Breaking Ground on the Alliance Aces Podcast

Published in

The Alliance Relationship Management Network

4 min readApr 25, 2018

The Alliance Aces is a podcast about how to win.

Specifically, it’s about how to win at building strategic alliances and ecosystems. In our new show, you’ll hear from professionals in the industry who are doing just that — building successful strategic alliances that are driving revenue and taking customer solutions to market.

Maybe you’re a professional breaking ground on a joint solution with your company and an enterprise partner. Perhaps you’re building a joint marketing campaign around a co-created product. Maybe you’re developing an ecosystem in which strategic alliances can thrive.

Or, perhaps you’re an enterprise leader diving into the potential of partnerships.

You’re in the right place. Welcome to the Alliance Aces Podcast.

My background.

My name is Chip Rodgers. Currently, I serve as VP of Marketing and Alliances at WorkSpan, the go-to-market network for alliances. Before WorkSpan, I worked with SAP for 13 years, and during that time, I wore a variety of different hats.

Early on, I ran Partner Marketing for over two years. Later, I led SAP go-to-market alliances with Teradata, Citrix, Blackberry, Symbol, and others — which eventually led me to running SAP’s customer/partner online community with over 2.5 million members.

Why the ‘Alliance Aces’ Podcast? Underserved alliance professionals.

At WorkSpan, we are on a mission: There are few resources geared toward alliance professionals. It’s time for a change.

If you’re in sales, marketing, analytics, etc. — you’ll find a host of solutions and thriving communities for sharing ideas and successes: shows, podcasts, books…

But for building partners and alliances within enterprise ecosystems? Few, if any.

Partnerships are the future.

Partnerships are driving the future. The market we serve is in the midst of a revolution. Customers are demanding wholistic solutions that a single enterprise can’t create.

This has given way to an increasing trend of companies providing joint solutions.

New technology, such as cloud, big data, and flexible APIs, have enabled companies to meet the demand of customers. Enterprises can now join together to build dynamic solutions and then take those solutions to market.

A quick Google search will show you a variety of videos and press releases of new alliances being announced every week. And today, 30–40% of technology companies’ revenue comes through alliances.

Yet, statistics show that anywhere between 60–90% of partnerships fail. It’s time to flip those numbers, create joint solutions, and take them to market.

Who & what to expect on the ‘Alliance Aces’ Podcast.

The What: We’ll be covering various industry topics. I hope you’re excited, because we sure are!

A few of the topics we’ll be discussing include:

Build and maximize ecosystems
How practitioners in the alliance space are leveraging their partnerships to maximize potential in differing geographies
Innovative go-to-market strategies
Developing and executing joint sales strategies
Working with field organizations to operationalize alliances
Building joint solutions in hardware, software, and cloud technology
Creating and executing joint marketing programs

The Who: Of course, “who” is just as important as “what”. We’ll discuss with thought-leaders, customers, and alliance professionals leading the industry. You’ll hear insider tips on how to build and maintain strategic alliances and ecosystems from guests such as:

Steve Asche, VP for Digital and Partner Marketing at SAP
Allan Adler, Managing Partner at Digital Bridge Partners.
Subhashish “Subs” Acharya, Director of Global IoT and AR Strategic Alliances at PTC

And these are just a few. Our goal?

We want to showcase individuals and uncover their innovative strategies in alliances and ecosystems for the betterment of the alliance professionals community.