Think about the countless partner programs, portals, assets, certifications, tiers, rebates, deal registration and more that partners must navigate for each one of their vendors/manufacturers. It can be extremely time-consuming and cumbersome, and all too often the vendor is pushing additional work down to its channel.
Are you an easy vendor to deal with or are you adding to their workload? What if there was a better way?
With partner success as a priority, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) can implement better processes and tools that will reduce this burden and enable partners to focus more on delivering value to the end customer. It can translate to faster time to revenue, more opportunities to extend contract lifetime value (CLV) and lower cost of sale.
This blog will look at the state of partner enablement according to Technology & Service Industry Association (TSIA) members, which include B2B hardware and software providers.
In a tough economy, tech firms look to expanding their reseller partner network to grow revenue. According to TSIA’s XaaS Partner Channel Optimization Benchmark Survey, on average 53% of total company revenue comes from partner sales and 36% comes from XaaS revenue. Providing the tools and processes to help partners succeed is the logical move, yet many resellers are struggling to receive this assistance from their OEMs.
TSIA found a clear disconnect when we surveyed resellers and OEM. When we surveyed reseller partners about what types of partner enablement would be most valuable to them for driving customer adoption of a vendor’s products, and surveyed OEMs about what enablement they provide to resellers the responses did not align (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Customer Success Enablement Most Valuable to Reseller Partners.
While 69% of resellers in TSIA’s Voice of the Partner Survey said that customer success plans are the most important enablement tool, the TSIA’s Customer Success Delivered via Partners Survey found that only 31% of OEMs are providing them. More than half of resellers, 58%, say access to the OEM’s customer success tools, such as automating renewals and revenue operations (rev ops) would be valuable, only a paltry 8% of OEMs are providing this.
While many OEMs are providing partners with playbooks and shadowing/coaching, these are rated as the least valuable enablement options by resellers.
For OEMs with mature customers success (CS) organizations, tools, and processes, extending success plans, CS platforms, and journey maps to their partners makes sense but clearly this has yet to catch on as an established process. In addition, only 39% of OEMs say they have employees who are dedicated to driving customer success through partners.
TSIA’s recent ENVISION Conference had a theme of “Silo Busting to Drive Profits and Growth.” This not only applies to breaking down silos between departments within the enterprise, but also sharing more data, technology, and processes with partners.
With a goal of enabling partners to grow revenue and service customers more easily, vendors need to provide better access to installed base data to their channel.
Scott Frew, CEO of iasset.com shares his thoughts on this issue. “It’s impossible to offer value to the end customer when you don’t have a comprehensive view of what is happening within your installed base. This is an ongoing challenge for many businesses, but the issue becomes even more pronounced in the context of global channels. Imagine all the valuable data dispersed among vendors, distributors, VARs/MSPs spanning the globe, but not being shared!
Choosing the right platform to provide insights and automatically act upon these is imperative. For TSIA members, this means managing each piece of the APLAER process (Analyze, Place, Land, Adopt, Expand, Renew) through a single revenue platform, from data and quoting, right through to driving expand opportunities and closing renewals. Although some vendors may have this to a degree, often there is still a disconnect with their channel. My team and I have been working with vendors to help bridge that gap, by offering the ability to share information in a secure manner.”
Vendors have started investing heavily in technology for sales and Rev Ops. The following chart shows the percent of B2B technology firms that have adopted key pieces of Rev Ops technology.
Chart 2: 2023 Adoption of RevOps Technology
Extending these systems to partners will not only better enable the sharing of data and information with resellers, but it will simplify and streamline processes while injecting a healthy dose of analytics to boost the success of partners.
Enabling partner success is a win-win proposal. Not only does it grow your product and service revenues by making resellers more effective, but it also helps to grow your partner ecosystem by gaining a reputation for strong enablement programs. For OEMs looking to improve their partner enablement we recommend the following:
• Assign clear ownership for partner relationships and enablement. One TSIA survey found that ownership of partner relationships may be spread across the sales organization, the product team, customer success, and finance. While all these groups have a role to play in partner enablement, assigning a clear owner for these relationships is required to ensure clear communications and eliminate friction points of having multiple contacts who may be providing conflicting information.
• Survey partners to understand top challenges and enablement options they prefer. Though this blog included data on the approaches to partner enablement resellers find the most effective, this may vary by industry and even by partners. It is important to survey partners, and have conversations with them, to understand their goals, the challenges they face, and what resources they need to be successful. Once you understand your partners' needs, you can tailor your enablement program accordingly.
• Identify mature processes and tools to share with partners. With a high adoption trend of Rev Ops technology, companies should identify which of their technology platforms (e.g., proposal automation, AI for opportunity generation, expansion, and renewals, recurring revenue management or an all-encompassing revenue technology platform) could benefit the partner ecosystem and create a roadmap to extend these processes and tools to their resellers.
As companies are deep in planning for 2024, revenue growth is at the top of the list for every technology company’s strategy. Aside from an internal sales strategy, it is also critical to focus on growing and increasing the profitability of the partner revenue channel. This strategy extends beyond closing new business and should include a focus on how to renew and grow partner-led accounts, encompassing the entire APLAER process.
This is going to require focus on all aspects of enabling success of resellers: people, process, technology, and culture. TSIA and iasset.com are here to help. Whether you are looking for assistance in understanding pacesetter practices for partner management, or need innovative technology to build the APLAER infrastructure for partner success, let us know how we can help.