Q&A: Channel Executives Take On the 80/20 Rule

Partner enablement is a term bandied about by vendor channel executives to reflect their goals and efforts to drive higher sales performance, revenue and profits of their solution providers. In a way, it's also a means to combat the 80/20 rule, in which 80 percent of channel revenue flows through 20 percent of the solution providers. Providing smaller and underperforming solution providers with more support and resources could change the ratio to 70/30 or greater.

But partner enablement means different things to different people. In some cases, it's about training and certification, the subdivision of channel programs or requirements for technology and market specifications. In other cases, it's about incentives--discounts, promotions, rebates or marketing development funding. How these programs are received by solution providers is often a reflection of their size and market position. Larger solution providers, for example, will sometimes receive different treatment and incentives than their smaller peers.

Regardless of their approach, vendors' partner enablement efforts have the potential to transform the channel. Through their technology and business training, and associated incentives, partners will lift those solution providers willing to accept the challenges and risks of growing beyond their current capabilities and capacities. Consequently, solution providers not heeding the call of enablement may get left behind in the channel of the future.

VARBusiness invited several leading vendor and distribution channel executives to discuss partner enablement. Each participant represents different technology and market segments: Frank Vitagliano, VP of worldwide channels and U.S. enterprise operations at Juniper Networks in networking and security, Lori Cook, VP of worldwide professional services, channels and alliances at BMC Software for infrastructure software, Doug Kennedy, VP of worldwide alliances and channels at Oracle for business software, Leonard Iventosch, VP of worldwide channel sales at Network Appliance for storage and Kirk Robinson, VP of North America channel marketing at Ingram Micro for distribution. This discussion reflects the diversity of opinions and approaches to partner enablement. And it reveals how solution providers can succeed in these often complex vendor channel programs, partner ecosystems and the rapidly evolving IT marketplace.

VARBUSINESS: Vendors are increasingly talking about "partner enablement"--helping their partners become better businesspeople, target new markets and grow their revenues. How does each of you define partner enablement?

"Partners give me constant feedback on what they need to their jobs done," says BMC Software's Lori Cook.

COOK: Because our software product is complex and requires a great deal of knowledge to understand the portfolio around business service management, I created an advisory board. Partners give me constant feedback on what they need to get their jobs done and maximize their opportunities. It revolves around continued support with education, both from a sales perspective and from a technical perspective, and around certification on our solution set and our products.

KENNEDY: Enablement is a major thing for Oracle, because we've got hundreds of products and more than 19,000 partners. I put a task force together about 16 months ago to dive into the requirements and what we were delivering for education. And we were delivering thousands of unique courses across the globe. I focused this task force on ensuring that the curricula are complete--for the partner to find out which type of courses they need based on what their discipline is.

"You're always going to have the majority of the revenue driven by a smaller number of larger players," says Juniper's Frank Vitagliano.

VITAGLIANO: To me, enablement starts with the training and certification, but it's broader than just that. It includes presales and postsales support, and it includes things like pricing support, marketing support and just general enablement or engagement kinds of activities.

ROBINSON: One of the most obvious areas is the communities that we've built over the years, the flagship community being VentureTech. That program's been up and running for more than 7 years. With the success of that community, we've rolled out the Government and Education reseller community and the SMB Alliance community, which is much broader. And last year, we rolled out the System Architect community for systems builders, because we recognize the need of those resellers and thought that, with the success that we've seen in our other communities, we could easily replicate that and help them have one community to go to, to learn more about how to be more profitable in business with the vendors.

NEXT: Training issues, plus whether the 80/20 rule is valid.