In a discussion with a client this morning, we were talking about the process, learning and scalability aspects in developing their international market growth. With successfully on-boarding a partner in Australia, the plan was then to take what they had learned into numerous new markets with different types of partners.
• Business simply cannot scale effectively without clearly defined business process across the key business functions: marketing, sales, customer on-boarding, implementation and support.
• Developing these processes in a growing business requires involvement of your best people in the particular discipline. For example, if you want to know how best to sell a product in a particular market then you should learn from your best business development people to devise the process and rollout to the rest of the sales team.
• Having a structured process enables a company to better learn and progress so the team can continually operate according to the company’s learnings on how best to achieve success in that particular area. Then with proper continuous feedback from the team this process can be continuously improved.
• With a clear process, you can deskill many aspects and reduce overall costs in the process with scale.
• On the other hand, blind over-adherence to the process without understanding the reasons behind why things are being done this way will most likely cause problems. Policy, protocol, processes and procedures can be overdone and thus become over bureaucratic with too much focus on adhering tightly to the process. Strong process shouldn’t always devoid people of intelligence and of course people shouldn’t shrug responsibility when it just didn’t work. Process driven but expert- led is the balance.
Your partner programme is your process for a successful partner network, your cookie cutter for partner network success.
Consider the global players, such as Microsoft, IBM, SAP, HP or Oracle. These very established companies have very mature partner programmes which are based on their defined best practice for success with partners.
These companies’ partner programmes operating all over the world have defined:
1) Target partner profiles - outlining the ideal partner company types
2) Partner propositions - for each partner type and the benefits to them
3) Engagement models – how to most effectively engage with potential partners, evaluate and on-board them
4) Partner agreements – defining the commitments, responsibilities and legal controls
5) Training programmes – that they need to get started, sell and deliver the vendors’ products
6) Cooperative marketing programmes – enabling partners to better engage the market with the might of the big brand marketing engine
7) Partner support structures – who and what is available to help the partner function as an effective extension of the vendors business
So when their staff and their partners all over the world need to understand how to best execute on part of the programme, it is clearly defined. The business can then operate consistently globally.
So the cookie cutter is needed to grow a business so needed in sales channel development but unlike the cookie factory businesses and partnerships are not all exactly the same. Partner business plans are different, different capabilities exist with partner businesses, different sales approaches exist within countries and different market conditions.
It is the vendor’s partner manager who is the expert who leads the partner programme process to ensure it is applied appropriately to get the best results from each partner and their varied capabilities and priorities.
The challenges in this cookie cutter approach are when it doesn’t fit precisely:
1) ‘Ideal Partner Businesses’ are not all the same – the ideal partner profile and partner proposition assumes that all potential partners of this type are the same. Many are independently owned companies with their business leaders having their individually defined strategies and directions. They are not all the same. Small variations can mean that the partnership won’t work.
2) The partner’s capabilities are not all the same – the assumption with the three tier partner support programme with the relevant training material that all partner sales people will be up to the same standard. This will never be the case. Even strong partners have gaps in their capabilities that must be supported by the vendors to get the best results.
3) Sales approaches are not all the same – suitable partner businesses can vary from selling training, services, shrink-wrapped software, corporate licensing, solution implementation, system integration, IT managed services, enterprise solution companies etc. Each has their own sales approach that works for their businesses and different types of businesses require capabilities in selling. The opportunity to get a sale for the vendor’s product can arise at different points in these companies selling their own services and solution. It is very unlikely that they will change how they sell completely to suit the vendor’s ideal sales process.
4) Acceptable practices and culture are not all the same – This is being highlighted regularly with projects in China on the importance of a relationship first, business second. Now, think about sales and/or partner qualification, the challenges of initial discussions and gather some critical information to assess if a partner is suitable before you travel to meet them. In a relationship first, they may want to meet you first, based on cursory research. This can be an expensive and ineffective sales process if, not handled appropriately. The vendor’s sales process and approach may need to be adjusted to take account of these things.
5) Market conditions are not all the same – economic conditions, market cycles, competition and many other challenges need to be part of the process of managing the process and the expectations of a partnership. These conditions can make sales processes longer, more expensive and produce less return. How will the vendor adjust their approach, incentives and support to keep the partner moving forward, even if the pace is slow? If you are not winning the game today, stay in the game for tomorrow.
A partner programme is only as good as the results it produces for the vendor and its partners. It is essential to have defined a process and a sales channel engine that fits into your sales organisation but it essential to have strong leadership to can adjust to make it work; process driven while being expert led.
Donagh Kiernan is founder and CEO of Tenego Partnering, a business development services company providing hands-on international partner sales channels development for growing and established software product companies.
