Partner Business Propositions

Improving partner business proposition drives greater sales, market share and partner loyalty

The Challenge

How do I increase sales and gain market share through partners?

The client’s vice-president of partner programs knew her firm was not getting optimal traction with partners. The client offered industry-leading functionality for IT data centers, end-user computing, and identity and security management. Customers loved the client’s solutions, but they were not the market leader in any category and were failing in their efforts to gain share. Partner engagement, commitment and performance were lacking.

Touch was engaged to provide recommendations on how the client’s channel management efforts, especially their partner business propositions, could be improved to:

  • Provide more value to existing partners
  • Drive greater revenue
  • More effectively attract new participants to their partner programs

At stake was the short term vitality and long term viability of their partner channel.

The Approach

Strengthen partner business propositions and recommend partner program improvements

  • Determined the aspects of current business propositions partners valued most
  • Conducted qualitative and quantitative research on competitors’ partner programs
  • Developed extensible performance measurement metrics
  • Built partner value propositions tailored to each partner type
  • Aligned strategic efforts across multiple groups within the organization
  • Provided actionable recommendations on how to improve partner programs, policies and procedures

The Result

Increased sales and partner loyalty, and more successful partner recruitment efforts

  • Drove improvements to short term sales growth and long term partner program sustainability
  • Increased partner satisfaction and loyalty within the existing channel
  • Enhanced executive understanding of channel management optimization
  • Improved the number and effectiveness of competitive partner recruitment programs
  • Strengthened corporate planning process with more accurate measurement of channel program results
  • Authored consistent channel program communications to partners and client employees that helped manage expectations and prevent channel conflict

The partner business proposition is the fundamental motivation for partners to sell or support a vendor’s products and services. The client needed to improve not just the economics of their business proposition, but also how they demonstrated market momentum and joint alignment with partners. Touch showed them how.