Try as you might, it’s impossible to grow alone.
You need nurturing and supporting and – in the channel – you need brilliant partnerships.
It is a dynamic commercial arena built upon the notion of mutuality: the success of one partner linked inextricably to the success of another.
For Value Added Resellers, Managed Service Providers and System Integrators, a thriving relationship with the end user market is of course critical.
However, partnering with a vendor totally committed to helping you maximise every sales opportunity is just as important.
Naturally, that’s about having access to great products, innovation and expertise.
But it’s also about a shared understanding of how best to turn all of that into tangible revenue, profitability and, ultimately, growth.
Effective partnership, it’s clear, is key.
“For us, our reseller partners are an extension of our own business – for us to grow, we need them to grow,” says Robin Hayman, Director of Marketing & Product Management at UK-based, channel-focussed voice solutions provider Splicecom, which invests heavily in helping that happen.
“We provide them with the tools they need. That’s obviously our products and services in the first instance, but we also ensure we provide them in certain ways that work for them and their customers.
“So, for example, they can take our cloud-hosted services from us; they can provide them through their own cloud platform which gives them more margin; or they can work with their customers’ own infrastructure.
“Also, there are still an awful lot of business out there that require on-premise systems so we can do that too. All of the options enable partners to differentiate themselves against other resellers, which is an important thing.”
Just as importantly, Splicecom is careful to ensure that geographical areas are not over-crowded with its resellers; ensuring they do not have to compete against each other.
“We don’t like any more than three operating in the same area,” says Hayman. We find that our partners benefit from that and are able to maintain good margin as a result.”
Splicecom also deploys a suite of other measures designed to help its resellers maximise opportunities.
“It’s about constant communication,” says Hayman.
“We have a dedicated business development manager whose job it is to really understand their business and provide ideas to help them win more. That might be to provide them with a discounted offer for a limited period to enable them to really attack a market, or supporting them in a pre-sales meeting with a prospect, or tweaking or developing an existing solution to meet an end user customer’s specific needs.
“We attend trade shows with them, we speak on their behalf at seminars, we jump on a Teams call for them whenever they need us, and we’ll deploy from within our business anyone we think will increase the prospect of a partner winning a deal.”
In some cases, that kind of close relationship is difficult to foster.
The market has evolved drastically over the last several years and many vendors are now global multi-million dollar companies.
In the UK in particular – where Splicecom operates – being a medium-sized, proudly-British business resonates loudly with reseller partners of a similar size and who share a similar identity.
“I guess there is a kind of family feel to our business, just as there is to many of our resellers,” says Hayman.
“That comes with being a mid-size company rather than a global giant where partners can be just a number on a spreadsheet.
“Our most successful partnerships are with resellers who feel like they are part of our business and who appreciate the fact that we feel part of theirs.
“These are not solely transactional relationships. There is a willingness all of the time to engage with us and, the more that happens, the more they and we succeed and grow.
“They tell us: ‘We sell product x or brand y because we have to, but we sell Splicecom because we want to.’
“Of course, they have their own growth targets and they rightly come first. But we know that if they achieve those targets, we benefit too.”
It seems, in the channel, the power of mutuality remains key to many futures.
Pick the right partner, and they could be very rosy indeed.
To learn more about how Splicecom can help your business succeed and grow, visit www.splicecom.com
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