Commencement
speeches are plentiful this time of year, along with
the commensurate "ya-da-ya-da-ya-da." I was
intrigued, however, by our high school principal's speech
when I read the headline in our local paper, "Complex
polyhedrons sent forth…" Who wouldn't want
to read that article?
In
a nutshell, he offered the following observation about
the class of 2009: "…you are beautiful
in your complexity…Forget about square pegs and
round holes - wrong analogy - you people are complex
polyhedrons."
(For
those of you who may not have embraced high school geometry,
a polyhedron is a three-dimensional shape with a bunch
of polygonal faces, like the Scattegory dice. From pyramids
to tetrahedrons, octahedrons, dodecahedrons and icosahedrons,
suffice it to say, polyhedra are complex!)
"You
are never going to fit anywhere," the principal
continued, "but you will make the world fit you."
A backhanded compliment, perhaps, but who doesn't
want to think of themselves as intriguing and unique?
And, so (but, of course!) the same goes for our business
partners.
While
it makes perfect sense to develop partner programs that
revolve around particular types of partners, it's never
as straightforward as fitting that round peg into the
round hole. Your business is evolving and so are those
of your partners. It's likely the partner you recruited
two years ago 
doesn't
look the same today. Smart partners reinvent themselves
regularly to meet evolving customer requirements and
continue to be relevant.
So,
while it's important to keep it simple, partner programs
need to offer enough flexibility and faces, if you will,
for valued partners to evolve with marketplace requirements.
Ultimately, you'll find success by fitting to your partners,
rather than forcing them to fit you. Here's how.
1) Begin with predominant business
models. Designing a program around
partner business models
is a best practice and an important starting
point.
Understanding how
your partners make money and extending
benefits
accordingly shows that
you understand their business and
are there to help
them
grow (as will you, by association).
And, while admittedly this part of program
design can seem round
peg/round hole in approach, it sets a
solid foundation
that enables you to
recognize emerging and new channels driven
by changing
market conditions,
through specialized program modifications.
2) Utilize specialties
or tracks to engage emerging and new business
models.
If you don't have a home
for a particular partner model, create a
specialty or
track to accommodate
the different approaches to market. The
web has given
birth to a number of
new channels (e.g., Software-as-a-Service,
Application
Service Providers, eTailers,
Managed Service Providers, etc.). Some of
your
partners will embrace
(or have already evolved to) these new models
to help
them meet customer requirements
or fortify margin. Build a "straw
man" that
includes input from
a few strategic and/or target partners and
identify
resources (partners and
internal) to put the specialty to work.
3)
Pilot and measure. Determine how you will
define success, what you're going
to measure, and over what
period of time. Tweak direction and resources
as
needed. If the pilot was
deemed successful, it's time to…
4)
Institutionalize, as appropriate. If the
opportunity warrants, make room for an
official new program element.
Typically, this includes rationalizing the
specialty or
track with your existing
program elements; branding; building and executing
an
operations and communications
plan; training; and launching. Institutionalizing
a new program element can
take some effort, but if the first three steps
are
executed carefully, the
polyhedron will be a remarkable sight to behold.
Here's
to embracing that ever-complex polyhedra of
partners, in order to stay ahead of the curve.
email:
jwilkinson@thoughtwav.com