The channel ecosystem and all the partners within represent a critical path to an organisation’s ability to grow, optimise the customer experience and ensure the highest level of customer satisfaction. Selecting, and working with, the right partners is an initiative every channel executive will tell you is paramount.
The importance of growth to the organisation is quite obvious although certainly not as critical as customer success, but to overlook the importance of growth, and everything it entails such as efficiency and scale, is short sighted.
Without growth, areas critical to customer success are impacted. Growth is essential for the company to sustain long-term leadership in their industry or space. In all my years working in channel, I have not encountered a single prospect who takes the time to investigate a potential solution that did not consider how the long-term viability of the vendor.
The partner community is the greatest source for extending the reach of an organisation. The more efficient the collective team is in growing in the market, the more that can be invested in providing a unique, high impact, dependable solution to customers. Requested feature enhancements are received, incorporated into a reliable product roadmap, and delivered on time.
At ObserveIT, our channel ecosystem is all about the end user, their satisfaction and ensuring they derive the highest possible level of value from their investment in ObserveIT. Along with our partners, we are laser-focused on ensuring all of our customers are able to quickly and effectively identify and eliminate insider threats from their organisation.
The overall ecosystem available is enormous; our focus remains where growth and value intersect.
Today, we pay particular attention to partners in 4 key areas:
- Value Added Resellers (VAR)
- Consultants
- Managed Detection & Response (MDR)
- Technology Integrations
Each partner type may place particular emphasis in different areas, but, at the end of the day, we know that as we invest in our partners, they become increasingly more effective in understanding and solving the issues their customers face.
If ObserveIT’s Insider Threat Management Platform fell into the category of HDMI cables or monitors, the considerations around who we should partner with would be different. At ObserveIT, we choose partners for the strategic value they provide to their customers. Our partners are very close to the customer, focused on increasing their productivity, and directly connected with initiatives coming down from a board level. Additionally, because ObserveIT can be a component in a project that expands beyond Insider Threat Management, the decisions we make about who and how to partner is essential to an optimal customer experience.
So why partner at all? Again, it’s all about what’s best for the customer.
Pay a visit to any security industry trade show and you’ll understand the value of getting help navigating a noisy solution landscape. Having another set of eyes paying close attention to the needs of the customer is essential. Partners take the time to understand the big picture goals as well and day to day challenges that can plague an understaffed security team.
Partners can be more local and have established relationships in multiple areas of a customer. Through past success or value delivered at a neighboring organisation, they have an established reputation for addressing critical needs.
We have seen partners provide guidance to customers in areas closely associate with ObserveIT such as:
- Strategic vision
- Risk analysis and prioritisation
- Project implementation and integration
- Ongoing security monitoring and services
Partners make getting access to solutions easier and help customers manage the timing of when vendors are best introduced. They bring history of the vendor’s experience to ensure customers get a depth of knowledge about the vendor, their reputation, and the strengths and weaknesses of their solutions.
The paths to achieving success in the channel can vary. At ObserveIT we take the time and invest in our partner ecosystem because they truly make a positive impact on the customer experience and serve as another resource in ensuring customer success.