worth prioritizing over other partners, over other customers, over other key customers? And then um, you know, fifth, you know, what needs to change? Are there specific fixes, changes, improvements that we could that that would that would change, that would really improve how the results in the next 60 to 90 days? So those are much that's a much less intrusive thing that does health check, very simple process. Um, you know, gather the facts, speak to a couple of people on your side, perhaps with the line manager on their side, you know, maybe around as simplest, very simple, very simple scorecard, right? To across maybe, well, in in the in a more formal partnership, you will have the success dimensions agreed as part of your governance arrangements. But if you don't, you have a very simple scorecard that that you can agree on and then agree actions. It doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be onerous. Some firms create very complicated scorecard. I've never thought that that was a good idea. For the structured reset, you almost always will have a consultant involved. For the health checks, you know, you'll want a you'll want you know someone to help to set up a process, but most health checks, the alliance managers should be able to run that themselves, you know, on an ongoing basis for their various partnerships. Does that does that answer the question? Or just start to answer the question around around health checks.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Comprehensively, yeah. And and I think it raises a good point where um no, it's not intrusive, but it is important. I think that's that there is an ease, especially with alliance managers that have very, very many partners that they have to work with, to kind of let things go as long as nothing's breaking, because obviously they can't focus on everyone at once. But being able to identify green flags, red flags, whatever is going on, being able to identify those structurally every year, every six months with your partners is so incredibly important because it allows you far more room to build, but also remove your attention from the partners that you now find out aren't going to work. That's it. So yeah, I think it's critical.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yeah, absolutely. So sorry for interrupting you. I mean, the other something that you said just triggered another thought. You're right, many alliance managers are running many, many partners. I'm not talking about a PowerPoint marathon here, huh? So you're the the the person the the the meeting around that health check 90 minutes. Ideally, not not half a day, not a full day structured reset, of course, a different story. That's a project on its own, right? For for the firm. But um health check, you know, get a routine. The better the routine is, but the easier they are.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Yeah, and and to kind of take the edge off, it is mutual. And I think alliance and partners managers can communicate that very clearly. Like, this is not just for us to say, hey, are you doing well? It's also for you to say, are we doing well? Yeah. And that creates more transparency and alignment inherently, right? And here, and here, very important bounce.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Yeah, very good thoughts. Um, the it's I don't think it always needs to be the much larger partner who sets the tone on this, right? As a if if you're if you're a smaller partner in an ecosystem that that has a couple of one or two or three big large companies that that you're partnering with, you also have a right to help set the tone on that. That too ought to be a collaborative effort. I know the power dynamics sometimes just don't don't don't don't warrant that, but you as a as a as a smaller ecosystem partner have a have a right to say, look, we've got an approach to how we do health checks. How do you all do this? And here I want to give a shout-out to uh to Jan Trombley of the Rhythm of Business. Her vital science approach to this kind of thing is is is really um top of the world on this on this.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Amazing. Yeah, maybe if you share a link with me to that, I can also put it into this recording to share with uh with our listeners. That would be great. And and yeah, I I completely agree because the more and more I talk to companies that have, for example, large SMB partner networks, the more you hear that they're valuing those more. Because even though they seem small, it's a numbers game, right? And incremental revenue is easier to drive than if you have a smart approach for these SMB partners and make it feel personalized, but that also includes listening and being transparent. So I think, yeah, don't only focus on those big partners, have these health checks with as many companies as you can and see it as an opportunity to really drive more success in the future, not less.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Yeah. And to and to call the partnerships that are not working, right? I mean, that's the other, you know, there is a renewal process that happens in an ecosystem. And, you know, it's it's okay that it, especially when you're running a large number of partners, that a number will atrophy.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

That's just how yeah, and that's why these health checks are important because you can't see trends if you're not measuring anything, right? So if you're not having these conversations, you can't see what's

Killing Short-Term Transactional Thinking

SPEAKER_00 15:06

going wrong either. Speaking of trends, I regularly hear that the partner model is shifting a bit, and that's that the goal shouldn't always be to be transactional, to maximize value extraction from day one. Why is that a dangerous instinct? And how do you prevent that kind of from sneaking in when you're building a more long-term relationship? Because obviously value still matters to every for-profit company.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah. So, well, not just value matters, but also the the short-term results, right? Get so much, you know, so much emphasis. So here's the thing: when you're looking at when you're going back to basics, I'm not sure that the partnership model ever has lent itself to a short-term gain and get out kind of situation. There's a couple of different uh angles to this, right? In the end, the partnership is two or more organizations coming together to develop something from which they both profit. That's the fundamentals of a partnership. So by definition, that takes time to gestate. Now, in the tech space, because of just how software works, co-development is very short, right? You don't spend a lot of time to have to develop a solution, right? Either you have a plug or something that that where you can get to a joint solution very quickly. Inter-left life sciences, which I know quite well, it's a very different story, right? You take years to develop the drug, and then you can manufacture it, then you can market it, right? So the the partly the short-termism is built into just how quickly we can develop um a solution. The word partnership is has seen a massive amount of inflation, just almost like tidal inflation in the corporate hierarchies, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Everybody who is who's selling me one dollar's worth of kit is all of a sudden a partner. Well, no, no, you're not. You're you're you're your supplier or your vendor. A partner is somebody with whom, by definition, I'm taking some effort to get to know them, to understand what they can offer to my clientele, um, what I can offer to to you and your clientele, and then we we build a proposition together, take that to market, sell it, and then we both have something. That's that's how a partnership auto work. But I think it's the it's this it's the just the inherent features of the tech sector that have really shortened the the span of how quickly we can develop um a um a partnership. If you want to have a meaningful program, then you do want to invest some time in developing that giant proposition and and and and investing in the systems and processes to make sure that you are on track for delivering whatever your objectives are on sales, on leads, on whichever. So it's okay that that happens quickly, that that happens efficiently. Almost always a quite a question of resource. We can talk about AI in a moment if you wish. But um, a partnership is is by definition not transactional. So that's if if we're if we're reducing the number of partners we have in order to in order to um you know rethink uh how we're looking at our partnerships and making sure that they drive value long term, then I'll be all for that.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Yeah, I think there's an interesting parallel here, and it's kind of ironic that I've not heard it yet in these conversations. I'm sure it's out there, but if you take this same kind of short-term value approach, the hands-off approach to partnerships, if you take that same approach with your own in-house sales team, things are gonna go very wrong very quickly. Like, I can't imagine starting my first day on the job as an account executive, and then people say, Okay, have fun. And I'm like, wait, but what does the product do? And they're like, no, you figure it out. Like, what's my commission plan? Oh, yeah, you can find that somewhere on where where are my customers? Oh, you figure it out, right? You're the sales guy. Like, if we would do that, everybody would laugh in your face because that wouldn't work. But at the end of the day, partners, if you look at resellers, whatever, even large, large-scale enterprise partners, they are an extension of your sales org, right? So why would we see it any differently than than how we approach and and embrace our direct sales arm?

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yeah, I think, well, that's right. But I think most firms have figured out that there has to be some degree of investment, early stage investment in the partner. You have to understand our solution, we have to understand what they can offer, and we have to at least somehow get to a minimal set of shared information, shared data that we can that we can both look at to see whether things are successful. I think that, again, if that can be done efficiently, super. But um I think most firms have clocked that that is that is a ticket to entry. You can't just say, ah, congratulations, you're not a partner, go go with God, do what you think you can do. That won't, that will not work in any partnership, right? We have to we have to invest in the partner's success because that's that means our success. Um that's true across the sectors. How much that happens day-to-day, yeah, different question, but I think most most firms have understood that they've got to do something. Well firms do that. There's a big there's a big span in terms of how well firms do that. Um, but um, I think most have clocked that they've got to do something.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Yeah, I completely agree. And I I also agree that there's there's variation, there's a bandwidth in in how much effort uh companies put into this. I mean, for example, I recently spoke to um AvPoint, and they uh they have their their channel evangelism director, whose goal it is to make partners feel like they are part of something that that's special and impactful, right? And I think that's so incredibly important. So yeah, I agree that companies shouldn't oversimplify, uh especially the start of building a relationship like this, but I think that sometimes they also overcomplicate it. Uh so what I'm curious about when you look at enterprise ecosystem, right? What do you feel the difference is between something like sophistication and unnecessary complexity?

Partner Tiers Without The Complexity Trap

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Yeah. Um well, that's a good question. I think I might have mentioned at the outset that you need to have at any size, you can't just have one partner program and have that be everything for everybody, huh? Because different partners have different needs. So the it's a it's against it's balancing act, huh? If I can make it super complicated, right? I can have I've got my MSPs, I've got my service firms, my software partners, and all of them I've got five tiers. Wow. So I've got you know three types of partnerships and I've got five tiers. I've got 15 types of partners I have to manage. I'm already exhausted even trying to explain that, right? Most most firms will not need that. What I do think is helpful always is to introduce tiers relatively quickly. That you say, look, you know, there's there's here's the why we we have three tiers, and here is what we're willing to invest and the ROI we need from our tier one partners, here is what we're willing to invest in our tier two partners, and here is what we're willing to invest in our tier tier three slash everyone else. And this is the ROI we expect from that invest. It helps you manage your ROI, I think, I think well. Do you need to replicate that across um all of the different types of partners? No. Um so the um, you know, instead of um instead of creating your perfect grid, I think it's it's it's worth to be pragmatic here, huh? Depending on your business model, what you want your partners for. And yes, it's not always the same. That's where you then shape you know how how do we decline. line the different the the the different needs of us of our partners in relation to our our ecosystem the scale really does matter here right if you're a small firm um you know you will have you know you will start with one partner you always do that that is it always starts with one right um but um you know when you're looking at a Microsoft you know I've I've I've lost track of how many partner programs they run for the various things right so the the scale of the organization the scale of the ecosystem does matter but you know the the the glib the glib answer that I should have started with uh responding to your question is you know as as as few as necessary but as many as needed huh but just yeah keep it as small as possible if you're gonna start working about typologies or worrying about typologies of your partners. The larger your ecosystem gets and the more complicated your typology becomes the more you need to invest in your alliance managers, in your ecosystem managers. The more competent they need to be the more you need to invest in in alliance management technology to make sure that you can tie things in in a proper way. Don't underestimate that investment on the resourcing of the ecosystem. The more complicated it gets the more the more infrastructure that needs in order to run well and not to compete with your with your in-house operations.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Yeah no I I fully agree and I I feel it also helps organizations to look at what their best performing partnerships are and why those are performing well and seeing if you can work backwards and implement the model based on those types of partnerships, right? To simplify and streamline is so incredibly important but you don't want to lose lose the value that tiering or a point system brings simply from a kind of value driving perspective.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Yeah that's right and I think that informs then also what skills you need in your alliance managers. There, you know I mean the a lot of alliance managers come from well they almost always come from a different discipline right I mean the fewest people will have been will have grown up in alliances from from university days. Why? Simply because it it requires experience in order to add value in an in an ecosystem right so it's to yeah that's that tends to not be a junior role. But um also at the same time it's very often these folks tend to not really have a good sense or are not given a very good sense of what's next for them, right? How is that a useful step in a career you know you you know keep in mind your alliance managers are are your partners advocates inside your firm and vice versa huh so yeah um I'm always a big fan and investing in the in the human resource to help manage that and that becomes more important and more complex your your uh your ecosystem gets yeah and I think that also ties into hey how the industry is is changing right now because indeed that experience is critical because the human relationship aspect of partnerships

Training Alliance Managers To Drop Assumptions

SPEAKER_01 24:44

is critical.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

But on the other hand building out the tech around it and the the admin processes is becoming easier and easier. So I think it's an easier transition now than ever for people from different fields to stream into alliance management or or channel.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

I I agree with that completely as long as they and their leadership um allow themselves to shed the bad bits about what they've learned along the way yeah for example a lot of folks come into ecosystems from sales okay sales is a great profession love love sales no problem with sales running an ecosystem or running a part a group of partners is more than running sales I can borrow a lot of skills right getting to know my internals or my counterparty's internal stakeholders I've got to do that as a salesperson. But um you know the the I it's it's but it is a different job and the same and the same as if I come from finance or if I come from HR or from the science in the life science space right I've got to have an open mind um about what it requires to manage a partnership that goes beyond the discipline from where I came that's really important.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

I fully agree and I think there again having those conversations and engagements helps so much and look I I've had an interesting career so far which I'm very proud of but I I never have too much pride to say hey the way I'm approaching things is that way the right way to approach things here.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Just having that if you're a new alliance manager coming in and speaking with with your partners and saying these are the assumptions I have about how we're going to build our business does that align with what you want what we need what can I change where can I say no I I think my approach is better right so just have that conversation leave your ego at the door not your knowledge not your experience but your your uh assumptions let's put it that way yeah absolutely your assumptions and you know some some well many firms have a alliance playbook alliance management playbook so okay first thing you know you come into to to the job of course you read that but then after sort of you know six to nine months it helps to also sit back and question what's in there because once you're once you've been running partnerships inside the firm for 15 years you're you're not gonna be you're not gonna have the fresh mind to be able to say okay we're gonna you know adjust this that and the other thing but six months in nine months in I think that's a different question you then have some experience you see what's working what's not working you still come with that fresh approach to then say okay hey look in section X of our you know of our alliance management playbook you know this this does not make any sense not the partners hate it I I don't think it's very efficient. Can we change it? I'd encourage uh new AMs to to to to take the courage and to do that. Of course that assumes an empowering somewhat empowering organizational culture which is not always a given.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

But to be fair I I think they could frame it in the context of an internal health check. If you want to do it with partners you sometimes got to do it with the way you're working yourself as well because it it kind of all ties together.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

For

Event-Driven Strategy And Engagement

SPEAKER_01 27:44

sure. And here we go back to where we started our discussion with you know um I'm I'm always not surprised. Disappointed is that the better word disappointed with how with the with the pressures that even very very senior execs, C suite level execs put themselves under in terms of short-termism my CBO yes my chief business officer has short-term results to deliver I get that but you've got to if if you've got a C in front of your of your title that also means that a substantial part of your time you ought to be spending on on on long term um and um that that I see happening in some organizations and in many I don't and that's that's somewhat to me that's disappointing.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Yeah I I I fully agree and I think also honestly it's good to remember that we're still all people and that the pace of change these days could also have an impact on how long-term strategy is perceived, how it's built, right? I mean does a rolling three year strategic forecast make sense if tech is going to change tomorrow. I feel it does by the way because you know create a strategy that has tactical flexibility but still kind of forward thinking rigidity. But uh yeah I think it's I think it's a scary time to be thinking really long term. I don't know what your thoughts are about that or if I'm just naive but that's that's my read on the situation.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

No you're not naive um you you I think you do need to have an operational plan. And if that takes your three years out it takes your three years out fine. That operational plan is going to be based on um a set of assumptions that you settle on today. So my my assumption today I I I set out my three year plan. But I've I've I've used intentionally that's an operational plan. Three year projections is an operational plan. Three years is operational medium term in my in my world I where I agree with you is that I mean I've I've never been a big fan of sort of a three year strategic planning cycle there is you know why is it three years? Why is it not three years and one month? Why not two years? Why not four? Arbitrary yeah it's arbitrary right so so the three years you know it's it's I know where it came from the finance world but really strategy is about understanding where you want to get to looking at your core competitive challenges that you have to solve and how your assumptions play into that so if I've solved if I've addressed my core competitive challenges or or if my assumptions change in six months time I don't care what my three year operational financial planning cycle is I have to look at my strategy right well I'm a big big fan in in event driven strategy rather than meaning if we have achieved X then we look at our strategy rather than ooh our strategy if it's now 2026 our strategy to 2029 ooh that sounds ugly. Our strategy to 2030 uh we're gonna do this huh um that's that's the better way to to do strategy and um there is a whole bunch of um people at McKinsey and a whole bunch of authors who will who will support Maggie on that.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Yeah no I I agree as well because I think if you lay the foundations for change as an organization so if you allow people to understand that change can happen and how to deal with that then indeed it doesn't matter if there's a seismic shift in the industry and you need to pivot and people are all used to hey I do everything the same for our five year rolling forecast or whatever that's going to lead to issues. But if everybody knows hey I need to have this tactical flexibility right I need to be able to move in a different direction and I'm set up for success in that way that can actually lead to manageable change as opposed to like becoming Nokia right what you're articulating now though is a very mature organization.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Yeah 100% a lot of organizations I mean culturally mature a lot of organizations where does strategy happen? Again it happens with the people with a C-suite in front of the title or it happens in my corporate final corporate strategy planning office. And then it gets rolled out to the rest of the organization back to your alliance managers because it's an externally facing role in the end well that's that's not that's I'm I'm simplifying things because such a large bit of your role is externally facing because a lot of the managers do a lot of internal stuff to get stuff out of the way for the partner they see stuff probably possibly before your C-suite does right so involve them involve parts of your organization that doesn't have the title in front of the name in your strategic outlook in your strategic planning process you will probably get to a more nimble and a more sustainable way to operate I can count on one you know I can count on a lot of hands the the firms that have say they do that but I can count only on one hand probably the firms that actually practice what they preach in that regard. Yeah strategy does is not for is not just for senior management. Of course the prime responsibility is with senior management sure that's why you senior management fine but it's not just there. Especially the partner folks use them to help build the future of your business you might learn something.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Yeah well I mean the strategy should be lived and carried by everyone in your organization. It's very similar to culture right if if culture is a top-down mandate culture doesn't really exist. If culture is something that people live and breathe and that turns into a framework then that's a very different story. And I think the same way we can look at strategy especially in a changing world like just listen sometimes. It works.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Here actually I want to I want to just jump into a different sector for a moment the the firms who do that pretty well are traditional professional services partnerships which is a lot of firms that I see. But imagine you've got a thousand partners 1000 partners coming to work every day you try to develop a strategy in your little avatar and saying oh we're going to roll out the strategy to our 1000 or 1000 co-owners. You can't do that right partners will um embrace what they co-create and will reject what is being done to them. And if we think that in the corporate world it's any different it's it's wise to once in a while involve the crew in your in your future um I know the fewest folks do that and it's so hard when you're when you're you know publicly held and and you've got all kinds of you know endless pressure investment pressures with that but you know there's a there's a there's a reason why you've got the amount of turnover that you have in businesses. It's in part it is because the folks are completely disengaged. They don't see the firm's future as their future that's a fundamental leadership problem. You know I I don't think enough's being done about that.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

And and or maybe it's it's it's not enough caring is being done about that I should probably say yeah no no I I fully agree and and to be fair I do know some PE firms that do more closely embody that perspective where they acquire things because they see a long-term perspective not a long-term investment horizon but a long-term perspective in how these companies can grow and what they can achieve and I think that that actually proves quite successful in the longer term as opposed to just like quick valuation pump and dump kind of stuff right I I think it has a lot of value.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

I think PE has come a long way in in that respect we've just done a white paper on private equity and professional services and you know the the alignment with respect to long-term orientation that many PE firms in the sector have have are are are pressing has been has been quite good. I agree with you yeah yeah well that's also but we're not a mile away from from from tech ecosystem

AI And The Shift To Quality

SPEAKER_01 35:06

stuff.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Oh who cares? We're talking about interesting stuff I find it interesting you find it interesting and at the end of the day I just hope that our audience finds it interesting but I've had a lot of fun hey before uh we wrap this up I want to ask two things first of all just looking forward what do you think is going to change the most in let's say the next year to three years in the ecosystem space?

SPEAKER_01 35:28

I think you've won in the ecosystem base in the ecosystem space excuse me if you've built many many many partners adding lots of partners the assumption is oh that creates that creates growth right I think one picture that I see is that it's more about quality than quantity and um I don't think we have the resources to manage all these partners in the most optimal way number one. Number two, we now have a tool to to really help us drive value and that's and that's AI. So when when it comes to um to now mainly sales coverage, hey this partner can help me sell that et cetera can we get to something more intelligent that we say look we can achieve the same thing if not more but with one third or one half of the number of partners here I mean I fully agree with J McBain who's recently um I'm written about this it's it's this coordinated network approach um AI assisted decision making around which partner can really help us move the needle where are we most aligned really getting away from ecosystem being a volume operation to to being an operation of quality that is that that is the one big thing that I think is up on the horizon as you would expect a function that's that becomes mature finally.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Yeah no I I love that perspective and I think what's great to see is the conversation I have with people like you is is they have different perspectives but it's either from volume to value or it's value in volume and all of these approaches with different playbooks can lead to effective results specific to an industry specific to a market. So yeah I I I really appreciate that perspective.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

I agree with that if you can make it work right if you can make volume value with volume if you can make make that work but again it's it is the best both worlds but you know how many firms have in the tech space have really been able to do that can I count them on two hands? But I probably can but getting to three hands yeah perhaps not right um the most firms aren't in the Salesforce world right I mean most firms are in the Microsoft world. So um um and and those firms have managed to really monetize um the value of their ecosystem don't misunderstand me but for the bulge bracket of of firms with not such massive ecosystems I I think it's going to be an alien quality over quantity yeah which which sounds incredibly logical right if you just if you just think about it.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

No I love it. We always ask our guests to nominate the next guest on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Who do you think we should have next to have another enticing and interesting conversation like the one we just had yeah well the I mean I've I've mentioned a couple people on this on this podcast Jen Twombly of the rhythm of business is probably one of them she understands ecosystems um like no other she will have a similar parallel to the life science space and the life science technology space in particular I think she's one Jay McBain is a second one he's always good fun on the channel space.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

I believe he's already been a guest on your show if I remember correctly that could be if he hasn't even if he has invite him back and those will be the two people I would I would suggest you talk to fantastic I'll I'll definitely check with both of them because I honestly I like having different conversations on this platform. You mentioned that we moved away from tech ecosystems but I still think we we got to insights that can actually be applied directly to the the workspace of the people listening. So I really appreciate that.

Blank-Sheet Rethink And Closing

SPEAKER_00 38:46

To wrap this up do you have any final insights tips or tricks that you'd like to share with the audience?

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Yeah thank you. I think I mean we've alluded to it a little bit already once in a while wrap a wet towel around your head take a big step back and just say look if you know famous economist assumption if I had a blank sheet of paper. If I had a blank sheet of paper, what would this look like? What are we looking to achieve with all the different programs that we have I'm looking beyond the the transactional numbers you know what do I need to achieve in this business? I mean again the fewest folks will have the luxury to do that but once in a while just take a step back from all the investments that you've made from all of what you have and rethink it anew what what what is my future what is the next setup that's going to get me to the future. That's a scary thing to do. People often don't take the time to do that but you will learn something about your business as well as about you know how your ecosystem needs to be constructed so that it can take you to the next level where you need to get your business at yeah I love it.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

That's how innovation arises right not by doing the same thing over and over but stepping back and seeing what you can do differently. I think that's a fantastic point to end on. Michael thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and taking the time to speak with me and uh you dear listeners thank you for tuning in and we'll see you in the next episode. Thanks Michael thank you Michelle