The Cornerstone of a Partner Ecosystem

Today’s partner ecosystem management should now be labeled Ecosystem 6.0 as it has been a force for six decades. Distributor marketing and management have always been at the heart of ecosystems as its core value is interoperability and collaboration in addition to the enhancement of value by combining complimentary products and services. The case discussed here, is not so much as is an ecosystem, but how to get the most out of one.

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Distributors are aggregation points in the market. Ultimately, the legacy ecosystem is distribution, and the output is channel marketing management. All types of channel partners rely on distribution for guidance, product selection evaluation, and sales as well as transactional support, financing, and post-sales support. Distributor marketing provides tremendous value by being the center of an ecosystem for solution providers looking for products.

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The role of channels is based on relationship and channel marketing management, not just sales. In today’s digital environment, people don’t want to talk to sales – they just gather the information needed, but don’t want to be sold to. A channel will help vendors scale and build relationships that cannot be done at a corporate level. Even the largest Cloud vendors can’t service customers in this way. This is where distributor marketing comes into play. Tune in to find out how vendors are embracing channel relationships and how distribution has made huge strides in the era of digitalization.

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Good distributors have solid relationships, and this is the foundation of everything. They have developed huge amounts of capabilities in business intelligence. Ultimately, they understand the sales environment, along with the opportunities and challenges. They have developed capabilities for training & enablement, integrating marketing agencies and marketing support to and through partners. They have evolved. Tune in to hear more from Larry & Sugata on how distribution is supporting new business models, and how they are becoming a massive support system for everything Cloud.

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The challenge with distribution is that everyone needs an easy solution. Many smaller vendors jump into the distribution work with high expectations, but they don’t realize how hard it is to gain mindshare. Companies of all sizes need to level expectations and provide the right resources to enable and engage distribution. Distribution is not a silver bullet, but it can be a part of the arsenal of channels leveraged for success.

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While deglobalization can play havoc with international markets in the near term, it can be a good thing for the economy in the future. With this economic movement, manufacturing is being pulled within home markets, and production is moved to closer and safer to navigate countries. Local presence and trusted entities like distribution are now a necessity to get products into countries and transactions back out.

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AI is powerful by not right there. These tools have a place in the channel – even now resellers using AI tools to write contracts. Content creation has become much easier, yet blander. It saves time and gets u halfway there. As we enter a period of low growth, we are challenged with doing more with less. We need to constantly explore and embrace automation and drive innovation.

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