Ecosystem Aces

Back at FKOM in Las Vegas we had the chance to talk with RJ Bibby, Global SAP - System Integrator Digital Transformation Officer with NetApp. In this role, RJ must create fluidity among hyperscalers, SI partners, SAP, and Net App, with consideration of the customer experience. On our latest episode of the Alliance Aces podcast, RJ talked with us about the challenges he faces as an alliance professional, and the steps he’s taking to overcome them. Here’s what he had to say.

If you want to unleash the full potential of your partner network, building alliances is the name of the game. There are few people who know more about alliance building than Amit Tiwari, Vice President of Strategic Alliances & Systems Engineering at Affirmed Networks. Affirmed Networks is the leader in virtualized mobile networks, which brings together mobile operators, service providers app makers and more. Today alliances are driving technological like never before. "I've spent my entire career in service provider connectivity and mobility roles," says Tiwari. "This is a once in a lifetime kind of a transition, where you have virtualization, cloudification, and 5G-driven ubiquitous connectivity." If you listen to this podcast you’ll learn about: New exciting alliance landscape. Use cases will drive alliances. Making the ecosystem profitable for everyone. Upcoming joint go-to-market alliances. The future belongs to alliance makers.

An Ecosystem can have a variety of alliances: tech partnerships, strategic partnerships, ISVs, MSBs, SIs …. the list goes on. Determining how to leverage each of these partnerships for maximum ROI requires a complex set of skills in resource management. On this episode of Alliance Aces we invite Tony Beller to explain how he manages his complex ecosystem at Anaplan, a SaaS company with over 175 partners internationally. Tony is currently the VP of World WIde Strategy, Alliances, and Tech Partnerships. In total, he has over 12 years experience leading alliances at Slack (Head of WW Alliances), Service Now, Salesforce, and others. Here are his 4 keys on forming and managing complex ecosystems.

Imagine you're sitting down with a potential alliance in Tokyo. This is a time when someone like Rana Kahl shines. Rana is multilingual and multicultural. She's lived abroad in Europe and in the Middle East. Just to give you a glimpse of what her life has been like, Rana went to five different high schools and lived in seven different countries. These experiences give Rana a very unique perspective that she leverages when building alliances. Currently the Director of Global Alliances at Appirio, Rana came on the Alliance Aces podcast to talk about turning relationships into revenue. She shared some key takeaways she’s gained by being immersed in new and challenging experiences throughout her career. Here's what she had to say.

Not every company includes alliances in their strategy. But strategies change. As companies grow, their methods of deployment, sales, marketing, or even their product or service, can evolve, pivot, or change altogether. Take sales. If your sales begin to outpace your deployment capabilities, new partnerships become a necessity. Yes, that’s a good problem to have. But it’s still a problem. And it’s exactly the problem Andreas Berthold-van der Molen was hired to solve. He’s the Director of Partner Alliances For Germany, Switzerland, and Austria at Infor, the third largest business solutions provider in the world in over 70 industries. Checkout his strategy of combining sales and partnerships to tackle ambitious growth.

The importance of alliances cannot be overemphasized in today’s fast-moving technology space. The good news is, if you are open to forming new partnerships, they can be found in almost any avenue of your business. This week we explore 3 fundamentals of a healthy ecosystem: Key Strategic Alliances, Micro-Partnerships, & nonprofits. Someone who’s an expert in all 3 is hard to find. But we found him. His name is Chris Peacock, and he joined us on Facebook Live for an interview with the Alliance Aces podcast. Chris is the CMO of Traction on Demand, Canada’s largest dedicated Salesforce implementation partner. Currently, they have over 3,000 live projects, and clients include big-name logos such as Patagonia, Time Warner Cable, and Wildlife Conservation Society. Chris speaks French, spent 7 years as a “Big” to Big Brothers, and, we just had to mention this: Chris is also a helicopter pilot. (For the Facebook Live Video with Chris, click this link.)

Every business has expectations…expectations for their clients, their revenues, and their alliances. But things rarely go as planned. Joel Maloff is Senior VP of Strategic Alliances and Chief Compliance Officer at Phone.com. He came on the Alliance Aces podcast to share about how expectations shifted for him: Some of his most valuable alliances came from the least expected verticals. He shared how he’s navigated the world of what he calls “bluebirds and blackbirds,” and turned the unexpected into incredible growth opportunities.

Alliances aren’t about providing your best solution. They’re about providing (and marketing) a solution that is greater than than the sum of what each alliance can provide — a packaged solution that solves a wholistic problem that is giving ample pain to your end-user. On this episode, we interview Peter Yost, Director of Partnerships at FourKites, a supply chain real-time tracking solution. Peter gives us a taste of what they do at FourKites, and explains how their solution is a small part of what the end-user is truly purchasing. FourKites tracking abilities are great, but when partnered with the tech of powerful alliances, the end solutions become game-changers in the supply chain industry.

If you grow up in Southern California, the chances are high you spent a lot of time at the beach. That’s definitely true for Dustin Avol, our most recent podcast guest. Dustin Avol is a professional beach volleyball player turned alliance expert. During the first part of his career, Dustin invested in pro volleyball. After playing professionally, he turned to broadcasting and commentating. He then moved into sales, and finally landed in business development. Currently, he’s the Director of Strategic Alliances at Smartsheet, a cloud-based work execution platform. He came on the show to give us an inside look at some principles he’s learned through his experience with strategic alliances.

Despite the automation of today’s tech-heavy workforce, many mundane, repeated processes are still performed by humans. Robotics process automation may just be the solution to reducing tedious tasks. Meet UiPath: an RPA company that began in Romania. They’re changing the game in the enterprise world. We brought in Chris Morgan, Global VP of Partners & Alliances at UiPath for the Alliance Aces Podcast to share lessons on what he’s learned about alliances. Over the last 3 months, UiPath has experienced explosive growth, hiring 15 people a day for the last 3 months, finalizing a Series-c funding, and has now partnered with every notable enterprise logo, including Google, to create some of the world’s most advanced robotics.