Vendors tend to start the transformation process for a channel with the belief that they have to keep on hiring new partners. This may be the case, but you will never know for sure until you are able to define your own process and what you need to do in order to ultimately unleash your true marketing potential.
Vendors and the Future
So many vendors are trying to look to the future. They are always trying to adjust their models, their marketing platforms and the strategies that they have in place for their channels. With new technology being released all the time and varying consumption models to consider, the market is ever-changing so this attitude is required if you ever want to branch out and become the success that you set out to be.
The problem here is that it also leads channel leaders to believe that they need to have more and more partners in order to harness this technology and the needs that it is able to meet. So right now, let’s take a moment to consider the fact that requiring more partners should never be the first phrase you say when you set out to start a transformation project.
It is true that channel transformation means that more vendors need different people to work with so that they can gain experience in varying marketing coverage. This is especially the case when you take into account skill expansion and even sales capacity, but that isn’t where you should start your transformational thinking. Any market forecast that goes beyond that of two years is riddled with uncertainty.
The Current Market
The market, as it stands today, has far too many variables in order to make any prediction accurate. It is possible however to see forecasted trends. This makes it possible to see the direction in which things are moving, but not the path it is going to take.
It’s safe to say that the services model is going to absolutely dominate the go-to-market strategies and new technology such as machine learning and even automation is going to have a huge impact on infrastructure. Operational management is going to need far greater resources and this is going to make any transactional product much harder to sell when looking at high-cost channels.
Transformation
So based on the above, it is possible to say that we have a good idea of where things are going. This doesn’t mean that they are certain, however. There are still a ton of unknowns and the list is going to get longer and longer. Every vendor unknowingly operates under a unique set of circumstances and conditions. The certainty here is that vendors need to transform and even evolve if they want to remain both relevant and viable in this current age.
The point of this is that rather than starting a conversation about transformation with the idea that you need different and more unique partners, you should really start by looking at the goals and even the challenges that need to be addressed. It isn’t enough to look at someone with a specific set of skills and knowledge before saying “we need more people like that”. The main reason for this is because vendors need to have a target in mind so that they can then go on to meet the objectives that they have.
Now, defining the objective and even the target that you have for the future is no easy task. Vendors are constantly trying to work and develop new products and methodologies to meet the myriad of needs the market has.
Conclusion
Addressing these needs with verticals and geographies comes with, you guessed it, another set of challenges. Before you jump at the idea of hiring new partners, you have to consider the products that you are trying to sell, the people who you are trying to sell them to and the skills that are required to do that.
When you have done this, you can then take a completely different approach and you may even find that you uncover a range of both direct and indirect marketing opportunities. If you jump way ahead of the idea of transformation by discussing the need for more partners then you will stunt your own growth, create barriers that do not need to be created and even stymie the work of your team. This comes with its own set of unique challenges as well, but the difference is that all of this can easily be avoided.