Ecosystem Aces

When marketing is done right, it’s an integrated approach that builds value and demand, captures that demand in-market and delivers on a brand promise with an excellent experience. According to Allison Munro, Chief Marketing and Ecosystem Officer at Vena, ecosystems aren’t much different.

Over the past few years, Allison has played a significant role in the unique evolution of Vena’s ecosystem strategy. Rather than treating ecosystems as a sales execution in business, Allison’s team transformed partnership from a business function to an integrated go-to-market component. For most, this ambitious shift marks the beginning of an exciting journey into unknown territory—fortunately, there is an unexpected professional with the expertise in motion strategy ready to lead the way: CMOs, market leaders and marketing experts.

The goal of this transformation is clean-cut and simple: create a seamless, frictionless experience from awareness through purchase and beyond for shared customers. But the path to go-to-market integration can be a bit more hazy, requiring partners to work together transparently to develop platform strategy alongside one another. Allison shares exactly how Vena is doing just that, and in turn, driving transformation in ecosystem partnerships globally.

Join us as we discuss:

• Shifting from sales-led to integrated partnerships and the immense value this transformation offers for customers and partners
• Integrating value into the customer journey, driving execution and managing change
• Building trust and credibility internally and with customers
• Marketing as the fabric of an organization

Here are some additional episodes featuring other ecosystem leaders that might interest you:

• #164 Jason Eichenholz: How Wipro Accelerated Revenue Growth with Their Ecosystem
• #156 Libby Greco: Get Out There and Break The Glass
• #154 Suresh Kumar Tulluri: Is Your Roadmap Future Proof?
• #152 David La Rose: Strengthening Partner Commitments In The Ecosystem Era
• #151 Mike Stocker: Close 40% More Deals with Partner Influence

Links & Resources

• Learn more about how WorkSpan helps customers accelerate their ecosystem flywheel through Co-selling, Co-innovating, Co-investing, and Co-marketing.
• Download The Ultimate Guide to Drive Co-sell Partnerships!
• Subscribe to the Ecosystem Aces Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast.
• Join the WorkSpan Community to engage with other partner ecosystem leaders on best practices, news, events, jobs, and other tips to advance your career in partnering.
• Find insightful articles on how to lead and get the most out of your partner ecosystem on the WorkSpan blog.
• To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about modern partnering, he can be reached on Twitter, LinkedIn, or send Chip an email at: [email protected]

This episode of Ecosystem Aces is sponsored by WorkSpan.

WorkSpan is the #1 ecosystem business management platform. We give CROs a digital platform to turbocharge indirect revenue with their partner teams at higher win rates and lower costs. We connect your partners on a live network with cross-company business applications to build, market, and sell together. We power the top 10 business ecosystems in the technology and communications industry today, managing over $50 billion in the joint pipeline.

Over the past decade, a digital transformation has sparked an organizational evolution causing companies to shift to virtual enterprises. While the shift to virtual quickly escalated with no sector immune to the changes, there has been one source of sustainable, successful growth: ecosystems.

Open platforms and ecosystems offer new avenues for growth, efficiency and innovation. Moreover, companies focus on fewer, deeper ecosystem combinations to build their growth agenda.

In this episode, we talk with Meredith Stowell, Vice President, Ecosystem at IBM. According to Meredith, successful ecosystems are broad, but they also rely on the depth of the various relationships within the ecosystem. When deep connections are fostered, both parties can meet all growth opportunities and capabilities. Further, these ecosystems leverage the flexibility of open technologies like hybrid cloud to accelerate more quickly and efficiently than before within specific industry contexts.

Join us as we discuss:

• What virtualization has done for ecosystems and vice versa
• How to maximize potential by balancing local and global partnerships, then leveraging your partners, their partners, your customers and their partners
• The secret to success: a go-to-market and routes-to-market coordination from a co-sell perspective

Here are some additional episodes featuring other ecosystem leaders that might interest you:

• #164 Jason Eichenholz: How Wipro Accelerated Revenue Growth with Their Ecosystem
• #156 Libby Greco: Get Out There and Break The Glass
• #154 Suresh Kumar Tulluri: Is Your Roadmap Future Proof?
• #152 David La Rose: Strengthening Partner Commitments In The Ecosystem Era
• #151 Mike Stocker: Close 40% More Deals with Partner Influence

Links & Resources

• Learn more about how WorkSpan helps customers accelerate their ecosystem flywheel through Co-selling, Co-innovating, Co-investing, and Co-marketing.
• Download The Ultimate Guide to Drive Co-sell Partnerships!
• Subscribe to the Ecosystem Aces Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast.
• Join the WorkSpan Community to engage with other partner ecosystem leaders on best practices, news, events, jobs, and other tips to advance your career in partnering.
• Find insightful articles on how to lead and get the most out of your partner ecosystem on the WorkSpan blog.
• To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about modern partnering, he can be reached on Twitter, LinkedIn, or send Chip an email at: [email protected]

This episode of Ecosystem Aces is sponsored by WorkSpan.

WorkSpan is the #1 ecosystem business management platform. We give CROs a digital platform to turbocharge indirect revenue with their partner teams at higher win rates and lower costs. We connect your partners on a live network with cross-company business applications to build, market, and sell together. We power the top 10 business ecosystems in the technology and communications industry today, managing over $50 billion in the joint pipeline.

No company can build everything all the time. What they can build is a high-value multi-partnering ecosystem that will provide invaluable solutions to end customers while benefiting each partner in the ecosystem. In a world where tech is developing at lightning speed and innovations like 5G spark industry-erupting shifts in systems and priorities.

Carlos Aragon, now the Senior Director of Product Marketing, Applications at Vonage has years of hands-on experience across multi-partner ecosystems and offers a wealth of proven knowledge regarding the challenges and opportunities of these ecosystems. He shares his playbook for building (and maintaining) a high-functioning multi-partner ecosystem that chooses collaboration over competition, values continuous innovation and communication, and solves problems for each and every stakeholder.

Join us as we discuss:

• How 5G networks are changing the game in telecommunications, and what that means for partnerships, collaboration and communication
• Managing high-value, multiple-partner ecosystems to deliver solutions in a constantly evolving market
• Building an exhaustive ecosystem without overlap for a seamless, unified experience

Here are some additional episodes featuring other ecosystem leaders that might interest you:

• #164 Jason Eichenholz: How Wipro Accelerated Revenue Growth with Their Ecosystem
• #156 Libby Greco: Get Out There and Break The Glass
• #154 Suresh Kumar Tulluri: Is Your Roadmap Future Proof?
• #152 David La Rose: Strengthening Partner Commitments In The Ecosystem Era
• #151 Mike Stocker: Close 40% More Deals with Partner Influence

Links & Resources

• Learn more about how WorkSpan helps customers accelerate their ecosystem flywheel through Co-selling, Co-innovating, Co-investing, and Co-marketing.
• Download The Ultimate Guide to Drive Co-sell Partnerships!
• Subscribe to the Ecosystem Aces Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast.
• Join the WorkSpan Community to engage with other partner ecosystem leaders on best practices, news, events, jobs, and other tips to advance your career in partnering.
• Find insightful articles on how to lead and get the most out of your partner ecosystem on the WorkSpan blog.
• To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about modern partnering, he can be reached on Twitter, LinkedIn, or send Chip an email at: [email protected]

This episode of Ecosystem Aces is sponsored by WorkSpan.
WorkSpan is the #1 ecosystem business management platform. We give CROs a digital platform to turbocharge indirect revenue with their partner teams at higher win rates and lower costs. We connect your partners on a live network with cross-company business applications to build, market, and sell together. We power the top 10 business ecosystems in the technology and communications industry today, managing over $50 billion in the joint pipeline.

The hardest part of creating an ecosystem environment is making sure all of the players understand the broader vision. Successfully building this innovative environment can create loads of new opportunities in addition to new forms of data analytics.

Transforming your organization to an ecosystem model requires that you first have an idea of where you are today - and then develop a vision and roadmap for where you want to be.

Creating an ecosystem-led organization begins with breaking down the transaction-based mindsets of partners and your own organization, and accepting and understanding major cultural changes takes ample time and dedication. A step further, this leads to identifying potential players from your ecosystem of partners that could improve the customer experience and analyzing the value that each partner brings to the table.

To get to an established ecosystem, a well-defined plan, accurate data and supportive leadership create opportunities to get there. Innovating, marketing, selling and delivering together with partners drives solid outcomes for the entire ecosystem — and the customer.
Rob Spee, SVP, Global Channel and Alliances at BeyondTrust, joins to discuss the advantages and difficulties of adopting an ecosystem environment.

Join us as we discuss:

• The pre-phase: helping partners understand the value of ecosystems
• Forming an ecosystem environment from transaction-based partners
• Making stronger and stickier solutions with partners
• The importance of accurate reporting in building trust with ecosystem leaders

Here are some additional episodes featuring other ecosystem leaders that might interest you:

• #164 Jason Eichenholz: How Wipro Accelerated Revenue Growth with Their Ecosystem
• #156 Libby Greco: Get Out There and Break The Glass
• #154 Suresh Kumar Tulluri: Is Your Roadmap Future Proof?
• #152 David La Rose: Strengthening Partner Commitments In The Ecosystem Era
• #151 Mike Stocker: Close 40% More Deals with Partner Influence

Links & Resources

• Learn more about how WorkSpan helps customers accelerate their ecosystem flywheel through Co-selling, Co-innovating, Co-investing, and Co-marketing.
• Download The Ultimate Guide to Drive Co-sell Partnerships!
• Subscribe to the Ecosystem Aces Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast.
• Join the WorkSpan Community to engage with other partner ecosystem leaders on best practices, news, events, jobs, and other tips to advance your career in partnering.
• Find insightful articles on how to lead and get the most out of your partner ecosystem on the WorkSpan blog.
• To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about modern partnering, he can be reached on Twitter, LinkedIn, or send Chip an email at: [email protected]

This episode of Ecosystem Aces is sponsored by WorkSpan.

WorkSpan is the #1 ecosystem business management platform. We give CROs a digital platform to turbocharge indirect revenue with their partner teams at higher win rates and lower costs. We connect your partners on a live network with cross-company business applications to build, market, and sell together. We power the top 10 business ecosystems in the technology and communications industry today, managing over $50 billion in the joint pipeline.

Often, you don’t know how much your business depends on its partners until there is an issue. Born out of the chip shortage a few years ago, Paul Dumke’s external ecosystems team began closing gaps that previously weren’t even realized. By focusing on the external supply chain of their customers and suppliers, the team has been able to streamline processes and prevent issues before they come to fruition.

As the Sr. Director of Ecosystem Strategy and Operations at Intel Corporation, Paul knows that Intel is an ingredient company, depending on its partners to sell their products. Building on Intel’s internal culture of partnership, the ecosystem team helps to catalyze not only Intel but also its partners and their entire supply chain. While Intel is a market leader in tech, its value to its partners does not end there. They have expanded to offer a variety of necessary assistance to their partners, including visibility and business development.

Paul joins us today to share insights and lessons learned from over 25 years at Intel.

Join us as we discuss:

• Navigating complicated ecosystems to build alignment with partners
• Becoming a trusted advisor in ecosystems and knowing what’s needed to make the right decisions
• Utilizing unexpected toolsets in a company to uplift partners and the entire ecosystem
• How to motivate partners effectively and efficiently

Here are some additional episodes featuring other ecosystem leaders that might interest you:

• #164 Jason Eichenholz: How Wipro Accelerated Revenue Growth with Their Ecosystem
• #156 Libby Greco: Get Out There and Break The Glass
• #154 Suresh Kumar Tulluri: Is Your Roadmap Future Proof?
• #152 David La Rose: Strengthening Partner Commitments In The Ecosystem Era
• #151 Mike Stocker: Close 40% More Deals with Partner Influence

Links & Resources

• Learn more about how WorkSpan helps customers accelerate their ecosystem flywheel through Co-selling, Co-innovating, Co-investing, and Co-marketing.
• Download The Ultimate Guide to Drive Co-sell Partnerships!
• Subscribe to the Ecosystem Aces Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast.
• Join the WorkSpan Community to engage with other partner ecosystem leaders on best practices, news, events, jobs, and other tips to advance your career in partnering.
• Find insightful articles on how to lead and get the most out of your partner ecosystem on the WorkSpan blog.
• To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about modern partnering, he can be reached on Twitter, LinkedIn, or send Chip an email at: [email protected]

This episode of Ecosystem Aces is sponsored by WorkSpan.

WorkSpan is the #1 ecosystem business management platform. We give CROs a digital platform to turbocharge indirect revenue with their partner teams at higher win rates and lower costs. We connect your partners on a live network with cross-company business applications to build, market, and sell together. We power the top 10 business ecosystems in the technology and communications industry today, managing over $50 billion in the joint pipeline.

A great foundation in ecosystems and alliances can supercharge your growth and create cohesion across a broad range of functional areas. Without this alignment, organizations can struggle to thrive.

In this episode, we speak with Susan Tommy, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Vena Solutions, a self-proclaimed generalist and ultimate partnerships expert. Susan shares her unique journey into integrations and how service partners help deliver ultimate value to customers.

Join us as we discuss:

• The whirlwind of change across integrations over the last decade
• Role of Vena’s service partners in delivering value to customers
• How to maintain alignment across growth and multiple partnerships

Here are some additional episodes featuring other ecosystem leaders that might interest you:

• #164 Jason Eichenholz: How Wipro Accelerated Revenue Growth with Their Ecosystem
• #156 Libby Greco: Get Out There and Break The Glass
• #154 Suresh Kumar Tulluri: Is Your Roadmap Future Proof?
• #152 David La Rose: Strengthening Partner Commitments In The Ecosystem Era
• #151 Mike Stocker: Close 40% More Deals with Partner Influence

Links & Resources

• Learn more about how WorkSpan helps customers accelerate their ecosystem flywheel through Co-selling, Co-innovating, Co-investing, and Co-marketing.
• Download The Ultimate Guide to Drive Co-sell Partnerships!
• Subscribe to the Ecosystem Aces Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast.
• Join the WorkSpan Community to engage with other partner ecosystem leaders on best practices, news, events, jobs, and other tips to advance your career in partnering.
• Find insightful articles on how to lead and get the most out of your partner ecosystem on the WorkSpan blog.
• To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about modern partnering, he can be reached on Twitter, LinkedIn, or send Chip an email at: [email protected]

This episode of Ecosystem Aces is sponsored by WorkSpan.

WorkSpan is the #1 ecosystem business management platform. We give CROs a digital platform to turbocharge indirect revenue with their partner teams at higher win rates and lower costs. We connect your partners on a live network with cross-company business applications to build, market, and sell together. We power the top 10 business ecosystems in the technology and communications industry today, managing over $50 billion in the joint pipeline.

Building solutions to bring to market in a partnership requires a solid integration strategy. Where you want to go and the best way to get there relies on one simple question: what value can you and your partner bring to clients?

We speak with Dana Vickey, Global Vice-President, Alliances and Partners at Eightfold.ai about successful partnerships and product road mapping. At the end of the day, the journey is about making the client or customer successful — to do that, you must aggregate data and customer insights to design a successful strategy.

Join us as we discuss:

• Four quadrants of partner motion, and the importance of each
• Balancing the fine line of partner and customer success to build mutually beneficial product roadmaps
• Going to market prepared — what it looks like from all avenues

Here are some additional episodes featuring other ecosystem leaders that might interest you:

• #164 Jason Eichenholz: How Wipro Accelerated Revenue Growth with Their Ecosystem
• #156 Libby Greco: Get Out There and Break The Glass
• #154 Suresh Kumar Tulluri: Is Your Roadmap Future Proof?
• #152 David La Rose: Strengthening Partner Commitments In The Ecosystem Era
• #151 Mike Stocker: Close 40% More Deals with Partner Influence

Links & Resources

• Learn more about how WorkSpan helps customers accelerate their ecosystem flywheel through Co-selling, Co-innovating, Co-investing, and Co-marketing.
• Download The Ultimate Guide to Drive Co-sell Partnerships!
• Subscribe to the Ecosystem Aces Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast.
• Join the WorkSpan Community to engage with other partner ecosystem leaders on best practices, news, events, jobs, and other tips to advance your career in partnering.
• Find insightful articles on how to lead and get the most out of your partner ecosystem on the WorkSpan blog.
• To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about modern partnering, he can be reached on Twitter, LinkedIn, or send Chip an email at: [email protected]

This episode of Ecosystem Aces is sponsored by WorkSpan.

WorkSpan is the #1 ecosystem business management platform. We give CROs a digital platform to turbocharge indirect revenue with their partner teams at higher win rates and lower costs. We connect your partners on a live network with cross-company business applications to build, market, and sell together. We power the top 10 business ecosystems in the technology and communications industry today, managing over $50 billion in the joint pipeline.

When you look at the ISV ecosystem, it's all about working with partners like ISVs, MSPs and MSSPs. Our guest today refers to this relationship building and management as build motion — it's all about helping partners embed software into their commercial solutions to take to market successfully.
In this episode, we’re joined by Monica Aggarwal, Vice President of ISV Build Ecosystem, Technology & Software OEM Partnerships at IBM, who is an expert in all aspects of partner build motion. Monica and her team are responsible for all build partnerships with independent software vendors (ISVs) large and small as well as technology partners and OEM partners. She dives into her experience to share how you can build and maintain mutually beneficial partnerships for overall business success.
Join us as we discuss:

• Creating a commitment to ISV, tech, and OEM partners to deliver value for customers
• Building an efficient and effective partner experience in software development
• IBM's approach to partnerships, and why partnerships are so critical to IBMs success

Here are some additional episodes featuring other ecosystem leaders that might interest you:

• #164 Jason Eichenholz: How Wipro Accelerated Revenue Growth with Their Ecosystem
• #156 Libby Greco: Get Out There and Break The Glass
• #154 Suresh Kumar Tulluri: Is Your Roadmap Future Proof?
• #152 David La Rose: Strengthening Partner Commitments In The Ecosystem Era
• #151 Mike Stocker: Close 40% More Deals with Partner Influence

Links & Resources

• Learn more about how WorkSpan helps customers accelerate their ecosystem flywheel through Co-selling, Co-innovating, Co-investing, and Co-marketing.
• Download The Ultimate Guide to Drive Co-sell Partnerships!
• Subscribe to the Ecosystem Aces Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast.
• Join the WorkSpan Community to engage with other partner ecosystem leaders on best practices, news, events, jobs, and other tips to advance your career in partnering.
• Find insightful articles on how to lead and get the most out of your partner ecosystem on the WorkSpan blog.
• To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about modern partnering, he can be reached on Twitter, LinkedIn, or send Chip an email at: [email protected]

This episode of Ecosystem Aces is sponsored by WorkSpan.

WorkSpan is the #1 ecosystem business management platform. We give CROs a digital platform to turbocharge indirect revenue with their partner teams at higher win rates and lower costs. We connect your partners on a live network with cross-company business applications to build, market, and sell together. We power the top 10 business ecosystems in the technology and communications industry today, managing over $50 billion in the joint pipeline.

When you bring a solution to market with another company, you have the potential to shape relationships that will compound benefits far beyond the initial product and subsequent customer value.

But co-selling isn’t always straightforward, especially when you’re working with large companies and market leaders. Our guest Neeti Gupta, Head of Hyperscaler Business Development and Alliances at VMware, has had intensive experience in co-selling, working with some of the world’s most influential modern companies from Meta to Microsoft. She shares how you can foster relationships at all stages of co-selling to secure long-term, overall success.

Join us as we discuss:

• Key practices for successful co-sell collaboration with sales
• Working with technical specialists on both sides of integration.
• Effectively executing joint go-to-market plans with partners

Here are some additional episodes featuring other ecosystem leaders that might interest you:

• #164 Jason Eichenholz: How Wipro Accelerated Revenue Growth with Their Ecosystem
• #156 Libby Greco: Get Out There and Break The Glass
• #154 Suresh Kumar Tulluri: Is Your Roadmap Future Proof?
• #152 David La Rose: Strengthening Partner Commitments In The Ecosystem Era
• #151 Mike Stocker: Close 40% More Deals with Partner Influence

Links & Resources

• Learn more about how WorkSpan helps customers accelerate their ecosystem flywheel through Co-selling, Co-innovating, Co-investing, and Co-marketing.
• Download The Ultimate Guide to Drive Co-sell Partnerships!
• Subscribe to the Ecosystem Aces Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast.
• Join the WorkSpan Community to engage with other partner ecosystem leaders on best practices, news, events, jobs, and other tips to advance your career in partnering.
• Find insightful articles on how to lead and get the most out of your partner ecosystem on the WorkSpan blog.
• To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about modern partnering, he can be reached on Twitter, LinkedIn, or send Chip an email at: [email protected]

This episode of Ecosystem Aces is sponsored by WorkSpan.

WorkSpan is the #1 ecosystem business management platform. We give CROs a digital platform to turbocharge indirect revenue with their partner teams at higher win rates and lower costs. We connect your partners on a live network with cross-company business applications to build, market, and sell together. We power the top 10 business ecosystems in the technology and communications industry today, managing over $50 billion in the joint pipeline.

Leaps in innovation in AI and a dramatic shift towards cloud and digital have propelled a community-centered approach in partnerships and business ecosystems. While relationships were once somewhat limited geographically or to those within immediate circles, the world of modern business and tech has exploded with opportunities.

On this episode, we’re joined by ecosystem expert Manish Harsh, MLOps Partner Ecosystem & Tech Integrations at NVIDIA. With a knack for enabling businesses to build genuine relationships and partnerships, Manish shares the ins and outs of building a successful ecosystem with all the right tools to push your business forward.

Join us as we discuss:

• How NVIDIA’s platform is changing the game for innovative technology implementation
• Vertical solutions in AI/ML and cybersecurity
• Navigating and building partnerships with joint road-mapping for mutually beneficial collaboration

Here are some additional episodes featuring other ecosystem leaders that might interest you:

• #164 Jason Eichenholz: How Wipro Accelerated Revenue Growth with Their Ecosystem
• #156 Libby Greco: Get Out There and Break The Glass
• #154 Suresh Kumar Tulluri: Is Your Roadmap Future Proof?
• #152 David La Rose: Strengthening Partner Commitments In The Ecosystem Era
• #151 Mike Stocker: Close 40% More Deals with Partner Influence

Links & Resources

• Learn more about how WorkSpan helps customers accelerate their ecosystem flywheel through Co-selling, Co-innovating, Co-investing, and Co-marketing.
• Download The Ultimate Guide to Drive Co-sell Partnerships!
• Subscribe to the Ecosystem Aces Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcast.
• Join the WorkSpan Community to engage with other partner ecosystem leaders on best practices, news, events, jobs, and other tips to advance your career in partnering.
• Find insightful articles on how to lead and get the most out of your partner ecosystem on the WorkSpan blog.
• To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about modern partnering, he can be reached on Twitter, LinkedIn, or send Chip an email at: [email protected]

This episode of Ecosystem Aces is sponsored by WorkSpan.

WorkSpan is the #1 ecosystem business management platform. We give CROs a digital platform to turbocharge indirect revenue with their partner teams at higher win rates and lower costs. We connect your partners on a live network with cross-company business applications to build, market, and sell together. We power the top 10 business ecosystems in the technology and communications industry today, managing over $50 billion in the joint pipeline.