Whatfix Global Head of Partner Development, Pranjal Swarupon Partner Program Strategy

- First and foremost, a crystal clear answer to the question - "Am I ready for a partner program and what do I want to achieve by launching a partner program"? The partners are the customers to the partner program, and hence develop this as an offering. - Clear alignment with the leadership on what do we as the entire org aim to achieve with this partner program. Get their buy-in, and not just that, also clearly articulate what would would be expected of them. When I was launching the partner program at Whatfix, I spent almost 1 Q going to the leadership of Sales, Solution, Marketing, Delivery/Customer Success, Sales Enablement, Learning, Finance, CRO, and CEO to present to them the draft, get their feedback, and then present the final version again. Treat it like a large transformation, and trust me it takes a lot of time and effort to align everyone. - Once the top 2 are done, define a clear and simple to understand partner program. It could be the version 1 or even an MVP, but keep it simple with clearly articulated growth paths, credentials required, enablement plan, benefits (both programmatic and commercial) and be ready to launch it quickly. Make sure you've clearly answered WIIFM for the partner.

Okay, thinking like a consulting partner, here's my take: - Going "All In" with one tech provider: Pros: You can become the expert. Deep knowledge, stronger relationship with the partner (better leads, support, maybe even MDF), easier training and staffing, clear market positioning. You become the go-to specialist! Cons: Risky if that vendor stumbles or their tech becomes less relevant. You limit your addressable market – you can't help clients who need or prefer a different solution. You're tied to their roadmap and pricing. - Staying diversified across multiple tech platforms: Pros: You can offer truly objective advice and pick the genuinely best offering for each client's specific needs. Broader market appeal. Less risk if one platform fades. Potential to cross-sell services between platforms. Cons: Harder to build deep expertise across everything. Higher training costs and complexity. Potentially weaker relationships with each individual vendor (less leverage, fewer leads per vendor). Can dilute your marketing message. - My advice (generally): For most consulting partners, diversification is usually the smarter long-term play. It prioritizes the client's needs (making you a trusted advisor) and reduces your business risk. However, you can still have focus/priority areas. Maybe specialize deeply in 1-2 core platforms where you see the most market demand and build strong partnership there, while maintaining competency in others to offer broader advice. It really depends on your firm's size, goals, and the specific market you serve. A small boutique firm might thrive as a deep specialist, while a larger consultancy usually needs breadth. All the best!

This is the outcome of the partner program, and hence the success of the entire program hinges on these goals/outcomes. Some of those could be - - Number of partner recruited, onboarded, activated. This is key especially if your program is just getting kicked-off. Have clearly defined Ideal Partner Profile (IPP) and criteria on recruitment, onboarding, activation. - During onboarding, enablement is a critical step. This could be measured by the partner teams certified, and/or their ability to sell, solution, implement/deliver, etc. - Measure the number of Opportunities, Sales Accepted Leads (SALs), and ARR sourced and/or influenced. Look at Opp to SAL conversion ratio too. These are the. lagging indicators to the activities done above. - Define and measure the "delivery readiness" of the partners if they are the services partners. The number of projects delivered. - If you've defined MDF (Market Development Fund) for the partners (which I believe everyone should), then measure if the partners have been able to achieve their MDF accrual and utilization goals. This demosntrates their willingness to build market together. - Focus (maniacally) on partner experience. This could be measured in a variety of ways including partner's CSAT, etc. Monthly/quarterly reviews with the exec teams always helps them be aligned to the outcomes, helps them see the "build" phase early, and provide recommendations for any course corrections if necessary. They would usually focus on: - Top line growth - Partnership as a cost efficient growth engine - Expansion and retention metrics for the partner sourced/influenced opportunities - Joint solutions/offerings and new markets opened/expanded

Here's how I would do it: - Gain deep understanding of the partner's business and tech. Do some prior research using all the tools available at hand, and then validate those with the partner during the discovery call. Don't jump to the demos ever before doing this please! - Understand how they do similar partnerships with other vendors/partners. They may most likely follow a similar model with you. And may have questions around the similar pain points or expectations similar to other partners. - Tailor your value proposition to answer the "better together" story for the partner. WIIFM for the partner should start becoming clear by now. Also, determine what partnership motion (referral, resell, services, etc.) would they would like to start with. Use the partner program (if you have one) to articulate how you intend to use that as a strategic governance framework for mutual growth. - Don't overwhelm them or be overwhelmed. Pause and break everything down to details. Focus on all the tenets of a partner program around Sales, MArketing, Solution/Capability, Customer Success, etc. Map the customer journey that your product takes to their org and find out where all could the partner participate and couldn't. This is key as usually it becomes key in determining mutual success later. - Demonstrate how you've helped other partners achieve success with your offerings. Get to the investment and the returns conversation clearly articulating what it takes to go to market together.

- Any partner program should be seen as an offering to which the partner is a customer. Hence a clearly defined value propostion and articulation of that is a critical first step. - Provide simple and easy to udnerstand growth path. Partners should be able to understand how to grow from a tier to another. And it's easy to operationalize too. - Design and provide enablement that stays. Byte sinze information, access to it whenever they want, access to sandbox environments and demos as necessary. This all makes the life easier for the partners as they may have 10s of other platforms to work with as well. - Partner Portal is a key tool to provide one window experience to all the partners. Layer it up with access to lead registration, MDF workflows along with dashboards for sales/renewals, marketing, learning and certifications, etc. Important templates and announcements could go in there too. - Think of interactions between all your partners. Community for partners could be a strong platform for gaining and keeping the mindshare with them. Very important! Also, do manage the interactions and curate as necessary. - Always check what the success metrics for the partners are and how you have been and will continue to contribute to those. Business environments evolve rapidly and it's important to stay relevant to the partner's success. Stay maniacally focused on delivering a simple, consistent, and remarkable partner experience. - Evolve your partner program as your offerings, GTM approaches, partner's expectations, etc. evolve. Partner programs are never launch once and forget.

Okay, let's break down "activation" and why partners sometimes stall out: Partner Activation: - Activation isn't just signing the partnership agreement. It's the point where a partner is fully onboarded, enabled, and takes their first meaningful business action within the program. This "meaningful action" proves they're ready and engaged. It could be one or a combination of below metrics: Their first consultant getting certified. Registering their first qualified lead/deal. Launching their first co-marketing campaign. First customer "Closed Won". ARR sourced/influenced. Starting their first client implementation project using your tech/service. Common blockers to Activation: - The partner gets bogged down in too much documentation, confusing steps, or a long, drawn-out onboarding process. They get lost or lose momentum. - After signing, they don't know exactly what they're supposed to do first, second, third to get value. The path isn't clear. - Training is hard to find, low quality, too theoretical, doesn't match real-world needs, or requires too much time commitment upfront before they see value. They lack the confidence or skills to start. - The partner doesn't clearly see the ROI for their business. The effort to activate doesn't seem worth the potential payoff, or it wasn't communicated effectively. - Within the partner's own organization, no one is specifically tasked or motivated to drive the partnership forward. It becomes an "everyone and no one" responsibility. - They don't get any initial leads, support, or encouragement from your team to help them secure their first deal or project. Without an early taste of success, they may shift focus elsewhere. - They're hesitant to bring deals forward because they fear competing with your direct sales team or another partner. Rules of engagement might be unclear or poorly enforced. Very important!

Okay, common enablement pitfalls to avoid: - Drowning partners in massive amounts of documentation or hours-long webinars right at the start. They can't absorb it all, get overwhelmed, and disengage. Break it down into digestible, role-specific chunks. - Assuming all partners need the exact same training. Tailor content and depth based on their role and potentially their tier or specialization. I know this is hard, but start with something that's tailored to them and bite sized, and then get them to more detailed ones. - Partners need more than just what your product does. They need to know how to position it, how to sell the value, how to implement it effectively to solve specific business problems, and how to navigate your processes. Think of building a mini "your firm" inside the partner firm. - Having training materials, sales assets, or technical docs that are inaccurate, old, or buried deep within a clunky portal. Keep things fresh and easily searchable. - Partners need access to demo environments, sandboxes, or practical exercises to actually build confidence and skills. Don't feed them just theory please. - Thinking enablement ends once training is complete. Partners will have questions when they hit real-world scenarios. Ensure clear channels for ongoing technical and sales support. - Products evolve, processes change. Enablement needs to be an ongoing effort with regular updates, refresher courses, and communication about new features or program elements. - Last but not the least - think of how would the partners be able to access information related to your product/offering when they need it. They shouldn't be spending a lot of time going through the links on emails, partner portal, etc. Make it accessible to them at their finger tips, always. There are new-age tools available that provide such capabilities, leverage them. The harder it is for a partner to access the latest on your products' capabilities, the farther you would be from your sourced opportunity. As a rule of thumb, I would always think of how I would like to be enabled on a product/offering, and simplify it by at least 5x (assuming partner teams you work with usually maybe offering 5-10 other offerings).