Altec’s P2P Journey Experience: Midpoint Check-In
This week (July 10th – 14th), we are in Toronto at the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) sharing about Altec’s experience with the P2P Maturity Model. We thought it’d be fitting to also share our experience with online readers too! Please note that this guest post chronicling Altec’s journey was written by Shann McGrail.
Part II
It is the midpoint in the story of Altec’s experience with the Partner to Partner (P2P) Maturity Model and program. At this stage of the journey, Altec has been introduced to the P2P Maturity Model and has completed a self-assessment of its current state of partnership maturity across 10 business functions critical to success.
In this blog post, we catch up with Altec’s April Blankenship, Director of Marketing, and Gabriela Morales, Channel Program Manager, to gather their impressions of the experience to date. They share their insights regarding how up-to-date their partner program documents are, measurement of partner success, investing time upfront to ensure desired outcomes later, and translating the already high value placed on business planning into partnership development. Gabriela and April’s insights are discussed below.
P2P Journey Insights
The Currency Factor. “One action we took after going through the assessment was to review our list of partner program documentation,” explained Gabriela. Conducting that review resulted in identifying a number of documents that benefited from updating. “Just going through the assessment questions helped us consider all of our information to support the partner program and to take stock of what was current and what required adjustments. We found that quite helpful,” she said.
Quality Counts. One major insight from Altec’s work with the P2P model is that the assessment of where one lands in the maturity model is only part of the story. “We answered positively to many of the assessment questions landing in a proactive or dynamic state for many of the business functions. However, when we reflect on this experience, we think there is an opportunity to up our game on the overall quality and take it to the next level of sophistication,” noted April. Taking a page from total quality management thinking, confidently being able to measure the quality and success of partnerships will support Altec in scaling up the program, investing strategically, and growing revenue with partners. “We’ve been looking at analytics and the P2P Journey Experience gives us a way to think more deeply about the right measurements and to benefit from suggestions and best practices,” said April.
Slow Down to Speed Up. There are times when discussions and verbal agreements are enough to keep moving relationships and deals forward, until…something changes and there is an unanticipated roadblock. What usually happens is that extra time and resources are required to get things back on track. April expressed that this is a scenario they have encountered at Altec. “We have meetings after a change but it feels like we’re stalled. I think if we spend the time up front really nailing down what we want to accomplish together and putting pen to paper, when someone leaves or there is a change in the business, it will keep us going and minimize the amount of effort to get new people up to speed on the partnership goals.”
Priorities Revisited
Both Gabriela and April highlighted that they have already been working on a number of the areas recommended for building successful partnerships. The P2P Journey Experience, however, with its assessment exercise and accompanying discussion, has prompted them to take a slight pause to rethink their priorities and the order in which work items require attention. April provided an example of this, “As a company, we have had a concentrated effort over the last few years on how we approach business planning and we are proud of what we’ve accomplished and how seriously we take it. Translating that value to how we work with our partners is one of the areas we want to put even higher on our priority list.”
Next Stop
April and Gabriela are looking forward to the next step in the P2P Journey Experience where they will do a full review of the analysis of P2P assessment results to further identify areas of opportunity. They look forward to being presented with examples of other successful partnerships and assets Altec can leverage to keep up the momentum on its journey towards enhanced partnering success. Be sure to check out the next blog post for the conclusion of Altec’s P2P Journey Experience.
About the P2P Journey Experience
IAMCP and Microsoft are working with three partners to help them apply the P2P model to their business and assess their P2P opportunities. The experience of those organizations will be shared through a series of blog postings highlighting the beginning, middle, and end points of the P2P journey.
