Post on 30-Nov-2014
description
Creating & Maintaining an Effective Business Partnership in the Information Technology Industry
Engagement Management Thought Plan prepared for an IBM Business Partner’s Route to Market Program By : Teresita A Krueger 13 June 2011
2 Confidential
How to drive success – at the 1,000 ft Level Goal: Develop the relationships with key decision makers so that technology
providers will identify and bring your capabilities into all go-to-market executions and credibly compete for major procurements
How to proceed:
ü Establish the BR (business relationship) strategy, based on your experiential knowledge of key initiatives (e.g.storage, virtualization, servers, software development, IT consulting)
ü Leverage the local / global sales teams
ü Educate your technology partner’s firm, sales teams / client executives so they are comfortable with the subject matter expertise from the integrator
ü Develop call / engagement plan with the all account sales teams (may include events and customer visits)
ü Use global collateral – translated to interests of technology partners, where necessary
ü Include your own solution and services related content in websites and link backs
ü Track, measure appropriately in a Business Partner Relationship Mgmt System
Remember, the value proposition as the relationship expert = identify the unique problem to be solved to generated leads and ultimately revenue.
Focus • Direct link of
relationship & “hard revenue goals”
Target • Establish
“constituencies” • Create critical
need of offerings to current solutions portfolio
Define • Put your “currency”
into action with upcoming client deals, client executive briefings
• Couple other partner initiatives
Align • Identify special set
of connections, events, meetings for Subject Matter Experts
• Increase match between market opportunity & Biz Prtners market focus.
• Leverage the Exec partners
Out Reach & Renew • Programmatic &
Managed plan Continuous conveyor of credibility
Action Driven Plan as a Process
The elements of a successful relationship management system
First 30 to 60 days
• Partner Team Profiled
• Manage Partner team as a portfolio • What do I want to achieve? • Gather intelligence– perception survey • Where are the gaps • Define ideal relationship
60 to 90 days
• Consistent and Relevant Communication
• Mutual commitments – agreed upon action plans, milestones documented •Desire for growth in relationship (driven by customer demand)
• Close gaps • Identify added partner ecosystem value proposition
Progressing beyond 120
days • Readiness and
Enablement • Engaged at the right level • Communications and reviews • Value add, growth oriented, proactive
Timeline overlay with Process
Putting that plan into deliverables
Looking Ahead
• When is the next milestone? o Tied to quarterly sales, Gross Profit, new
and extended sales - lead generation
• What are the expected deliverables? o Measured against increased market
penetration, % of revenue attainment
• Known risks and issues o What is the investment timeline for these
issues?
• What are the immediate next steps?
Appendix
• IBM Sales, Marketing & Communications
• Supplemental documents – Resources, My Scorecard
• Contact information Teresita is an Information Technology Specialist and accomplished Program Manager experienced in Public
Sector industries. Teresita has spend over 15 years, in the IBM Corporation influencing line of business
executives by providing insights to optimal utilization of emerging technologies along with business and
social implications.
She is now with www.invivovision.com - an entrepreneurial world class think- tank of women and minority
scientists, engineers and educators 8A certified, and Tier 2 SW Reseller IBM Business Partner
Sales, Marketing and Communications example: IBM • At IBM’s core is a set of marketing materials
and sales tools designed to support phases of their SSM – Signature Selling Method
• IBM’s Route-to-Market Strategy is encapsulated in message creation:: the foundation for marketing execution and sales enablement, articulated in a standard plan, that is industry specific and used for partner evaluation
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Industry Point of View and Ramp-up definitions
Sales enablement and internal & external communications
Pipeline development and management
Customer facing materials, mapped to the SSM process
Top Critical Success Factors
Value Creation • Solution Design • Architecture Framework • Demo
Communications • Demand Generation
• Lead Generation • Thought Leadership
• Influencer/Analyst • Whitepapers
• Assets & Collateral • Presentations, case
studies, flash demos • Education
• Awareness • Internal/external
Channel Enablement • Cross Selling, Up selling
Ref: ftp://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/partners/pdf/SignatureSalesOverview.pdf http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/dinamic-content/media/Yvonne/IBM%20Route%20to%20Market%20Strategy.pdf
Dependencies and Resources
Know what resources you can exploit, be sensitive to dependencies & politics