The Role of Collaboration in Partner Ecosystem Management

Join Sugata Sanyal, CEO of ZINFI and Jay McBain, Chief Analyst at Canalys, as they discuss how channel management strategies are evolving to include new ways to collaborate with partner ecosystems.

About Feet on the Street Podcast Series:

ZINFI’s Feet on the Street Podcast Series consists of educational conversations with influencers, industry leaders and channel executives across the world. In this series, we discuss evolving trends and discuss real-life customer challenges with partner relationship management and automation. Listen in to hear from these road warriors, with both feet on the street, discussing the dynamics of all aspects of Partner Ecosystem Management.

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Video Podcast: The Role of Collaboration in Partner Ecosystem Management

✔ Chapter 1: How are vendors collaborating with different parts of their non-transactional ecosystems like Affiliate Partners?

Today, every vendor has seven partners that are trusted. Many of these partners may be playing a key role in the implementation of a product but not actually dealing with the purchase that could be done digitally and through digital marketplaces leveraging channel management software. These non-transactional partners and critical for channel management strategies as are attracted to the $6 in services for every $1 spent on the product. Collaboration with these seven through affiliate marketing management is key to success. Have you got a partner marketing management strategy in place for this next generation of collaboration?

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✔ Chapter 2: What kind of technology are vendors using to collaborate with their partners and what is the role of partner relationship management and channel management software?

In today’s business, 9932 ISVs are competing for today’s martech stacks, so partnerships are more important than ever as a part of a channel management strategy. A vendor will engage in 28 moments before selection so collaborating with partners across the engagement process through automation with a partner marketing platform is key. All this automation must be interoperable, so integration plays an important role. But what degree of integration is necessary and how should vendors best partner to effectively serve the customer?

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✔ Chapter 3: How is partner collaboration evolving in the transacting part of the channel?

75% of world trade goes through transacting channels and requires complex channel management. Vendors need to think about how to transact, incentivize and collaborate with different people within these companies with channel management software. Collaboration must be highly personalized to a VAR or reseller. They need to consider the company they are trying to win, the sector, segment, delivery model, and much more. Six questions will be asked that need collaboration assistance. How will you address them?

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✔ Chapter 4: What is the role of mobility in driving channel management and partner collaboration in a post-COVID world?

These major channel management super-apps have evolved, providing a hyper-personalized capability with partners. There are more than 30 different ways to communicate and learn leveraging channel management software. 12% love podcasts & webinars, 33% prefer email – others prefer WhatsApp and other communication tools. When learning more about the partner, then you can collaborate on favorite platforms. Mobility makes it an anywhere-collaboration solution. So how much will mobility increase partner productivity?

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✔ Chapter 5: Partner Collaboration & AI – What is hype versus what does the customer really need?

Partners want hyper-personalization through the channel management experience but also now AI integrated at the point when it is ready for market. They want AI Chat embedded into partner relationship management software solutions to help them ask complex questions for meaningful responses. This delivers significant productivity gains as it frees up channel account managers to find this information instantly. But what does this timeline look like?

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✔ Chapter 6: How does AI play a role in tracking partner behavior, and performance as well as building predictive models, and how can this be incorporated into channel management strategies?

AI will go to a level of depth that humans can’t do however it tracks and applies digital behavior against success metrics. Connecting that with the buyer and engaging third-party systems delivers insightful trends and this will become essential to channel marketing management. Especially as it can evaluate their behavior with those 28 points of engagement. AI helps crisscross system data, determining workflows for success and getting a powerful understanding of how people want to be communicated with. But how confident and dependent can we be on today’s AI technology?

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✔ Chapter 7: Where should channel management technology innovation focus on when considering predictive capabilities in collaboration?

We will learn that companies like Google sits at an altitude too high for meaningful information. The benefit of AI is that partners will become global experts through AI search and own that IP. Google will end up following the AI engine and its content delivery as a subject matter expert and will be shared across channel management marketplaces, connections, and other forms of collaboration. But as a vendor and a partner, how do you compete and secure that spot of expertise?

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