Transforming Alliances to Drive Revenue

Alliance Managers have played a key role in developing and managing relationships with strategic partners as their company goes to market. And yet, Alliance Managers are leaving value on the table. This value can be unlocked. To unlock this value, Alliance Managers have to re-think their role and transform themselves from “Alliance Relationship Managers” to “Alliance Revenue Managers”.

Let us first level set the role of the Alliance Relationship Manager.

What does the Alliance Relationship Manager do?

They build joint business plans with their Alliance counterparts, connect each other’s executives who meet and talk about how they can change the world, share top account lists, engage in field account connections, and sales workshops.

Wait a minute! Aren’t these all high value activities that drive revenue? Yes, of course they are; if there is a culture of encouraging AND compensating the “right behavior”. You see, human beings are predisposed to being “good” and do the right things; but the environment and circumstances make them do things they normally would not.

For example, Wall Street wants to see Revenues/Profits on a quarterly basis; therefore, the VP of Sales will push her teams to drive sales and margins. Which in turn means that the Sales Reps are focused on the quarter at hand and any strategic demand creation exercises that will yield sales in subsequent quarters is not of current interest.

And then there is the age old “Account Control” dynamic when ISV/OEM Sales Reps engage with Alliance partner’s Account Leads; “what information should we share?”

I recently chaired a meeting between an SI and an OEM in the context of “partnering” for an opportunity in one of the largest Banks on the planet. Both SI and OEM are strategically entrenched in this Bank; but the meeting was like a clip from “For a Few Dollars More”; reminiscent of a staring dual between Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef. True story. Please read on, there is a way out and the Alliance Manager can help avert the above scenario.

So, what doesn’t the Alliance Relationship Manager do?

In the above scenario, the Alliance Relationship Manager typically punts responsibility to the Partner Account Lead and the ISV/OEM Account Lead; both of who agree to ping each other if they need to compare notes on HOW they can join hands to make the Bank successful.

What’s wrong with this picture? The Alliance Relationship Manager has essentially capitulated without a fight. The Alliance Relationship Manager has established a connection, and then moved on “to the next account” to repeat the same scenario. I like to call this “busy work”.

His job is not DONE; it has just STARTED!

This is THE biggest gap in understanding/expectation; but the irony is, this is also the Job Description of “Alliance Relationship Manager”. Many ISV/OEM company leadership have the flawed understanding (and hence, expectation) that the aforementioned activities will magically drive revenues.

So, why does the Alliance Relationship Manager do what he does?

The problem is actually quite systemic; let me peel the layers of the onion here.

The VP of “Alliances” is constantly asking her team for “deal velocity” & “pipeline quantity”; she should focus on “pipeline quality” and should measure HOW entrenched is her Alliance Manager in the pursuit. Sales closes deals, so deal velocity is the outcome of Sales person. The role expectation of Alliance Relationship Manager today is to connect and step back. But then, the Alliance Relationship Manager is now fully dependent on Sales to do the right thing — the Alliance Relationship Manager is no longer engaging in driving the outcomes he wants!

The VP of Alliances can help his Alliance Managers transform from being Alliance Relationship Managers to Alliance Revenue Managers.

Now, What should the Alliance Revenue Manager do?

The role of the Alliance Manager MUST transform to a more active role in the sales pursuit. For starters, the position should be called “Alliance Revenue Manager”. The Alliance Revenue Manager must become an integral part of the sales pursuit end-to-end by bringing “quantifiable value” in the pursuit. One key prerequisite is that the Alliance Revenue Manager is trusted by the Field Sales Reps AND by the Partner (GSI/OEM/ISV) as someone who will do the right thing by all parties.

What is Quantifiable Value?

No one is splitting the atom here; it is actually quite simple. The path to quantifying value begins with owning outcomes with grit and passion.You can do several things to own an outcome; you can set up key meetings and DRIVE them as your meeting (versus passively participate), you can coach both teams separately and/or together as a respected sales strategist, you can schedule pre-meeting briefings, you can own resolution of customer objections, and get the other team to provide a resolution and so on. Guess what; you do all of the above! The key question to ask is — “Do you OWN the outcome?”.

The reality is that many in ISV/OEM company leadership haven’t figured out HOW to extract maximum value from their (1) SI/ISV Alliances, and (2) Their “Alliance Managers”. They believe that Alliances can bring about a “Network Effect” for growth; or if you’re in the mood for a different cliché, “SI/ISV Alliances bring the multiplier effect to our Field Sales!” The President of one of my previous employer asked me why I wanted to do the “Thankless job of a GSI Alliance Manager”. My response was that I was a GSI Revenue Manager; my role was to become a critical sales pursuit member and not be “Match.com” by connecting different account teams and then sit in the sidelines.

There are two fundamental problems to be solved here. (1) The Leadership has to BELIEVE and EMPOWER their Alliance team BEFORE having expectations of disproportionate growth, and (2) The Alliance Business Process should be a transparent system of record that drives actionable outcomes.

I am excited to see WorkSpan bring a Go-To-Market shared system of record for driving outcome-based alliance revenue relationships. It is time for Alliance Relationship Managers to transform into Alliance Revenue Managers!