Imagine you have just joined a new high-flying company, leading the partnering organization. You are full of aspirations and optimism. This is going to be great! A nascent partner organization that you can shape and grow to meet the astounding growth potential of this booming market. Then you quickly come to realize that this organization is [...]
ASAP Netcast Webinar I was honored to moderate a panel of experts in discussing the growing interdependencies of channels and alliances in the industry. Here is the feature write up from the ASAP newsletter, Quick Takes. Moderator: Norma Watenpaugh, CSAP, Founding Principal, Phoenix Consulting Group Panelists Erna Arnesen, CSAP, Global Channel and Alliances Officer, ZL Technologies [...]
Business models have fundamentally changed from selling and buying gear to responding to how customers consume technology and how it changes their businesses. We are experiencing seismic changes in the tech industry driven by the convergence of SMAC (social media, mobile computing, analytics and cloud technology), the change in technology consumption, the rise of Digital [...]
When should you write an alliance contract? Best practice puts alliance design ahead of structuring a contract. Many teams jump into contract way too early. It is important to have a pretty good picture of the business case for the alliance, the operating model, buy-in from stakeholders and value propositions, etc before you start formalizing [...]
When we talk about digital transformation, so much about it is about the customer experience. At a recent ASAP Tech Partner Forum, Tiffani Bova from Salesforce cited an example of how as a consumer, you might order a Starbucks, from your Tesla, through Alexa. When you drive up to pick up your coffee, it has [...]
Recently I was invited to facilitate a roundtable/workshop at the June 7, 2017 ASAP Tech Partner Forum in Santa Clara, Calif., centered on digital transformation. We heard from many experts and pioneers in the technology space about the challenges and changes they were navigating. It was like drinking from a firehose. The workshop on “Managing [...]
A View from the Trenches IoT (Internet of Things) has been and continues to be predicted as one of the most compelling factors for driving digital transformation spanning business to business, business to consumer, and government (federal, state, and local). Gartner Inc., the technology research firm says "8.4 Billion "Things" will be in use in [...]
The key to a winning baseball season is not the amount of money spent on star talent. If that were the case then Billy Beane, the central figure of Michael Lewis’ best selling book “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game”, would never have led the Oakland Athletics to the playoffs in spite of the [...]
How do you engage when your partner is strategic to you – but you are not strategic to them. My partner thinks of me as a supplier, or a channel, or 'fill-in-the-blank.' How do I become a strategic partner? This is a common refrain from startups and small companies wanting a relationship with a big [...]
Measuring Channel Ecosystem Health? And Why do I Care? I recall the first time I spoke about a “partner ecosystem” in 1999 to my boss, a long time direct sales manager. He looked at me like I was a tree hugger. Today, we frequently talk about our partners collectively as an ecosystem; yet there are [...]