The second edition of the Ecosystem Aces Pro Panel brings together industry experts to discuss the topic of Measuring Ecosystem Outcomes. The Pro Panel focused on understanding the importance of measuring ecosystem outcomes to ensure growth and optimization among ecosystem partners.
In this podcast, Workspan’s CMO Chip Rodgers is joined by Andrey Lipattesv, Partner Development Manager at Google; Barry Schween, Head of Global Partner Strategy & Operations at Splunk; Jim Dymek, Senior Alliance Manager at Boomi; and Subham Sarkar, Chief Strategy Officer at Netlabs Global.
The Pro Panel, together with Chip, had an engaging discussion about Ecosystem Outcomes Measurement. They weigh on specific partnership topics, including:
- Importance of demonstrating the business impact of ecosystem partnering;
- Best metrics to be used in measuring ecosystem success;
- The truth about “Legacy Channel” metrics in measuring the true impact of partner ecosystem;
- Building actionable intelligence among Partner Managers in measuring partner activities across customer touchpoints; and
- Best ecosystem processes and systems to improve ecosystem partnering performance.
Watch these industry experts in their discussion.
Importance of Demonstrating the Business Impact of Ecosystem Partnering
Barry Schween kicks off the discussion by sharing his insight that companies should demonstrate partner value inside and outside the company. In his work with Splunk, he emphasized that business ecosystems no longer work in the traditional way.
"[Ecosystem] is more than just bringing in a customer or landing a sale or distributing a product… it's really capturing the value of your professional services." Barry said.
Therefore, today's partnerships can no longer be measured by numbers. A partner may be providing professional services or driving evaluations on the front end, or they may provide proof of concepts for your products.
Barry emphasized that the key is to measure all the new values being added by partners and how they are helping the ecosystem work in the best way. Big companies like Google, Microsoft, and AWS are doing many things to encourage customer and partner motions in the right direction.
"Right now, most companies haven't historically looked at that [value]. So, there's a big evolution into how the ecosystem works…." Barry added.
He also emphasized that when the business impact of partnering is demonstrated inside your own company, it becomes easier to allocate time, people, and money to system integrations and other activities.
Andrey Lipattsev further elaborated Barry's points by sharing his insight from a tech company's perspective. He has significant experience in technology adoption as he handles Chrome and the Web Organization of Google.
"The value of ecosystem partnerships is that we engage in those partnerships because they ensure the company's long-term success and sustainability," Andrey said.
To have the right go-to-market strategies and product development, companies need to demonstrate ecosystem partnering internally. They need to show the exact ways in which partners can influence the development roadmap and business operations of your company.
"In my experience, the entire ecosystem is less likely to succeed if it's just being dragged along by a single leader," Andrey added as he elaborated on the importance of shared vision among partners.
He emphasized that feedback from every single partner is critical for success. A single company can be a leader and a follower in the same ecosystem.
Jim Dymek is responsible for Boomi's alliance with hyperscalers and works with Google, AWS, and Microsoft. Boomi is a leader in intelligence connectivity and automation.
Jim shares his insight about partnership measurement in the age of cloud and services. "We measure success from a product perspective–the usage of our innovations and the connectivity we're building to these services," Jim said.
He further discussed that for Boomi, their partnerships are about enabling customers to take advantage of the innovations offered by their partner companies. This includes automation to allow customers' businesses to move faster and data technologies to improve their clients' products.
Jim also stated while tech adoption and innovation usage is paramount in measuring ecosystem success, sales and revenue data are also essential.
On the other hand, Subham Sarkar of Netlabs Global gives his opinion on ecosystem success from a service perspective.
Subham believes that over the years, there has been an evolution in how an ecosystem works from the OEM and the services partner side. He used the analogy of a "cheerleader" in which companies got leads from the OEMs, basic co-sell motions, and some marketing funds from their partners.
"Partner organizations have started realizing that a significant amount of their growth can be achieved through strategic alliances," Subham shared.
Furthermore, Subham noted that the customer community is moving alongside these strategic alliances, allowing more technology adoptions and innovations to happen. Because of this, partnerships should work on Competency Development–pointing the partners toward the right kind of areas where they should focus.
Effective partnerships should include building competencies or offerings and investing in solutions, which they can deploy in a co-sell motion with an alliance.
"Organizations have also started realizing that alliances can also become a force multiplier for a brand-building existence," Subham added. He considered Netlabs Global's success as he discussed the direct effect of the right alliance on brand recognition.
With this, all Pro Panel members agreed that the value of partners is beyond deals and hard numbers.
Best Metrics for Measuring Ecosystem Success
Chip asked the panelists what metrics they use in measuring partner ecosystem success. Jim started the conversation with his perspective from a product organization.
Jim described what a successful partnership looks like for Boomi. From the production, testing, and customer use, the company looks at product adoption and the value customers are getting to measure partnership success.
However, the metrics and success of the ecosystems are different. For example, AWS launches an offering where a partner works with the account team, AWS works with the customer, and the customer launches the offering into the environment. This process allows the company to measure ecosystem success through the product's usage and life cycle.
Barry adds that every company has a different model, and it’s vital to establish the inflection points of doing business with a partner.
"What I want to make sure we do as we move forward is [to think] that success is not always linked to closed deals, but how much co-selling is actually going on," Barry said, remarking on Workspan's contributions in co-selling.
He pictured the idea noting that if 50 deals come through, companies should evaluate if partner teams worked together on these deals. Reps, success teams, and other members of different partners must work together.
"It's not always about the sale–it's about the services and the support," Barry emphasized.
Jim added that referrals are also an integral part of measuring partnership success, and it's not just about closing the deals but seeing how the people are connected within the ecosystem.
Subham further elaborated on Jim's note on profit. Subham admitted that the P&L (profit and loss) part is tough to crack because it’s difficult to track how much different partners are contributing to the business at the end of the day. Furthermore, some partners build solutions on top of the OEMs, platforms, and products.
Subham gave the solution of differentiating the partners based on their value in the industry. You can track the unique solutions your partners build in telecom, healthcare, or other industries.
Sharing Google's perspective on tracking and measurement, Andrey says that the metrics can also be the feedback provided by the partners. While this option is less measurable in revenue, it's essential for product development.
"It is essential to track the integration partners' ability to demonstrate successful implementations that drive future business," Andrey said.
Furthermore, Andrey emphasized that feedback helps companies identify key areas for improvement, decrease the company's costs, and decrease the need to create quality assurance programs.
After all, integration partners' work can directly impact P&L, so their feedback is as important as tracking ecosystem success.
The Truth about "Legacy Channel" Metrics
Jim talked about the “Legacy Way” of selling in which a company signs up partners, who become product experts. The partners talk to customers and then close the deal or ask for support. While this model is fine, it misses out on what companies have to look for in partners.
“Partners help users with the hardest problems,” Jim said. “You need to see that all of the new kinds of players involved are not the traditional legacy software distributors,” Jim added.
It may be hard to pinpoint the source of referrals in an ecosystem. Companies need to look at it in a referral vs. influence model or how many partners are involved in a deal. In co-selling, the company must handle all integrations, new versions, and other development parts.
Furthermore, Jim further discussed that despite having metrics and measurements, each team has different perspectives. The management, the engineering, the marketing, and so on. All these different pieces of data make the final picture, so it’s important to measure partner ecosystems in a modern way.
“It’s really a matter of getting the customer to see the value. Those partnerships are the ones going to make the experience and outcomes the customer needs,” Jim added.
Barry added that the world of technology and its people has evolved a lot in recent years. Companies used to sell hardware or perpetual software licenses, but in the last 10-15 years, in the age of cloud, SaaS, and consumption models, the business has been more about optimizing the solutions used by customers.
“You have to start to care more about the process of optimizing. The performance of the product, the promise of the product, and how partners can potentially create those impacts are hyper-important,” Barry said.
Furthermore, he advised that companies must consider upselling, cross-selling, adoptions, deployments, feature utilizations, and other product marketing actions. There is more requirement of interworking with partners.
Legacy channel metrics were driving demand, quantifying new business opportunities, tracking sales, etc. However, companies are now investing in partners for success, as no one wants to take 100% of the capacity. So, it’s essential to think beyond legacy channel metrics.
“Think about your partner when you’re making decisions. Doing it right leads to coming up with the right metrics,” Barry said.
Processes and Systems to Better Measure Ecosystem Partnering Performance
Subham believes that the world has changed, and the legacy way of tracking metrics won't work. He noted that one of the biggest disruptors of this had been the phenomenon of the cloud, the entire adoption of the cloud, and the way services and platforms are available off the cloud.
It's also important to look at reseller and distributor partners, who have the most face time with the end customers. They discuss the customers' pain points, needs, and requirements.
These qualitative data determine the success of the ecosystem partnering.
"The entire metric system has to be relooked at more than the quantitative focus which was the way we're used to before. There should be some parameters or a framework to look at the qualitative aspects," Subham pointed out.
So, getting partners' feedback is vital as they make their investments into building solutions. A company should ensure that if a partner is successful in particular industry verticals, they should have solutions on their platform.
A company may want to track metrics at the partnership or vertical or regional levels. They may want to track metrics that may not be related to revenue directly but are driving revenue, customer satisfaction, stickiness, renewals, and more. So, it's important to track metrics across the whole product lifecycle involving multiple partners.
Jim added that measuring customer adoption and customer product usage will help reconfirm whether a company has the right set of partners. Furthermore, he advised that companies must work with multiple partners to succeed.
"In this new world, everything needs to be more integrated. Because at the end of the day, the customers have the choice," Jim said.
Furthermore, he also elaborated that to measure all aspects in this data-driven world, companies need to invest more as they need more metrics and more modes of measurement.
Wrapping Up
To conclude the loaded discussion, Barry used the image of silos to refer to the old way of doing business.
"[Company] walls are coming down. We've got to look at each one of them in the value, behavior, and what they're actually doing." Barry explained.
Many partners offer immense capabilities, and companies must recognize that the industry is no longer about having one customer or partner. There are various ways to measure ecosystem success, and each method serves a fundamental role in a company's success.
While tracking and measuring the ecosystem's performance is vital, it's important to note that no tech firm can do everything on its own in today's competitive industry.
Partner ecosystems are the way to move forward.
Join us as we continue this conversation! If you have questions for our moderator or any of our panelists, post your questions on the WorkSpan Community. Our Ecosystem Aces Pro Panelists will answer them.
