The biggest disconnect we see in partnering technologies today is their lack of focus on the partner. No one seems to appreciate the tremendous challenge that individual partners face in learning the dozens, if not hundreds, of both home grown and packaged solutions they are forced to use in order to do business with vendors. Logging into a vendor’s portal is at best a necessary evil of doing business with them and at worst, a complete waste of a partner’s time. The more hoops they are forced to jump through (think multiple log-ins) and the more investment they are forced to make, the less they want to deal with it. Take, for example, the discussion at SalesForce.com’s recent DreamForce event on their “Salesforce Network” which they are currently piloting to a handful of clients. The system gives vendors and their partners the ability to collectively distribute (or push) leads as well as register them through one shared system. It seems like a great concept but the deal breaker for many is that all those involved have to have SalesForce.com licenses. Current estimates quoted at the event put the number of solution providers using SalesForce at a mere 4-20%. Research is being done with IDC and CRN currently to more narrowly identify that figure but in any case, it certainly is not yet a standard in the solution provider community. So again, while this scenario certainly seems beneficial to the vendor, it is the partner who is left conforming and making additional investments in order to reap the benefits.

View 6 Steps to Building an Effective Partner Portal webinar here

Organizations need to be more “partner-centric” in their program automation strategies. After all, it is for the partner that these tools are deployed – to collaborate and communicate information to and with them. This lack of focus on the partner in their automation strategy is the key reason that so many companies end up with under-utilized partner portals which are theoretically the gateways to engagement, support, collaboration, assessment and management of partner relationships. At a minimum you should be providing 3 things to partners in your portal if you want them to continually utilize them and realize value for themselves and your bottom and top lines:

1. The ability to access all the systems they need to do business with you via one access point – that means no multiple log-ins.

2. An intuitive application that requires no monetary or training investment on their part.

3. Information that is current and relevant to their role in their business and yours.

Our PartnerPath solutions have been built on these key principles, making you easy to do business with. By providing one central log-in to all resources and tools, a consistent and easy-to-use interface that enables you and your partners to share information and requests, we have stayed focused on the partner’s experience. When the collaboration channel flows freely, you get the accurate and timely information you need to grow your business and keep your partners engaged, productive, profitable and satisfied.

To share with us where you are experiencing the biggest challenges in automating your partner program operations, please comment and we will share and comment replies in future BLOG posts and newsletters.

Partner-to-Partner networks are generally formed by a vendor to encourage peer-to-peer collaboration in order to bring more complete solutions to their customers in less time and for less money. Vendors invest in the design and implementation of these ecosystems to facilitate the process of different types of partners coming together to collaborate on the development of new and innovative solutions to customer needs. Basically, they’re helping companies of all types, hardware makers, software developers, solution installers, service outsourcers – find, meet and engage with each other. This enables organizations to find allies no matter their geography, technological expertise or vertical market knowledge and coordinate activities designed to deliver comprehensive solutions to customers.

An interesting recent example is that of Cisco helping two of their partners -- Calence and Ipcelerate -- come together to collaborate on a solution for a franchisee of 26 SUBWAY® restaurants in Tucson, Ariz. The customer was looking to upgrade his communications infrastructure and add a series of new feature-rich business applications such as timecard and shift management, daily deposit reporting and operational task reminders. IPcelerate, a Dallas-based Cisco Technology Developer Program Partner, designed, developed and implemented a set of highly customized applications so that using the touch-screen of a Cisco IP Phone, employees could interact with software applications in the same way they interact with the franchises' current point-of sale-computers. While Calence, a Phoenix-based Cisco Gold Certified Partner, planned, designed and implemented the Cisco Unified Communications system to go along with the new app’s.

In facilitating partner-to-partner networks we recommend the following:

Do - Focus on customer and partner needs
First off, the vendors should define a customer centric ecosystem: Consider, what is of value to the customer? Where do they like to learn about solutions? Where do they buy? This will help the vendor determine what types are partners are needed to reach the customers with a full solution. This focus on the customer’s need directs who should be part of the ecosystem and what types of transactional relationships need to be built.

Do- Develop a P2P Plan
Begin with the research to understand where your partners are already typically partnering. Consider what they are already doing? How they are doing it? What do they need from you to make their efforts easier or more effective? Plan your ecosystem growth accordingly. Determine up front how many partners you are able and/or willing to support through the ecosystem, when to develop and ramp each type of partner into the ecosystem, and what readiness or enablement activities are needed to make it effective. Determine what role you want to play in developing an ecosystem, what the rules of engagement will be and what infrastructure or technology you will use to facilitate their collaboration. Ecosystems can sometimes take on a life of their own, such as the International Association of Microsoft Certified Professionals, so vendors need to decide how much direction facilitation, participation and investment they want to make into the ecosystem. We recommend a supervisory role rather than a command and control position in the ecosystem.

Don’t – Underestimate the investment needed
Partner-to-partner ecosystems cost money -- lots of it and other peoples too. Most organizations we’ve talked to have underestimated the investment their organization and the partner’s organizations had to make to develop the environment that facilitates collaboration among ISVs, IHVs, and Solution Providers.

Don’t - Forget to measure success
The investment in both the infrastructure and human resources that are needed to facilitate partner collaboration needs to be considered and weighed against the potential sales influence and increased revenue that could be driven by the ecosystem participants. Establishing metrics by which to measure P2P Program performance will help you more easily track the programs success and determine the ROI you are realizing from your partner collaboration enablement efforts. Finally consider that possibility that not all partners will choose to participate. Some may already be connected to the partners they need through other means, or find the investment to engage with you too high. Several organizations we’ve talked to about partner-to-partner ecosystems have overestimated the benefits of investing in developing a network and have challenges proving the value of their investment.

To read more about P2P ecosystems and get a practitioner’s perspective, click here to ready highlights from of a Q&A session with Mike Haines, General Manager of US Partner and Channel Strategy at Microsoft. Mike tells us more about what Microsoft is doing to facilitate partner-to-partner ecosystems and some of the benefits and challenges they have experienced. To view the replay of a webinar on the topic, click here.

DK: Why is Microsoft interested in developing a P2P network?

MH: First and foremost, because we want to enable our partners to build the solutions necessary to address the requirements of the customer. Secondly, we realize that partners are trying to achieve a growth objective and capture new business opportunities and don’t always have all the “pieces & parts.” Partners can address this in multiple ways. They can build what the customer needs- which is expensive, or partner. Also, partners want to increase their reach into new verticals, market segments and geographies and understanding the “power of partnering” and getting good at collaborating with other partners is the way to do that. In the end we are trying to help partners grow their capabilities and grow their business as part of their overall growth strategy.

DK: What do you see as Microsoft’s role in the network?

MH: I think all of us struggle with this. At the end of the day we realize its all about the partner so we see our role as an enabler. The fact is we have the resources to help provide tools, programs and examples of best practices in terms of frameworks and models that they can use to collaborate more effectively along the solution lifecycle. So I think our role is to work with our partners to define what they need from us, how we best help to enable them more effectively and then get out of the way and let them go do business.

DK: What P2P initiatives and activities is Microsoft engaged in?

MH: That could take up a call in itself so I’ll shoot for brevity. First at the broader programmatic level, we have some online tools that enable a number of different things like Channel Builder and Solution Finder. Channel Builder is an online model where partners can identify each other, search for partners in other regions with other capabilities and link to them. Solution Finder is a tool that is used with customers and partners where partners can document their solutions so that other partners or customers can find them. We also leverage a lot of our meetings, worldwide and regionally, to have sessions around relationship building and collaboration. We are also doing a lot of locally based activities so that partners can build relationships and get to know each others competencies and cultures and build a true partnership, not just alliance around a deal. We’re building new programs all the time so that those activities are consistent across geographies.

DK: What success have you seen and what challenges have you experienced?

MH: In our partner portal there are a lot of examples of key ISV partners and key SI partners creating vertical solutions. Another area is our Dynamics Partners, those focused on areas like ERP, CRM and Finance, with our more classic infrastructure and implementation partners work together to develop really unique solutions and go after worldwide markets. We often highlight these in our WW Partner Conference as well. The success stories go on. As far as challenges, the biggest is trying to make sure you’re not trying to boil the ocean. You can’t be all things to all partners so you have to focus your efforts and identify which partners are really interested in collaboration, from a culture and business strategy perspective, and make sure you invest your efforts there.

DK: If you had it do over again, what would you do differently?

MH: I would say start sooner. The truth is that P2P collaboration is an idea that has been on the radar for a long time. I remember talking about this 4-5 years ago when I was at Gartner. And a lot of vendors have had partner locators and solution builders for a long time. But a more robust solution lifecycle approach to the issue has only recently come about. If vendors could have come to that point faster we would be even further down the road then we are. So starting sooner, moving faster would have been the main thing I would change- not our approach or our focus. At Microsoft our research tells us we are focused on the right things but we need to move fast because our partner community is moving fast.

To view the replay of this Q&A session, click here.

Let’s put this into perspective, so you don’t think I’m just bemoaning a “normal” awkward childhood. At 15 I was REALLY tall (ok, still am) and I was built like a 2 x 4 board, hugely a jock, geeky smart, with enormous coke bottom bottle glasses (thank you lasik) and yes, gasp, braces. I ate lunch alone most days, wasn’t invited to ANY parties and was too geeky even to be in the geek clubs. I had a scant few friends and fewer dates. I had been hanging out with Linda Quinn, Andrea Kelly and Wendy Weeks since kindergarten. Wendy found a boyfriend in high school, so she left our merry band – and Linda and Andrea were always close as they shared a love for Steve Perry of Journey and stalked him regularly.

Not that this jaunt down memory lane hasn’t been fantastic, but let’s cut to the chase. I finally escaped high school to UCSD where I studied engineering and got my degree in economics. I moved back to the bay area to be in high tech. After 12 years of channels, sales and marketing roles, I started Amazon Consulting and rest is written in the history of our growing company.

Last week Inc Magazine listed 5,000 of the fastest growing companies in America. Thanks to the great team and excellent clients we have Amazon Consulting is number 1,050. Not bad for the third wheel of the loser squad.

I find it fitting that I’m in Austin Texas this week – Lyle’s home town – and muddling about being “born” with the channel gene. We talk to hundreds of technology companies in a year and it is always amazing to me how easy it is to pick out a company that has channel DNA – and how difficult it is to connect with those organizations that are faking it. Yes, it is our job to help technology organizations design, implement and automate partnering models. And of course they wouldn’t pay us “the big bucks” if it was uncomplicated and painless. However, there are organizations that “get it at their core” and we quickly gain traction and produce real results and success with partnering sales and profitability. These organizations have channel DNA. They understand the value that partners can bring and simply need to refine the processes to determine who, how and when to engage which types of partners. It got me wondering, is an organizations’ ability to partner effectively in its DNA or can it be learned?

Whether the organization, or more accurately, those that work for the organization, have channel DNA determines the ease at which it develops, engages and empowers partners. You can spot a company with “the channel gene” by talking to their executives and reading their company materials and web site. How prominent a role do partners play in their story? - is the “partnering” tab on the web site? How clear is the business value proposition for partners? Is it apparent what their solution providers, system integrators, consultants or VARs get out of the relationship? Do their executives say “what we need from you is…” or do they ask “how can we work with you to help you satisfy our joint customers?”

Organizations that do not have channel in their DNA continue to struggle in engaging and leveraging partners. They seem to “stub their toe” often or take two steps forward in a partnering initiative, only to take one giant step back when they forget about the partner in the equation and require the partner to book the services directly with the vendor (for example). These organizations try to “leverage partners” – OEM’s, Alliances, Solution Providers – but never seem to be able to get into the rhythm of the relationship. These organizations produce opportunistic sales and an opportunistic revenue streams through their partner relationships

Having channel DNA doesn’t mean there is never conflict or challenges to overcome. It just means that the general concept of partnering is embraced, widely accepted and the organization is committed to the creating a win-win-win (customer, partner, vendor) scenario.

Cisco has the channel gene (at least now they do – they haven’t always). As does Microsoft. Oracle, hummm? IBM? BEA? VMware? What do you think?

If I was a solution provider, I’d look for a corporate blood test that determined if the organization was pre-disposed to partnering before I invested in building my business around them. Can the executive leadership carry the tune or are they tone deft in singing the channels virtues. Tell me what you think- what vendors do you think really “get it” when it comes to partnering?

Many people headed for the doors at lunch. Not only to grab lunch at the hotel next door or one of the restaurants on the 16th street mall a couple of blocks away, but to pack and head to the airport. I was surprised to see many people getting luggage out of bag check. I wonder what the big end of the conference party at Coors Field is going to be like with half the attendees? I never seem to stay for the closing party. I’m typically tired by then and I really don’t want to stand around listening to an ABBA tribute band, a Neil Diamond tribute band and a U2 tribute band. Now, if they could actually get U2… I’d stay ?. Heck, I’d even stick around for Neil Diamond.

After a quick bite of even more conference chicken, I trotted off to my last session of the week. All in all I only made it to 7 sessions. 7 out of 180 options – and that didn’t even include the hands-on sessions. I feel like I missed out on a lot of information and interaction. There were only 10 people in my session today – where Tuesday, there would have been over 100. I felt sorry for the presenter. It’s hard to stand up in front of a room and talk for an hour when you know the audience doesn’t care.

On the way out I stopped to chat with a few people that I continued to run into but didn’t get time to talk with. We still didn’t really get time to talk – other than to catch up on each other’s perceptions of the conference. I feel bad leaving early. I can’t walk out of movies or presentations or concerts while they’re in progress. I feel it’s rude. But alas, I took my leave of the conference and headed for the airport – only to be delayed in leaving because they cancelled my flight and I had to wait to go stand-by on the next flight. Middle seat, back of the plane. Ah, isn’t travel glamorous?

The keynotes seemed a little annoying this morning with blaring music and a light show somehow inappropriate on day 2. We were all pumped up yesterday and a little sullen today. Even Allison Watson noticed as she commented during her opening this morning, “it looks a bit thinner out there. I wonder if that’s because of the party on my hotel floor that was still raging at 4am!” The messages seemed a bit repetitive from yesterday’s announcements and the crowd is moving a lot slower. Even the presenters seem tired.

I had a good meeting with Julie Bennani who is the new VP for the Worldwide Channel Program. She took Sheryl Webb-Robin’s position and reports to Allison. I hope I didn’t insult her when I mentioned that our recommendations are actionable because the Amazon Consulting team all has extensive experience working in corporate in these channel strategy and management roles, not from a traditional consulting background, and we know what it takes to design a program that is implement-able. She comes from Accenture. Whoops.

I had lunch with about 8 solution providers from different organizations and different geographies. It was fun to talk about their specialties and market opportunities. I was surprised at how many of them sold the entire Microsoft suite. They believed that the new interoperability messaging from Microsoft was playing very well with their clients, because the Microsoft technologies could play along side the solutions they already had. The domestic resellers (about half the table) also sold Oracle ERP and CRM, but the international guys said they didn’t see Oracle at all in their markets. SAP was prominent in Germany and central Europe. The Swiss guys at our table were incredibly talkative and started to convince the others to go to the SharePoint hands-on sessions scheduled for later in the day. They were all pitching their favorite break outs and trying to sway the table to change their plans. These Microsoft partners are sure passionate about their technologies.

Tonight was the awards banquet. Conference chicken aside, it was an interesting and entertaining evening. My table mates were friendly and talkative and the award winners were really excited. I don’t know how Microsoft chose the companies that won the “best partner” categories (about 8 of them), but the winners looked like they won the Oscars as they bounded up on stage to collect their Lucite trophies.

Most of the attendees headed to one bar or another after the awards were handed out. I’m heading to bed as I’m just exhausted. I think the awards should go to those that make their breakfast meetings and the keynotes tomorrow.

Other than the keynotes that were packed with over 5,000 bright eyed attendees, the other most crowded session I attended was the ISV session. I expected to learn how Microsoft worked with ISV’s, and instead I got an hour-long pitch on why I should develop my software on the Microsoft platform. I think as an ISV, I wouldn’t invest the time and money to come to WPC if I hadn’t already made the decision to develop on the MS platform. In addition to the product pushes and advertisements for other break out sessions, they did announce some programs that leverage Microsoft’s buying power to help the smaller ISVs – a channel recruitment resource (the York Group), SEO experts, and benchmark reports from MarketingSherpa. I didn’t get to connect with any partners (yet) to ask them if they use the tools that Microsoft provides. That’s tomorrow’s mission.

The sessions were good, but it’s the personal connections made that I really enjoy – and the reason I attend partner conferences. From the dozen conversations I had over breakfast, coffee, lunch, soda, dinner and cocktails, I’ll highlight three for you.

The first one (chronologically) was a meeting with Mike Haines. Mike used to be the channel analyst at Gartner and is now the GM of Partnering Strategy for the US team at Microsoft. We had a great chat about partner-to-partner collaboration, which has been Mike’s stump issue for the last couple of years. We worked on an end-all-be-all solution for how to engage partners in working with each other, but we didn’t come to a final answer, yet ?. We discussed our [Amazon Consulting’s] new customer subscription renewal tool and collaborative deal management tool in the PartnerPath solution that helps vendors collaborate with partners. He seemed to really like how we work with other systems to provide add-on functionality, instead of expecting the vendors to rip-and-replace their current partnering solutions. And, of course, we discussed the talent shortage in the industry, and how organizations like Cisco were trying to help solution providers attract, develop and retain experienced individuals. Mike told me that Microsoft was looking at some similar programs and we might be able to help there.

My second great conversation was inspiring and scary at the same time. I met Bill Botti, COO of Alternative Technology and Amazon Consulting board member for lunch. It’s always nerve racking for me to meet with a board member – I never feel prepared enough! We chatted about the direction of Amazon Consulting and our focus on designing, implementing and automating partnering for technology companies. He’s still a huge fan of our work and believes we’re on the right path expanding into implementation services and automation – because it helps us increase client satisfaction and continued engagement. We also talked about Alternative Technology being purchased by Arrow and what that meant for the value-add that Alt Tech is known for. I was excited to hear that Arrow is going to leave them alone as a wholly-owned subsidiary. We finished our salads discussing the growth in the technology market place, the new vendors they’ve brought on (VMware, for example) and of course, golf. Bill has a great leadership style – his goal is to hire great people so he can spend more time golfing with customers and vendors. He got in 82 rounds of golf last year … and he lives in Denver! That’s my new dream…

I’ve saved the best for last. I had a great conversation with the president of a Microsoft gold certified partner at the bar tonight (like you didn’t know that was coming). He’s an SMB “reseller” (hates that word), based in Framingham, CT. He had been out all night “socializing” already and was going to take his beer back to his room to do email, until I talked him into staying at the bar with me. He had already been to the Symantec party that night and to the Microsoft US party at Inesco Field – where I was too. Our first heated debate was that he thought Huey Lewis and the News ROCKED, I disagreed and thought they were much better when they played my high school prom (yes, a long, long time ago). Since he’s also an IBM business partner, I got into the comparison discussion. He is a die-hard, loyal fan of IBM - wouldn’t sell anything else. However, he says their partner program is the worst among the lines he carries. He wasn’t too complimentary about SonicWall either, but that was more in product and pricing than the program. Even as I supplied him with a constant stream of local brews, he never wavered in his admiration of Microsoft. He loves the products, the people (his CAM) and the program. Just before we both turned into pumpkins at midnight, I asked the question about partnering with Dell…ugh, did I get an earful. Never, never, never. The trust was broken and there would never be a personal connection like he has with Microsoft and IBM. Waiting for your call, Michael…

More tomorrow…

I took my chilled bottle of California white table wine to a friend’s house for a very nice dinner. He’s a retired Army General, so there weren’t many options there—other than “Would you like a margarita to start?” Well, hello, have you met me? A margarita is my second favorite drink.

Anyway, after dinner I sat at the hotel bar and worked my way through the 192-page Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference guide – plus its three full 8.5x11 page addendums! Just trying to understand the options required a glass of wine. Don’t blame me… in addition to the three hours each day of keynotes, there are 21 options for each open session, three sessions a day for nearly three days. That’s 180 options! And I only get to go to 9 of them??!?!? Oh, the pressure to pick good ones.

The session topics range from the weird to the wondrous and are coded for one of the seven “tracks” you might consider – enterprise, Mid-market, Small Business, OEM/System Builder, ISV, Distribution and something called “Microsoft Business Solutions” (I thought they all were – other than the XBOX of course, and I didn’t see a session on that. Yes, I looked!). Several sessions, including “Sales Leadership: A Fulcrum for Success,” indicated the topics are appropriate for six of the seven tracks (sorry, Small Businesses, I guess you don’t need sales leadership, or it’s not the fulcrum for your success). However, the session “Making the Microsoft Customer Campaigns Work for Your Business” seems to not be appropriate for any track. Is that because the Microsoft customer campaigns don’t work for solution partners? Hummmm….?

It’s just now 11 pm local time and the bar is starting to hop. Conference goers are checking into, saying hi to colleagues and planning tomorrow’s booth strategies. Of course, over half are Microsoft employees distinguishable by the “Windows Vista” backpacks they are carrying verses the “Microsoft Partner Summit” shoulder bags for the attendees. It’s interesting to witness the ingress faster than the egress at 11 pm – when we all know that Allison Watson kicks off the event at 8:30 tomorrow morning. The options are still running rampant here – head out for a quick burger, walk over to the cabaret club, head to your room for email, have another drink and stay to watch the home run derby on Sports Channel? I’m happy to option for an early escape tonight, so I can live through another three nights of social options. I’ve learned over the years, pace yourself. Too many options aren’t always a good thing.

We think the answer is yes. Why invest in more internal and direct sales processes, people and systems when a little collaboration with your partners can give you better results? That’s your queue to sound off—what do you think?

Several companies, such as Network Appliance, VMware and BEA have partner programs that are unique for each distinct sales and operating region – namely North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific and Latin America. These organizations tend to have a strong regional structure – i.e., a president or general manager that is responsible for the entire P&L of the region. Other, larger companies such as AMD, Oracle, Cisco, and Symantec, have “globalized” partner programs, providing essentially the same program structure across all operational regions. Which is better? That depends on several decision elements, including the strength of the global brand, the product and channel maturity, and the resources available both at the global headquarters and in the regions.

Gary Bixler has worked in both worldwide and domestic channel marketing roles for microprocessor manufacturer AMD and understands the benefits and challenges of standardizing globally. AMD engages with a total partner base of 7,000, with 3,800 located in global markets.

“Companies benefit from better sharing of best practices among regions, better and more efficient leverage of common program elements, and unified measurement and analysis,” says Bixler.

After working with several clients to unify and standardize their partner program across multiple regions, we see three primary benefits to aligning program features and requirements globally:

Besting the likes of perennial favorites “Ease of doing business” and “Partner Profitability,” “Partner Readiness” was a front runner for nearly half of the respondents. The category grabbed a 4 or 5 ranking for 80% of those surveyed (on an importance scale ranked 1 to 5).

But what does “Partner Readiness” really mean? The first step toward better understanding would be to distinguish the difference between readiness and enablement, terms often used interchangeably. We see them as having different, though related, meanings. Settling on a definition is worthwhile since vendors consider it a critical component of what they plan on providing for their partners this year. Let’s start by clearing up some confusion around terminology.

Along the continuum of being a “channel friendly” company and effectively engaging and empowering partners, the first step is to focus on your own channel readiness. This stage primarily applies to internally focused activities to ensure your own organization is ready to engage partners: i.e.

• Does the product have the proper documentation?


• Is the product easily packaged or bundled into SKUs?


• Is it easy to configure and order?


• Does the sales team structure support an indirect sales effort? Is their compensation aligned to this effort?


• Is the product easy to install and support?

• Does the solution provider have the right qualifications to be a partner?


• Do they have experience in my market?


• Do they sell similar solutions?


• Are they successful with customers?
  
• Do they have the technical knowledge—the training and the certification to correctly position, sell, implement and support these products?

• Do the partners have the marketing tools available to them?


• Are there field and corporate resources available to work along side the partners?


• Do the partners have access to pre-sales engineers? And post-sales support engineers?
  
• Can a partner quickly and easily develop a quote and source products for the customer, with the “right” pricing?

Lori Cook, VP of worldwide professional services, channels and alliances at BMC Software noted that BMC relies on feedback from their partners to help them develop the right tools and training. “Because our software product is complex and requires a great deal of knowledge to understand the portfolio around business service management, I created an advisory board. Partners give me constant feedback on what they need to get their jobs done and maximize their opportunities,” she said. “It revolves around continued support with education, both from a sales perspective and from a technical perspective, and around certification on our solution set and our products.”

For Doug Kennedy, VP of worldwide alliances and channels at Oracle, partner enablement is about paying attention to the market and then taking care of an enormous partner base.

“Enablement is a major thing for Oracle, because we've got hundreds of products and more than 19,000 partners,” he said. “I put a task force together about 16 months ago to dive into the requirements and what we were delivering for education. And we were delivering thousands of unique courses across the globe. I focused this task force on ensuring that the curricula are complete--for the partner to find out which type of courses they need based on what their discipline is.”

Enablement encompasses a number of partner-focused tools and support, said Frank Vitagliano, VP of worldwide channels and U.S. enterprise operations at Juniper Networks. “To me, enablement starts with the training and certification, but it's broader than just that. It includes presales and postsales support, and it includes things like pricing support, marketing support and just general enablement or engagement kinds of activities,” Vitagliano said.

From the Partner’s Perspective
Randy Day, President and CEO of Troy, Mich.-based SMB solution provider New Dimensions, has seen the shift in manufacturers’ approach to the market in recent months, paying more attention to partners who sell into the hot SMB space. He said he likes the vendors’ focus on “partner enablement” because of what it means to the success of his business.

“The SMB market is so huge, and the VAR channel has a strong foothold in it,” Day said. “It makes sense for [vendors] to try to penetrate SMB by enabling us with the resources and the right tools to successfully sell and to make sure the end user is satisfied.”

At Amazon Consulting, we envision the partner cycle moving another step forward, beginning with channel readiness, moving to partner enablement and ultimately realizing a level of partner empowerment overarching four pillars of support: skills enablement, sales support, marketing support and technical support. We believe that vendors can enable a partner by giving them tools, but “empowering” them to effectively utilize those tools is much more productive.

Over the years, we have discovered a definite trickle down effect. If the CEO is pro-channel, then the rest of the company is, too. But how far does that extend? And, is it because we are consultants not vendors that what seems to be obvious is not always necessarily true.

Or, are we so steeped in the channel, living and breathing partnerships every day we assume incorrectly that all— even the HR department — should be very clear on the channel operations?

I am going to step out here and boldly proclaim that if the company is devoted to its partner base, then everyone in the company needs to have an understanding of just who those partners are and what role they play in the companies success. Of course, you can operate a company otherwise. But I bet the companies in which all the employees are clearly channel centric have excellent partner structures in place. Unfortunately, we see all too often in our work that it’s just not always the case.

Are there companies that make this part of an employee’s initiation, even if they are not channel facing? Tell us what happens at your company.

Every time this issue resurfaces, it reminds me of the movie “Groundhog Day” – the same problem, another day, with the vendor community looking at the same solutions to try to tackle the issue for their technologies or products themselves. A veritable “I’ve Got You Babe” recording over and over. It seems as if everyone has forgotten the market dynamics that created the cyclical dearth of talent at the solution provider level the last time. And, more importantly, forgotten who’s really best positioned in the channel “food chain” to help create a sustainable solution.

Let’s think about it. When a technology is new and emerging, typically it has little market traction, and solution providers are hesitant to invest in training and staffing until there is measurable market demand ….. that is, unless they’re real innovators and have market vision beyond most of their traditional competitors. In these early stages of product adoption, the best and most knowledgeable technical talent will be cultivated and held closely by the vendor(s) themselves. This resource is absolutely invaluable to creating those refenceable customers which will sustain and grow the success of the product for the vendor. Ironically enough, many vendors still expect their cultivated partner community to “see the vision” of the market opportunity and invest in technical resources to help the vendor go seize that market. Hmmmm, so if I’m a regional solution provider of “average” size and maturity I’m usually under-capitalized and very cautious about where I invest my scant sales and technical resources in advance of a known market opportunity. And, if I have to compete with the vendor to recruit and pay expensive, sought-after engineering talent it’s a shaky value proposition to my business. Further, I’m still probably going to have to do the pre-selling and prospecting work myself (which is not typically where my talent lies), then drop in the technical resource (SE, architect, etc.) to help me with the proof-of-concept, demo or prototype. So, unless the technical talent is by happenstance really good at pre-sales work, that resource could sit on my bench until I can qualify a good opportunity for them. Hmmmm….

Now, what about the other scenario? The technology is market-proven, mature and in relatively hot demand. Let’s also assume in this scenario that there is a relatively broad set of channel and influencer/alliance partners promoting the technology (Oracle database and web infrastructure software licenses might be an apt example). So, the laws of Darwin kick in. Those solution providers who have invested in their competency and staffing depth on this technology will likely have the kind of market differentiation, and therefore sales success, to command the best talent -- the best quality and quantity of technical talent with proficiency and tangible market success with the products. If you’re not one of these market leaders, and/or if you haven’t created some proprietary solution on top of this mature technology, you’re not sitting too pretty. So, you cultivate the technical talent you need, but are in constant risk of losing them to the vendor directly or, more likely, to another solution provider who can pay them more or give them more robust projects on which to deploy their skills. The diametrically opposed challenge for many solution providers in this mature-product scenario is that there is readily available talent to be had regionally, but outside of traditional recruiting methods of advertising, they may not know the best sources to find mature talent. And, if they recruit someone locally from another solution provider they exacerbate the local competitive situation.

So, what’s the solution? Well, I’m pretty sure with every cycle of major emerging technologies (Linux, Java, Storage Area Networking, VoIP) the leading vendors have tried to prime the pump by getting the channel to invest themselves with their own programs, to no avail. And, unless several leading (and often competing!) vendors decide to band together in a consortium fashion to help the indirect channel invest, no one vendor (unless you’re Microsoft, maybe) can solve this problem in isolation. I also don’t think there’s any one talent search/job clearing house service or dot-com organization who’s really catered to the “masses” of solution providers to solve the problem……. although I could very well be wrong here, as it’s hard to keep up with the myriad of specialized job sites available these days.

So, my theory here? There exists a prime culprit right in the middle of the solution provider community who sees it all. Who knows who’s understaffed and failing and who’s got the best talent. Who sees the solution providers who have the right kinds of customer relationships and engagement models as well as those who haven’t differentiated and continue to complain about decreasing product resale margins. Who am I describing? Well, our friends in commercial and technical wholesaling --- the big 2-tier distributors!

Now before you scoff, think about it. The technical (and yes some commercial)distributors are increasingly involved in train the trainer sales and technical curriculum programs. They’re increasingly building systems and match-making programs to bring VARs together with SI’s and ISVs. And, if there’s anyone who knows which SP’s are thriving transactionally and financially, it’s the disti’s. Their focus here is usually driven by a manufacturer’s goal of helping traditional VARs to bring a “complete solution” to market. But, more tactically, several of the biggest commercial distributors (especially those that manage a closed-source vendor channel model, i.e., Sun, IBM, etc.) have made it job #1 to ensure that their customers have ready access to supplemental technical talent(either strategically for long-term hiring investment and/or opportunistically for a given isolated project.) Some examples of this are Ingram Micro’s Services Network (IMSN), Arrow’s recently announced Tango Collaborative Services and Engineer Exchange offering and Avnet’s own Professional Services practice which subs out resources to supplement the SP’s own bench strength. I think the Tango Collaborative Services offering at Arrow and Ingram’s IMSN programs and on-line tools are great examples of the “middleman” stepping up to the challenge of keeping the technical “life line” alive and forcing SP’s to share talent to each other’s benefit.

So, what’ the new technical talent shortage focused on this time? 802.11 wireless? SOA software middleware? Are the distributors really able to fill the gap on a sustained basis? Do you think I’m pessimistic? Crazy? I hear the Sonny and Cher music wafting faintly in the distance. “I’ve got you babe, I’ve got you babe…..” Send me your thoughts at bvanni@amazonconsulting.com.

Cisco’s message to partners was don’t try to sell everything we offer and don’t try to participate in all our programs. Choose wisely. Differentiate yourself by making smart investments in technologies and markets. Choose unified communication, core products or the new SMB products. Invest in the training and certification that meets your business model and capitalize on the differentiation this focus and specialty creates for you. Utilize the programs that help you leverage your strengths and reach your markets. Do not try to swallow the whole ocean of opportunity – cast your net wisely.

This is certainly sage advice when presented with a myriad of options, but not easily completed. Most of the solution provider partners I talked to at the Cisco Partner Summit were swimming in information. The Cisco regional teams were introducing new programs designed to help the partners attract, develop and retain qualified talent; become skilled or “ready” to sell, install and manage a variety of advanced technology products; AND programs to increase profitability (enhancements to Cisco’s OIP). These were just the initiatives being launched in some of the regional break outs. The corporate teams were also pushing new technology solutions such as TelePresence and Smart Business Communications System (SBCS for those in the know) and new programs such as the Select level and the Cisco Smart Care Service for Small and Medium Businesses. That was just three days and one vendor in the life of a solution provider. Next stop: IBM PartnerWorld for another deluge.

It’s very difficult for solution providers to sort through the options and choose the programs and technologies that best suit them. For one, they often don’t know what their corporate strategy is – unless they’re Dimension Data or IPcelerate – they might be just hanging on to the products and solution they’ve been selling for years and making minor tweaks to the strategy that has kept the lights on and the kids in private school.

Also, there is such a waterfall of communications on program initiatives and options, many solution providers just tune out. They opt for the status quo and self-reliance verses try to keep up with the notices and communications from all their vendors on all the programs, activities, tools, initiatives and resources available to them.

One reseller I had lunch with hadn’t until recently realized Cisco offered a deal registration program (OIP). He kept losing deals in the purchase phase and couldn’t figure out why – as he had completed the needs analysis, design, and solution recommendation. Of course those 10 additional margin points for registering the opportunity with Cisco might have something to do with it. It was then and there that this small, Minnesota-based solution provider realized he needed to invest time in understanding the benefits he qualified for in his top vendors (Cisco, Microsoft and IBM). He could only choose three vendors to dive deep on because of the total dedication and time it took to learn the ins-and-outs of the products, programs and relationships for these three massive organizations. Vendor management is now consuming his entire work week. He hadn’t decided on where to focus with these three vendors – he was STILL in the data gathering stage and promised an update to me at IBM PartnerWorld in early May.

It’s nice to recommend to solution providers to “focus and specialize” but how many small- and mid-sized solution providers can afford these resources to investigate the options so they can make intelligent decisions? And, across how many vendors can they conduct this analysis? If the vendors want to be “easy to do business with”, what is their responsibility to help the partners quickly and easily navigation the offerings? Isn’t that the Channel Account Manager’s job? What if the partner isn’t producing enough revenue for the vendor to qualify as a “managed” partner?

We’re thinking about going into the business of helping solution providers evaluate, select and focus on particular program offerings that align with their business and market opportunity. Rather than consuming their own VP of Product’s time with this analysis and vendor management – just hire an outsourced agency that already knows the programs. What do you think? Crazy?