Ecosystem Business Management with Workspan: Co-Selling Best Practices to Maximize Cloud Marketplace Partner Revenues
Ecosystem Business Management (EBM) is a strategic approach to managing partner ecosystems. It involves creating a network of partners who work together to deliver value to customers and drive business growth.
Workspan is a PRM (Partner Relationship Management) vendor who specializes in enabling co-selling partner ecosystems.
Partnership and Sales teams use WorkSpan’s secure SaaS solution to collaborate with partners on deals, exchange co-sell referrals from inside their CRM, manage shared pipeline, and track performance on a live dashboard.
As highlighted in the previous AWS Marketplace article the Cloud vendor works with partners to enable ‘co-selling’ through the platform.
They highlight that the primary program and tools that AWS utilize is ‘ACE‘ (APN Customer Engagements), and one key feature of Workspan is their integration that enables seamless opportunity synchronization between your sales CRM and this system. This type of interconnected sales systems is key to co-selling, for example recently AWS announced a connector for Salesforce.
Their Co-sell Hub enables sales teams to auto-create referrals based on triggers (e.g. sales stage, partner field etc.), auto-import and submit opportunities to your CRM or allow your alliance team to review and submit. See how it works here, and read Chip Rodgers’ guide to Building a Co-Marketing Partnership Plan to Maximize ROI.
Features include:
- Create, share and receive referrals between your CRM and AWS ACE.
- Launch the AWS co-sell deals in AWS ACE from within your CRM.
- Define criteria to automate referral creation in your CRM to share with AWS ACE.
- Link incoming referrals to existing opportunities in your CRM.
- Map and set field values for better sync between AWS ACE and your CRM.
- Collaborate with the full deal team at your company and AWS field to win together.
- Updates to opportunities like deal value, sales stage changes, etc are synced to your CRM.
- Make updates, add comments and tasks for your partner AEs.
- Receive updates, comments, and tasks for referrals shared by AWS inside your CRM.
These capabilities greatly enhance partners ability to sell through Cloud marketplaces. In this webinar they share experiences from Deepwatch’s Meteoric Rise, charting their rapid acceleration to the top 5 for AWS ISV Pipeline.
Ecosystem Business Management
Workspan defines the overall best practices as EBM – ‘Ecosystem Business Management‘, describing how:
“Partner ecosystems are, by nature, cross-company and multi-party, and require effective and efficient collaboration with partners across company boundaries.”
Ecosystem Business Management (EBM) is a strategic approach to managing partner ecosystems. It involves creating a network of partners who work together to deliver value to customers and drive business growth. EBM focuses on collaboration, alignment, and continuous improvement.
Workspan shares a number of customer case studies that explore how this strategy theory is being applied in practice:
VMware
VMware shares their experiences of adapting to the transformation of the channel from transaction to ecosystem. Speaking at the 2022 Ecosystem Business Summit Sandy Hogan of VMware chats with Workspan CEO Amit Sinha and CMO Chip Rodgers about their journey from Channel to Partner Ecosystem.
As Senior VP Worldwide Partner Sales Sandy is building VMware’s ecosystem to deliver multi-cloud solutions through a multitude of partners, describing the primary transformation being one of moving from transactional to collaborative relationships with partners.
Sandy raises the role of marketplaces as central to this disruption, a force multiplier that will transform the channel and the role of resellers. This has proven a big wake up call for VMware, requiring new specialisms as the transaction becomes the least important part of the customer lifecycle, and even out-dating the concept of channel.
This effect is driving a change of their partners, where VARs are evolving to focus more on advisory and managed services. Over the next couple of years 90% of the partners will have app dev capabilities vs 30% over the last few.
Amdocs
In the Workspan Youtube video titled “Dan Hod, VP Global Cloud Alliances & Ecosystem, Amdocs,” Dan Hod shares valuable insights on cloud alliances and ecosystem in the global market.
Dan Hod starts by emphasizing the importance of cloud alliances and ecosystem in today’s digital landscape. He highlights the need for collaboration and partnerships to drive innovation and meet customer demands.
- Cloud Alliances – In this section, Dan Hod discusses the significance of cloud alliances for businesses. He explains how alliances enable companies to leverage each other’s strengths and resources, leading to accelerated growth and improved customer experiences. Hod also emphasizes the importance of trust and mutual benefits in building successful cloud alliances.
- Ecosystem – Next, Dan Hod delves into the concept of an ecosystem and its role in the cloud industry. He explains how an ecosystem brings together various stakeholders, including cloud providers, technology partners, and customers, to create a collaborative environment. Hod highlights the benefits of a well-established ecosystem, such as increased innovation, scalability, and market reach.
- Global Market – In this section, Dan Hod discusses the challenges and opportunities in the global cloud market. He shares insights on the evolving customer needs, emerging technologies, and the importance of adapting to market trends. Hod emphasizes the need for companies to have a global mindset and the ability to navigate diverse markets and regulatory environments.
To conclude, Dan Hod reiterates the significance of cloud alliances and ecosystem in driving business success. He encourages organizations to embrace collaboration, build strong alliances, and leverage the power of ecosystems to stay competitive in the global market.
Video Library
