Mountain View, Calif. (Vocus) October 21, 2010
Ramping partners quickly and effectively from new recruits to productive sellers has been an age-old vendor challenge. Amazon Consulting, a leading partnering services firm dedicated to helping companies elevate the impact of partnering, just published exclusive channel research entitled, ”From Rookie to Rockstar: Accelerating the Development of Channel Partnerships.” An executive brief of the studys findings can be accessed at Amazon Consultings website.
”With the collaboration of Arrow ECS, we interviewed 47 leading vendors and nearly 200 solution providers to better understand what it takes to efficiently develop a successful channel partnership,” said Amazon Consulting CEO Diane Krakora. This executive brief addresses how long it should realistically take a vendor to elevate a partner from new in their channel program to being a productive seller; what are the key steps along the way, where does the process stall, and what kind of support are solution providers looking for from their leading vendors to accelerate the process?
According to the research, solution providers are willing to invest for up to 12 months in a new vendor line before realizing revenue. But, both vendors and their partners would like to be actively selling within 6 months. Issues such a rebounding economy, new technologies that cause shifts in new practice investments, and industry consolidation are impacting the time and cost of developing solid vendor/solution provider partnerships.
Amazon Consultings recent study identifies key areas that can boost the time to market and ROI for vendors and solution providers. For example, vendors indicate that it only takes their partners 30 days to enroll and get activated in their program, and another 2-4 months to begin actively selling and marketing, after training. Solution providers consistently indicate that throughout these development steps, they rely on vendors staff in sales, technical, services and marketing to accelerate their ramp. They do value some other on-line systems and automation, but the value of people in building new channel relationships remains key.
”We have analyzed this data in depth from both the vendor and solution provider perspectives to better understand the disconnect between the vendor and solution provider communities expectations,” said Beth Vanni, Amazon Consultings Director of Market Intelligence. ”The findings of this particular study validate the common vendor challenge of having 20% of partners producing 80% of their revenue. But, it forces vendors to look more closely at aligning their support along the partner development continuum to what their partners need most. For instance, we found many vendor support programs are unused or under-valued. We also found that the vendors and solution providers had quite different expectations of their distributors for development support. Bottom line, vendors need to spend smarter, know what programs are most valued and used, and clearly identify distributors role in support.”
To learn more about the complete research findings from the ”Rookie to Rockstar: Accelerating the Development of Channel Partnerships,” click here. Full details of this analysis are available through a subscription to Amazon Consultings PartnerG2 market intelligence service.
PartnerG2
Amazon Consulting offers market research studies through a comprehensive annual market intelligence subscription program called PartnerG2. Fueling channel management professionals with valuable research, analysis, thought leadership tools and expert advice to guide partnering success, PartnerG2 offers unlimited users under a corporate subscription, quarterly studies based on industry hot topics, a complete library of thought leadership materials and 4-hours of complementary consulting services. Channel industry analyst and speaker Beth Vanni is the Director of Market Intelligence for Amazon Consultings Partner G2 program and can be followed at http://amazonconsultingblog.wordpress.com/ or http://twitter.com/bvanni .
About Amazon Consulting
Amazon Consulting, LLC is a partnering development firm based in Silicon Valley, California, wholly dedicated to helping companies elevate the impact of partnering. We achieve this by effectively designing, implementing and automating channel and alliance models. We offer services ranging from channel models and program development plans to partnering operations and program execution. PartnerPath
Amazon Consulting Unveils Exclusive New Channel Research: "From Rookie to Rockstar: Accelerating the Development of Channel Partnerships"
