Does enablement really matter if sales aren’t realized first; or can one really sell without being enabled? Several potential customers have recently asked whether they should prioritize eco-selling* or eco-enabling? This suggests three things: First, organizations realize the implicit importance of both. Second, that these two key ecosystem workloads at one point or another will be needed, they are just not sure of the order. And third, that resources and budgets may possibly be constraining factors in realizing both at the same time—meaning they may have to choose one or the other in the short term, eventually getting to the other. But which to choose first?
In our customer engagements, interestingly we have found that some organizations prioritize eco-sell while others begin with eco-enablement. In studying the differences, we’ve noted what might be three determining factors: The size and maturity of the organization, who within the organization is tasked with the ecosystem (level of corporate sponsorship), and what goal they hope to accomplish with the ecosystem deployment. Let’s take a look at each of these three factors:
The size of the organization in many ways reflects sales organization and ecosystem maturity. Larger organizations ISVs (Think Microsoft, Adobe, and AWS) tend to have larger sales organizations, and in most cases will already have large VAR channels or global alliances. They typically already have CRMs and PRMs. The main issue for these organizations is not necessarily limited to making the sales process more efficient (although in some cases they wouldn’t mind it). Rather, their primary paint point is how to scale it beyond traditional sales confines. In other words, larger organizations want to increase their footprint beyond just partner sales and alliance managers. They are looking for ways to engage and enable the entirety of the partner organization. An example of this could be an ISV working with a GSI and engaging well with account executives, but wanting to increase the enablement to all their GSI consultants in the field, who are not really in sales, but who can influence customers and indirectly draw sales. Such scaling requires less focus on co-selling and more so on enablement automation. As one global ISV customer put it succinctly, “Our solutions are complex and often require readiness and certifications even before we get to any sales stage. Being ready to sell is a more urgent imperative for my ecosystem than improving sales efficiency.” Another global GSI stated, “My sales execs and alliance managers already know how to sell; what we need to do better is to ready the entirety of our organization to help them help their sales team sell more!”
Other ISVs, particularly smaller, ones have provided different responses. One ISV who had deployed co-sell, stated in no unclear terms, “My top priority is to close deals with my partners. Co-selling has helped us shorten the sales cycle and multiply the revenue potential.” Another one stated, “For us to stay afloat, we either have to sell or show an ecosystem pipeline that convinces investors to extend us a lifeline. Co-sell does both for us; and we will think about co-enablement later.” Their priority clearly is more focused as it should be on eco-selling.
From the above examples, one could infer that size may matter in ecosystem deployment priorities. Larger and more mature organizations tend to want to focus on prioritizing broad and scaled enablement, whereas smaller ones need to acutely focus on co-selling, in many cases to survive and grow. Size and maturity could set differing ecosystem deployment priorities.
There are other factors at play as well, however, one of which is who gets tasked with ecosystem connectivity? Some enterprises come to TIDWIT primarily from a sales angle. “We are tasked with boosting our ecosystem sales.” In such cases, the leaders of the project are probably from the partner sales organization; and so, co-sell is much more likely to be their ecosystem priority. Other enterprise customers will empower partner program managers to lead their ecosystem initiatives, “We need to drive ecosystem enablement (readiness and certification) of our partners as it is a pre-requisite and leading indicator for what we will be able to sell.” Program managers may not be directly involved in sales, but do have an indirect impact on how effective sales efforts will be because they are tasked with empowering the partners at scale. As such, they tend to prioritize eco-enable solutions over eco-sell solutions. Here, the level of corporate sponsorship could also be a factor. Co-sell solutions, like Crossbeam and Reveal, can be deployed ground-up, starting with the sales exec him or herself. Initially this does not require much corporate sponsorship. Eco-enablement, however, typically involves several moving parts that affect important segments of partners and different teams within an organization (Think Partner/Alliance VPs, Global L&D, Partner Systems IT). Corporate sponsorship showcasing organizational commitment and coordination will be required.
The final determining factor we have noted is the goal of ecosystem deployment. If the goal is transactional (i.e. directly increasing sales or pipeline), then an eco-selling solution will likely take priority. This makes perfect sense, because sales execs collaborating on a lead might cut the sales time and increase the odds of closing. If, however, the goal is deeper and wider engagement with some key partners, then eco-enablement takes precedence. In the case of GSIs and Advisories (Think Accenture, PWC, and EY), small reselling transactions is not their modus operandi. Rather, their engagements usually involve building complex solutions based on a minimum degree of readiness, and certification. Therefore, their priority and that of their providers will be co-enablement so as to plug any skilling or knowledge gaps.
Ultimately, most organizations will need a complementary mix of eco-enablement and eco-selling tool sets. Indeed, in some cases organizations who have the resources will deploy eco-selling to their more traditional transactional channels, whilst deploying eco-enablement to their more complex SI or ISV segments. In the meantime, if there are resource constraints, ecosystem size and maturity, the organizational team tasked with the deployment, the degree of corporate sponsorship, as well as the goal of ecosystem deployment will all serve as key factors in determining whether eco-enablement or eco-selling will be prioritized.
* Eco-selling and co-selling are used interchangeably.
