Pulling Maximum Benefit From a Partner Ecosystem
Accenture’s report also recommends using analytics, customer data management, and social listening technologies and integrating them with core customer experience capabilities to vet partners and measure their performance throughout the full duration of the relationship.
“It needs to be simple to become a partner, but it should be challenging to get on the varsity [squad],” Garvens says. “Salesforce has more than 1,000 partners, but only a small percentage qualifies as platinum partners, and even fewer are global strategic partners.
Furthermore, “just because a company is a platinum partner now doesn’t mean it will still be one in the future,” Garvens adds, pointing out that Salesforce recently increased its requirements for bestowing higher-level statuses on partners. Partners in an ecosystem should not only strive to continue the performance that brought them there but should expect to have to continue to improve.
“Establish a clear system that shows where the entire ecosystem is going, not just where you are going,” Garvens adds.
While partner management technologies have existed for quite a while, there are still some companies that manage their sales ecosystems with spreadsheets and little else, according to Jessica Thiele, marketing manager at VL Omni, provider of a customer order integration platform.
Make sure that all partnerships in the ecosystem are supported at the executive level, Tucker adds. Some parts of an ecosystem never rise above the junior management level where they started. Without executive buy-in, such ventures perform poorly.
Several experts agreed that for any sales ecosystem to be successful, all the parties involved need to be clear how revenue will be shared, what each partner’s responsibilities will be, and what economic and strategic benefits they’ll both receive and bring to the table.
“You need to articulate how everyone receives value so that there are no false expectations,” Tucker says. “Someone in the organization has to own the partnership.”
Another essential element in having a successful sales ecosystem is making sure that the entire sales funnel is covered from beginning to end, from prospecting right through to post-sales follow-up, Thiele says. Too often companies focus on having a visually impressive front end but don’t have the technology and data integration to provide proper invoicing, order, and payment confirmation, proper follow-through, repeat prospecting for new sales offers, and so on.
Sales ecosystems will continue to deliver new market opportunities for many companies. Those that enter these partnerships with a clear understanding of the opportunities and risks involved and take the steps to spell out all of the expectations and responsibilities will benefit the most from them. Those that add partners just for the sake of being able to brag about having an extensive partner network, without really taking the necessary steps to maximize the benefits for all involved, most certainly will not.
Phillip Britt is a freelance writer based in the Chicago area. He can be reached at spenterprises@wowway.com.