Articles About Better Partnering
The Twelve Principles of Collaboration
As we enter the Era of Ecosystems, it is apparent that we need a different approach and thinking to manage these multi-dimensional and multi-lateral business relationships. I believe that the partner management processes we have developed as a profession are still relevant, but we do need to rethink how we apply them. Nine-way governance models just aren’t efficient and [...]
Achieving Customer Success through Collaboration Excellence
originally published in Forbes.com | Organizations often comply and certify to international standards as a normal course of business, like brushing your teeth in the morning. Or they might certify because certain contracts or customers require it. This is like your mom telling you to brush your teeth. This is especially true of the well-known ISO 90001, criteria for [...]
Finding Opportunity in Disruption: Pivot your Ecosystem Strategy
Have you rethought your partner ecosystem strategy in terms of what new opportunities lie ahead? Are you prepared to find the opportunity in disruption? We can assume that business as usual is not going to work in today's volatile business climate because business has become unusual. Yet, disruptive times are times of great opportunity for those who are alert [...]
Finding Your North Star: Galvanizing The Customer-Centric Ecosystem
As recently published in Forbes.com Finding your "North Star" is a concept co-opted from agile methodology. The North Star in this context is a vision or goal that provides guidance to fast-moving, self-directed, agile teams. As agile has expanded its influence from teams to enterprises, the concept of a guiding North Star becomes crucial in maintaining the alignment of [...]
Ecosystem Partnerships Extend and Evolve Alliances
Published by TIDWIT Inc. at June 2, 2020 An interview with Norma Watenpaugh, CEO & Founding Principal, Phoenix Consulting Group Q: You have been involved with the channel and emerging ecosystems for some time. How has the concept of partnership evolved over the past several years? NW: I would not say the concept of partnership has evolved so much as a recognition [...]
Partner Relief in Uncertain Times
Small businesses have been unusually hard-hit in these uncertain times. The dynamics of the partner ecosystem is that most of the partners are small business and they serve small businesses. Being a small business myself, I know how precarious cash flow can be. Many of these businesses are seeing their revenues shut down as their customers shutter their business, [...]
Building a Culture for a Collaborative Ecosystem
Building a partner ecosystem is hard. But what's harder than building an ecosystem? Building a culture that supports an ecosystem strategy. I spoke with one executive who was responsible for building the partner ecosystem at a well-known payroll processor, and our discussion perfectly illustrated this challenge. The executive's decades-old company was expanding beyond payroll processing into a full suite [...]
Why Principles-Based Collaboration Is Essential For Agile Ecosystems
as published in Forbes.com. As we enter an "Era of Ecosystems," we need a different approach and thinking to manage these multi-dimensional and multi-lateral business relationships. I believe the partner management processes that have been developed as a profession are still relevant, but we do need to rethink how we apply them. Nine-way governance models just aren’t efficient and [...]
We Need All of our Alliances to be Agile!
In early 2018, my colleague Laura Powers, an Agilest Icon, and I held a workshop on Agile Partnering. One of our attendees was Kristina Scott, Sr. Director Partner Enablement, Marketing, Operations at Seclore. Seclore is an emerging security software startup with a broad ecosystem of channels, technology alliances and OEMs. A year after the workshop, Kristina remarked “Thinking back [...]
Sleeping with the Frenemy
or How to Build Successful Partnerships with the Competition as published in Forbes.com. In the complex landscape of today’s business ecosystems, it is almost inevitable that companies with a large network of partners are, in fact, competing with some of those same partners. This has given us "co-opetition," a term that is derived from "cooperative competition" (also affectionately known [...]
It Takes an Ecosystem
or How to Build to Build Partner Ecosystems for Agility, Innovation and Growth in Your Business as published in Forbes.com. As someone who has been architecting and managing business partner ecosystems for more than 30 years in the tech industry, I am quite interested in the attention ecosystems have been receiving from management pundits of late. I've observed that [...]
Agile Collaboration – A Better Way to Partner
Or "Seven Steps to a Successful Agile Collaboration" as published in Forbes.com As organizations transform to more digitally savvy business models, I am seeing that it is more than business processes that need rethinking. I believe transformative digital business models require ecosystems of partners and a faster, more responsive way of working within these networks of business partners. Essentially, [...]
The Profile of Successful Alliance and Partner Leaders
star performers The role of a partner manager is to enable innovation, growth and competitive advantage through partnerships. That’s quite a tall order and implies quite a skill set to deliver. There are defined skills, aptitudes and attitudes of a highly successful partner manager. They are skilled at adapting to an ever-changing environment and operating in a [...]
Better Together – The Ten Ingredients to the Secret Sauce of Successful Partnering
As published in Forbes. com It’s no secret that companies of all sizes are facing some daunting challenges in digital transformation, globalization and the constant pressure to do more with less. More and more companies seek out partners to buffer the impact, gain skills and access innovation. More than half of CEOs, particularly those that IBM labeled "reinventors" in [...]
Balancing Trust and Control in Alliance Governance
Governance isn’t exactly the most exciting topic. Yet, it is essential in any partnership. At its heart, governance is a system for managing performance. Most of the partner managers I’ve known that positioned themselves as relationship managers are long gone from the profession, laid off in the one of the last economic downturns. Those who managed – and delivered [...]
What Metrics Matter?
When you ask an alliance manager "What metrics matter?", more times than not you will hear revenue, revenue, and revenue. Revenue is the most common yardstick for measuring business value. Yet, a single metric cannot give you the insight necessary to manage all the ingredients required to manage a sustainable business. Many businesses have moved to a more holistic [...]
Value Creating Negotiations – Getting to Win/Win
Partnerships are about creating new value that could not be easily achieved alone. So the focus of negotiations should pivot on partner math 1 + 1 > 3. Your first discovery conversation with a potential partner is usually about how you create more value together. Then, how do you each realize value in the partnership. Sustainable alliances are built [...]
Collaborative Innovation and the Role of Alliances
Diversity is an Opportunity to Create Value Innovation takes many forms. We often focus on innovation as technological breakthroughs and indeed those are important to fuel new revenue streams and corporate growth. But there are other forms of innovation which can be just as powerful and just as disruptive to the status quo in creating strategic competitive advantage. Innovation [...]