Introducing the New Partner Profit Journey™
October 20, 2020 • 1 Minute Read
2020 has been an extraordinary year for the reasons you already know. As an observer of the IT industry for more than three decades, 2020 may be remembered for something not so obvious today: the emergence of a new Partner Profit Journey™.
Partners generate a significant percentage of revenue for most IT companies and the stakes could not be bigger. As a result, partner profitability should be the #1 objective and foundation of every IT company. For IT companies, profit enhancers and subsidies come in three primary forms: channel investments, discounts, and margin. These are collectively used to subsidize the moment to leverage the future. And despite the billions invested in profitability enhancers and subsidies, many partners continue to suffer from profit underperformance, which often means they never deliver their sales potential. Yet these deal sweeteners are what partners look for and expect from IT companies.
Today, more and more partners are scrambling with how, when, and where to make money, creating increasing risk for IT companies relying on their (partner) revenue streams to attain IT companies’ revenue and growth objectives. Sadly, with most of the profit enhancers and subsidies created at least 15 years ago, something has to change and fast as most are no longer delivering the right results to partners.
There has never been a more critical time for a new partner profit journey than today’s environment. Mark my words: this is the emerging battleground into 2021 and beyond.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Over the next year, we will be blogging about the new Partner Profit Journey: best practices, new categories of investments that work in today’s digital economy, business practices of early (partner movers), and more.
To paraphrase an American actress Bette Davis from her 1950 film, All About Eve, fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy year ahead…
Join us on this journey and please don’t forget to subscribe to our blog and comment on this or other Global Touch blog posts.
