How Social Are Your Partners?

Every time I begin to blog about social media, I pause and think of how my inbox is assaulted on daily basis with invitations to attend/participate in social media events, webinars, etc. Everyone is talking about social media in the channel, but up to this point, we really haven’t seen our clients doing much about it – and especially not “with” their partners.

No doubt, social media is important in today’s marketing mix. But how much it is embraced by Channel Marketing organizations seems to be directly related to how a company embraces social media in general. And, it’s practically unheard of for vendors to include social media as reimbursable activities in their MDF or incentive funding programs.

Most of the vendors I’ve talked to assume their partners aren’t using much social media yet, so they assume that there’s no need to communicate with them this way. While it’s true that half of a vendor’s partners probably haven’t embraced social media, many recent studies show that at least 90% IT decision makers consume information through social blogs, videos, online peer groups/communities. There seems to be a growing disconnect between IT customers who seek information on through social media and partners who are not equipped to create and deliver it.

In an MDF program benchmark project we recently completed, we learned that this year, the pool of available MDF funds has decreased (no surprise), and that the number of partners who receive MDF funds has also decreased – funds are now primarily available to the top tier partners. How can a vendor help and encourage partner participation and collaboration at all levels on a tight budget?

Let’s assume that vendors broaden their MDF programs to include social media as “acceptable” marketing activities that are eligible for reimbursement. The cost of entry is low for social media, and below are some easy ideas that could increase the number of partners participating in the program:

• Provide a comprehensive “how to” tool box and guide to help partners start, or add to established social media vehicles promoting your brand or products (i.e. video, blogging, Flash, etc.)

• Create easily digestible content for use on different social media platforms

-Develop daily tweets that can be “re-tweeted” by your partners
-Provide blog content that can be re-published on your partners’ own blogs
- Provide videos that can be posted to the partner’s website, or mentioned in blogs and tweets

The addition of these social media marketing tools isn’t very different from the co-branded collateral, landing pages, etc. that are currently created for partners. Yes, there’s a cost associated with the resources needed to develop these offerings. However, if you are just now dipping your toe in social media marketing for partners, experimenting with these kinds of activities that expand your corporate social media strategy is a cost efficient way to conduct your own social media research – and extend your brand at the same time.

And, while we are on the topic of social media… In Amazon Consulting’s Q4/09 research study “The State of Partner Collaboration and the Impact of Social Media” we are asking vendors and partners the question “How does Social Media Impact Partner Collaboration? Click here, if you’d like to take the survey.

Q4 2009 Check-in

done

By Diane Krakora, CEO

Diane speaks briefly about  partnering priorities this quarter that could very well expand through 2010, including partner program refreshing, optimizing channel spend, breaking into new markets, and internal and external channel sales training.

Getting Back to Basics

By Sandra Glaser Cheek – Director, Client Services

Often when we work with clients on their channel communications strategies, our social media recommendations bring on a mountain of questions and concerns. There is a lot of apprehension around developing a social media strategy. Questions like getting executive buy-in, integration of internal teams that will engage partners in social technologies, which tools and platforms to use, etc., often come up. Not that these aren’t good questions – they are. But they really miss the point. I’d recommend borrowing a basic journalism approach and starting with the “Five W’s” (and one “H”) questions instead:

WHO are you trying to reach?

WHAT are your objectives, and what are you trying to accomplish?

WHEN and HOW is the best time and way to reach them?

WHERE do these people spend time online?

WHY do they care about what you have to say? What is the value that you bring to the table/conversation?

When formulating your channel social media strategy, what are some of the questions you think are important to start with?

OPN Specialized at Oracle OpenWorld 2009

Beth Vanni shares her thoughts on OPN Specialized with Lydia Smyers immediately after the launch of the program at Oracle OpenWorld 2009.

Lines Drawn In The Sand: Are Oracle’s Partnering Efforts Ready to Stand Among its New Competitors?

Beth Vanni – Director, Market Intelligence

October 12, 2009 –  Oracle OpenWorld 2009:   As Sun Microsystems’ Chairman Scott McNealy literally passed the baton to his “better capitalist” colleague, Larry Ellison, it became clear on stage to most OpenWorld attendees that Oracle is entering a new league.  When the Sun acquisition becomes final for Oracle, targeted for January 2010, Oracle will join the short list of enterprise computing platform mega-vendors, namely IBM, HP, and Cisco.  But, will the Oracle Partner Network measure up to the maturity of the world-class channel engagement and support programs offered by its peers?

HP DOUBLES-DOWN ITS BET IN THE DATA CENTER: Announced Enhancements to PartnerONE Program

Beth Vanni – Director, Market Intelligence

Today, HP announced enhancements to its PartnerONE program aimed at increasing its focus on data center solutions through its enterprise channel partners.   Since Cisco announced its unified computing system strategy earlier this year, HP’s focus on its data center and ProCurve networking solutions channel partners has been a top priority.   Today’s announcements include both new program requirement as well as sales, marketing and financial benefits.

The Clouds Begin To Part: Where Do Distributors Fit After The Storm?

A View on the Vendor/Distributor Relationship from the GTDC Annual Summit
By Beth Vanni – Director, Market Intelligence

Top channel support functions that distributors help with to increase ease of doing business for vendors’ partners (Amazon Consulting Cost of Complexity Study)

At last year’s Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC) most of the conversation was about access to capital and credit.  The bottom of the recession was looming straight ahead and the fear about IT product demand drying up was very palpable.   Fast forward 12 months.  This year’s event is decidedly more optimistic.  The major distributors have undoubtedly had a tough year, along with their major vendor partners, but by all indications of average selling prices, unit sell-through and pipeline forecasts, the major distributors think we’re all climbing out of the bottom of the trough.

The Texas Titans Gang Up: Perot Systems and Dell Make Enterprise Services Play – Late to the Game

For me, it’s a pretty simple debrief.  Dell has been increasingly trying to gain relevance in the enterprise, with both servers, storage and services.

They had no real comparable services arm to compete with EDS/HP or IBM G.S.   They are worried about getting further commoditized at the device/PC level and about not having an offsetting high margin services play.   They’re smart enough to know they can only streamline their cost structure so low and become further efficient at commodity PCs as a sustainable business strategy for so long.   They also were last to the game with a meaningful outsourcing services offer.   Lastly, they also needed vertical industry practices to gain more business user relevance (and stop selling on price & feature/function to the IT Director).   So, Perot brings them all of those things, with a stated focus and successful history in a couple of big verticals (gov’t. and healthcare).

It just seems to me like Dell paid a HUGE price for this (60%+ premium over current stock value).   But the clock was ticking.

Channel Complexity – Vendor/Partner Marriage Counseling

By Beth Vanni – Director, Market Intelligence

When psychologists ask most married couples about what creates conflict in their marriage, there is often a classic gender gap in perceptions.  Women will often talk about lack of sharing, communication and having joint goals — those long-term things in a marriage that create meaningful bonds.  Men will often talk about arguments over money and not enough physical intimacy (OK, sex).   The day to day “glue” of a marriage that keep the wheels on the bus.   Not that I’m trying to indict the male species, but this classic gender-based delta in needs feels much like the results from our recent research study focused on Channel Complexity.   Let me explain ….

The goal of our research was to identify what areas of channel programs and processes caused partners the most cost, wasted time and generally infuriated partners  about their leading vendor’s programs.  We then compared those responses to the vendor’s own perception of where they felt they could improve in their ease-of-doing-business quotients.   The results were fascinating – much like a marriage counseling session.   Beyond the one resoundingly common complexity issue of managing training and certification requirements, the wish list of things to simplify seemed quite divergent.

VMworld 2009: Ahead in the Cloud

Sandra Glaser Cheek

I spent several days at VMworld 2009 last week where I was one of 12,000+ attendees (roughly, about ¼ of the attendees were partners) gathered to immerse ourselves in all things virtualization. There were a few new product announcements – all ripe with the notion of clouds and an overarching computing paradigm, but there were really no big surprises. A few highlights that stood out for me: