winning partner mindshare (60.756Kb) - DOWNLOAD

Intermediaries buy from suppliers they trust, and from suppliers with whom they have shared goals. This was the message which came over again and again from presenters at Winning Partner Mindshare, November’s Routes To Market Association conference.

"A great price and a good margin simply is not enough," says Penny Philpot, the director in charge of relationships with independent software vendors at Oracle EMEA.

She says Oracle research shows that, after product quality and functionality, the key driver for choosing a vendor is trust and its perceived reliability. Price and margin come sixth, after technical and training support, the market position of the vendor and its sales and marketing support.

Jim Irving, managing director of Scottish software developers Earlsgate SDS and the former head of channels at workstation vendor SGI, agreed: "Many large suppliers enjoy massive success with so-so products because they understand the importance of winning partner mindshare."

"Oracle was perceived as opportunistic and deal-driven. Intermediaries did not see us as a long-term partner."

Here we report from the latest Routes To Market  Association conference on how suppliers can best build such a mindshare.

What became apparent very fast was that winning mindshare depends on lining up a long line of balls. For example, you have to be seen to have a robust strategy which you are prepared to follow through thick and thin.  So, to win partner mindshare, you need to first win the commitment and mindshare of top management inside your own company.
This need to "line up the balls" means that it helps to look at winning partner mindshare as something to be done systematically, through a strategic framework. 

A committed strategy with the right partners
Intermediaries can tell very quickly when a supplier is not fully committed to a channel or alliance strategy.  Philpot says: "For many years, Oracle did not have a committed strategy. It was perceived as opportunistic and deal-driven. Intermediaries did not see us as a long-term partner."

Irving made the point that your company will not be able to commit to serious, committed partnering unless top management fervently believes that this is in its own best interests.  He adds: "I was in charge of channels at a company which did not really believe in intermediaries. There was a strong direct culture and intermediaries were seen as loss-makers and timewasters."

This was a huge problem which had to be addressed directly. He got round it by clearly demonstrating that the indirect channel, which was perceived to be loss making, was actually profitable, and that the direct arm had far higher costs than was generally appreciated.

He said: "I simply did the maths, showing that our two distributors were generating $100 million of sales on a 38% cost, whilst our fifty strong direct sales-force made $40 million of sales and cost 48%."