I often get asked by my customers what the difference is between an Ecosystem Management Platform (EMP) and a PRM. My typical answer is to ask whether they feel their problem is in the management of the ecosystem or a partner problem. What’s the difference some ask? I try to explain five main differences.
First: A PRM is typically limited to partners. An Ecosystem Management Platforms (EMP) serves the entire ecosystem of an organization
This means an ecosystem platform could serve to connect an organization to its upstream providers, side stream allies and partners, as well as downstream customers and/or internal communities. In essence, an EMP is meant to orchestrate the organization’s ecosystem in all directions, whereas a PRM is focused purely on the partner segment portion of it. Since organizations typically rely on information flows from providers, which they may then curate, aggregate to, and then publish to downstream destinations, an EMP platform is therefore more efficient to support a multifaceted ecosystem, than a PRM which services only one facet of it. As an example, a construction company might want to connect upstream to its construction suppliers, while at the same time wanting to connect downstream to the real estate agencies reselling its properties so as to provide potential buyers with all the options … A one-size-fits-all PRM would force them to do the work of collecting all the construction material documentation, videos, etc manually to then post them manually on the PRM. The ecosystem management platform allows them to connect automatically upstream to the suppliers to collect all the collateral, and then to push it dynamically downstream to all the resellers or partners without any manual work. All the while, the EMP is helping orchestrate while providing visibility for the entire supply chain (upstream and downstream).
Second: A PRM is typically a one-size-fits-all approach. An Ecosystem Management Platform is architected to provide custom partner experiences
A PRM typically does not allow each partner to have different experiences relevant to their specific needs. As an example, partners will never have admin rights on their provider’s PRM, and therefore, a white-gloved approach is relatively rare and costly with PRMs. PRMs tend to be “good enough” to manage smaller partners who don’t garner many expectations; but it tends to disappoint larger partners who expect to be catered to. A typical example here is tech ISV servicing smaller VARs on a PRM and trying to offer the same treatment to Global Systems Integrators (GSIs) An ecosystem platform, solves this problem by providing extensibility to the ISVs PRM by providing customize partner experiences on nodes specifically to the GSIs, each of which could be managed and customized by the respective GSI partner, without it affecting the core PRM one-size-fits-all approach to the rest of the VARs. This means that an EMP gives ISVs the best of both worlds: The one-size-fits-all for the mass of partners they may have; while flexible deployment, decentralized admin, and white-gloving can be offered through ecosystem extensibility and the quasi-independent partner nodes to the GSIs.
Third, PRMs were not designed for co-enabling, co-marketing, co-selling motions. Ecosystems can be perfectly adapted for this purpose.
PRMs generally are unidirectional, meaning a provider pushes out to a channel of partners, who are not given a way to add their own material to push out a co-motion. Ecosystem platforms allow bidirectionality with ease. A bank and a financial aggregator who need to offer combined products cannot do so via a PRM. But they could easily connect their ecosystem nodes to one another and create co-enablement, co-marketing, and co-selling motions in a matter of minutes.
Fourth, PRMs were not designed for tight backend integration between legacy systems of partners. Ecosystems however serve as perfect glue
Say a healthcare insurance company wants to connect with all the state hospitals in its vicinity in order to easily but securely share patient documentation. Sure, the organizations may be partners, but a PRM is not really fit for purpose to meet the needs of such partnerships that require custom workflows, secure document sharing, and most importantly integration with the back-end legacy systems of such organizations. An ecosystem management platform allows the insurance company to spin up a node, and each insurance company to do the same. And then for each to integrate with their backend legacy systems respectively without burdening one another. A document or workflow that is fired up from the hospital can be orchestrated safely and securely through to the insurance company or vice versa. The best thing about this is each organization can continue to use what it always has without massive rip and replace IT projects. Have the ecosystem platform serve as the middleware glue.
Fifth and finally, a PRM system is meant to be used primarily by partner folks. An EMP can be used by the entire organization, which increases footprint substantially
The goal of partnerships is typically is to get both organizations to work together as much as possible. PRMs do this well, but only to a limited set of users, the partner teams. So, two partners might have a dozen partner folks on one end receiving information from one another through the PRM, and then finding ways to distribute it to the rest of their respective organizations (typically through email, spreadsheets, …etc). Enterprise management platforms, because all of what has been mentioned above, unlock usage to the entire partner organization, particularly in workloads like learning and marketing. At TIDWIT, we have partners collaborating with tens of thousands of users, yielding an 8X increase in footprint, which is something unheard of and that PRMs were never really designed for or licensed to support.
Does this mean that Ecosystem Management Platforms will replace PRMs. I am among those who actually believes that they will co-exist—with PRM providing basic partnering, one-size-fits-all solutions to the mass of partners, while EMPs deliver on more complex ecosystem multi-tier structures that require higher levels of engagement, more customizable workloads, bidirectional co-motions, integrations with backend legacy systems, and much much higher footprint.
