Developing a partner business plan in 2021: Why is it so important?

If you want to establish a business plan in 2021 for your partners, then you’ll be glad to know that this is super easy to do. In fact, there are numerous benefits to establishing a business plan and if you are able to implement yours properly, then you’ll certainly experience more success and better relationships in the future.

Why is A Partner Business Plan So Important?

Business plans define the overall operational strategy of your partners. This is done in accordance with the strategy of your company overall. Each of the business plans out there right now will determine your sales as well as your marketing and training objectives. This will be done in the alignment with your ambitions within your organisation in general. It will also give you the chance to monitor your performance so you can take the action required to support yourself and your partners. With 63.5% of companies saying that channel partners contribute to their revenue, it’s safe to say that you want your team to invest their time and efforts in the right way.

How Can A Partnership Avoid Failure?

If you want your partnership to avoid failure then you need to make sure that you put in the work to explore what goals you want to achieve. You then need to set measurable and timely aims that will help you to achieve everything you have outlined. If you can do this, then you will drastically increase the chances of you experiencing success. Studies have shown that channel partners can take over a year to become completely productive, according to 24% of businesses. Having a plan can help you to negate some of this risk, by giving your partners actionable and achievable goals.

How do you Create a Strong Partner Business Plan?

Creating a strong partner business plan is not easy, but if you break it all down into manageable steps then you will soon find that it is possible for you to create something that works for you and your team. If you can get to this point, then everything becomes simplified and you’ll also notice that it is easier for you to achieve your goals.

Understand your Strengths and Weaknesses

If you want to establish a partner business plan, then you first need to understand the strengths and weaknesses you have. If you can develop an understanding and if you can maintain a line of sight, then this will help you to drive revenue through your channels. It’s essential if you want to analyse, benchmark your teams’ performance and also review the work that has been done. First of all, you need to make sure that you are set up to reach your objectives. You then need to make sure that you plan for capacity. Do your partners deliver enough sales so that you can hit your targets? Are you able to ensure that your partners are all aligned to the right goals? It’s also important for you to hold all of your stakeholders accountable for the same metrics too. If you can do this, then you’ll soon find that it is easier for you to keep track of everything.

Know your Growth

Another critical element when it comes to partner planning is for you to diagnose your channel performance against your vendor’s product focus. You also need to look at the growth model. When you look at the Spur Group, you will soon see that they have developed the Growth Profile Strategic Model. This helps them to draw sales as well as ensuring that they are mapping products and priorities in a way that can be quantified. The model has four quadrants which classify the products that are part of every growth cycle. Having a clear understanding of the growth profile you have is super important as it will help you to determine the right strategy for you overall.

Define the Ecosystem

You need to make sure that you have the right mix of partners if you want your channel to work at the highest possible level. Partner managers need to have a good understanding of the company’s community and they also need to know how to best optimize the performance overall. This can be done by using five simple levers. You have a contribution, which is the sales velocity of each partner and you also have consumption, which is how effective the partner is at engaging and driving customer adoption. Coverage, capability, and commitment are all also, very important here.

Evaluate your Partners

When you look at the evolving channel space in general, you will see that leaders have very limited resources when it comes to influencing partners. They also need to make sure that they meet business objectives and that they also have a very strong partner scoring system. This will help them to boost the value that partners have and it will also reveal opportunities for potential management or scaling strategies. At the end of the day, partner scoring should be a forecasting tool. The framework can help you to improve ROI, re-direct behavior and also increase sales. Use the 5 C’s here to rank each partner, which are: Contribution, Capability, Coverage, Consumption, and Commitment.

Action Plans

The final element of effective channel partner planning would be for you to form an action plan. This will help you to set goals, manage the commitments that you have, and to drive performance against your benchmarks. It’s recommended that you track your partners and that you also build out your strategy in five different areas. This can include business model, product focus, industry importance, vendor alignment, and program membership too. If you can develop a firm understanding of these five different aspects and if you can leverage data insights then you should be able to optimize your strategy and even accelerate your revenue. While each element is important here, you have to remember that none are successful on their own. Each of the above points will influence the next.

Conclusion: Why is a Partner Business Plan Important in 2021?

So having a partner business plan is super important, but you also have to remember that it also gives your partners the chance to reach measurable goals. It also gives you the chance to hand them the tools they need to achieve their goals. It empowers everyone in the business while also ensuring that every single channel partner is on the same page with both the sales you are making right now, along with the ones you plan to make in the future.