I have the utmost respect for Souheil having had the pleasure of working with him at VeriSign where he served as vice president and general manager for international operations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, India, Central and Latin America and Asia Pacific. Souheil also had responsibility for VeriSign’s Global Channel and Partner programs. Souheil has extensive experience working with Partners of all types and it is an honor to interview him for our blog. I hope you find his insight as valuable as I have.
Dave: Souheil many thanks for joining us today.
Dave: Let me start by asking you in what ways have you seen interaction with Partners change over the years?
Souheil: Dave, you may be aware that most companies are trying to drive more efficient resource allocation, and therefore a better return on each alliance. So there is more focus on partnership calibration to determine in advance how companies should engage in pursuing partnership opportunities.
Dave: Souheil can you expand on that further?
Souheil: Sure. Companies must determine what will lead to a deeper level of mutual agreement and vision between both parties regarding the potential partnership. Armed with this vision, the alliance should invest in key relationships commensurate with the potential value to be realized, thereby maximizing returns on scarce program resources.
Dave: This sounds a bit like joint account planning. Is it the same or something greater?
Souheil: It is something greater. While traditional account planning discussions focus on one-way value creation, partnership calibration creates two-way value by requiring both parties to explicitly state the expected partnership benefits, as well as the relative value of and desire for each expected benefit.
Dave: How do you go about creating partnership calibration to affect two way value?
Souheil: Basically the alliance professional takes a transparent approach with a partner and creates an alliance that allows both sides to properly set and document relationship expectations.
Dave: What can happen if and when the expected partnership value differs between the parties?
Souheil: Well, this process could surface additional relationship opportunities that may not have been discovered until much later in the partnership thus creating mutual value sooner. Or it could also highlight areas where one party has expectations of the other party that simply cannot be met thus allowing both sides to adjust partnership expectations.
Dave: That makes a lot of sense.
Souheil: Yes, you see by focusing upfront on mutual value creation and needs you are doing a better job of understanding each other’s capabilities and thus able to leverage the strength of the alliance in broader terms.
Dave: Understood.
Dave: Souheil, my next question is how has the expanded use of the Internet by Customers and Partners changed the way a company operates from an Alliances perspective?
Souheil: From my perspective, thanks to the proliferation of web based applications like Salesforce.com and SharePoint, Alliances Managers can now develop strategic incentive scorecards as part of a partner engagement campaign designed to ensure that partners’ take a broader focus than simply pursuing sales volume increases. The use of such tools helps a company assess their partner’s integration of sales and service solutions, commitment to partnership, and overall sales growth.
Dave: This sounds a lot like one of my favorite topics, performance management. Would you agree?
Souheil: Absolutely. It is performance management of the alliance. The tools allow increased visibility and better focus on target areas of potential improvement.
Dave: Well put.
Dave: Souheil, my last two part question for you today is what advice would you give companies and 21st Century Alliance Professionals who are trying to maximize yields from channel partners? and What do they need to focus on to be successful?
Souheil: Sure. Companies should try to surface the full potential of the partnership early.
Souheil: The alliance professional should invest in relationships that optimize resource deployment, and because the calibration process surfaces mutual expectations early in the relationship, it accelerates the partnership development process and pulls forward returns for the alliance.
Dave: It appears there would be significant benefits to this approach.
Souheil: Definitely. It reduces the payback period on partnership investments significantly, finding expected returns achieved in half the time previously required.
Dave: Wow.
Souheil: The Alliance professional should also build a partner incentive scorecard that defines specific value-generating (rather than just volume generating) activities.
Dave: That is great advice. Can you describe the scorecard in any more detail?
Souheil: Yes. More specifically, the scorecard influences behaviors in four categories; Core Product Sales, Service Solutions Integration, Sales Growth, and Partner Investment in the relationship.
Dave: That makes a lot of sense.
Dave: Souheil. I love your pragmatic advice. I think it will help our readers tremendously. Are there any other suggestions you have to help them?
Souheil: The other suggestion I will offer is in addition to and to reinforce training partner’s reps, the company should engage their own product specialists trained in sales tools and processes to help their partner’s new hires call them to get help managing prospect opportunities.
Dave: That’s sounds like ongoing training support but from the field.
Souheil: Exactly. The product specialists reinforce partner rep training in the field.
Dave: In what ways does this help your partner’s reps?
Souheil: It helps their new hires develop better and more specific account penetration techniques, more effective presentations, and helps advance sales cycles. By providing on-the-job coaching and visit-ready tools, this shortens both new hire ramp-up time and customer acceptance cycles, while also boosting overall partner loyalty.
Dave: Souheil this has been an excellent conversation. Thank you very much for taking time out from your busy schedule to provide this insight to our readers. I’m confident your insight and advice is going to help many companies and alliance professionals.
