Making the most out of your channel partnerships is crucial to success in today’s IT climate, but managing business between multiple organisations is seldom easy. The channel is a web of conflicting strategies and processes, making communication crucial.
Frank Raimondi, worldwide channel alliance manager for Intel, took to the 2014 EMEA Channel and Partner Conference stage to present some of his tips for developing a successful and profitable partner relationship, and invited a panel of guests to discuss their own experiences.
Raimondi’s a good one to speak on this topic: His channel experience spans 25 years, and he oversees Intel’s network of 150,000 channel partners. Citing a CompTIA Quick Start Guide, here are his three most important strategies to maximising channel relationships:
Think like a vendor. A reseller with a small base of customers can’t expect every vendor to constantly help them — it is unlikely to be worth their while. This is why it’s crucial for channel partners to think like vendors and remember the 80/20 rule: 20 percent of resellers make up 80 percent of a vendor’s revenue and vice-versa. Partners can’t expect a vendor’s constant attention, and need to develop that relationship over time. Taking incremental steps toward aligning marketing strategies can help, so both organisations can better understand each other’s needs and grow together over time.
Work the partner programme. No two partners will have the same capabilities, and many vendors will often qualify partners based on their abilities to meet specific needs, like sales technology certifications and vertical targets. Get involved in partner programmes to both qualify yourself in the vendor’s eyes and so each group can learn about the other’s business.
Evaluate the partnership. Partners need to assess vendor relationships, particularly those with high expectations of what vendors will do for them. Identify what the vendor is doing to support solution development and sales, and at the same time assess whether you can deliver what a vendor wants.
Raimondi invited a panel of experts to the stage to discuss their experiences with the channel and how best to develop relationships. He was joined by Ed Bodiam, chief executive officer of Haladon Technologies; Chris Tate, director of product strategy for GCI Channel Solutions; Dr. Alistair Forbes, general manager of Logic Now and Paul Tomlinson, managing director at Mirus IT.
Some of their key advice:
- Industry and customer events are hugely important for getting feedback not just from customers but from the wider industry as a whole.
- Partners have lots of vendors to work with, and vendors need to know the score. Partners will often have a primary vendor, a secondary vendor and so on. A secondary vendor needs to accept that and not harass the partner.
- If business is going well, there’s no need for constant contact. Keep the relationship in the background and let people get on with it.
- Vendor relationships are different depending on what they provide. A partner that resells a vendor’s server is unlikely to have the same relationship as the one where they form a part of a complex backup and disaster recovery tool, for example.
- Partners don’t appreciate vendors with a channel community and direct sales. They want to be supported by the vendor and not undercut by prices.
If you’ve missed EMEA this year, take a moment to read about the keynote address from legendary BBC presenter Maggie Philbin, and the how-tos, testimonials and tools discussed during the latest CompTIA’s UK Channel Community meeting.
