To partner or not to partner, that’s the question
In my new job I meet many, many vendors and almost all of them have a partner program in which we can achieve bronze, silver, gold, enterprise, premier, business or any other partner status.
In reality the meaning of the term ‘Partner’ is interpreted in many different ways.
According to Wiki, a business partner is:
a term used to denote a commercial entity with which another commercial entity has some form of alliance. This relationship may be a highly contractual, exclusive bond in which both entities commit not to ally with third parties. Alternatively, it may be a very loose arrangement designed largely to impress customers and competitors with the size of the network the business partners belong to.
So, it’s an alliance between two business partners. I get that. An exclusive bond not to ally with other parties, hmm NO. In my line of business a partnership doesn’t imply that I can’t have an alliance with an other vendor. IT service providers collect large numbers of partnerships nowadays to impress others. This matches with the third line, it’s a loose arrangement to impress customers and competitors.
The problem I see with many vendors is the ‘loose‘ part.
In my opinion, when there is a partnership between a vendor and a IT service provider, a vendor should support their partner in every way they can.
This includes:
- (Pre-) Sales support;
- Beta programs;
- Customer demos;
- Discounts;
- Product presentations;
- Education;
- Seminars.
Of course the term partnership implies that it’s not a one-way street (or half duplex connection). The partnership also adds obligations and commitment on the side of the IT service provider. They should train their employees, let employees attend seminars, reserve time to do (beta) testing, etc all in favor of maintaining and developing skills and knowledge to eventually successfully implement a vendor’s solution and provide their customers with the best solution possible.
In real life many vendors throw all kinds of fancy partnerships at you but what do you get in return for the commitment and hours spent on online webinars, etc?
Nothing, zilch, nada, none …….
Not to mix up the good with the bad, there are some vendors that do an incredible job supplying us with all of the above. But there are vendors out there, and I don’t mean small, one product, 4 employees ones, that simply don’t get it.
An example:
A large hardware supplier who just does not call back when we request sales support for a large (> $500k,-) client hardware deal. When we eventually score the deal with another vendor, they call back to beg to do the deal with them.
Another example:
At my former employer we were in competition with a few other IT service providers for a large SBC/VDI deal. Of course we wanted to increase our changes of winning this deal by lowering our prices. So we turned to the VDI vendor to see if we could increase our changes by adding some discounts, special bids, whatever. Being the partner with the highest partner level in competition this shouldn’t be a problem, right? Wrong! No special bids, no discounts. OK, can you helps us with a bit of sales support to make it an offer they can’t refuse and/or give a customer demo? Same answer…. :(.
Why do we spend thousands of €€’s training sales and technical professionals to achieve some magical partner status when in return we get nothing. And to be honest, this wasn’t the first and certainly not the last time we experienced this behavior with this particular vendor. The strange thing is, they do keep stalking us, when a new deal turns up, to offer their product.
Just two simple examples but I can go on and on and it’s frustrating to see. Luckily with my new employer, Imtech ICT, we have a very select product portfolio and one of the criteria to become a business partner is the partner support a vendor supplies. This minimizes the risk of a partner arragement which is too loose, although with the arrogance of some vendors you can not rule it out completely.
I’m wondering, do you experience similar partner ‘abuse’ or am I seeing things that aren’t there?
I would like to hear you business partner experiences, good or bad.
You may name the vendor misbehaving or you can keep it anonymous.
Let’s start a discussion….
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Very good article Erik. I’ve “partnered” my small business with a couple vendors (HP & VMware) and so far haven’t had need to try and utilize or test the partnership. Being new I haven’t yet experienced what you have so it’s good to be aware.
Bringin up the points and hoping for some good discussion on this as there are ways all vendors can utilize better “partnerships”
There is another side to this. The obligations you, as a partner of some vendor, must comply to to reach a certain status. I’ve seen some very nice ones there. For example, you have to have at least 4 employees trained up to the maximum certification status. And the training costs 3.500 dollars per person. And the only one who sells this training and certification is: the vendor itself.. meaning: your new found ‘partner’ is already making 14.000 dollars from *you* without even doing a thing or giving anything in return.
Dealregistration in real life. Four IT integrators compete for a deal. Two of them offer the same VDI solution with the same product. One of those IT integrators.. were we. When I requested a special bid to make ‘an offer you can’t refuse’ to our potential client, we were denied by the vendor. We lost the deal, I was pissed off because I knew which other integrator was competing with us and I was sure they had a lower partner status. As it turns out, the ‘lower’ partner first regged the deal with the vendor but their partnerstatus didn’t give them the right to demand a special bid. We were second but as the deal was already registered, we didn’t get it either.
You can collect partners from all over. I know we sure do. But we make choices where we want to put effort and money into and where we do not. There are a lot of vendors who simply do not fit into your core business, but you need them nonetheless to complete your own proposition. No reason not to partner, definitely a reason not to go for anything beyond ‘registered partner’.
So, what’s a partnerstatus really worth? My answer: what effort YOU are prepared to put into it. The one that you value the most (i.e. your core business product) is the one you really should push. If the vendor offering the partnerstatus is more concerned with making profit over your back, you might re-evaluate your own business and change products.
Partnership makes sence … IF you can get the top-partnerships! So IF you have enough people skills foor xx-archtitects AND you’re willing to pay for them AND you can realise a certain amount of revenue per Year/Quarter. And only these type of partnerships are worth the effort IF your customers dig it!
Lots of IFs and ANDs …Otherwise its only to brag about it in the pub. I think buying drinks for everybody will make you more popular at that time.