Tag: partners

Business, channel, Customer Experience, partnership, Social

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be

I recently came across some photos and as is often the way, it sparked a bit of retrospection. Thinking back to the experiences I was afforded in a role I held previously when I was employed at global telecoms vendor Avaya – and there were many. These experiences were for the most part shared with the folks working in our channel partners and most of whom I have personally known for more than 30 years. This is going to shock the reader because I know what you’re thinking – you simply do not look old enough Graham! 😉

Anyhoo, back to my reminiscing. The photos that I came across were from a trip we had to the Kruger National Park, followed by a few days in Mozambique. I am going to share these on Linkydink and Twitter for my good companions and friends to join me in the (hopefully fond) retrospection. So no people tags here, but if you are reading and reminiscing too – enjoy

Business

How does trust impact openness and collaboration?

Friend or foe

I am naturally open and have a leaning towards trust as a default, until of course I’m bitten or receive some other signal that I’m being used.

I have been reading a lot of books and other content about this broader topic, but not as a central theme. The themes were much more about ideas and sharing and how magical things can happen. The topic of trust and its impact doesn’t seem to figure highly, but I do wonder whether this can limit collaboration if there’s an unsaid trust question somewhere in the “group”

Is the elephant in the room?


Can ideas truly flow unencumbered, if there are (unsaid) issues within a group, whereby the trust question is not addressed?

Will all group members really bring their collaboration and sharing “A” game I wonder?

Does it matter if some are open in spite of this?

Personally, I’d postulate that it’s not optimal if you’re not all equally invested and some are holding back.
So is the answer that all parties sign some kind of NDA? Does this work in practice, or is an NDA now so default in business discussions, that they’re all too easily signed and filed without real attention and commitment?

All these questions bubble to the surface often for me, as the topic has huge significance to the work that I undertake. So all of this relies on a high degree of trust.

Making progress (and quickly) is rather tricky without it

Business, channel, Customer Experience, partnership, Sales, Selling

Channel Partner tips – Before you start.

Make sure you’re really clear about the road ahead and that you are sure you’re “up for the challenge”. It’s not simply a case of “build it and they will come”.

If you’ve done your preparation well, the rewards are there with a great execution. But don’t even think about “playing at it”

The start before the start
Business, channel, Compliance, Customer Focus, Leadership, partnership, Sales

Accreditation – A burden or a blessing

Vendor accreditation programmes – who are they really for?

1. Customers?
2. Channel partners?
3. Vendors?
4. All three?

Why does a customer care if their supplier is accredited by the vendor of the product, solution or service?
Why does a channel partner care whether they are Bronze, Silver, or Gold certified?
Why does the vendor need to create training and certification material, courses, tests etc?

It all sounds a lot of work, so why does anyone bother?

There must be some significant value in order to motivate everyone to care enough to get engaged – so what is it?

Customers are what this is all about! Customers require good advice from well informed representatives from the channel community and the channel community cannot rely on the resources of the vendor at every engagement they have, so the channel partners need to become equally well informed – This requires training and testing, which is great for the vendor, because they end up with well informed channel partners representing them and provides the scale required to develop more market coverage. In addition, an accreditation programme usually has a volume\revenue related metric, which rewards the successful sales partner – more of a value component than a quality component and an often thorny topic for engineering heavy partners with lots of skills but not too many new sales. Customers are usually able to see for themselves what partner accreditations are for channels and select based on a value\quality blend. In reality most customers want to know they will be well looked after rather than well sold to.
For the vendor, an accreditation programme provides a sense for channel partner commitment levels and focus on their portfolio, and training enables current knowledge to be maintained and product knowledge to be broadly well ingrained. The more a channel partner commits to one vendor programme, the less time and resources they will have for competing offers – stands to reason. So vendors see this as an important dynamic for developing partner commitments. Ultimately this enables scale and quality delivery for the customers and commitment for the vendor, with the reseller having the ability to wrap services and complementary products to their solution.