or How to Build Successful Partnerships with the Competition as published in Forbes.com. In the complex landscape of today’s business ecosystems, it is almost inevitable that companies with a large network of partners are, in fact, competing with some of those same partners. This has given us "co-opetition," a term that is derived from "cooperative [...]
star performers The role of a partner manager is to enable innovation, growth and competitive advantage through partnerships. That’s quite a tall order and implies quite a skill set to deliver. There are defined skills, aptitudes and attitudes of a highly successful partner manager. They are skilled at adapting to an ever-changing environment [...]
Imagine you have just joined a new high-flying company, leading the partnering organization. You are full of aspirations and optimism. This is going to be great! A nascent partner organization that you can shape and grow to meet the astounding growth potential of this booming market. Then you quickly come to realize that this organization is [...]
Business models have fundamentally changed from selling and buying gear to responding to how customers consume technology and how it changes their businesses. We are experiencing seismic changes in the tech industry driven by the convergence of SMAC (social media, mobile computing, analytics and cloud technology), the change in technology consumption, the rise of Digital [...]
When we talk about digital transformation, so much about it is about the customer experience. At a recent ASAP Tech Partner Forum, Tiffani Bova from Salesforce cited an example of how as a consumer, you might order a Starbucks, from your Tesla, through Alexa. When you drive up to pick up your coffee, it has [...]
Recently I was invited to facilitate a roundtable/workshop at the June 7, 2017 ASAP Tech Partner Forum in Santa Clara, Calif., centered on digital transformation. We heard from many experts and pioneers in the technology space about the challenges and changes they were navigating. It was like drinking from a firehose. The workshop on “Managing [...]
How do you engage when your partner is strategic to you – but you are not strategic to them. My partner thinks of me as a supplier, or a channel, or 'fill-in-the-blank.' How do I become a strategic partner? This is a common refrain from startups and small companies wanting a relationship with a big [...]
Do you Have the Right Channel for your Future? The Buyer's journey has changed in the past few years. Has your channel strategy kept up? Have your partners? How are you transforming your channel to address how buyers buy? How is your channel changing to keep up? Here are some facts about the new world: [...]
TALKIN' SMAC AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Author: Hobart Swan | Published by: CCI Global Channel Management, January 2016 Feature Let’s start off with a definition. The Altimeter Group defines digital transformation as “the realignment of, or new investment in, technology and business models to more effectively engage digital customers at every touch point in the customer experience lifecycle.” [...]
Is IoT Ready for the Channel? We’ve been hearing IoT is coming; IoT is coming for some time. The fact of the matter is IoT is here. GE announced that they saw $6B inrevenue in industrial IoT this past year, 2015. Others Amazon, Google, IBM, even the US government have also announced huge investments into [...]