Riverbed is enabling partner services to increase relevance with partners and broaden partners' total addressable market and margin potential. Riverbed's strategy includes developing a full range of lifecycle services and enablement programs for partners. Riverbed's roadmap involves certifying partners in services delivery, investing in Riverbed-embedded solutions with partners, and providing resources like enablement systems, materials, and subject matter experts to help partners build services capabilities and businesses related to Riverbed products. The goal is to drive incremental revenues and improved margins for both Riverbed and its partners.
Keys To Building A Winning Partner Enablement Strategyhawkeye Channel
Tasked with the constant need to identify, prioritize, target, invest, and measure the performance of your partners? Transform your channel by effectively enabling your partners. Explore key strategies in this insightful presentation.
Zinnov launches a first-of-its-kind ‘Partner Enablement Framework’ to help te...Zinnov
Zinnov, a leading market expansion and globalization advisory firm, today announced the release of a first-of-its-kind ‘Partner Enablement Framework’ to help technology companies unlock their channel partner potential. Highlighting the current landscape and opportunities that are present in the ecosystem, the released study also revealed that India currently hosts over 11,000 IT channel partners, excluding PC resellers and box pushers. While 65% of these partners focus on IT services/ managed services, 44% of the partners claim to have solution centric capabilities, while 37% of the current partner base is termed as resellers/ value added resellers.
This is the full research report from Amazon Consulting's 5th Annual State of Partnering Study. This comprehensive report in eBook format gives detailed analysis on the findings from this annual study. Thsi full report is only available to subscribers of the PartnerG2 market intelligence service.
Best Practices in Ranking and Prioritizing Your Partnershawkeye Channel
Aligning resources to engage and enable the right partners is crucial. To get it right, you must invest in the right partners to meet your business objectives. Explore best practices in this white paper.
Web, cloud, and other software companies are in the enviable position of having low marginal cost of goods. Despite this highly leveraged model, most software companies think fairly narrowly about their partner strategy, focusing on resellers and strategic alliances. Progressive software companies take a platform approach including a broader view of the partner ecosystem.
The Partner Strategy Framework E-Book walks through a detailed framework for software companies to maximize the value of upstream partners (platform vendors), managed partner alliances, breadth (program-managed) partners, and the developer ecosystem. The purpose is to grow 1) partner loyalty, 2) revenue, and 3) brand goodwill.
http://www.competegy.com
Keys To Building A Winning Partner Enablement Strategyhawkeye Channel
Tasked with the constant need to identify, prioritize, target, invest, and measure the performance of your partners? Transform your channel by effectively enabling your partners. Explore key strategies in this insightful presentation.
Zinnov launches a first-of-its-kind ‘Partner Enablement Framework’ to help te...Zinnov
Zinnov, a leading market expansion and globalization advisory firm, today announced the release of a first-of-its-kind ‘Partner Enablement Framework’ to help technology companies unlock their channel partner potential. Highlighting the current landscape and opportunities that are present in the ecosystem, the released study also revealed that India currently hosts over 11,000 IT channel partners, excluding PC resellers and box pushers. While 65% of these partners focus on IT services/ managed services, 44% of the partners claim to have solution centric capabilities, while 37% of the current partner base is termed as resellers/ value added resellers.
This is the full research report from Amazon Consulting's 5th Annual State of Partnering Study. This comprehensive report in eBook format gives detailed analysis on the findings from this annual study. Thsi full report is only available to subscribers of the PartnerG2 market intelligence service.
Best Practices in Ranking and Prioritizing Your Partnershawkeye Channel
Aligning resources to engage and enable the right partners is crucial. To get it right, you must invest in the right partners to meet your business objectives. Explore best practices in this white paper.
Web, cloud, and other software companies are in the enviable position of having low marginal cost of goods. Despite this highly leveraged model, most software companies think fairly narrowly about their partner strategy, focusing on resellers and strategic alliances. Progressive software companies take a platform approach including a broader view of the partner ecosystem.
The Partner Strategy Framework E-Book walks through a detailed framework for software companies to maximize the value of upstream partners (platform vendors), managed partner alliances, breadth (program-managed) partners, and the developer ecosystem. The purpose is to grow 1) partner loyalty, 2) revenue, and 3) brand goodwill.
http://www.competegy.com
Developing Relationship with Channel Partners Rebecca Sanders
Strategic channel partnerships provide scale to an organizations sales efforts. Developing these partnerships is both an art and a science and requires on-going planning, measurements and alignment to adjust to market dynamics. The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals, "ASAP" invited me to speak at the Silicon Valley Chapter meeting on channel partner development. I hope you enjoy the presentation. Rebecca Sanders
HELPING YOU TO ACTUALLY DRIVE DEMAND THROUGH CHANNELS
Providing roll your sleeves up Channels & Services Solutions for Networking and Technology Organizations is what we do. We have global experience specializing in lifecycle, Managed, hosted and consulting services to through and with channels
Many organizations struggle with how to drive channels solutions. How to build channels programs or drive their existing channels to actually sell something, We can provide solutions to help drive services to, through and with channels. Including:
Channel Strategy Evaluation
New Channel Model Development
Go to Market and Competitive Analysis
Channel Program Development
Accreditation & Certification
Service Product Development
Current Offer Review and Update
Service Ideation & New Offer Launch
Channel Marketing and Communications
Business Development & Sales Leadership
Sales Enablement and Evolution
Channel Enablement & Management
Improve your revenue by engaging in true Sales Enablement. Sales Enablement can help you generate and close more leads, faster. Look for a Sales Enablement tool that provides you a 360 degree view of prospects and covers every aspect of sales and marketing including lead generation, demand generation, drip campaign, blogging and social media posting.
This presentation explains how investing in an integrated Marketing Automation and Sales Enablement solution can bring you more leads and close more sales.
Global Communications Partner-Program (overview 2014)David Dominguez
Partner Program Overview
Earn commissions without a minimum commitment.
Over 150 solution providers Global presence servicing 107 countries
4,528 Data Centers
End to End capabilities
Customer Centric Solutions
30% average cost savings
Single point of contact
DataCenter/Cloud/Hardware/Wireless
Effectively managing channel incentives to drive partner behavior and program...Zyme - An E2open Company
As channel incentives programs offered by product manufacturers to channel partners get increasingly more complex, it has become even more challenging than before to drive partner participation, influence partner behavior, and measure data-backed ROI of the programs.
View these slides from a webinar featuring SiriusDecisions, Western Digital and Zyme to learn about the current state of channel incentives programs, and how leading companies are aligning their incentives programs to drive greater channel sales while reducing their channel investment.
Zyme offers zymeIncentives - one of the most comprehensive, data-driven incentives solution in the industry – for leading technology manufacturing companies to seamlessly manage their incentives programs. Some of the key competitive advantages offered by zymeIncentives to manufacturers are:
User-defined Innovative program definitions
Leverage Zyme’s proprietary TruePay engine
Comprehensive portfolio of capabilities to manage various incentives programs
End to end visibility
360insights' Webinar: 8 Essentials for a Successful MDF & Co-Op Marketing Pro...360insights
How can we as incentive program managers increase channel satisfaction with our MDF and Co-Op marketing efforts? Diane Krakora, CEO of Partner Path and 360insights' VP of Alliances, Steven Kellam recently got together to shed light on this very topic. We had so many questions that the webinar went quite a bit over its allotted time window, but that's good – it shows that channel marketing professionals are engaged. They want to know more, and they want to do better work. You can watch the replay of the webinar in its entirety by searching for the blog post on our site of the same name as this deck.
B&O PLAY was launched in 2012 as a new brand by Bang & Olufsen, the global provider of luxury, integrated audio-video solutions and services. Offering portable products that are intuitive to use, easy to integrate into daily life whilst delivering excellent high-quality experiences, B&O PLAY's focus is on providing the contemporary design and audio experience preferred by the digital generation.
View the case study to learn more on how B&O Play streamlined its channel sales across more than 30 distributors and around 5700 selling points globally by leveraging Zyme’s industry leading CDM platform - zyme cloud platform 3.0. More details here: http://www.zyme.com/resources/case-studies/b-o-play-s-cdm-solution-speaks-volumes-to-partner-network
Targeting High Potential Sales Channel PartnersBI WORLDWIDE
The GOALS of the manufacturer and those of the distribution channel are often at odds.
The channel wants to focus on high-margin products and increase total sales, while manufacturers want channel partners to promote the whole line and increase market share for the manufacturer’s brands.
Channel partners want more autonomy and exclusive access to end users, while manufacturers want more control and their own access to end users.
Partnerships help resolve these issues by enabling both parties to focus on end users’ needs and agreeing on strategies that build shared profit across the entire channel.
Everyone has opinions about how best to segment and target channel partners. Ultimately the goal is dealer, distributor or customer loyalty but getting to that point often requires a variety of strategies.
This chart shows a classic segmentation of dealers or dealer reps:
New or low-performing reps who need simple onboarding strategies to support and engage their efforts.
Lower-middle performers who may need training to find their fit with your brand or products.
Higher-middle performers who have found a way to gain some momentum in your direction and should be rewarded for their efforts.
Retaining top performing reps requires a mixture of all of these strategies, plus a healthy amount of recognition for their efforts.
High performing channel partners demonstrate a variety of characteristics:
They have clearly defined goals for representing your brand and selling your product.
They have the necessary knowledge and skills.
They are aware of how they stack up and how they can improve to meet their goals.
They are emotionally engaged with your brand.
They are focused on the right sales and marketing activities.
They understand the relationship needs to benefit both partners.
But what about the rest of your channel partners? You can reach out to middle performers and get them moving in your direction with a few simple strategies. But it all comes down to sharing common goals for success.
Shared goals can only be accomplished through strong business relationships that demonstrate:
A high level of trust
A common understanding of marketplace issues Joint business activities
Shared resources and best practices
OpenText Partner Program for SAP Competence - Program Overview 2014_02Jürgen Maier
This presentation provides an overview of the OpenText Partner Program for SAP Competence. If you are interested to learn more about how to become successful with OpenText Suite for SAP products, please reach out to sapcompetence@opentext.com.
Channel Transformation & The Role of Incentives360insights
How do you go about designing effective incentive programs that incorporate best practices, achieve transformational goals and positively impact channel behavior? At our recent webinar, Channel Transformation: Influencing Behavior with Incentives, presenters, Maria Chien, Service Director, Channel Marketing Strategies @SiriusDecisions, Lisa Penn, Chief of Staff, Global Partner Marketing @SAP, and Steve Kellam, VP of Global Alliances @360insights outline key tactics on how to do this.
How do you choose the right channel incentives to match your strategy and accomplish your organizational goals? Is it science? Is it art?
In this presentation, Dan Overgaag, Principal for The Spur Group, Rod Baptie, Founder of Channel Focus/ Baptie & Co, and Steven Kellam VP of Global Alliances at 360insights shared and discussed a framework for how to choose and implement the right channel program to achieve transformational goals.
This is a presentation that I gave on developing sales channels to a group of entrepreneurs at the Technology Capital Network in July 2007 in the Boston area
2016 trends in global medical device strategy and issues for the supply chainTony Freeman
In its 2016 annual review of the global medical device supply chain Manning Advisors identifies two core trends driving both OEM and supplier strategy. The first trend, consolidation, has paused to allow integration of large acquisitions made in the last three years. The second trend, changing products to compete in a fee-for-value rather than fee-for-service reimbursement environment, drives new technologies and capabilities. These trends continue to redistribute favored firms in medical devices.
Developing Relationship with Channel Partners Rebecca Sanders
Strategic channel partnerships provide scale to an organizations sales efforts. Developing these partnerships is both an art and a science and requires on-going planning, measurements and alignment to adjust to market dynamics. The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals, "ASAP" invited me to speak at the Silicon Valley Chapter meeting on channel partner development. I hope you enjoy the presentation. Rebecca Sanders
HELPING YOU TO ACTUALLY DRIVE DEMAND THROUGH CHANNELS
Providing roll your sleeves up Channels & Services Solutions for Networking and Technology Organizations is what we do. We have global experience specializing in lifecycle, Managed, hosted and consulting services to through and with channels
Many organizations struggle with how to drive channels solutions. How to build channels programs or drive their existing channels to actually sell something, We can provide solutions to help drive services to, through and with channels. Including:
Channel Strategy Evaluation
New Channel Model Development
Go to Market and Competitive Analysis
Channel Program Development
Accreditation & Certification
Service Product Development
Current Offer Review and Update
Service Ideation & New Offer Launch
Channel Marketing and Communications
Business Development & Sales Leadership
Sales Enablement and Evolution
Channel Enablement & Management
Improve your revenue by engaging in true Sales Enablement. Sales Enablement can help you generate and close more leads, faster. Look for a Sales Enablement tool that provides you a 360 degree view of prospects and covers every aspect of sales and marketing including lead generation, demand generation, drip campaign, blogging and social media posting.
This presentation explains how investing in an integrated Marketing Automation and Sales Enablement solution can bring you more leads and close more sales.
Global Communications Partner-Program (overview 2014)David Dominguez
Partner Program Overview
Earn commissions without a minimum commitment.
Over 150 solution providers Global presence servicing 107 countries
4,528 Data Centers
End to End capabilities
Customer Centric Solutions
30% average cost savings
Single point of contact
DataCenter/Cloud/Hardware/Wireless
Effectively managing channel incentives to drive partner behavior and program...Zyme - An E2open Company
As channel incentives programs offered by product manufacturers to channel partners get increasingly more complex, it has become even more challenging than before to drive partner participation, influence partner behavior, and measure data-backed ROI of the programs.
View these slides from a webinar featuring SiriusDecisions, Western Digital and Zyme to learn about the current state of channel incentives programs, and how leading companies are aligning their incentives programs to drive greater channel sales while reducing their channel investment.
Zyme offers zymeIncentives - one of the most comprehensive, data-driven incentives solution in the industry – for leading technology manufacturing companies to seamlessly manage their incentives programs. Some of the key competitive advantages offered by zymeIncentives to manufacturers are:
User-defined Innovative program definitions
Leverage Zyme’s proprietary TruePay engine
Comprehensive portfolio of capabilities to manage various incentives programs
End to end visibility
360insights' Webinar: 8 Essentials for a Successful MDF & Co-Op Marketing Pro...360insights
How can we as incentive program managers increase channel satisfaction with our MDF and Co-Op marketing efforts? Diane Krakora, CEO of Partner Path and 360insights' VP of Alliances, Steven Kellam recently got together to shed light on this very topic. We had so many questions that the webinar went quite a bit over its allotted time window, but that's good – it shows that channel marketing professionals are engaged. They want to know more, and they want to do better work. You can watch the replay of the webinar in its entirety by searching for the blog post on our site of the same name as this deck.
B&O PLAY was launched in 2012 as a new brand by Bang & Olufsen, the global provider of luxury, integrated audio-video solutions and services. Offering portable products that are intuitive to use, easy to integrate into daily life whilst delivering excellent high-quality experiences, B&O PLAY's focus is on providing the contemporary design and audio experience preferred by the digital generation.
View the case study to learn more on how B&O Play streamlined its channel sales across more than 30 distributors and around 5700 selling points globally by leveraging Zyme’s industry leading CDM platform - zyme cloud platform 3.0. More details here: http://www.zyme.com/resources/case-studies/b-o-play-s-cdm-solution-speaks-volumes-to-partner-network
Targeting High Potential Sales Channel PartnersBI WORLDWIDE
The GOALS of the manufacturer and those of the distribution channel are often at odds.
The channel wants to focus on high-margin products and increase total sales, while manufacturers want channel partners to promote the whole line and increase market share for the manufacturer’s brands.
Channel partners want more autonomy and exclusive access to end users, while manufacturers want more control and their own access to end users.
Partnerships help resolve these issues by enabling both parties to focus on end users’ needs and agreeing on strategies that build shared profit across the entire channel.
Everyone has opinions about how best to segment and target channel partners. Ultimately the goal is dealer, distributor or customer loyalty but getting to that point often requires a variety of strategies.
This chart shows a classic segmentation of dealers or dealer reps:
New or low-performing reps who need simple onboarding strategies to support and engage their efforts.
Lower-middle performers who may need training to find their fit with your brand or products.
Higher-middle performers who have found a way to gain some momentum in your direction and should be rewarded for their efforts.
Retaining top performing reps requires a mixture of all of these strategies, plus a healthy amount of recognition for their efforts.
High performing channel partners demonstrate a variety of characteristics:
They have clearly defined goals for representing your brand and selling your product.
They have the necessary knowledge and skills.
They are aware of how they stack up and how they can improve to meet their goals.
They are emotionally engaged with your brand.
They are focused on the right sales and marketing activities.
They understand the relationship needs to benefit both partners.
But what about the rest of your channel partners? You can reach out to middle performers and get them moving in your direction with a few simple strategies. But it all comes down to sharing common goals for success.
Shared goals can only be accomplished through strong business relationships that demonstrate:
A high level of trust
A common understanding of marketplace issues Joint business activities
Shared resources and best practices
OpenText Partner Program for SAP Competence - Program Overview 2014_02Jürgen Maier
This presentation provides an overview of the OpenText Partner Program for SAP Competence. If you are interested to learn more about how to become successful with OpenText Suite for SAP products, please reach out to sapcompetence@opentext.com.
Channel Transformation & The Role of Incentives360insights
How do you go about designing effective incentive programs that incorporate best practices, achieve transformational goals and positively impact channel behavior? At our recent webinar, Channel Transformation: Influencing Behavior with Incentives, presenters, Maria Chien, Service Director, Channel Marketing Strategies @SiriusDecisions, Lisa Penn, Chief of Staff, Global Partner Marketing @SAP, and Steve Kellam, VP of Global Alliances @360insights outline key tactics on how to do this.
How do you choose the right channel incentives to match your strategy and accomplish your organizational goals? Is it science? Is it art?
In this presentation, Dan Overgaag, Principal for The Spur Group, Rod Baptie, Founder of Channel Focus/ Baptie & Co, and Steven Kellam VP of Global Alliances at 360insights shared and discussed a framework for how to choose and implement the right channel program to achieve transformational goals.
This is a presentation that I gave on developing sales channels to a group of entrepreneurs at the Technology Capital Network in July 2007 in the Boston area
2016 trends in global medical device strategy and issues for the supply chainTony Freeman
In its 2016 annual review of the global medical device supply chain Manning Advisors identifies two core trends driving both OEM and supplier strategy. The first trend, consolidation, has paused to allow integration of large acquisitions made in the last three years. The second trend, changing products to compete in a fee-for-value rather than fee-for-service reimbursement environment, drives new technologies and capabilities. These trends continue to redistribute favored firms in medical devices.
This is the year when technology and digital channels are going to enhance the way vendors communicate with their partners — and vice versa.
According to our panel of channel marketing thought leaders, the digital landscape will impact how vendors are segmenting leads for partners and ensure that messaging to buyers is relevant and contextual.
Today’s IT organizations are being pressured to do more with less. Manage more applications, data, users, and devices with fewer internal resources. Execute complex IT initiatives on flat, year-over-year budgets. And above all, extract as much value from the IT investments they’ve already made.
It’s this last notion of getting more value that is the focus of our discussion today. Riverbed customers should always expect more value. And we’re committed to ensuring they get it.
WSO2Con USA 2017: WSO2 Partner Program – Engaging with WSO2WSO2
WSO2 firmly believes that applying the concept of collaboration is crucial to providing customers innovative and reliable solutions. Together with our ecosystem of partners, we develop enterprise solutions that improve return on investment and enhance overall customer experience. Commitment and collaboration is key. That is the reason that WSO2 has established a mutually beneficial partner program, geared to increase the level of engagement through various joint activities, may it be solution development or markerting. This session will address every aspect of the program and how partners can grow their businesses through collaboration.
Quick survey of sales performance discovers drivers of revenue capture and benchmarks against best practices. Enables the creation of a roadmap to world class sales excellence.
6. Gain Relevance from Profitability:
Align with Partner Growth & Margin
6
• Service partners are requiring a minimum of 1:1 or
greater - service to product ratios for new GTM solutions
• In some cases, partners are selling product at $0 profit to
win services business
Multi-
Technology
Vendor Avgs
7. Increase Relevance with the Partners
Through Greater Mindshare
• Relevance with a consolidated
service message across
consulting, training, support,
managed services
• Mindshare with Services
– Increased in field sales
– Introduced
• Solution Architects
• Consultants
• Project Managers
7
Your
Product
8. 8
National U.S. Service Provider
“We will sell product at 0% margin to
gain the services business. If I could
get out of being a hardware provider,
I would.” – VP of Sales
• $700m+ 2014 revenues
– 11% average product margin
– 33% average service margin
• Greater incentives for services
Company
Profile
9. 9
National U.S. Service Provider
“If I’m not able to attach my services
and expand the opportunity, I’m not
able to create the type of profitability
I want.” – CEO & President
• $2b+ 2014 revenues
• Riverbed revenue profile:
– 60-70% part of a solution
– 30% single stack solution
– 5% resell (least preferable)
Company
Profile
11. Riverbed’s Channel Services Goal
Increase Riverbed’s relevance
with our partners by broadening
their total addressable market and
margin potential with a full range
of lifecycle services and
enablement programs.
11
12. Accomplishing the Goal
Work cross-functionally within
Riverbed and partner
organizations to deliver partner
service programs that enable
gross profit growth and build
services capabilities related to
Riverbed products.
12
Note: You can never do to much cross-functional
collaboration!
13. Organizational Service Evolution:
Internal to External Focus
13
Services integrated in the
Channel
Services integrated in the
Channel
Service
Enablement
Methodology
Leverage Riverbed
PS IP and SMEs
Service
Enablement
Methodology
Leverage Riverbed
PS IP and SMEs
Service
Integration into
Channel
Programs
Certification and
Enablement
Service
Integration into
Channel
Programs
Certification and
Enablement
Consolidated
Service
Message
Across All Service
Lines
Consolidated
Service
Message
Across All Service
Lines
Dedicated
Services
Channel
Personnel
Strategy,
Alignment &
Execution
Dedicated
Services
Channel
Personnel
Strategy,
Alignment &
Execution
Services apart
from the Channel
Services apart
from the Channel
Riverbed
Professional
Services
Consulting
Services
Delivery
Riverbed
Professional
Services
Consulting
Services
Delivery
Riverbed
Channel
Product Sales
Enablement
Riverbed
Channel
Product Sales
Enablement
14. Riverbed Professional Services
Channel Enablement Support Strategy
14
•“Partner Ready” Service Products
•Enablement collateral
•Partner Services Product Roadmap
Partner Svcs Product Mgmt.
•“Partner Ready” Service Products
•Enablement collateral
•Partner Services Product Roadmap
Partner Svcs Product Mgmt.
•Shadow opportunities
•“Lifeline” Assistance services
•Cooperative Services Engagements
Partner Svcs Program Delivery
•Shadow opportunities
•“Lifeline” Assistance services
•Cooperative Services Engagements
Partner Svcs Program Delivery
Svcs Partner Marketing
•PS Partner Marketing Support
•Collateral Aligned w/ RVBD Branding
Svcs Partner Marketing
•PS Partner Marketing Support
•Collateral Aligned w/ RVBD Branding
Riverbed Svcs & Field Sales
•Comp Plan Alignment
•Rules of Engagement
•Segmentation Strategy
Riverbed Svcs & Field Sales
•Comp Plan Alignment
•Rules of Engagement
•Segmentation Strategy
16. Partner segmentation: Riverbed’s
Partner’s Services Business
Partner Type
Delivers
Services for
Riverbed PS
Delivers
Riverbed’s
Packaged
Services
Delivers
Partner’s
Riverbed
Services
Delivers
Riverbed-
Embedded
Solutions
National VAR
Regional VAR
Managed Service
OEM
Outsource
Boutique Service
Distribution
16
Not a target market
Possibly a target market
Target market
17. Dedicated channel services enablement
17
• At product-centric companies,
incubate the services enablement
function and transition it to the
channel.
• Keep it simple
• Spend time on executive alignment
• Measure partners success
19. Riverbed’s Partner Services Roadmap
19
Enroll and
certify
partner in
reseller
program
Enroll and
certify
partner in
reseller
program
Assess
partners
services
business &
technology
alignment
Assess
partners
services
business &
technology
alignment
Enroll and
certify as a
services
partner
Enroll and
certify as a
services
partner
Certify for
services
delivery
Certify for
services
delivery
Invest in
Riverbed-
embedded
solutions
Invest in
Riverbed-
embedded
solutions
Chanel
reseller
partner
program
Services enablement added to
the reseller program
21. Partner Services Business Alignment
• Understand business case for partners
Riverbed aligned services:
1. Riverbed product service solutions
2. Integration with existing partner solutions
3. Impact on roadmap services solutions
• Addressed in partner business plan
1. Revenue and margin plans
2. Target markets and strategies
3. Capabilities
4. Theoretical opportunities
5. Customer needs
21
22. Riverbed Service Partner Program:
Authorized Consulting Partner
• Communicate complete service vision
• Outline participation benefits
• Measure Riverbed services business
– Ensure they are reaching financial targets
– Participation will dwindle if partners aren’t
financially successful
• Make available Riverbed IP, enablement
systems and SMEs
– Access to Riverbed PS SMEs
• Shadowing
• Enablement Engagements
– Service delivery kits
• Detail certification requirements
22
23. Service Delivery Kits: Riverbed Services
Materials for Sales & Delivery
23
Sales Brochure Sales Proposal Sales Training Sales Sheet
Site Survey
Checklist Project Plan
Delivery
Run-Book
Deliverable
Report
24. Riverbed Services Consultant Certification
• Additive to base Riverbed
certifications
• Resources
– Instructor & on-demand training
– Hands-on experience
– Engagement shadowing
– Certified on solutions
• Benefits
– Partner & Consultant
differentiation
– Expedited skills development
24
25. Riverbed-embedded solutions
• Cooperative development
– Inject Riverbed expertise into partners’
solution development lifecycle
– Support with lifecycle development
methodology
• Benefits:
– Decrease time to market
– Ensure optimal Riverbed product
support and use
– Lifecycle approach to evolve solution
25
26. Custom Lifecycle Solution
Development Methodology
26
• Beta clients
• Sales enablement
• Launch
• Refresh
• Respond
• Manage
•Requirements
•Development
• Business drivers
• Strategy
Position &
Plan
Define &
Develop
Implement
Operate &
Optimize
27. Services Enablement Summary
Rules of engagement
and segmentation
model
Integrated services and
products
Enablement systems
Partner Relevance
Incremental Revenues
Improved Margins
Partner Capability
Partner Business Model
Portfolio vs. Specialist
Riverbed Performance Partner Program
Riverbed Readiness
Services & Channel Team
Content & Materials
As Riverbed has gone down the services enablement path, some things I’ve learned were more obvious to me than others having come from a background that was very services focused in a technology company. For this presentation, I plan on going a little deeper into the things that weren’t so obvious as well as making sure to discuss the things that did seem to be more “obvious”. First, the things that I found to be “obvious"
We know this isn’t a complicated thing, but its hard. You need a cross functional approach across the leadership of all of the business lines.
Partners, segmenting, etc. You have to have visibility across many lines of business to know all of the factors that should go into it.
Need to look at partner segmentation, product segmentation, etc. Tell us who your focus partners are and then prioritize
What people don’t like is that it requires regular cross functional certification. No way of measuring their partners
It’s not complicated, but it is hard.
The good news is that no one has to say anything more credible than I have to say… I have no silver bullet… ;)
Attach rate, connect rate,
Our first phase is: POC
As many of you there are a lot of discussions about converged services plays. Integrating services. We believe the channel must have a consolidation view across the service lines.
Good tips
You can never spend too much time getting executives
Keep it simple
Bi-lateral metrics or performance indicators (hey mr. partner, we want you to report back on how much services you are doing. If they aren’t making $$$, they aren’t going to do it).
Opportunistic – Right Place, Right Time
Riverbed is at a stage in it’s corporate evolution where their business is emerging from being primarily driven from one product to being a multi product company with a solution message rather than a technology around a core product. This has resulted in Riverbed needing to change the way we address partner’s service needs. Where before, Riverbed’s core product was the industry leader and partners would naturally include it in their opportunities and solutions – with additional competitive pressures, we have competition in the WAN optimization space as well as a need to grow partners view of Riverbed as a portfolio solution.
Riverbed had reasons that benefited Riverbed as well as our channel partners.
Vendor needs:
Riverbed’s channel organization handled partner service enablement with the same people that were also responsible for onboarding partners, developing business plans and ensuring partners were technically capable of handling the sales needs for Riverbed’s products.
When a partner wanted to develop services around Riverbed products, they did so either on their own with assistance from Riverbed’s pre-sales technical account managers or Riverbed’s channel managers would engage who they knew in the PS organization.
Remove distractions:
This could have been anyone within the PS organization from consultants, sales personnel, managers, business leaders, etc. Since there was no clear owner of the activity, each of these persona's would tend to assist at the level they could. These activities distracted them from their primary business activity – which many times directly affected their ability to be successful in their primary roles.
As an example, if it was a consulting sales manager, by engaging in this business development activity, it detracted from their client facing sales opportunities needs.
If it was a consultant, they’d be able to speak from their own experiences, but they may know about other business development activities that were going on nor would they always be available since they would also be billing on client engagements.
Standardize messaging:
Without a clear enablement strategy, different channel owners present inconsistent details around channel enablement. The materials they provided would be custom, based on the channel personnel that were involved in producing or assisting the partner with creating it.
Within the PS organization, it wasn’t clear where the lines were between assisting, competing with or cooperatively working with channel partners on service needs.
Partners speak use different terms and have different business needs than what may be obvious to someone who doesn’t have experience with addressing channel partner needs. This caused confusion as sometimes non channel personnel would work with our partners and assume they were be helpful while they were actually doing harm to the situation.
Case Study: One example is when a channel partner manager pulled one of our consultants in to work to discuss a service offering that Riverbed offers. It was very similar to one the partner offered and it led the partner to believe we were trying to compete with them and resulted in an unnecessary escalation – when our message could have been more along the lines of “Here’s something that Riverbed does, and we can compliment what you are doing or fully enable your organization to deliver Riverbed’s service – depending on which better aligns with your business model
Retain current partners:
If partners don’t feel that you are aligned with your with their business model, you’ll lose their mind share and ultimately them representing you in their clients needs or considering your products to include in their solutions.
Case Study:
In one example, one of Riverbed’s Global Service Provider partners Riverbed’s business had shrunk 25% over a two year period
As we dug into why that was happening, we found that three competitors were in the SP directly competing for Riverbed’s business. Since Riverbed didn’t have a proactive lifecycle service enablement strategy, the Riverbed components of their solution were being ticked off by these competitors and without direct intervention, the partners Riverbed business would have decreased at a much faster rate
Partner Needs:
Very few of Riverbed’s partners are interested in merely reselling Riverbed products. Resell only opportunities represents a small percentage of overall business our partners want to be engaged in.
Our partners are more interested in product sales when they are attached to services that allow them to deliver both one time and annuity service offerings which are aligned with the opportunity.
Align business models:
As I mentioned, our partners business models include services that are directly tied to the products that they resell. They’ve already or are considering building service offerings around data center and cloud consolidation, managed services, assessment services, etc. If Riverbed doesn’t align to enable partners to address the Riverbed components of those services, some other partner will.
Case Study: In the global service provider example I mentioned earlier, the product the competition has that was chipping away at our share of the solution’s business didn’t meet their needs as well as Riverbed’s products did, but the SP saw significant value in the amount of enablement activities and IP the other vendor provided to enable their solution
Grow their business:
Two of the areas our partners are considering as they focus on growing their business are new product lines and growing the ones they already have. Riverbed has an abundance of partners today and needs to enable those partners to meet their partner growth targets (or we will lose relevance with that partner)
Case Study:
Increase gross profits and increase relevance
Increasing gross profits and relevance are directly tied to a key partner strategy – building mindshare among partner employs <Click to next slide>
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Focus on Relevance at the end of the slide
Increase Gross Profits:
Riverbed’s partners tend to target a minimum of 25% GP for their service offerings, average > 30% and some have GP for some services > 40%.
Margins for the products they sell are significantly less. I know of partners, one in particular I’ll talk about on the next slide, that will sell product at 0% margin to win the service business.
Their margins for commodity products like printers, servers, computers, etc. will typically be < 5% while they average 11% GP on their products and see 20% as a top end GP for product re-sell.
Service to product ratio:
Aligned with increasing services profits many of our service providers will not bring a solution to market that has < 1:1 product to service ratio.
Case Study: In one example, one of our global SPs see’s 1:1 as a very low end target and actually targets 3 to 5 to 1 service to product margins.
Mindshare:
Once you’ve proven that ability to align to their business model and growth targets, that’s when you will be able to increase your relevance within the partner organization and find new avenues to grow mindshare within the organization
Not only will you be able to increase your relevance among the partners sales teams by showing them more ways to grow their business
But you’ll also access additional parts of the organizations who will become aware of your products and be able to recommend them or identify opportunities when they are doing their job functions like consultants, project managers, solutions architects, etc.
To add a little more color on the our partners frames of mind, <click>
Mindshare:
Once you’ve proven that ability to align to their business model and growth targets, that’s when you will be able to increase your relevance within the partner organization and find new avenues to grow mindshare within the organization
Not only will you be able to increase your relevance among the partners sales teams by showing them more ways to grow their business
But you’ll also access additional parts of the organizations who will become aware of your products and be able to recommend them or identify opportunities when they are doing their job functions like consultants, project managers, solutions architects, etc.
To add a little more color on the our partners frames of mind, <click>
In addition, this partner incents their reps at a higher rate for service sales
You can never do too much to
None -> 1 Person -> Many Persons
SA, CAM, Sales
Delivery, project management, resource, practice lead
Pros, cons of each
Practice leads – over loaded
To scale, must move to team that understands the product of PS
Riverbed’s Packaged Services could include Consulting, Support or Managed Services
OEM: Use vendor products to support their products and solutions
Managed Service: Build services around vendor products and sell multiple times
VAR: Resell product & value add services
Boutique: Service only, no product resale
Outsource: Build custom services for clients
Benefits to PS P&L to move to sales P&L.
May not apply everyone
Incubating the service channel function in the PS organization allows the PS organization to be closely aligned with the PS team while working directly with the channel. The channel doesn’t have the services insight that’s necessary to effectively identify and enable service partners. In addition, the partner organization will not have the skills and methodologies to help enable the service partner build competent delivery resources around company products. The services organization has all that!
Riverbed’s partners aren’t just service partners – our goal is to enable solution partners that have service and product capabilities that lead to solutions.
Across the partner segmetns, technical alliances.
Telstra and IBM Steelfustion
Ben wells – telstra – what’s going on with SteelFusion.
Riverbed is at a stage in it’s corporate evolution where their business is emerging from being primarily driven from one product to being a multi product company with a solution message rather than a technology around a core product. This has resulted in Riverbed needing to change the way we address partner’s service needs. Where before, Riverbed’s core product was the industry leader and partners would naturally include it in their opportunities and solutions – with additional competitive pressures, we have competition in the WAN optimization space as well as a need to grow partners view of Riverbed as a portfolio solution.