Ghazal Asif Fahadi, VP of Channels, Alliances, and Inside Sales at Rubrik, shares her expertise on the importance of channel partnerships in software sales. She highlights two primary reasons why companies often get the channel playbook wrong: inadequate measurement of channel impact and working with too many partners.

Ghazal emphasizes that companies often fail to track the incremental contribution of the channel to the business, leading to mistrust and self-sourcing of deals. To address this, she recommends measuring the deals that are sourced by partners and approved by reps to ensure accurate tracking. This approach will enable companies to understand the channel's true impact and make data-driven decisions.

Ghazal advises companies to highly qualify their partners, commit to a few strategic partners, and invest in them instead of trying to work with a large number of partners. This strategic approach will allow companies to build stronger relationships, improve focus, and increase accountability. Ghazal attributes the failure of the conventional channel playbook to the lack of understanding of the channel's true impact, particularly among software companies. She notes that many large technology companies that have grown up in the hardware industry may not fully comprehend the importance of measuring channel contributions. This gap in understanding can lead to misguided strategies and ineffective channel partnerships. Ghazal shares a personal anecdote about a turning point at AppDynamics, where they realized the need to establish leading indicators for their channel partners. These leading indicators would help track progress, ensure accountability, and provide a more sales-organization-like approach to the channel.

Rubrik has implemented a set of leading indicators to measure the performance of their channel partners, including:

* Deal registration: The number of deal registrations submitted by partners

* Deal registration conversion: The conversion rate of deal registrations into opportunities

* Opportunity conversion: The conversion rate of opportunities into closed deals

* Save the Data: A group of people who learn about the chaos caused by cyber attacks and attend events that generate pipeline

* Account mapping: Research and identification of high-potential accounts

* Propensity to buy: Researching and identifying accounts with a higher likelihood of purchasing the company's technology