Not Recognizing the – What most Tech CEOs get wrong when Starting in Partnering #1

The great challenge Tech CEOs have with partnering is the pool of assumptions made in what will work and how it will work. This post is first in the series, What most Tech CEOs get wrong when Starting in Partnering.

After working directly with 100s of tech companies in helping them get starting in partnering to build their programs, below summarises some regular business cultural challenges faced, that you can now identify and work to avoid. 

Companies can spend years developing their direct sales businesses to deliver steady growth, and miss that learning to partner is whole new learning journey. Ignoring the partnering learning journey causes much heartache, and lost time which often leads to companies abandoning their partner plans entirely.

Six tell-tale signs of not recognising the Partnering Learning Journey:

1) No methodology, framework or road map for their partnering plans

Even very experienced tech leaders can jump in with an ad-hoc approach to partnering, and talking to some possible partners, with many unknowns, assumptions and sometimes demands that slows or kills opportunities.

2) Too small proof of concept to validate the partnering strategy

With too few partner interactions, and lack of proper preparation, uninformed views are taken, plans are changed or maybe plans are dropped too easily. When starting a business, the opinions of two or three companies don’t determine your whole business plans. Why should this be the case for partnering plans and lessons?

3) Abandoning partnering plans too early

First partners are often by chance, and rarely result in ongoing repeat business despite the initial success and much effort to make it work on both sides. Withour the proper understanding and lessons the wrong decisons are too often taken, and opportunties lost.   

4) Going straight to the biggest

Many companies target and spend too much time approaching the likes of Accenture, Deloitte and other global consulting or global system integrators thinking they have a proven proposition that will appeal to the global system integrators (GSIs) companies. The GSIs are very unlikely to be a proper target partner for the majority of tech solution vendors, with a simple explanation when you understand how these companies operate.  

5) Blaming the partners as not suitable

There are a number of critical elements to make a partnership work, including the tech solution company selecting the suitable partners, then proper onboarding and partner enablement allowing time to get started. 

6) Treating plans as certain

When starting in any new plan, you don’t know until it’s validated. You start with a hypothesis to be tested, developed and validated or to be learned from.

Tech leaders need to understand the learning cycle, their Partnering Journey, and how to assess where they are currently, then to develop and validate each aspect of their partner program while making step–by–step progress.

The best teams are constantly working to capture their assumptions, the unknown unknowns and how to address them. How do you develop your-earn-while-you-learn your partnering model?

NOW, read on with the next in the series: Not Aligning Partnering Strategy and Business Strategy – What most Tech CEOs get wrong when starting in partnering #2