Perspectives on Partner Readiness

By Diane Krakora, President & CEO


As part of the Amazon Consulting Partner Programs survey conducted late last year we asked vendors to rate their partner programs objectives for 2007 by order of importance. The top-ranked objective by far was “Partner Readiness.”

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. orange_arrow

To download research from Amazon Consulting's second installement of The 2007 State of Partner Programs Study Report II: Partners, click here.

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?
The next step is partner readiness or the core training partners need to be able to sell and support your products and services. This includes:
  • 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?
The third stage on the continuum of being a “channel friendly” company is partner enablement, which means providing the tools, materials and resources for the partners to be effective with your products. In this stage the vendor supplies the partner with the means, knowledge and opportunity to be effective. For example:
Read more.

CLIENT SPOTLIGHT


Opsware invested significant time and effort into developing and deploying robust partner programs for both its solution and reseller partners; each designed to drive revenue and extend Opsware’s customer reach. Unfortunately, after rolling the programs out, Opsware realized that it was not engaging its partners as effectively as it wished. It became clear that Opsware needed to implement an interactive tool that would help it:
  • Manage partner records
  • Facilitate the exchange of vital information between the company and its partner community
  • Automate the partner application process
The system needed to be scalable, flexible, intuitive, and needed to fit within Opsware’s budget. Opsware looked to Amazon Consulting to provide the optimal solution to meet these challenges.

Amazon Consulting created a platform designed specifically for automating Opsware’s partnership management needs.
Read more


INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT



Are you ready to stop collecting unqualified candidate resumes and start hiring high-quality partnering professionals?

Finding the right channel, business development and alliance professionals with the right background is difficult, time consuming and expensive. Until now there has been no way to reach these individuals in a targeted fashion with news of career opportunties outside word of mouth.

TechChannelCareers.com - the partnering community's first ever site specifically geared towards helping technology industry professionals find positions within the area of channels and alliances.

TechChannelCareers.com is the only site on the web dedicated solely to the channel and alliance community and has a database of over 6,000 qualified contacts from VPs of Alliances and Directors of Channel Marketing to Relationship Managers and Business Development professionals. We can help you effectively communicate your current job openings by sending monthly job alerts and newsletters right to the desktops of the most qualified candidates in the technology industry. Since TechChannel Careers only accepts company sponsored job posting it will eliminate any contact from recruiters.

Leading technology companies like Adobe, Sun Microsystems, Juniper Networks and Emerson Power Network have already posted positions to the site.

Interested in pricing and posting packages?

TechChannel Careers offers several different packages from
basic posting to job features to employer highlights.

To find out more on posting packages and pricing, please send an email to techchannelcareers@amazonconsulting.com or visit www.TechChannelCareers.com.







UPCOMING EVENTS


REMINDER:
Alliance Executive Roundtable Breakfast sponsored by Oracle

Thursday, May 24, 2007
8am - 10:30am

The Alliance Executive Roundtable Breakfast is a bi-annual invitation-only event that gathers channel, alliance and partner sales professionals together to discuss industry best practices, challenges and thought leadership surrounding channel related issues.

Space is filling up fast so if you received an invitation, please RSVP as soon as possible to reserve your spot.


Please send your RSVPs to info@amazonconsulting.com


Juniper Partner Conference

May 20 - 21, 2007
Las Vegas, NV.

Reserve your spot at this year’s J-Partner Summit and learn how Juniper’s innovative go-to-market strategies and partner enablement programs will continue to drive your success and profitability this year and beyond. Join Juniper executive management, J-Partner Executive and business owner peers, and Juniper technology alliance partners

For conference information, visit the event here.




Amazon Consulting at SLAM 2007

June 6 - 7, 2007
Denver, CO.

Join Amazon Consulting at this year’s Sales, Licensing, Alliances & Marketing conference. Join software companies of all sizes who wish to strengthen their relationships with exisiting partners to increase software sales.

Dean Madsen, Amazon Consulting's Manager of Business Development, will be presenting "Best Practices for Increasing Software Sales thorugh Partnering".

For conference information, visit the event here.



NEW LIVE WEB EVENTS

Partner Readienss vs. Partner Enablement: Is there a difference?

In our 2007 Partner Programs survey respondents identified partner readiness as a key initiative for this year. But what exactly does "Partner Readiness" entail and what, if any, are the differences between "readiness" and "enablement". In this new web seminar, we will discuss both concepts, define the components of each and present innovative examples of how some industry leading companies are meeting the challenges of making sure partners are both "ready" and "enabled" to do business.

Click here to register, click here.



AMAZON CONSULTING IN THE NEWS

By Us, About Us

Amazon Consulting is an active contributor to the press by conducting interviews and publishing innovative thought leadership editorials to leading industry publications.

Below is a selection of Q2 press coverage:

eWeek's Channel Insider -
"Are SMBs Ready for Cisco's Swiss Army Knife of Connectivity?"


The Channel Advisor -
"2007 State of Partner Programs"

The Channel Advisor -
"Partner investment is good, but too much change could backfire"

eWeek's Channel Insider -
"Vendors Love VARs Best"