In this insightful conversation on the channel, our CTO, Jon Busby, and our Commercial Director, Alex Norbury, talk to Karen Hartsell from Intuit.
Karen is group manager of Intuit Developer Partner Programs, and, as you are about to find out, she is also a channel guru for the ages.
In this insightful conversation on the channel, our CTO, Jon Busby, and our Commercial Director, Alex Norbury, talk to Karen Hartsell from Intuit.
Karen is group manager of Intuit Developer Partner Programs, and, as you are about to find out, she is also a channel guru for the ages.
Hello and welcome back to the twogether B2B technology marketing podcast. This week is a doozy. This is likely the most insightful conversation, high level conversation you have ever heard about the channel this week we have the genius that is John Busby, our CTO and the equally wonderful Alex Norbrey who is our commercial director. Our guest this week is Karen Hartsel. Karen is the group manager of intuit's developer partner programs. She's incredible. As always, if you liked the podcast, drop us a like give us a share give us those sweet, sweet five star ratings and maybe even leave us a comment. It helps us so much. But without further ado, I bring you John, Alex and Karen.
Jon:We've got three main subjects we're going to cover today. on our podcast but really that's t hat, that's a really great segway into, into our first question really, which is what do partners really need today and where is there a gap between what a partner needs and w hat, what vendors provide. So, you know, Alex and I here in the UK office had been, u h, been obviously you get a chance to meet lots of vendors. All the time. U m, but Karen, from your perspective, what do you think partners really need today?
Karen:Oh Gosh, that's such a good question. Partners are looking for, for ways to stand out and differentiate themselves. They have a product of their own, whether that's a service or customization work or something that they do and they're just looking to go out and get customers and make as much money as they can. And so they're looking for any vendor who can come in and enable them to either get custard customers more quickly or at a lower cost or you know, potentially it's charged more money or make more profit with the customers that they have. But you know, they're a business and they're looking to, to successfully run a business
Jon:I think. And I think that's the key point, is there their business at the end of the day. So they don't want to have to spend so much time going to 10 different vendors and signing 10 different contracts and figuring out all of the different elements between all of those different contracts. I mean, Alex, just bringing you in here, what are your thoughts and what partners need?
Alex:I think it's a massively diverse question, right? And I think, I think realistically it's becoming harder for partners to identify what is best for them because there's just so much choice now. Right? You know, in every single segment there's so many vendors to choose from. And of course that's equally as complicated for their customers. So they ultimately want to do the easiest business possible. They want vendors who make it easy for me to learn market and sell their products. And it's just really making it as easy as possible,
Jon:I think. I think there's a certain word there that I see come up in general programs all the time. I think maybe we should ban it from future briefs, which is frictionless. Those words were on the tip of my tongue that we want business to be frictionless when partners, and it's of course you want business to be frictionless, but it's still amazing how many vendors put put barriers in the way. Um, so you know, those barriers can be anything from, you know, we talked about contracts earlier, um, to, you know, dots. Yeah. I have a personal passion against MDF programs. That's just me. I think they're archaic in the way they're structured, but you know, why do vendors do that?
Karen:you know, it's interesting. I think vendors just have this very vendor centric view of the world and it just doesn't occur to most vendors when they're thinking about their processes that there might be other vendors involved that you might be one of two, three, five, 10 vendors that any partners dealing with. And so what doesn't seem too overwhelming when you're talking quantity of one can start to get really tedious when you're talking quantity of 10 like contracts, like filling out your profile, like, you know, okay, we've got three guys who just left and three guys who just joined and now I've got to go update my vendor profile. Um, that can start to get really, really tedious. And we just talked about, you know, what are these guys selling? Well, most of the time they're selling a service. That's their time. So when you start asking them to spend time on something like filling out vendor profiles or negotiating contracts, that means you're taking revenue away from them because that's time they cannot spend offering a service they can charge for.
Alex:Yeah. Can I, I completely agree. And I was just thinking when you said that, I think, I think, I think some of them kind of realize that there's, the partners are busy and negotiating across different vendors back actually then when it really comes down to it, they then still put up the barriers and go through the process. I was, I, we were, we were actually at a channel meetup I probably a couple of years ago with a leading cloud storage provider who basically was sat in the room going, um, I'm here today to learn what everyone else is doing so we can do the exact opposite. And I went, oh, that's a bold statement, bold statement. And I'm two years down the line, I can kind of see where they're going with their partner program and guess what, they're doing exactly the same thing as everybody else because ultimately they can't govern. They can't govern really what, what they have the, all of the rules and regulations they have to put in place. Cause there's so many people they have to satisfy internally. And you know, most of the companies that we're dealing with are fairly large complicated organizations. I.E Vendors themselves. You know, they have a lot of people to please internally as well as the tens, hundreds, thousands of partners. Resellers are all different sizes, shapes and complexities themselves. And actually it's, it's kind of, I guess that some of the conversations we're having today is, it's easy to say, but I guess it's much harder to really do. And it'd be interesting to maybe talk about what things can be done, you know, and where, what may be, what's a point. I, you know, starting points might change, you know, based on, based on business model. But I think that'd be, you know, I think it's still really genuinely difficult.
Jon:I think it's a great point. I mean, what would that, well let's go, come, get, start with that starting point. Let's come back to that starting point and say, you know, what are those barriers? Is it legal? Is it company size? Like what are, you know, if we were to list them out, what would they be? Is it just comfort? You know, it's, people are comfortable having metal tears because that's what we're used to seeing it. What are those barriers?
Alex:Yeah, I mean, I mean Karen without taking over the conversation, but yeah, legal is definitely, definitely one. Absolutely. You know, sales cycle. Um, so, you know, uh, solution, um, complexity, um, deal size, um, you know, also the partner themselves, you know, their coverage, you know, how, you know, different currencies, you know, just the sort of the loads and loads of things that, you know, global brands have to kind of cope with.
Jon:I mean, Karen, from your s ide, you know, you've been vendor, vendor side for, for y ou k now, most of your career. What are the barriers that you see to a lot of a l ot of vendors being able to make this easy or frictionless for partners?
Karen:Yeah. Well it's, I mean it's a big change management challenge, isn't it? Right. Cause you know, we do of course have the legal environment and we've talked about this before, the, the Robinson Patman you have to treat like partners alike and then you start to add in. Um, yeah, you talked about MDF earlier. MDF is so audited, there's so many rules and regulations and then you add on, you know, do new data requirements. GDPR coming in, I think it is, regulation is just at the forefront of a lot. But I think, I think the bigger, you know, sort of the more insidious, uh, challenges that people are just comfortable with, what they know. Um, and, and people just immediately default. You know, I was having a conversation with a colleague yesterday about program ideas and she just immediately went to bronze, silver, gold. It's just where people are comfortable. It's what they know. Uh, and when you're trying to fight a battle for, I think we need to do some, some work in the program, we need to invest in the channel. Uh, and then you add on and I think we need to do it away. Nobody's done it before. You know it, it just may be that one, one too many battles to fight for most people. I think it's going to take somebody to create the obvious way it should be. I think that I am, I'm hearing a lot more people say, gosh, this feels like it's not working. Like, you know, we, we talk about the 80 20 rule, you know, we've put these programs in place and most of them don't get used. Most of these benefits aren't getting used. Most of our end, you know, MDF, you've heard me talk about the t shirt fund. Most of our MDF is getting spent on swag so it doesn't expire. But is that really driving ROI? And so I think that there's a pretty good appetite for what we're doing isn't working, but I don't think anybody's really painted a clear vision of, so this is what it should be. I mean, I think it's easy to say let's just do the opposite of everything. But what does that really mean? And, and I think until somebody comes up with a really great vision of the alternative, people are just going to fall back on, on what's comfortable cause it's one less battle to fight
Jon:I n f act, I think I was, I was in a discussion this week even when, u m, it wasn't us, it, I think it was another supplier to this particular vendor said, so what are your, what are your t ears going to be? Are they g oing t o be metal levels? A re t hey going to be, u h, something else? It's like, why, why d id you even ask that question? Why are you, w hy d on't you ask the question of do we want tears? Like what do our partners really need? Why, why did someone have the bright idea of t aking those precious metal, you know, making it sound like an O lympic contest.
Speaker 3:So that's a great question. So many people may not know this, but it was actually regulatory driven. So there is this thing called Robinson Patman and it is a regulation that dictates that you treat like partners alike. And three confound itself with more partners than we were able to give the kind of benefits we want it to. And in fact, we didn't want to give the same benefits to all of the partners. There were some partners that were more committed doing more and we wanted to give them different benefits. And so we really looked to the airline industry as inspiration for giving special benefits to certain classes of partners. And so the uh, the tiering came about as a way to get around this regulation. So we would call gold partners gold based on certain behaviors they would exhibit and give them a different set of benefits than we gave the silver and the bronze. And so it was really a way for us to give special treatment to the partners that were the most dedicated to the most loyal. Um, much like the airlines use tiering to give special treatment to the most committed and dedicated passengers.
Jon:So let me just be clear with that. So this law came in was, it was just to say that you have to, you can't treat partners differently. They came in to say you have to treat every part of the same. Is that right?
Karen:Yeah, it, it, it had actually been around for a long time, but it said you had to treat like partners alike.
Jon:I mean, it makes it makes sense, I guess. Um, but what are the problems when you, when you decide to tear a channel partner program,
Karen:ultimately, what is the point of a partner program? What is the point of the tears? And it's a way of communicating. Here are the things that are important to us. And so this is the requirement side as a vendor here, the things we want partners to do. And on the partner side, here's the benefits side. Here's what's important to you. And obviously margin and revenue has always been a big part of that. And I think when you're talking about boxed product, right, you know, we're gonna sell you the box for this price and you can turn around and sell it for whatever price you want. Um, that gets really fuzzy when you start talking about a world of services and cloud and subscription. And, uh, so even the fundamentals of how you compensate the channel are, are kind of up in the air, which just continues to make the case for them. We should really look at the way we're building our programs. Yeah.
Alex:there's so many different directions here, Right. So, you know, I think this, this other kind of global challenges, right? So, you know, again, feedback from, from the channel meetup where, you know, you sit in a room full of teams in the Mia and you know, ultimately a sense of frustration because hands are tied, everything's driven by global work, which is guess where in a single market with one language, um, you know, coming out of, you know, one state in, in, you know, near the Pacific Ocean. And, you know, I, I then, you know, we sit on the other side, you know, going, you know, with, with basically people who don't want to take any risks because there's the channels very important and they can't afford to really a take the time to understand that, that, that, what different partners want and certainly risk not providing something that partners want. So, you know, I.e So that, that safety piece that Karen was talking about, you know, I couldn't agree more, you know, who's going to stand up and say, do you know what actually we're going to take some, we can take some bold moves and change the way we ask partners and what they want and actually give them what they want at the risk of some, some of them walking away. I mean I have heard quite quite a lot of vendors probably the last 12 months really start talking differently and going, we don't need more partners. We just want the right partners. Yup. Yup. Now where, where do you kind of start with that? Because ultimately you can't just keep the 20%, you do have to, you know, model out to grow those, those engaged partners. Um, so it's like, where do you, where do you start identifying those who are going to be driven by, you know, aligned objectives? Karen, I guess question to you, what, what are your thoughts on that?
Karen:One is this idea of quality. And it is absolutely the way from a vendor perspective, we always think about it. And the challenge has always been really defining what quality means because there is the revenue volume, quality indicator like these guys sell a lot. They bring a lot of revenue in. They are very big contributors to our profit and our success. And then we have the technical ability. These guys are really skilled, they can handle complex customer problems, they're able to knit together technologies from multiple vendors in a way that most partners can't do. And then you have this sort of service and support side. These guys are just really good at um, servicing the customers, right? They, they help us keep happy customers longterm. And then you have the great marketers or potentially install base, like these guys just have a lot of customers that we want access to. And so you, you kind of have these different dynamics. And I think it's, uh, I think the opportunity, you know, it usually comes down to the data, the opportunity is to really get clear on what does quality mean. And it's probably not any one thing. It's probably a combination of things, but understanding what, you know, what does it mean to be a top partner or a high potential partner who could be a top partner? What are those indicators? What are those quality characteristics? And so I think that's, that's one side of it. I would take a look at it and I do think that a lot of vendors are at, I don't think that's a new challenge. I think vendors have always been looking for how do we, how do you know, out of all of these masses, how do we identify the quality? And the, and the tierings fundamentally, we're kind of a way to say, this is what quality is to us. You could tell by looking at the requirements, like that's our, that's what we care about. Those, you know, the, the highest quality, uh, indicators are going to be those, those requirements side. So if you want to be platinum or diamond or super duper whatever, you know, you need to, you need to hit all of these quality metrics. I think on the flip side of that though, uh, vendors are hesitant to be overly dependent on any one partner. So I think, you know, it's a little bit a of a two sided coin there because on the one hand you want, you want to focus in on the top quality. But on the other hand you don't want to be overly dependent on too small a number. Uh, so that you know, that that becomes kind of an inherent, uh, uh, risk for you if something either happens with them. Just from a financial standpoint, whenever partners do go under or you know, that's your biggest competitive threat is your competitor and coming and taking away your top partner. Um, so I think it's a little bit of both. I think you know, you you wanna focus on those partners who are just as committed back and who are bringing in the quality. At the same time, you don't want to be overly dependent on such a small number of partners that it becomes a risk factor. Okay.
Alex:Yeah. Great. And actually, so one of the things you touched on there was that those data points in the KPIs, I mean, one, one of the things that is kind of driving this potential opportunity for channel to really change and the way and the way in which vendors interact with partners and vice versa is, is data and essentially digital digital transformation, but certainly digital. Um, and, and you know, we are, we are seeing ways in which, you know, vendors are trying to deploy lots of new technology in the channel. I, I'm still still not seeing necessarily it working yet. So you know, this new partner portal technology, you know, this new marketing technology, of course there's tons and tons of things from a data perspective that they can, they could potentially implement to try and access that information. But actually like with all marketing and B2B, especially B2B tech, it's pretty still complicated. You know, this, there's a lot of nuances and things to consider. So, I mean I actually, John, you know, you, you've been looking, working with some of the team on our side from a data perspective and how clients and vendors specifically can, can harness it. Like what, what would you say, you know, would would vendors consider from a, from a digital perspective?
Jon:I think there's two main points that question actually y ou've made there that are, that are c overed. So one is, you know, we've been talking about recruitment and who are the right partners. I think one of the key problems with vendors today is t heir data. I don't, I'm trying to think of a single vendor that, that has had perfect. I, there must be some out there, but you know, there is the, there was a phrase t hat, t hat, that we saw this week actually Alex, which was if channel data wants i s 90 days out of date, you may as well b een i t.
Speaker 2:Um, it, there's so much flux, there's so much change. Certainly when you get to the scale of some of the larger technology vendors that keeping that data up to date is a real challenge. And not just keeping up to date, but keeping up to date with all the other touch points that you have. Um, and so you asking partners to, they may be working with 10 other vendors. Each of those 10 vendors would have, let's say at least three platforms. You're talking 30 platforms. Each one of those partners has to sign into to keep their own data up to date. So no wonder it goes out. No wonder it's so stale so quickly. Um, so I think that data is definitely something that's, that that's a key problem. I don't, I don't know, Alex, if you want to know,
Alex:the vendors are changing things all the time as well, right. You know, they launch into a new country or currency changes or they launch a new product to, into new market.
Karen:Or somebody gets acquired. oh my gosh.
Alex:exactly. So yeah, the merge. Exactly. Yes. Being some big acquisitions recently. Yeah, exactly. That. And that just completely changes everything, not just for the vendor and the program and the, and the requirements and the benefits that they serve, but also for every single partner out there. And so it's like a constant iteration.
Jon:But the other point I'd like to make. We know data's a challenge and I think we need to, we're, we're come back to that later in the podcast when we talk about the next question. But the, the other key point is marketing technology in the channel. And I think we'll rather just, let's just say technology as a whole in the channel. Um, in B to c, even in B2B where you, you know, we're seeing a huge explosion of different platforms, different ways of using data, of exploiting it. You know, we, ABM over the last two years has exploded into these platforms that are focused on intent on understanding how, um, you know, how people are interacting with your white papers and your other content online to be able to, of course then utilize that information for your own sales teams. We're not seeing that same jump to the channel. Um, you know, we are definitely seeing these guys very much, very much being either either left out in the cold from a vendor perspective or just told you need to do this yourself. Uh, and the smart ones understand it. They grow quickly. Um, but there is that, there is the tiny ones get the business they need to get through their networks and they're happy. But I think there's a real gap in the middle where if you're a middle sized technology vendor, you deal with technology partner, sorry, you don't have the scale to be able to deploy some of these platforms that you, you may need to, um, and you don't have the support from technology vendors to be able to do it. So I already think there's, there's a gap in the, in the middle now. I think about it. Um, so it, it's just, it's just really interesting thinking about that.
Karen:It is, you know, and it's how you enable your channel. Um, how has it been a long standing challenge? And, and I think, uh, I've had a belief for a long time from a vendor perspective is that it's the vendor's responsibility to drive demand for their brand. And that is the channel's responsibility to package that and drive demand for their individual services and fulfill the demand. Uh, so I think you have the two sided, right? There's just this endless number. I mean, you've talked about the number of options out there as, as we go to the cloud and everybody's a developer now, um, and, and you've got this, uh, growing gap between these big companies that have, you know, these, these channel partners that have enough resource to invest in a full marketing team and, uh, you know, customer acquisition and have agency support directly in all of that stuff and jumping into that category. It gets increasingly difficult for small guys who don't have that capability. And it is really critical as a vendor that you are helping enable them. Um, but it, but it's tricky to try to find the most effective ways to do that. You know, you can, you know, the technology is part of it, but also, you know, even just a simple task of buying a list that's getting harder and harder everyday with GDPR. So how do you actually enable your partners not only with the right tools but with the right content so that they can go in and be successful. Um, and, and I think, you know, as we talk about the reinvention in terms of what, what partners need, that's the kind of stuff that partners need.
Jon:I want to bring it back to our original question for moment so that we can get something, get something tangible for our listeners. So let's bring it back to what do we think partners really need.
Alex:So I think as a, as partners become more focused in, you know, subscription based, cloud based technologies, I, I think, you know, the, the fallout from that is that they're, you know, the customer entity is actually properly billing directly from the vendor. So the partner as Karen, you know, stated is, is really responsible for maintaining that relationship and providing services that wrap around it. And I think really they focus needs to become, you know, currently then mostly sales focused and they really need to become more sales and marketing focused. And so, you know, they are traditionally behind the curve from a marketing perspective. And so I, I really feel like partners need to embrace that push of becoming marketing and sales companies as well as the service piece. Obviously, but that's, that's how they earn money. Uh, connect the service and sales together. But you know, I see on here a lot of vendors going, hey, this is how to do a linkedin post and this is how to do your website. But no one's really focusing on why. You know, it's, it's not, it's not the how that, you know, yeah, they can get to the how by using agencies or suppliers or friends, whatever it might be, or even the vendor resource. But you know, it's the why they should be, they should be doing it. So right now, obviously we're a marketing company and so our focus is probably going to be there. Um, but, but the ability of the ability to understand why to do marketing and then access that, those skills either directly or through the vendor is going to be key. I think the other, the second point critically is they need a personal experience. And so, you know, with all the technology in the world, you know, partner portals, I used 10 to 15%, right? So there's a huge amount of the, what's your, how can you gather all of the interactions and engagement levels if partners mostly are going to lots of different systems that either don't connect or they don't integrate very well, even if some people say they do because they don't, this data pools everywhere, um, and sitting in spreadsheets and different systems. So ultimately it's how do you connect all that data together and then serve it to a partner to give them what they should be doing next. Yup. Now, next month. And, and it being as customized as possible using that data. And it's now in, it's possible. I'm not sure what is possible in partner portals. Um, but it is possible. What if, if, if you, if you, if you sort of connect all of things, stick all those things together.
Jon:So, so Karen, what do you think partners would you need, you need today?
Karen:Yeah, so I'm gonna take that thread that you started, Alex, and I'm going to pull on that a little bit because I agree partners are looking for a personalized experience. They don't want the generic, you know, and I think as, as we look at the challenges with gold, silver, bronze, those get generic packages. Partners are looking for the personalized, you know, what is, uh, how, how do we go from a fixed menu to an a la carte menu where I can as a partner choose exactly which benefits are gonna really help me, are going to help my business for what my goals are, where I am in the journey. Um, so I do agree that they need personalize. I think they also need vendors to go to them. You know, we have a lot of like partners being asked, well, here's a, here's this portal, here's this partner listing. There's all these places that the vendors are asking the partners to come to them, come to their systems. I think we need to look more at how we go to where the partner and try to create a more unified experience for them. Um, and I think then, you know, some of the fundamentals are, aren't really not changed. Partners need a value proposition. They need a clear way to make money. Um, and they need the vendor to help them understand, here's the rules of engagement, here's the value proposition for you. How do you plug into it? And then finally, I do believe that partners are still looking for a way to stand out. You know, how do they break away from the noise? How do they, uh, offer something unique and then be seen and you know, get visibility with customers, get visibility of the industry. How do they get known for what they do that's unique. And so helping, you know, that's the kind of partnership that from a vendor perspective we love is here's where, you know, here's where the ROI is from our technology perspective, but let's work together to really understand what's your unique value proposition so we can connect to you to the best customer. Because at the end of the day, it's really about the customer, right? It's about giving the customer the very, very best solutions. And when you can find that amazing partner who has a, you know, a great value proposition and really layers beautifully on top of your technology, that's where you get the best outcome for the customer.
Jon:Yup. And I'm so glad both of you said personalization because that's exactly what my point was going to be. Not to say, Hey, just what you guys said, what we're learning is every single partner is completely different and some may be brought into writing their value proposition and know exactly what the value of marketing is. And some may be very sales focused and have no idea how to do it, how to even get started with marketing today. Um, some might be young, some might be old, some may be big, some may be smaller than. So I think the key thing is here is you just need to ask them and you need to listen to them and, and understand really what their frustrations are and then personalize the program around them. And I think that's, if I was to summarize it in one way, that, that that's what it would be as it needs to be a personalized approach.
Alex:I think just, just, just adding to that, you know, I really think now is the time when we have that opportunity to capitalize on that. Yep. Or, or the, or the opportunity to even do that because of the digital element or the digital innovation that is available now. You, I mean, there's only, there's, there's so many, there's, we've gone to kind of not very much digital, I don't want to talk about until about platforms and systems like, you know, but the, the idea, the ability to harness data is now really possible. And some people may be thinking, oh, I've got a partner portal. It does that. And I guess the question is, is it doing it, you know, we're working with lots and lots of vendors where it's just not, yeah. And as I say, you know, and it's not one thing that's going to fix it. You know, your deal reg system is going to fix it. Your DST isn't gonna fix it. Your partner portal isn't going to fix it. It is about to build something, you know, using eight some sort of digital technology or actually probably multiple technologies and, and you know, putting that information into one place, which is really available now that kind of hasn't been there before. And you know, we're seeing clients, the old client really doing it. And the difference it's making is, is, is quite exceptional.
Karen:It's this, this idea of the ecosystem, right? This channel ecosystem. It's never really been treated like an ecosystem. We've never really said let's think about the power of this data collectively, not individually. Um, and I think that's where it gets not only really powerful from a vendor, but also really delightful from a partner perspective because not only do we have tons of data in the digital transformation, it's also highly available and accessible from lots of different devices. And so when you think about this idea of enabling tools for a partner, it's no longer limited to what you can get when you're sitting in your office. It's on your phone. It's, it's where you are in the moment that you need it. So that there's a high availability aspect to this as well, that that gets really powerful when you're talking about time is money. Uh, for a partner perspective.
Jon:Definitely. I think that brings us nice, nicely into the second question really, which is, um, we probably, we've probably answered a lot of this as we've been talking about the first, but how, how has the cloud really changed the channel? Um, and what are those trends that we're seeing partners and vendors take advantage of or rather not take advantage?
Karen:Yeah. Oh my gosh, the cloud. It's interesting because I think that there's the, it's, it's a gift with a shadow, right? So the cloud has brought all of these amazing technologies. Um, you know, when you just think about the proliferation of products available for a channel partner to sell, um, and as, as that gets overwhelming, I think the, the role of a channel partner as a strategic advisor, right? You're not talking about five options now you're talking about 5,000 options. And so I think that that the cloud, just the sheer number of technologies and the way things connect together, um, can become an opportunity for the channel to step in a new kind of strategic adviser role in the way you knit it together and layer it in and, and, you know, make it easy for a vendor that, or for a customer that, that hasn't existed before.
Speaker 5:So I think there's tremendous opportunity, uh, in that. I think the shadow of that is, it's, it also made that technology highly available to a customer. So when you're talking about the value proposition for a partner to the customer, they have to probably change their language a little bit, right? It's not just about, I can get to these three products and I can get you this great price. Right? You know, selling, selling the discount is, is, is getting more and more archaic. It's more about selling the service, selling the value add. And that's probably a new muscle for a lot of these partners who grew up in the, in the boxed product era, right? How do you sell your value add? How do you sell that, that consultative layer, uh, that really helps make sure that you're investing in the right solutions, makes sure that they're getting, uh, integrating well, talking about which things work well together, which things maybe don't work well together. Maybe even layering in, you know, this service provider customizing, you know, rolling up your sleeves, learning the API APIs, getting into the developer world a little bit. I think that's the opportunity. Um, and I think that's the reinvention that the cloud is going to demand of a value added reseller. Right. I
Jon:think the most interesting thing for me I'm seeing at the moment is that a lot of deals are going multi-vendor. Like we're seeing, we're seeing the need, you know, we seen the, the rise of coopertition, if that's a real word, I believe it is, um, where, you know, solutions and technologies are based fought for at the end customer. That that is, uh, based on the deployment of multiple solutions that the value added resellers, as you just mentioned here, they have to knit them together. Um, and now that there are so many options with regards to cloud, it's becoming even more in the, the channels role is becoming even more important to come up with the right solution for the, for the customer. Really.
Alex:actually and developers, yeah. Yeah. Good point. developers are kind of gold, liquid gold and they're probably going to become even more valuable. But you know, I definitely see, you know, the model where partners are offering services where they're customizing the application. Yes. Because actually it doesn't matter where they run, right. It doesn't, you know, they can be hosted from anywhere. Data can sit pretty much anywhere, y ou k now, but based on GDPR and all these other k inds of rules. But you know, the, the, the, t he[ inaudible] built is, is fascinating. And you know, t here, t here should be, w ell, in my opinion t here should be more of it and the value is going to be able to, and actually, you know, eight, I guess marketing agencies are doing the same b asic n ick going, you know, and salesforce is a really, really good example, right. Where it's great system. Most of our clients have got it. But actually n e never does what you really, really wanted to do. And so yes, y ou c an not h ope just have one solution. You probably can have two or three. So you might add in a few other things to s et to salesforce, but it still doesn't do what you want to do. And so how do you actually build something that genuinely works for each individual customer and developers are g oing t o be pretty critical to that. U m, and actually that's a fairly new thought and a new idea a nd new concept that I don't know where the r esellers a re e ven thinking about o n and hey, wouldn't it be amazing if v endors started some form of developer program t hat, t hat actually supported those partners?
Jon:I think we are seeing i t. I think, you know, the amount of vendors I see today t hat l ess professional services on their site o r not just v endors, sorry, partners today that l ists professional services on their site. So I think we are seeing move towards, u m, much more of a w raparound.
Karen:And I think that those programs have been around a long time, but they've been separated. It's, it's, I think it's, the lines are getting very fuzzy between what was a reseller, a managed service provider and a developer a. And I think that that those lines are going to start to, they're going to get increasingly fuzzy as all three of those capabilities are going to become more and more required in the partner of the future. And I think vendors are going to need to stop trying to put people into a specific box and start, you know, and it is back to that personalization, understanding that you may have all three capabilities of selling the product. Also, you know, the managed service side of things in terms of customizing the experience and even customizing through APIs or developer. Um, I think we're, you know, it shouldn't be three programs. I think it's gonna have to come together over time as a single experience. Um, and, and that's, that's one part of the cloud. The other part of the cloud as I think about it is, you know, Alex, you were talking about the, the geography, the geography, you know, these sort of centers of where vendors live but also where partners live. Well we're getting into a really, really virtual world with the cloud right now. So that also opens up the opportunity for true globalization of your partners and your partners don't have to be where your customers are or where you are. Um, you know, they, they could start to do more and more stuff in this virtual world. And so I think when you start to think about how you deal with multicurrency, how you deal with um, multi, multiple languages, I think the cloud is also going to drive the requirement of a more globalized perspective on the channel.
Alex:Massively important point. You know, they have to be sales and marketing organizations. They have to turn themselves into, um, you know, how do you cater if you're, if you're, if your customers can really come from anywhere and marketing, especially digital marketing is so important, that value proposition creation and how you then reach those people through really quite sophisticated, um, means, especially for a partner is going to be, it's going to be critical. And you know, uh, and you know that there's this really interesting, you know, and ever increasing ways in which to use digital marketing, um, which, which is, you know, partners genuine need to, to, to, to, to capitalize on buyers are getting younger. They're researching content. And sorry, just coming back to the, the, the, the, the point that Karen was making as well around, um, you know, it has to be commercially viable for them, but the idea of a partner turning up to an event or picking up the phone and calling a bunch of customers cause they're ready to buy is, you know, has already been over kind of really. And how do you influence and engage those people much earlier on. And so they kind of have to date, they have to do that and they've seen or they buy into that, that, that, that the more successful they'll be and they, you know, just educating them on, on what to do, how to do it, um, and even doing it for them is, is going to be really important.
Jon:Yup. Yup. I think the, the, the big trend I'm seeing, and w you know, we hear about this being being agency side and we all, whether we have the opportunity to hear about this agency side is there are those vendors that bought in the cloud and I think that they're doing fine. Like they know how they need with a co well most of them are understanding the, the kinds of partners they need to be able to bring on board. They're struggling maybe to get some of the scale behind that, but they know how to, how to build that proposition. Where I see the real opportunity for a lot of vendors is, is as they're, as they make that migration from hardware to, to hybrid to cloud. And it, to be honest, as a technologist, I feel rather strange having a conversation about the cloud almost after I feel It's happened. But it's still amazing how, how this transitioning is happening. The channel, it's just making that really clear to partners exactly what those different product streams are and how they need to sell them because it's a lot of confusion in the channel, especially when you are a vendor that's selling both over how they work, how you mix the two. You may be running one on a deal. Which program wanting to rebate program the billing between the two. Like it just, yeah, it muddies the water and I think there's, there's a real need in that space. Just just bring it down to two. A level of clarity for a lot of partners. And sometimes that might be running two programs, um, that may be the best thing to do. Um, but it's the amount of vendors that we see where it's just, it's muddy. It's, it's murky. You can't, yeah. I'm not surprised partners are struggling to, to really execute on the platform. Well, it's about just making it super easy.
Karen:I think that I like even just the fundamental of reinventing what the value proposition from a financial, what's the financial model of that. I do think that there's a ton of work for vendors to do around that. One. I also, you talked about this idea of specialization. I think the other challenges is to help partners figure out what type of customer they really solve for. Um, and so I think when you deal with, well, it, it's no longer geographic like it used to be, all right, well in this geography you needed to know your, your three C's, your customers, your competition in your channel. But it was very geographically driven, right? So these guys are located in the zip code. You would break things down by zip code, and I think the cloud is wiped out all away. And so you don't need to think about the geography as the, as the limiting factor. And so I think the challenge now, both on the vendor side and the partner side, is to figure out how do you define your target customer? Because I think the worst thing, uh, that a partner can do as well. I can, I can solve everything for everyone, you know, then, well, how do I help? Then how do I help you with the marketing strategy? And so I think there's also this channel or this challenge is as we reinvent that marketing support to help partners market their unique capabilities and target their most ideal customer targets, which may not be based on where you're located anymore. I mean that it probably isn't based on where you're located anymore. So I think that's a little bit of a new challenge as well. And then that goes back to the data challenge, right? That's just a new dynamic of information that you need to understand in your partner profile. You know, their, their capabilities, their customer targets and having their address isn't enough anymore. Um, and so this, and that's even more dynamic in terms of the data. It just makes it even more challenging to keep that, uh, always up to date relevant data, uh, on your channel. I don't know that anybody's got a great tool for that right now.
Jon:I feel like I'm seeing a Tom cruise fist pump from, from Alex ever those points.
Alex:I just couldn't agree more. Right. And I think partners are so in general, right? Resellers are so far away from knowing that that exists. What knowing how to do it. And you know, you talked a minute ago Karen, about you know, the fact that um, service-based service-based propositions, cloud-based or PR or propositions are so accessible to customers now and they're doing loads of, they're trying, they're demoing way before they kind of engage with a service provider or a partner or a reseller. And so a, that's why they have to get in market quickly, which actually I didn't say before, but that's really one of the important points. But you know, the, the notion of an ideal customer profile, right? That the notion of a target account list, I mean everyone's talking about ABM but, and I'm sure you know, loads of retailers are, but you know, finding out after you've developed your a genuine value proposition and really challenged that value proposition to then find those customers, you know, that they, they won't even know where to certainly from our experience, you know, again, I see this channel meet up again, but we've kind of sit here that, you know, I get channel marketers going, sorry, so what, what is digital to you? Can you just sort of confer, you know, just I want, I need to confirm that first. So where, where will partners be, you know, well resellers be and so, you know, amazing things, you know, in other podcasts that we've covered about intent, surging data, technographic data, like what were all these things to a partner and actually, you know, they start, they do need to start understanding what it is and why it's important. But you know, identifying customers based on what technology they, What the technology their customers have got installed is actually possible. Not only is it possible to understand what technologies they've got installed, they know they can now understand how much money they're investing in that type of technology that is crazy. And the partners don't even know that exists. So you know, it's really important to, to help them in how to identify those and what is actually available from a data perspective because actually it's quite an education on just using that. Yup. It really is.
Jon:And I think, I think that comes back to the point we were making earlier, which is the technology on the partner side of a channel. Um, and it just genuine the channel is lagging behind that of, of a vendor. Um, you know, they're not used to using technographic. They're still probably profiling their customer using very, very basic means Exactly. Postcodes. Um, so just to bring it back to the question as well, so what effect has, has the, uh, cause we could talk about this for hours. No, no, no, don't be sorry. It's awesome. Um, the, so what effect has the cloud had on the channel? We've talked about globalization. I think that's a really interesting one. Um, but if we were to summarize for our listeners, where do we, in one or two points, where do we w what effect do we feel cloud has had on, on the channel
Karen:over to me. Okay. Well, I mean, I think it's the, you know, it's the proliferation of options, right? So then the number of the, just the sheer number of things that you can sell in it together. I think it's, um, it's the impact of, for those partners who were born in the cloud, so we can talk about partners born in the cloud, you know, they get it, they understand that they have to talk about their value proposition in a different way. It's not, I can get you the best discount anymore. It's about their services. It's about their value. Um, I think on the vendor side, the, there's, we talked about those that were born in the cloud versus not. And you know, how you reinvent the financial model. I think there's still work to be done on that. Like how do you reinvent the, the financial model? I think the other big, uh, the big impact is, and this is technology that's missing right now and it's a byproduct of that global globalization and it's reinventing the partner locator. I mean, if you think about it right now, every vendor has their own partner locator and it's all, you know, uh, most of it is location-based, you know, what are you looking for and then what certifications do they need to have? Um, and it's, you know, if you think about the value of the cloud, it, it's usually a multi vendor, multi technology environment. It's things coming together. It's not driven by location. And I just feel like if you think about a technology that's really ripe for disruption, talk at partner locator, like how you, how a customer goes and finds the right partner. We talked about the need for the partner to get really articulate, articulate about who their target customer is. Well then how do you create the partner locator that actually supports that?
Jon:Right. And that's just music to my, like I see the partner locator being a key cornerstone of every channel program, but the amount of vendors that just don't give it the time and the resources and everything else, it needs to be what it just, what it could be. This is a key area where your potential prospects are going to locate your partners, they're going to do more business with you and they're just under served.
Karen:so why is that? Why, why do you think that is, John?
Jon:I just, it's a good question. I think, um, I, I think vendors don't know how to make them effective. Um, I think they are seen as a checklist item instead of being seen being seen as a lever to put it in co two went through some of the ideas that we've had here over the years. And I'm going to leave a couple just for the end of this podcast as well. You could make the partner locator such a carrots to be used in your program. You could say, you can come to get to the top of this, uh, of this page, of this search results page if you invest in, in our business and invest in this partnership. But so many of them just have it as this little sideline. It's often that's, that's forgotten about that, you know, rarely gets updated. Um, and I just, I just think it's, it could be so wonderful if, uh, if a vendor really gets behind it and knows how to do it and we, you know, it's a personal passion of mine. I built a few in the past. I've built some that have been absolutely fantastic. In fact, we've, we, you know, we've sat there watching live dashboards of all the different leads coming into partners. Um, I, you know, I, I love them, but I think that's, that's a key area for change moving forward.
Alex:I think actually it comes back to some of the things that we talked to, talked about at the beginning, which is programs are changing all the time. Partners are transient. And so why am I keeping a database up to date? That basically doesn't mean anything to my partners or my customers. And actually this no desire, there's no need for the partner because actually as you pointed out, John, there's nothing in it for them. So why the hell are they going to do it? And so what we do need to do is create the need. Um, we need to make it vendors need to make it more important. You know, I think some vendors might be, it might be doing, doing it well. So for the, you are fantastic. There's probably still more you can do, but I think a lot of them don't treat it in with the respect it deserves. Y ep. B ecause the partners don't care about it. It's not not giving them anything of v alue.
Karen:There are a lot of work too. I mean, they're expensive from a vendor standpoint. And I know that the temptation is when you have, you know, we talked about the idea of the developers one group and then we have, you know, in our world at, intuit, for example, accountants, uh, our big, you know, service provider to customers. And we ended up with a bunch of different locators. Like we, it's a, it's a program centric view versus a customer centric view. And so what happens is then from a partners perspective, it's like, you know, if they were in just one locator, that'd be great. But even with Ben, with a single vendor, they may have three different listings that they need to maintain. And I think if the data is not evergreen, then then the tool is useless. And it's really, really hard to keep that data accurate. And I think that that's just, and I think that there's great intention on both sides. I just don't, I, I think that talk about something that's work ready for reinvention. I just think we're going about it the wrong way. We're still going about it in a box software, hardware point of view. We're not thinking about it in a cloud point of view.
Alex:I completely agree that and I think, I think they are expensive to maintain. Um, so, so yeah, I think, I think ultimately for me it's coming back to we need to talk to vendors about creating the urgency. And the value around what it could do and driving it forward and creating, creating that, that imperative that partners you need to use something like it and keep us up to date with themselves.
Jon:So I'm going to bring us on to the last question here. What do we think is next in the channel? We've had three main subjects that have come up as we've gone through as, as we've gone through the conversation, in fact we've had probably more than three we've talked about data being a key element behind it, behind it being a challenge for, for partner locators to be up to date. U m, b ut being a challenge for vendors to manage. We've talked about providing a personalized, better partner experience across your platforms, across your, your c hannel s tate. U m, we talked about globalization, which I think is a really key element and the effect that the cloud has had on allowing partners to a ffect, to trade from anywhere your customer can be the other side of the world a nd it doesn't matter. And I think the other main point that's come up a few times here is there's just so much more to sell.
Karen:It's actually one issue and it's data. I think everything else is a byproduct if the data. Um, and so if we think about we have to reinvent the way we work, um, we have to think about it in a more personalized way, in a more global way, potentially in a little bit more vendor agnostic way. All of that comes down to we have got to figure out how to, um, how to manage our data and, and really build out this idea of a data ecosystem around the channel. Um, because it, you know, if you imagine a world where we get that right, imagine a world where we've got evergreen data is, um, available at your fingertips. It's global, it, it's vendor agnostic. It has a very partner-centric or even a customer centric point of view. Imagine now how much easier it is to have a conversation around personalizing the experience, right? So I'm not trying to figure out what you care about. I already know that, right? I already have the data that tells me what a great personalized experience might look like for you. So now I can shift my focus to actually creating those tools in those programs and making them available to you in a personalized way. But if I don't have the data, then I can't even start that conversation because every personalized conversation that we have today starts with, well, what, um, what do our partners actually want? How do we, how do we go analyze the data to figure out what our partners actually want? What is working for them? You know, and, and when we talked about quality, we were talking about this idea of what's a quality, well, which ones are our partners? You know, what are the indicators that'll tell us where our partners are today? What are our highest quality partners comes down to the data. So I think, you know, if, if we think about the reinvention of the channel and the tiers and why people, you know, to take us right back to where we were at the start, why do, why don't we do it? Why do we keep falling back into this, you know, three tiered, uh, precious metals, stones world because the data is holding us hostage there. And I think that's, uh, I think that's the opportunity to start a real revolution.
Jon:We've just got, we just got nodding here. That's not my, this, that everyone's just, Yup. That's exactly what we had. Exactly what we were thinking, Alex and Karen, it's been wonderful having both of you on the podcast today. Thank you very much for your time. It's been a pleasure talking about the future of the channel and we're late. We're wrap it up there. Thanks guys. Bye.