Is partner enablement the new currency?
Vendor and partner success in 2014 will be directly proportional to the quality, breadth, and extent of sales and technical enablement developed and provided by vendors to the channel.
According to analyst firm IDC, enablement will become the new currency, superseding financial incentives in driving the vendor/channel relationship.
As a result, vendors that provide the most compelling and useful enablement for their partners will gain channel dominance.
"Partners are continuing to assess what bets to make on the 3rd platform and how best to integrate cloud, mobile, Big Data and social media into their current portfolios," says Paul Edwards, analyst IDC.
"But more importantly, they're heavily engaged in figuring out how their businesses need to change to accommodate them."
Despite the growing decision-making power of line of business, Edwards believes many partners are still selling predominantly to IT departments.
"Resale as a ratio of revenue is declining in the partner business model as services increases in value, therefore partners will no longer be as dependent on vendors for product margin," he adds.
"There is a growing requirement for partners to sell across and up the stack to maximize customer footprint, which is driving partners to go outside their comfort zones in selling and supporting other aspects of the infrastructure and/or applications."
