Bold Journeys Podcast

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Bold Journeys Podcast episodes

June 22, 2022 Partner Panel: How to Build a Modern Partner Ecosystem - CJ91
Live from Monaco, Rob Spee, podcast host and SVP Channels & Alliances at BeyondTrust, interviews Partner Advisory Board members on the importance of a modern partner ecosystem. Learn how to run a highly interactive PAB to gain insight and drive partner collabortion.
36 min
June 01, 2022Genesis Lee: Customer Driven Partner Success
In the SaaS world, customer experience is king. Drive a great customer experience and customers will expand and renew their subscription to your service. Deliver a poor experience, and customers will quickly switch to a competitor and likely share their bad experience online. Genesis Lee, VP of Global Customer Experience at Allbound, shares how a customer-centric strategy can build happy customers and drive greater partner success.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are 5 things I learned from Genesis about customer experience and partner success:
When thinking about customer experience, consider the entire value chain, including partners involved in selling and delivering services around your solution.
Ask your partners to tell you one thing their customers need. You may be surprised by the conversation that follows.
For the next QBR with a partner, ask if they would be willing to invite a few customers to the call. You’ll learn a lot about their customer’s experience and the partner’s experience in serving that customer.
Offer a way for your partners to open support tickets. Their support requests could be related to technology, your partner program, or just about anything.
Encourage partners to have a customer success team and provide a means for partners to gather customer surveys to track customer satisfaction.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Follow Genesis on LinkedIn
Learn How Customer Experience Drives Partner Success
Listen to The Digital Body Language Of Successful Partners
Learn more about Allbound
The post Genesis Lee: Customer Driven Partner Success first appeared on Channel Journeys.
42 min
June 01, 2022 Genesis Lee: Customer Driven Partner Success – CJ90
In the SaaS world, customer experience is king. Genesis Lee, VP of Global Customer Experience at Allbound, shares how a customer-centric strategy can drive partner success.
42 min
May 18, 2022Nima Badiey: The Key to Successful Alliances
We often think of channel partners, the ones selling our products, as the most vital element of our partner ecosystem. Nima Badiey, Global VP of Alliances at GitLab, shares why alliances are an invaluable component of your partner strategy and how to make them successful.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are 10 things I learned from Nima about Alliances and how to make them successful:
Channels tend to be transactional partners like resellers, distributors, systems integrators and MSPS. Alliances can include everything from cloud partnerships and hyperscalers to platform and technology partnerships including ISVs and OEMs.
Alliances help you meet the customer where they are with the combined solution they want to buy.
GitLab breaks Alliances into three pillars: cloud with hyperscalers like Amazon and Google; platform with the likes of VMware and Red Hat; and technology with a long tail of ISVs including Slack and ServiceNow.
GitLab’s Alliance investments going forward are based on three philosophies. The first is to extend existing partnerships with deeper integrations. The second is to expand their total portfolio with new partnerships to fill in emerging gaps. And the third is exploring new partnerships in absolutely new greenfield areas where the haven’t operated before.
Alliances and Channels are blending. For example, cloud Alliance partners are becoming transactional partners via their marketplaces, partnering with channel resellers and system integrators.
Partnerships are the same as a personal relationship with a spouse. There’s a courting period, but everything gets real when you get married. The day of your wedding is like the day of signing the partner agreement. Now your relationship doesn’t end the day that you get married. You will continue investing in that relationship, you’ll build a home together, you build a family together, you’ll grow together. That’s the same way to think about partnerships. It starts when you’ve inked a deal. What are you going to do to invest in that partnership and make it grow?
Prove that you’re compatitable during the dating stage to be sure you have the basis for a successful partnership.
Don’t expect your Alliance partners to care about you and share their accounts with you until you invest in the partnership, enable the partner, invite them to co-sell with you, and demonstrate your commitment.
GitLab hires partner managers for empathy as a primary skill set. It’s a quick test to see if the candidate is a good listener with a strong, open, learning mindset.
More companies are merging Alliances and Channels under the same organization. At GitLab, it was all merged under the CRO organization.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Follow Nima on LinkedIn
Read the GitLab Alliances Handbook
Learn more about Allbound
The post Nima Badiey: The Key to Successful Alliances first appeared on Channel Journeys.
50 min
May 14, 2022 Nima Badiey: The Key to Successful Alliances – CJ89
We often think of channel partners, the ones selling our products, as the most vital element of our partner ecosystem. Nima Badiey, Global VP of Alliances at GitLab, shares why alliances are an invaluable component of your partner strategy and how to make them successful.
50 min
April 27, 2022Daren Finney: How to Use Distributors as Cloud Service Brokers
Have you ever heard your partner ask “You have great products, but why do you make it so difficult to buy?” Daren Finney, SVP Global Channels at Mitel, is on a mission to make it easier to buy their business communications and collaboration offerings. In this episode, Daren shares how he is leveraging distributors as they move to becoming Cloud Service Brokers to make it easier for their partners to buy their services combined with other vendors’ cloud offerings.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are 5 things I learned from Daren about leveraging distributors as the expand their value add to cloud services:
Cloud Service Brokers (CSBs) add value by taking lots of different vendors’ cloud subscription offerings, aggregating them together, and offering a combined solution on behalf of the partner to the customer
To stay relevenat and add more value, Distributors are now acting as CSBs and, in many instances, also managing the billing and the contractual elements for the partner.
For partners who are trying to make the transition to subscription or to cloud, that that in itself can create many commercial hurdles. So offering your service through a distributor in a CSB model makes it easier for partners to buy your subscription offerings bundled with other services their customers need.
One of the main advantages of the CSB to partners is that they can buy every vendor’s technology they need from one source, and have them all bundled into one commercial billing structure they need for the customer.
Distributors are also supporting partners and their customers through the customer lifecycle management to drive customer success.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Follow Daren on LinkedIn
Listen to VAD veteran Matt Reaves talk about Creating Value-Added Distribution
Learn more about Allbound
The post Daren Finney: How to Use Distributors as Cloud Service Brokers first appeared on Channel Journeys.
42 min
April 27, 2022 Daren Finney: Leveraging the Evolving Role of Distribution – CJ88
Daren Finney, SVP Global Channels at Mitel, is on a mission to make it easier to buy their business communications and collaboration offerings. Daren shares how he is leveraging distributors as they move to becoming Cloud Service Brokers to make it easier for their partners to buy their services combined with other vendor's cloud offerings.
42 min
April 13, 2022Stephan Tallent: The Pay as You Grow MSSP Program
Managed Security Services Providers (MSSPs) are a vital component of a cybersecurity vendor’s partner ecosystem. When I wanted to learn how to build a best in class MSSP program, I turned to Stephan Tallent, VP of North America MSSPs at Cybereason. Stephan shares the details behind Cybereason’s new ‘Pay As You Grow’ program designed to nurture Managed Security Services Providers by providing greater licensing flexibility and reducing risk to the partner. This is a great concept that can be applied just as well to an MSP program.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are 8 of the many things I learned from Steve about building a world class MSSP program:
MSSP’s are moving away from the, build it, and they will come model where they pre-purchase technology and then get a return on investment over time. This is traditionally where an MSSP has lived before PAYG (Pay as You Go) became a pretty standard methodology.
With PAYG, MSSPs by the technology as they sell it, allowing a partner to recognize their return on investment instantaneously.
PAYG opens the market up to partners of all sizes as they don’t have to leverage their capital to be able to deliver a security service that customers are now looking to consume as a utility with monthly usage billing just like we pay for water and electricity.
In most cases, the MSSP owns the underlying technology (buying the license or subscription from the vendor), provides the service to the end customer. The MSSP takes on all the management of the technology and owns the challenges and the problems for the customer over a period of time.
The MSSP is adding more value, providing the best outcomes, and making your solution more sticky by providing all of these services. So you want to incent partners to act as an MSSP by offering a discount that allows them to own the technology at a deeper discount than what a value added reseller would enjoy from a pure resell perspective.
The MSSP model can be a less expensive route to market because the MSSP owns the front line support and satisfaction of the customer with the technology that’s being put into place for three to five years.
MSSPs prefer to have opens between a PAYG model and a pre-investement commit model.
Steve created a program that allows for a no-commit, low-risk, PAYG model. Partners can try out their technology and customer environments and not have a commitment level. Once partners have built their baseline of business, tested the technology and the customers environments, and know the technololgy does what it says it’s going to do, then they can move to a commit model where they get better pricing, but they are committing to us for a year for a period of time. So the idea is to have a low risk entry model and a maintain and grow your business commit model.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Follow Stephan on LinkedIn
Read more about Cybereason’s Pay as You Grow MSSP Program
Learn more about Allbound
The post Stephan Tallent: The Pay as You Grow MSSP Program first appeared on Channel Journeys.
48 min
April 13, 2022 Stephan Tallent: The Pay as You Grow MSSP Program – CJ87
Stephan Tallent, VP of North America MSSPs, talks about Cybereason's 'Pay As You Grow' program designed to nurture Managed Security Services Providers by providing greater flexibility and increase profits. Learn how to build a best in class MSSP program.
48 min
March 30, 2022Andrew Habgood: How to Develop an APAC Partner Ecosystem
Partner ecosystems are the new channel, so much so that channel chiefs are now taking on the name “ecosystem” in their titles. Andrew Habgood is the VP of APAC Partner Ecosystems at Red Hat. In this episode, Andrew shares how he’s building a modern partner ecosystem across the Asia Pacific region.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are 5 things I learned about Andrew’s approach to building a modern partner ecosystem in APAC:
As the head of partner ecosytems, Andrew is now responsible for all partner types including resell and distribution channels, alliances, ISVs, GSIs, and Marketplaces.
Andrew’s organization is divided into three teams, an ecosystem programs team, a partner ecosystem management team, and a new team for ecosystem partner development that covers both traditional partner enablement and product enablement, helping partners develop their own IP.
The ideal profile for an ecosystem development manager, who is working to ensure partner success, is a combination of a technical background with an MBA business consulting mindset.
Ecosystem partner programs and partner contracts need to be simple and flexible, allowing partners, and even customers, to operate with you in many different partner models.
Building an ecosystem in APAC requires a recognition of the many market and cultural differences between all the countries. It requires having both a consistent framework but also elements of flexibility. And most of all, it’s based on trust that is built by having your sales team aligned and selling with your partners.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Follow Andrew on LinkedIn
Listen to Tim Mackie: How To Build An Ecosystem Partner Program
Learn more about Allbound
The post Andrew Habgood: How to Develop an APAC Partner Ecosystem first appeared on Channel Journeys.
42 min