Help of Vendors
Solution providers know more than anyone that certification is important but they also know that it isn’t the key to producing value either. Vendors need to try and step up so that they can evaluate their programs and the requirements of their channel as well.
The Challenges Partners Face
When you look at the challenges that partners face, you will soon see the issues that relate to sales are expected. It is surprising to see however those partners are challenged by vendor requirements and that they have to continually battle to retain their own status. At 2112, partners talked about the requirements of training and even certifications that are placed upon them by vendors.
The cost of attending events and even training can be costly over time and the expense of paying non-billable time is really compounded by the lost opportunity which could be used to get more sales. At the end of the day, partners would much rather keep people in the field rather than ship them off to Las Vegas for another training conference.
The Lifecycle of Sales
You will also see that finding customers, recruiting sales and even closing sales is vitally important. The entire lifecycle of sales can be challenging to partners and this is especially the case when you look at their technical skills and even capabilities. Another problem is that they know the technology that they have but they have no idea how to take it to market.
Certifications
This is interesting, to say the least because they do in fact represent the foundation of how vendors value the partners that they work with. Certifications tend to involve more than conveying the technical skills that a partner has because they are essentially a way for partners to demonstrate a commitment to any given vendor.
Through this process, it is their job to compel partners to try and invest in their products and even brands. Partners who are certified are much less likely to try and gravitate towards a new vendor as this would require a brand-new investment of time as well. Vendors, for a lot of it, care about certifications to the point where they provide a good level of real-world value. A lot of vendors would, in fact, waive the certification idea in general and they would much rather come up with a new solution if a partner was somehow able to outperform the revenue-generation expectations that were set.
Vendor Focus
Partners know that the best way to a vendor’s heart is not actually through certifications. They think that it is all about how much money they are able to make. Abandoning certifications and any other channel requirements for that matter could well be a step too far. Notable certifications are a huge part of the enablement process and vendors should really look beyond the arbitrary requirements. Vendors should be putting more emphasis on things like sales collaboration, development management and more.
At the end of the day, partners want to produce and they also want to create a good amount of value for their business. They also know that the way to do this might not always be through channel program compliance, but instead through sales productivity.