What are high tech vendors worried about regarding their partner enablement plans?  Where are they investing people and dollars?   What are the areas of innovation in training and certification programs?   All these topics (and more) were actively discussed when a group of 12 passionate partner enablement executives joined the Amazon Consulting team for a lively round table forum and discussion this week in Mountain View, California.

Represented in this conversation were individuals uniquely responsible for partner training and enablement from Cisco, Sun Microsystems, VMware, Salesforce.com, Oracle, Intuit, Google, Netapp, and Fortify Software.  The discussion ranged across a variety of topics including internal organization models, certification programs, how to build meaningful partner value propositions and innovative training delivery methods.  There was a lot more commonality of issues than we expected with a healthy amount of fraternity about being responsible for partner competency and productivity in a channel program world largely focused on revenue.

Some of the highlights of the conversation included the following:

Building a Compelling Value Proposition
This seemed to be a challenging situation for most players in the room.   Particularly critical to most companies were two issues; 

1. Getting top-down commitment to business planning and investment with the partners’ senior management and
2. Committing resources to be help partner apply skills in the field after training is completed.   

Most of this group admitted to having pretty robust sales and technical training programs and a solid onboarding process for new partners, but an incomplete process for ownership of ongoing partner skills maintenance over time.

Delivery Model Innovations
On the topic of knowledge transfer methods and training delivery vehicles, there was a hot debate about the effectiveness of on-line training.  Many companies noted using many, short VOD (video on demand) modules to convey small pockets of content and to make them most accessible through the web or via Podcasts.  Several delegates noted their challenges in measuring retention through these delivery vehicles and suggested they had best results in combining pre-requisite on-line product training with face to face role-based or mentoring training to help partners apply that product knowledge.  

Partner Enabling Metrics
One of the last topics of the day revolved around one of the eternal partnering ROI questions ---- how are partner enablement staff, investments and programs ultimately being measured?  When asked about the top metrics being measured here, the resounding feedback from the group was revenue productivity per partner.  However, several companies have instituted detailed tracking mechanisms to measure the correlation between a partners’ number of certified professional services delivery staff, their ultimate end-user customer services levels and the amount of leads being shared between them and the direct sales force.   Most roundtable participants indicated the revenue productivity was absolutely a lagging indicator and that customer satisfaction, multi-product solution competency and net-new deal sourcing were the evolving value metrics their companies were using.

All in all, in three hours the group had a very open, healthy exchange.  In this first meeting, we got through two out of six or more topics of mutual interest.  So, if you believe the general statistic that it takes hearing a new concept six times (or more) through multiple senses for optimal learning, it seems clear that this group will need to keep the shared learnings flowing for some time!   If you are interested in participating in this forum on an ongoing basis or need help with the design or execution of your partner enablement programs, please contact Beth Vanni, Amazon Consulting’s Director of the Consulting Practice at 760-731-5283 or at bvanni@amazonconsulting.com.

Driving Customer Satisfaction in a Multi-Channel Environment
By Seema Kohli, Consultant

Can you Hear Me Now? Can you Hear me Now?

It constantly amazes me that most everyone I speak with has a similar experience with wireless phone companies -- a total lack of customer service when a problem arises or when they have a question. You call and need to answer a bunch of questions and then you get a human being who asks you the same questions again! What a waste of time. Then you're passed around from person to person, and before you know it you've spent an hour on the phone and your blood pressure is sky high!

Stepping into the shoes of the end users of high tech products and services, the experience is often times even worse. Very few companies have got this customer service model right. With a mix of direct sales, various sales channels, product focused sales teams, support services, consulting services, training services and financial services the model is a nightmare to manage. Read on »

• 16+ years in Technology (including 7+ years with a focus on Education and Training)
• Significant global experience
• Channel experience spans 16 years focusing on program design, implementation, partner enablement, marketing and partner recruitment. Significant focus on channels to market for training
• Joined Amazon Consulting end ofApril 2008

• NetApp: Partner Integration

• Program launch and partner recruitment, Sun Microsystems, EMEA
• Communications management, Sun Microsystems, Corporate
• International Channel Marketing, NETg
• Customer/Partner Insights,  Sun Microsystems

PartnerPath MDF

Tracking MDF can be a time-consuming and labor-intensive process. Manual processes are too complex, with Channel Marketing departments typically tracking accruals, spending and expiration of funds using spreadsheets. Partners and vendors have limited visibility to the funds that are available, used, and committed to activities as well as the return on past partner marketing activities. Because each department often uses a different ad-hoc system, it's difficult to manage worldwide programs. And the payment of claims to partners is delayed due to inefficient processes.

The new PartnerPath MDF module streamlines these processes, allowing you to be more effective in promoting your solutions and products, and easily track program and fund usage and ROI metrics. Your partners will find the process of applying for MDF streamlined and simple, which will make them more likely to use it for their promotions.

Using the MDF module within PartnerPath offers the following advantages compared to other systems:

• Easily integrates with your existing solutions
• Complete solution that compliments and easily integrates with other PartnerPath solutions
• Familiar and easy to use PartnerPath interface

How it works:

Your partners can complete a request for pre-approval of marketing activity via an online MDF Request form. Using this form, they can indicate the specific activity they have planned using either MDF or coop funds, and the form will "branch" dynamically based on the type of activity selected, so your partner will only need to answer relevant questions. Once they have submitted the form, an email notification of request is sent to vendor and partner.

You can approve, decline, or request additional information on all submitted requests, and enter a pre-approval for the amount requested. Once approved, the partner will receive an automatic email. Automatic notifications will be sent to you if there are unapproved requests in the queue.

Once a partner completes an approved marketing activity they can then update their approved request and create a claim. They can upload supporting documents and enter ROI metrics as well as an event summary with registration and attendance data if applicable. They can select their preferred payment message, and will be automatically notified via email that their claim was submitted.

You can approve, decline, or request additional information on all submitted claims. Your partner will receive an automatic email notification of approval and payment of claim. The PartnerPath MDF module can also send email notification to finance department to generate payment. Your partners can review existing claims and see payment details.

The PartnerPath MDF module provides reports on a wide variety of factors such as:

• Available and used funds per time period and per partner type
• MDF Requests and MDF Claims by partner/geography/type and level
• MDF Request Status: Approved, Declined, New/Pending
• MDF Claim Status: Paid, Declined, New/Pending
• Requests and claims by Marketing Activity
• ROI metrics based on data entered by partners on the claim form

For more information on PartnerPath, click here.