Here, Williams discusses partner opportunity, strategy, and mission for 2021, as well as how she and her team are enabling the partner ecosystem for the future.

Q: Tell us about yourself. What are your hobbies? What do you do outside of work?

A: I live in Atlanta, GA, with my husband, two daughters aged 18 and 12, who during the school year keep us busy with their activities, and our two-year-old labradoodle, who sometimes makes an appearance during conference calls.

I enjoy walks outdoors, reading, yoga, and time spent with family and friends, usually over a good meal and wine. I look forward to traveling again both personally and for work, and I will hopefully be able to plan a beach vacation soon.

What is your role within the Global Partner Enablement team at 麻豆原创?

Our team considers ourselves trusted advisors and advocates for our partners鈥攊t is our mission to ensure partners are successful in everything they do. A critical part of that work is building relationships with functional colleagues throughout 麻豆原创 to leverage the programs they develop and adapt those for partners. In my role, I drive strategy and alignment, enabling the team to successfully execute its goals. While we largely focus on education and enablement, we also create more holistic partner programs that help partners accelerate their competency levels from 鈥榗lass smart鈥� to 鈥榮treet smart.鈥�

How did your career start?

My career started right out of university, in corporate finance at Hewlett-Packard. When Hewlett-Packard implemented Ariba Buyer OnPremise, I moved from finance into corporate procurement, where I joined a project implementation team. After a few years, myself and an internal team of more than 30 individuals spun off and created a business process outsourcing startup called Alliente, for which I was a founding member. In 2004 Ariba purchased Alliente, in 2012 麻豆原创 bought Ariba, and here I am.

This is my 21st year with 麻豆原创, including the acquisitions, and it has been quite an exciting journey. Throughout the years, I have had the great fortune to work in a variety of roles and functions, including operations, strategy, consulting, project management, chief-of-staff, partner programs, and enablement. In addition to the incredible education and opportunities these experiences have provided, what I鈥檝e enjoyed most are the colleagues and friendships I have formed along the way.

I have always been open to exploring new opportunities and have worked with some great managers, mentors, and colleagues along the way. Looking back, it鈥檚 interesting to realize that most of my time spent over the last twenty years has been working with partners in some capacity. Through this work, I have developed a real passion for making partners successful and understanding their critical importance to 麻豆原创鈥檚 success. It is exciting to see the progress we have made to date, and I look forward to the future ahead.

What are you particularly proud of?

When I first joined the Partner Ecosystem team within 麻豆原创 Ariba, only one individual on the team focused on sales and presales enablement globally. After managing 麻豆原创 Ariba鈥檚 integration into , our ecosystem began to rapidly expand, and I was asked to build out a partner enablement function in 2017. Over the past three years, we expanded to a global team of 30 at our peak in mid-2020.

Having the opportunity to create the functional strategy, recruit talented colleagues, and witness the team exceed all its key performance indicators is one of my proudest professional achievements. When we embarked on this journey, we were often told that many of our greatest successes and best practices鈥攕uch as creating the first demo development support offering for partners, starting a global partner presales validation program, building out our partner certification program while significantly growing adoption, and creating our first-ever partner delivery community in 2020, which now serves over 2,000 partners worldwide鈥攚ere too challenging. Through hard work, perseverance, creative vision, and teamwork we accomplished all of this and more. I couldn鈥檛 be prouder of the entire team.

How did COVID-19 impact your life and work, and how has your team been affected?

During most of my career at 麻豆原创, I primarily worked from home with periodic travel. So for me, COVID-19 didn鈥檛 bring much change regarding my work environment. However, I miss meeting with colleagues face-to-face. Also, since we are limited in what we can do in our personal lives outside of work, it is very common for the workday to start early and end late, with the days seemingly blending from one to the next. Lately, I鈥檝e been taking short breaks by scheduling walks during the workday to get fresh air and clear my mind. In the evening, I log off and cook meals together with my family. I have even participated in some of the mindfulness sessions that 麻豆原创 offers. I have really been impressed by the amount of resources 麻豆原创 has provided to support employees in these times.

I also encourage the team to find ways to balance work and personal life, so they don鈥檛 get burned out. They have been very creative in keeping team camaraderie going, by hosting virtual themed team meetings, team happy hours, and even team scavenger hunts. At the same time, they applied this creativity to better support our partners.

We moved a lot of our partner training to digital and have seen tremendous increases in adoption. We have released new Learning Journeys, outcome-based guidance for decision-makers, and improved content in 麻豆原创 PartnerEdge and our partner delivery community for consultants. Also, we worked with to revamp our certification portfolio. This has freed up resources to build out higher-touch coaching programs, like go-live experience, presales validation, extensibility success days, competitive intelligence webinars, and more, for our most strategic partners who are willing to make that extra investment in 麻豆原创. All these programs have been well received by our partners, and we are excited to continue delivering even more post-COVID-19.

Looking ahead, what can 麻豆原创 partners expect?

I couldn鈥檛 be more excited for the partner opportunity in 2021 and beyond. Having spent much of my ecosystem career in cloud, I believe this is the year for the cloud buying centers to work more closely together to deliver a consistent experience for our partners. We will leverage our digital core to provide programs that allow partners to position the Intelligent Enterprise and industry-focused solutions to their customers. is a fantastic example of this. From an operational perspective, our team is already structured around LACE (land, adopt, consume, expand), so leveraging this formal model should help us continue flawless execution.

Furthermore, this year we will all have an increased focus on customer adoption and expansion. We will support partners in these areas by creating programs that allow them to showcase additional delivery competencies, help customers unlock shelf-ware, and drive recurring revenue. Our ability to tap into our partners鈥� industry expertise will also be critically important. And finally, initiatives related to building IP and extending 麻豆原创鈥榮 intelligent suite are yet another massive opportunity for partners. By providing a clear path for extending 麻豆原创 standard solutions with , leveraging our core application programming interfaces (APIs), and showcasing our partner solution progression journey, we are enabling our ecosystem for the future.

Helping and supporting partners to build sustainable businesses around 麻豆原创 solutions is his mission. With his global team of 麻豆原创 Business One and 麻豆原创 Business ByDesign experts, Backer acts as an enabler and trusted advisor for partners.

Q: Can you tell us about yourself, your hobbies, and your passions?

A: I was born and raised in Norway, and currently live in the Netherlands. I enjoy experiencing the world by traveling, working in an international environment, and following the world news.

I feel fortunate to have lived and worked in five countries: Norway, the U.S., the Netherlands, England, and Germany. Every country is beautiful and unique, providing new perspective and appreciation.

I am married with three children; my two boys study at university and my daughter is in high school. Of course, in these times, they are learning at home via Zoom. The positive aspects of these unprecedented times are that my wife and I get to see the kids more, spend a lot of time together, and enjoy family dinners. My wife, who works for a leading health technology company here in the Netherlands, sometimes meets me at the coffee machine, where we have our own 鈥渃offee corner chats.鈥�

Our family is completed with our dog Odin, who usually lies at my feet in the office. When I go and grab a coffee during a conference call and come back, the dog is usually sitting on my chair, staring at the moving pictures on the screen.

When I鈥檓 not working, I enjoy getting fresh air and resetting my mind by biking through the trails in the forest. I make people laugh when I speak about 鈥渕ountain biking鈥� in the flat countryside of the Netherlands. I also try to go the gym a few times a week to stay in shape.

What does an SME Partner Enablement leader do?

I manage a global organization of about 80 麻豆原创 Business One and 麻豆原创 Business ByDesign experts located in more than 40 countries. We train partners on how to sell, implement, and support 麻豆原创 solutions. We also help 麻豆原创 account executives and partners in presales with strategic deals, and we deal with customer escalations if they occur. For 麻豆原创 Business One, we are also heavily involved in ensuring the solution is localized, current, and maintained.

As manager of the team, my main role is to align with global stakeholders on our objectives, cascade these to the organization, and support everybody in the team to meet their specific objectives and assignments.

I am also involved directly with our partners. My task is to create transparency and give guidance to partners on 麻豆原创 strategies and solutions, supporting them to make the right decisions for their companies. If partners make good decisions, they will be successful. And when partners are successful, 麻豆原创 is successful.

How did your career start?

I graduated from Arizona State University (USA) in 1992 with a Master of Business Administration degree and a Master of Science degree in business statistics. I started my career at a company called Exact Software in the Netherlands, as a technical support employee. I assisted customers on the phone, answering their questions and solving problems related to their Exact ERP solution. Later I ran an international 鈥渇lying doctors鈥� team, a group of fantastic product experts taking care of the worst customer escalations worldwide.

I joined 麻豆原创 in 2004 to help build a small and midsize enterprise business. 麻豆原创 had just purchased a company called TopManage and renamed its solution to 麻豆原创 Business One. At that time, 麻豆原创 Business One had about 3,000 customers. 麻豆原创 was looking for someone to build up a team, to support and enable an indirect channel to resell 麻豆原创 Business One internationally.

Sixteen years later, we now have over 65,000 customers. For me, it has been an amazing journey so far, having worked with many great people within an incredible company. I also enjoy working with 麻豆原创 Business One partners, of whom many also started 16 years ago and have since then built great businesses for themselves.

Two years ago, I also assumed the responsibility for all 麻豆原创 Business ByDesign partner enablement teams within 麻豆原创. We鈥檝e drawn lessons from 麻豆原创 Business One and are applying these best practices with 麻豆原创 Business ByDesign as we get more involved with our 麻豆原创 Business ByDesign partner community.

Looking back at your career at 麻豆原创, what has been your biggest achievement?聽

My biggest achievement is definitely the . We organized the first event in Bratislava in 2014 to teach partners how to develop on top of the 麻豆原创 Business One application that works with and is powered by 麻豆原创 HANA, which we were launching to the market at that point in time.

We did not have any professional event management. I remember having many worries: Will enough people register to cover the costs? Will partners like it? Will the pitch for 麻豆原创 HANA work in SME? Will the presentations be good enough? There were logistical concerns, too, regarding lunch and having enough chairs.

The event turned out to be a big success, and we realized the power and importance of bringing people with the same passion together. The energy at the event was amazing; seeing the smiles on the faces of all the participants when they left the summit was very rewarding. We decided to make it an annual event, and over the years we added more tracks to cover additional roles from partners, such as implementation, sales, CEOs, and others.

How did COVID-19 affect you, your team, and your work over the past months?

For the last 10 years I have mainly worked from home, except when traveling, which was about 25 percent of my time. So at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was not a big deal for me. The only exception was that I had to dress up a little bit more; in the past 10 years, I hardly used my webcam, but now everybody has started to use webcams more frequently.

Today, nine months later, I have to say that the days have become very monotone 鈥� almost like the film Groundhog Day, where a TV weatherman covering the annual Groundhog Day event in Pennsylvania becomes trapped in a time loop, forcing him to relive the same day repeatedly.

Staying at home all the time is not my preferred choice. It is interesting how, these days, a one-hour trip away from home and staying in a hotel overnight feels like a big trip. Hence, getting out of the house in the evening for an hour of activity became super important for me.

As for the team, I am grateful for and amazed at how well people adjusted and how hard everybody is working to continue to stay 鈥渙n top of their game.鈥� In this virtual-only world, finding ways to stay connected on a more personal basis is important. Personally, I try to speak more frequently with my direct reports. I have also increased the number of 鈥渟kip-level鈥� calls, skipping the managers and speaking directly with their employees, which I enjoy a lot. In general, I think it is a good idea to set up calls now and then with colleagues you normally do not speak with, just to 鈥渇eel the pulse,鈥� get new impulses, and feel their energy.

My team and I also help partners understand how to convince customers and prospects to implement the software remotely. There are a lot of adjustments for everybody. But partners, customers, and prospects are adapting.

Looking ahead, what do you think is important for partners to be successful?

First, take good care of customers. More than ever 鈥渞ecurring revenue鈥� is key. And happy customers ensure this. I believe that partners with many (happy) customers are able to survive COVID-19 better than others. I think 麻豆原创 Business One and 麻豆原创 Business ByDesign partners in general understand this dynamic and they all do a good job, as the renewal rates for both solutions are very high.

Secondly, many partners have unique knowledge in a specific industry or micro industry, and I recommend capturing this knowledge as intellectual property and software services. With the current web-based development tools and platforms like 麻豆原创 Cloud Platform, it is much simpler than before, even for more resell-oriented partners.

Finally, I think it is important for partners to embrace the Intelligent Enterprise opportunity. I am very encouraged to see partners extending solutions with innovative functionalities and add-ons, with new technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI), positioning themselves as a 鈥渢echnology partner鈥� instead of the 鈥淓RP guys鈥� and consequently winning prospects because of their understanding of the new world. Customers need more than just ERP software, and we can own this. !

Based on what they have experienced of late, strategically positioned tech companies are optimistic. Consider a forthcoming study from a leading U.S. trade association, which finds that one in four partners enjoyed an unexpected sales boost after the global pandemic set in.

Another study released in mid-October 2020 by IDC should give 麻豆原创 partners a reason for confidence. The study, 鈥�Partner Opportunity in a Changing World,鈥� anticipates that the 麻豆原创 partner ecosystem will grow into a $260 billion market by 2024, up from $141 billion today. Employment within the ecosystem during this time is expected to increase by 600,000 to 1.6 million professionals.

Several factors are driving the growth in high tech. This includes the global pandemic itself, which fueled a summer-long jump in the sales of PCs, monitors, and enterprise software to displaced workers and their employers, who rushed to set up home offices after the pandemic hit. In August 2020, HP Inc. CEO Enrique Lores told CNBC, 鈥淲e have聽.鈥�

Then there is digital transformation. Rather than slow momentum, COVID-19 triggered an acceleration in digital transformation projects according to several studies. In May 2020, for example, business consultant BDO published a report that concluded 鈥渋t鈥檚聽鈥� for many organizations.

鈥淲ith rare exception, operating digitally is the only way to stay in business through mandated shutdowns and restricted activity,鈥� BDO said.

Similarly, a study published in May 2020 by Wind River found that COVID-19 is influencing the specific technologies within end customer organizations that are attracting increased interest. Not surprisingly, they are 5G, containers, and cloud innovations.

This brings us back to 麻豆原创.

鈥淎s the pandemic continues to impact the global economy, I see business opportunities,鈥� said 麻豆原创 Chief Partner Officer Karl Fahrbach. Speaking during a 鈥淲hat鈥檚 Next鈥� business insights seminar for 麻豆原创 partners in mid-October, Fahrbach said there would be plenty of new business for the 22,000 members of the 麻豆原创 ecosystem.

IDC鈥檚 study, which was sponsored by 麻豆原创, backs up Fahrbach鈥檚 belief.

Of the 600,000 new jobs forecasted to be created within the 麻豆原创 ecosystem, 280,000 are expected to be high-wage consultant positions. Between now and 2024, digital transformation projects are expected to create as many as 1 billion billable hours for these and other 麻豆原创 experts.

Growing interest in cloud technology, of course, will drive much of the new business. Of the more than $300 billion in net-new revenue expected to be generated through 2024 within the 麻豆原创 ecosystem, 68% is expected to be driven by cloud investments.

These investments are helping customers of all size and ilk embrace digital innovation that only the largest of organizations had the manpower and money to buy a mere few years ago. This broadening of the market for 麻豆原创 technology is made possible by the members of the 麻豆原创 ecosystem, which are collectively expected to generate $5 in 麻豆原创-related revenue for every $1 that 麻豆原创 itself creates. This is roughly on par with other elite tech giants.

As the number and scope of 麻豆原创 opportunities increases, so do the capabilities of 麻豆原创 partners. Today, 60% or more of an 麻豆原创 partner鈥檚 revenue comes from services that it creates on top of the 麻豆原创 platform. In many instances, these services amount to partner-generated intellectual property, according to Steve White, program vice president of Channels and Alliances at IDC. Effectively, 麻豆原创鈥檚 best partners are creating a complete, finished solution for customers.

Partners are also helping customers manage their way through what IDC calls 鈥渢he five stages to enterprise recovery.鈥� These start with the pandemic, economic slowdown, and feared recession, and finish with a return to growth and the next 鈥渘ormal.鈥� During these stages, organizations often take specific measures to cushion the blow from COVID-19. These include drafting plans for business continuity, cost optimization, business resiliency, targeted investments, and future enterprise initiatives.

麻豆原创 has programs and strategies designed to help partners assist customers through these uncertain times. Several were showcased during the October webinar, including LACE, which is short for the land, adopt, consume, and expand framework.

Within the LACE framework are several initiatives and platforms for partners, including Drive2Deliver, packaged partner solutions, role-based, integrated Learning Journeys, as well as a shared partner demo environment and the 麻豆原创 Learning Hub. For more on these and other programs, visit the聽.

鈥淐ustomers do not want to spend endless hours upgrading or integrating systems. Instead, they want to quickly wrap projects and get the utility out of their software investments so they can better compete in their respective markets,鈥� said Hans Georg Uebe, global head of Ecosystem Delivery Success for the Global Partner Organization at 麻豆原创. 鈥淧artners must, in turn, think in terms of continuous innovation and improvements.鈥�

Here, he discusses how his team provides solutions, innovation, and business development coaching to key partners through experts in regions and local presence.

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself. What are your hobbies and interests?

A: I was born and grew up in France, but I have lived in several parts of the world, including Canada, Spain, China, Taiwan, Mexico, and the U.S. Living abroad was a great experience, but two years ago my spouse and I settled in Paris and called that our home.

One of my hobbies is gardening. It鈥檚 something I did with my father as a child, and I enjoy growing a variety of plants, vegetables, and trees. Cooking is also a passion, especially as we鈥檝e developed a taste for different cuisines from our travels. We call our cooking style 鈥淎sian fusion鈥� 鈥� taking European ingredients, preparing them the Asian way, and pepping them up with Asian spices.

I appreciate diversity and different cultural backgrounds, so I joined an association that allows me to support underprivileged youth. It鈥檚 a refreshing experience to give back what I learned and create new relationships that make it possible to see the world through different eyes. I have learned a lot through that.

How did your career start, and how did you end up at 麻豆原创?

I ended up at 麻豆原创 a bit by chance. After studying political science and marketing at university, I joined a large consultancy company, thinking that I would work on strategic business consulting engagements. There was a huge demand for enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations at the time, and I was sent to weeks of training at 麻豆原创 offices around Europe and became an 麻豆原创 R/3 MM consultant.

In 2006, I decided to join 麻豆原创. I have always worked in 麻豆原创鈥檚 partner organization, except for a short break from 2013 to 2017 where I ran a partner sales and marketing operation in Asia, followed by a general management role in Latin America. My career at 麻豆原创 has always been exciting, especially going through a transformation of different products, partnership business models, the company鈥檚 own cloud transformation, platform and technology centricity, and more. I never get bored.

All in all, I believe it鈥檚 important to keep yourself stimulated, be open to change, know what really matters to you in terms of values and work ethic, and find your fit within the organization鈥檚 strategy. It helps to have flexibility and a willingness to change career paths when it makes sense for the organization and for you.

You head 麻豆原创 Partner Solution Center. What does your team do?

I have the pleasure of leading an incredibly culturally diverse team of 70 people, with various nationalities and languages and a presence in almost every 麻豆原创 location around the world.

My team provides solution and innovation coaching to key partners within the Global Partner Organization through our local presence and experts in the regions. We focus on regional execution, which to me is the key to relevance. You stick to the priorities of the local organizations where the business execution really takes place. The ultimate objective is to help partners become self-sufficient in selling, demonstrating, deploying, and ensuring customers consume our solutions.

I like it a lot because it is all about collaboration and content, and my team builds close and trusted relationships with partners, partner management teams, and 麻豆原创 lines of business and product teams. My team does an incredible job, and I would like to take this opportunity and thank them for everything they do.

We also contribute to 麻豆原创鈥檚 global strategic imperatives and programs, defining adoption programs or enablement content roadmaps. Locally, we execute global strategic topics like the 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Movement, business transformation platform extensibility adoption, or, in this special year, partner solutions that help customers .

How does your team engage with 麻豆原创 Partners?

We support a vast collection of digital enablement content, which is made available to all partner types and all roles through the . We have a really good, scalable platform and content that does most of the job to get the necessary knowledge to the partners.

But, the main focus of my team鈥檚 experts in the regions is what we call 鈥渉igh-touch enablement,鈥� which involves a lot of coaching. We engage with a subset of partners, the ones that are most relevant to the business, through coaching programs that are very hands-on and linked to the achievement of specific business outcomes, such as having a packaged solution offering, a 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Movement conversion factory, or even an extension migration to our platform. That鈥檚 what we call making partners 鈥渟treet smart鈥� with practical expertise that they can leverage for their customer interactions.

Through very deep and long relationships with partners, my team has become trusted advisors, which partners value a lot. This is very rewarding.

What are you particularly proud of?

Relevance. Making and keeping what we do relevant for partners and for 麻豆原创 means we need to reinvent ourselves every year, adjust our focus, start new things, and be willing to do some things differently. My most significant personal achievement is when partners, or even regional or local 麻豆原创 teams, tell me that my team is one of the greatest assets or contributors to their success.

I鈥檓 also proud of partner solution packaging. It all began 15 years ago, when we started to package ERP into partner-packaged solutions called 麻豆原创 Business All-in-One, which could be deployed rapidly with limited risk and high predictability for customers. This became a profitable business for our partners and for 麻豆原创. At the time, this required a lot of convincing, both internally and externally.

Little by little, the concept established as a key element of a volume go-to-market. It has grown beyond ERP to all solutions and beyond SME to all segments. Today, nobody doubts the relevance of packaging partners鈥� IP, know-how, experience, and deployment into standardized and scalable solutions.

Today, almost 1,200 are available globally, and my team continues to qualify and validate them. We are in the process of evolving the packaging concept to service-only packages, supporting customer consumption of 麻豆原创 software.

Let me extrapolate the above example: my team also focuses on operationalizing innovations (solution innovation, go-to-market innovation) to become mainstream in the partner ecosystem. Take the Intelligent Enterprise, for example. Eighteen months ago, it was difficult for partners to articulate its meaning, strategy, and messaging. Today, we have 82 qualified partner intelligent enterprise ambassadors and 13 intelligent enterprise packages.

Or look at the 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Movement: we have been qualifying 61 partner conversion factories covering 41 countries and 166 conversion packages, and my team has run sessions with partners and their indirect customers to onboard them on 麻豆原创 S/4HANA.

Currently we strongly focus on platform adoption and extensibility. I really would like this to become our next success story.

How did the current pandemic affect you and your team?

One year ago, we wouldn鈥檛 have believed we would experience such a change in our day-to-day lives. We learned to cut our own hair and reorganized our homes. We spent the majority of time at home, homeschooling, home cooking, working from home, and home-everything. Part of it has been an interesting experience. But for many people, especially colleagues with young children, it has been a rough patch.

For our partner enablement business, like for many other businesses, the pandemic has accelerated our own digital transformation. From a mix of digital enablement, on-site bootcamps, and coaching workshops, we have been switching to 100 percent digital practically overnight. The challenge we had as a team was to keep our commitments to partners, and that meant continuing our enablement agenda.

We became very creative, restructuring content and exercises, reworking the overall structure, leveraging all options that the available digital tools provide, and involving more instructors. Remarkably, partner鈥檚 attendance was higher than ever, and they completed entire curricula digitally, with badges and certifications skyrocketing.

Like many other enablement teams, we have seen our metrics go through the roof. I believe we won鈥檛 go back to the previous state of traveling to deliver bootcamps. Those days are over. We have really gone one mark up in terms of efficiency, scalability, and productivity.

My team, and others, have also been remarkable in terms of keeping in touch with partners, conducting virtual coffee sessions to keep a bi-directional exchange. However, I am really looking forward to the day when we can resume travel, as I haven鈥檛 met two-thirds of my team members in person yet. Besides the social element, as teams and individuals, we need some creative intellectual stimulation through this serendipity that we have lost, these spontaneous discoveries or hints that we鈥檒l get from someone we didn鈥檛 plan to meet, who tells us something we were not planning to hear.

What are your focus areas, and what can 麻豆原创 partners expect soon?

For us in the Global Partner Organization, partners are our customers and also our lifeline. At the same time, lines are blurring between old partnership types, and we look at supporting partners across the different roles and phases of the entire customer engagement life cycle.

As a company, we are accelerating our own cloud transformation. It means structuring our operating model in the customer engagement framework called LACE, which stands for 鈥淟and, Adopt, Consume, and Expand,鈥� making our platform ubiquitous and the best possible choice for our partners and customers while also promoting modification-free installations that are key to a real cloud model. This includes productized partners鈥� intellectual property (IP) and enriching our common cloud offering to the customers.

These strategic imperatives define the current focus areas for us as a team. In the coming months and years, partners can expect many enablement initiatives supporting these goals, such as an increased focus on delivery and consumption, with innovations like services and consumption packaging, more delivery enablement focused on quality and capabilities, external transparency to customers in regards to partners鈥� competencies, platform extensibility training for the various lines of business, programs supporting packaging and productization of partner IP, and much more.

Most importantly, my team will continue to deliver digital coaching to the partner ecosystem in all the regions, on a local level, and be there for them to innovate and win with 麻豆原创.

today for the all-day virtual event and join thousands of 麻豆原创 partners attending to learn both what is new and what is coming. Attending the no-cost online event is making a wise investment of your time in your business and career. Hear from 麻豆原创 executives and experts who will deliver important updates on the latest trends and innovations in the 麻豆原创 product portfolio, sales strategies, and technical news to sharpen skills for the year ahead.

The online platform will open at 7:00 a.m. local time and participants can attend multiple sessions to consume the content on demand at their convenience.

Here鈥檚 what you can expect during this year’s virtual :

• Keynotes from 麻豆原创 executives Karl Fahrbach, chief partner officer, and Subho Sengupta, head of Small and Midsize Business Operations
• Further information about 麻豆原创’s industry cloud to better understand 麻豆原创 strategy and messaging
• More information on the new IDC study and what is next for 麻豆原创 partners, including predictions for growth, where to invest, and a special focus on job creation and 麻豆原创 partner consultant opportunities
• 麻豆原创 experts speaking about the latest innovations across the 麻豆原创 product portfolio
• Insights into winning sales tactics
• Updates on technical news from 麻豆原创 solution owners

We look forward to seeing you online with us at 麻豆原创 Innovation Day for Partners.

This year, Acloudear received an as the 麻豆原创 Cloud Partner of the Year, Small and Midsize Companies category.

Customer Success Woven into DNA

A number of factors play into Acloudear鈥檚 growth, but the company recognizes that one foundational principle has been key: customer success.

鈥淲hen we began, we didn鈥檛 frame customer success as clearly as we define it today,鈥� said Tracy Zhou, Acloudear CEO. 鈥淏ut we knew we couldn鈥檛 fail our customers. We needed to help them implement 麻豆原创 Cloud successfully.鈥�

Zhou explained that from the start, Acloudear has always had strong hiring practices, making industry expertise and a strong cloud mindset requisite for team members. Her team also took special care during the implementation phase to see that the customer had the tools they needed, those tools were properly configured, and that their employees were prepared and trained to use them.

Zhou added that she, as CEO, takes a hands-on approach, helping ensure that the company is providing optimal solutions and services and that customers experience a high rate of adoption. It has always been her role to contact decision-makers if her customer success team sounds the alarm that an account is at risk.

鈥淭hese were the seeds of our customer success program today,鈥� she shared. 鈥淲e set our minds on making customers successful and then extended that idea to every area of our business. Now, customer success is everywhere and in everything. It has to be in the mindset of all stakeholders.鈥�

Zhou defines customer success by phases in the customer鈥檚 life cycle. For example, in presales and sales, her team achieves customer success by aligning the 麻豆原创 Cloud portfolio with the customer鈥檚 needs, setting the stage for greater efficiency, productivity, and innovation. In the implementation and support phases, the Acloudear team aims for flawless configuration and customization, deploying 麻豆原创 Cloud and its own intellectual property (IP). Ultimately, user adoption, customer satisfaction, and renewal rate indicate that Acloudear has been successful in helping its customers reach their business goals and objectives.

Customer Success Strategy and the CEE Role

Even though each team 鈥� marketing, presales, sales, development, and support 鈥� has a role to play in customer success and all teams work together, Acloudear has five customer engagement executives (CEEs) that are responsible for customer success each step of the way. CEEs are assigned accounts from specific segments of Acloudear鈥檚 customer base, so they can best meet their clients鈥� needs and motivate customers to begin using 麻豆原创 solutions as quickly as they can to boost adoption.

Acloudear鈥檚 customer success team found that CEEs can work most efficiently and best serve customers if they focus on specific segments of Acloudear鈥檚 client list. CEEs specialize in particular industries or types of businesses, as well as the solutions that provide them with the greatest value. Now, two CEEs are industry-focused, one is responsible for fast-growing accounts, one for continued success for established users, and one on areas of innovation, such as cross-border e-commerce.

Acloudear鈥檚 CEE team does not take on the role of the complaint department or responsibility for solving implementation problems. Rather, their determined and responsible spirit enables them to focus on consumption and customer satisfaction, which lead to renewals.

Customer Success Is a Profit Center

Acloudear CEEs understand that their department was established as a profit driver. They focus on retention and growth, measuring their performance against key performance indicators (KPIs), including renewal goals of 90 percent.

Zhou pointed out that with cloud solutions, there is typically a 24- to 36-month timeframe before profit, so renewals are particularly vital to Acloudear鈥檚 success. CEEs also manage upsells with the supervision of sales managers, working toward a goal of 10 to 30 percent of the company鈥檚 new revenue.

鈥淥ur goal is to ensure that our service package, comprised of 麻豆原创 products and Acloudear IP, is motivating and hands-on. We want our customers to adopt cloud as quickly as possible and make full use of their investments so that they will want to purchase our services again and again,鈥� Zhou said. 鈥淣ot from a business application point of view, but that the customer appreciates how to fully use the 麻豆原创 system and how they can put the solution together with their business. This drives a very high renewal rate in the end.鈥�

Additionally, Acloudear sets expectations from the beginning of each contract that clients will be references for the company. At the outset, customers grant Acloudear permission to use their logos, but, more importantly, Acloudear lets them know they are going to provide solutions and services that deliver such impressive results that they will want to tell other people about them. According to Zhou, 鈥淭his makes us more visible in the market, rather than selling to a market.鈥�

To build relationships that turn new customers into advocates, Acloudear CEEs closely monitor accounts, performing monthly customer health checks and taking action when they see changes or signs of risk. Acloudear CEEs have learned that it is important to dig deep to understand the reasons for change and not act on assumptions.

How Customer Success Increases Marketing ROI

Taking a company-wide approach to customer success has additional benefits for Acloudear. 鈥淭he customer success team helps our company learn the key areas and core values in terms of the industries we serve and the products we provide,鈥� Zhou said. 鈥淭his shows us which areas we need to focus on and helps us concentrate on the value Acloudear can provide to customers.鈥�

CEEs share this information with the sales and marketing teams, who can then target their efforts based on accounts with the greatest potential. 鈥淚t鈥檚 changed the way we sell,鈥� Zhou said. Feedback from CEEs has also helped Acloudear develop 麻豆原创-qualified partner-packaged solutions that have successfully addressed the needs of businesses in particular markets.

The Payoff

According to Zhou, growing and evolving Acloudear鈥檚 customer success program as the company grew has been a smart strategy. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not enough just to say the customer is happy. You need a clear understanding of the tangible and intangible things that make up customer success.鈥�

鈥淐ustomer success has allowed us to differentiate our business,鈥� she explained. 鈥淲e have been able to understand our strengths and alarm our company much earlier to risks. We also have information to proactively justify where we go and where we have to improve. Our customer success team puts us one step ahead of other companies in our market.鈥�

鈥溌槎乖� is the world鈥檚 leading cloud vendor with continuous investment and innovation over the last decade. We are still trying to learn what the successful 麻豆原创 experience looks like for our customers and optimize our strategy with processes, tools, and resources to help them achieve greater success,鈥� said Zhou. 鈥淐ustomer success is a long-term strategy, and we are on our way.鈥�

In this interview, Ravenna conveys how he and his team are bringing enablement innovation and delivery excellence to life and provides insights of what is in store for 麻豆原创 partners 鈥� now and in the future.

Q: Your ethnicity is Italian, your accent is South African, and you reside in Florida. How do these fit together?

A: I was born and grew up in South Africa in a family of Italian immigrants. Both of my grandfathers were captured during the World War II and transported to the prisoner of war camp at Zonderwater in Pretoria, South Africa. When the war ended in 1945, my grandfathers 鈥� like many of the Italian prisoners who were talented engineers, construction workers, and artisans 鈥� were offered permanent residency and a chance to start a new life. That鈥檚 when they brought their families over, and that was the start of my families鈥� life in South Africa. I moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2012, to lead the North American partner solution center.

What do you do when you are not leading Enablement Innovations and Partner Delivery Excellence?

I like to spend as much time as possible with my wife and my two amazing daughters. We play tennis together and spend time boating, fishing, and going to the beach. Living in Florida, we enjoy sunshine all year round 鈥� with the exception of hurricanes. Personally, I consider myself rather a tornado: very passionate, very active in my daughter鈥檚 lives, and I am the weekend chef, cooking everything and anything, but mostly Italian and Indian cuisine.

How did your 麻豆原创 career start?

I studied accounting and joined 麻豆原创 in South Africa as an FI/CO Consultant more than years ago. I have held several managerial roles, with the majority of my time spent supporting and enabling partners. I was later appointed head of Presales for the 麻豆原创 Africa market unit. In 2012, I relocated for the opportunity to lead the North American partner solution center. One year ago, I was appointed to my current role, with a strong focus on the Intelligent Enterprise, industry cloud, next-generation partnering demo experience, delivery excellence, 麻豆原创-qualified partner-packaged solutions, and experience management.

Can you share your biggest achievements this year?

There have been quite a few but I鈥檒l point out the two most important ones that are supporting partners in their next-generation partnering experience journey.

First, a major achievement in my current role was the build, launch, and release of the , engineered in an amazing one-team cross-organization approach. Partners have been struggling to build and maintain demo environments that can showcase the latest end-to-end intelligent enterprise capabilities across our portfolio. Today, they can enjoy free access鈥痶o an integrated, pre-configured聽software demonstration environment聽to expedite sales conversations. This new shared demo environment brings the best demo practices and content from presales to the partner ecosystem, assuring a consistent story across direct and indirect channels. Since launch in June 2020, more than 560 partner companies globally have gained access, with close to 2,000 system users and over 1,600 unique script downloads for intelligent enterprise demos.

This is a key highlight for us and our partners. that are leveraging the free partner demo environment have called it 鈥渟imply awesome,鈥� said it 鈥渟aves us significant time in preparation for customer demos,鈥� and is 鈥減erfect for us to position the Intelligent Enterprise.鈥�

Second, earlier this year we made the available to partners. The program is a combination of e-learning and instructor-led virtual trainings designed to enable partners to articulate the Intelligent Enterprise story with their customers and become their trusted advisors.

It goes without saying that these achievements could not have been realized without the tremendous effort and dedication from my direct team and the support of the enablement leadership team, as well as many other colleagues from the Global Partner Organization, presales, and partner licensing services.

How has COVID-19 affected you, your team, and your work?

The effects of the pandemic are impacting everyone around the world. Moments of extraordinary challenge are known to test our collective will. Personally, COVID-19 added some pressure, as the entire family was living and working from home. Though I am accustomed to working virtually, these circumstances made balancing my work and personal life challenging.

The pandemic stopped travel and in-person meetings, including large physical events. But it expanded opportunities to leverage digital technologies such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and others, to have video chats and virtual coffee sessions, etc. Though we were physically distanced, we remained emotionally connected.

Initially the workload increased as we pivoted to digitize how we conduct business. To support partners, we delivered enablement sessions virtually, such as implementation bootcamps, via instructor-led platforms and tools.

What is your focus for the coming months?

We will continue to embrace the digital collaboration with our partners and deliver tools and enablement content to consume, aligned with . Building on that, is creating new business opportunities with an integrated go-to-market model ().

We plan to roll out the Intelligent Enterprise for industries to all partner types. We currently provide an extensive collection of designed to partners with their thought leadership engagements. An industries toolkits for partners, consisting of industry-specific enablement packages, learning journeys, executive overviews, social media packs, and more, can be found in this .

To help all partners become trusted advisors for their customers, and help their customers become an intelligent enterprises, we are rolling out a second wave of the intelligent enterprise ambassador program.

Our trusted partners are very well equipped to help customers achieve their outcomes. The Intelligent Enterprise learning room within 麻豆原创 PartnerEdge will continuously provide learning programs to help understand and articulate the Intelligent Enterprise strategy, explanations and demos of components of the Intelligent Enterprise, links to learning journeys, and other enablement resources.

In the coming months, we are planning to add an additional聽 10 to 20 intelligent enterprise online demos to the . We also plan to continuously add to the more than 250 existing offline scenarios for partners in 麻豆原创 Demo Store, which is packed with the latest technology innovations, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. In addition, service partners can expect higher value coaching to deliver successful implementations to their customers.

How are you and the team engaging with partners?

Earlier this year, based on valued feedback, we have been taking steps to improve the enablement experience for partners. We want to enable them to deliver a world-class experience to our customers by providing delivery and implementation skills, best practices, tools, accelerators, and knowledge in order for them to successfully implement 麻豆原创 solutions, help ensure customer satisfaction, and ultimately secure renewals and customers for life.

We know feedback drives change. The more our partners share their experiences with us, the more we can align our actions with their priorities. Our mantra is to listen, understand, and act on our partners鈥� experiences. So we ask our dear partners to be open with us. Telling us what we are doing well and what we can improve helps us continuously improve the partner experience.

With more than 35 years in the industry, Erickson has a wealth of experience. In this interview, he reflects on virtual learning and how learning is evolving, providing insight into the technology that is going to revolutionize learning.

Q: Tell us a bit more about yourself. What do you do when you are not leading Channel Digital Enablement at 麻豆原创?

A: Together with my wife, I currently reside in Calgary, Canada, near the Rocky Mountains on the west side of the country. We live close to an area perfect for hiking, back-country camping, and many other outdoor activities, so that keeps us occupied on weekends. Wildlife is abundant there, and we see everything from mountain sheep, goats, and moose, to grizzly and black bears. We can’t hike too far from home without a can of bear spray handy!

How did your career start? When did you join 麻豆原创?

My career started back in the late 80s at a data communications company. The 1988 Winter Olympics were awarded to Calgary, and I was fortunate to join the team, linking timing systems to results systems for TV feeds.

Once the games ended, I worked for several companies, such as Apollo Computer, Hewlett-Packard, EMC, and a startup, where I held numerous sales, channel management, and executive roles. In 2003 麻豆原创 recruited me to setup the 麻豆原创 Business One and 麻豆原创 Business All-in-One channel for the region. I鈥檝e held various positions at 麻豆原创 before moving into my current role as global vice president of Channel Digital Enablement within the Global Partner Organization eight years ago.

Can you explain Channel Digital Enablement and what you do in your current role?

Within the area of Partner Digital Learning and Enablement, my team鈥檚 mission is to provide the right platform, processes, content, and tools for all partner types and roles, for all products and solutions. We want to improve our partners鈥� skills and knowledge on 麻豆原创 products and solutions, through a virtual approach whenever possible. The COVID-19 pandemic made virtual learning more relevant than ever.

What does your team focus on to provide a best-in-class enablement experience to our partners?

They really are an amazing team! They concentrate on alignment with numerous content providers across lines of business and communities, leveraging the most up-to-date and relevant materials, which are re-packaged for the partner audience and published on and . Within 麻豆原创 Learning Hub, we provide the 麻豆原创 PartnerEdge Edition of 麻豆原创 Learning Hub, a free program that is accessible for all partner individuals for and .

We also focused our attention on helping our content stakeholders with virtual instructor-led or virtual packaging of the materials, taking the traditional classroom model with an in-person instructor and replacing it with a virtual expert, which allows them to expand and scale their teaching.

We aligned with , the platform from 麻豆原创 Knowledge and Education for partner-supported massive open online courses (MOOCs). This has been really effective, driving huge interest from our ecosystem and the general public. This platform grants greater reach and availability for us to showcase our products and allows individuals to really come into the ecosystem in a much easier way. Best of all, the content is free.

How is learning different today from what it used to be 10 or 20 years ago?

Looking back, anybody who was trying to learn had to either read a book or attend classroom training. There has been a huge shift in technology, which changed the paradigm of how enablement is delivered today.

The move to virtual happened quickly over the last few years, and, today, people are looking to learn as part of their daily roles. A quick example of how learning today has changed would be the widespread use of tools like Google or YouTube. Enablement has changed dramatically from that perspective. Micro-learning has become the new norm. People want to consume three- to five-minute learning elements at any time.

Another aspect of this is testing knowledge or competency levels. The big transition we have seen is, instead of having a formal exam, taking micro-tests after each element is consumed.

Within our team, we have been simplifying and transitioning materials to virtual platforms. We are building prescriptive Learning Journeys and providing predefined learning paths with outcome-based guidance to help 麻豆原创 partners easily find, consume, and understand the content.

Could you describe Learning Journeys and outcome-based guidance?

are structured training maps that contain various learning elements and knowledge tests across various maturity levels, to help take an individual from a 鈥渟chool smart鈥� to a 鈥渟treet smart鈥� level of competency in a specific role for a specific solution.

Learning Journeys that are non-technical, such as sales, presales, marketing, customer engagement, or industry materials, are accessed via the 麻豆原创 PartnerEdge Edition of 麻豆原创 Learning Hub. For the consultant or technical implementation roles, subscription-based training editions are offered on a yearly basis. Learning journeys are not static 鈥� we continue to evolve and update them. We also offer coaching service elements to help partners get practical experience.

are pre-defined sets of road maps for onboarding to help partner decision-makers. We want to help them find enablement content for sales, marketing, and delivery. These pre-defined learning paths make it easier to locate programs and Learning Journeys and allow partners to effectively identify the enablement needs for their teams鈥� individual roles and the required investment into learning.

Certification is a term that we hear a lot at 麻豆原创. What does this mean? And how does badging relate to it?

The term certification can be somewhat confusing because every company seems to use it in a different manner. At 麻豆原创, we use the term predominantly for technical roles, where we conduct a knowledge test that has a proctored exam. For other role-based training, we usually classify training as a qualification, which may lead to an authorization based on what the activity might include.

When we deliver certifications for technical roles, we also provide open badges for those certifications. We want to provide the learner with more than just a piece of paper confirming a passed exam. Open badges are validated and sent via a third party directly to the individual, which can then be shared on social media sites like Facebook or LinkedIn.

As our portfolio moved to cloud solutions, we also introduced the concept of 鈥渟tay current鈥� terminology to retain a certification status, providing frequent enablement training on the latest functionality changes.

People say that digital enablement is not as effective as in-class learning. What is your view?

Undoubtedly, everyone learns in a different way. Some learn better with hands-on training or with high-touch interaction. Others prefer to consume content virtually, whenever time allows. However, the benefits of digital learning far outweigh a large portion of the classroom-style teaching.

The most obvious advantage is, of course, cost savings. Instead of spending $3,000 for a five-day classroom training, along with travel expenses, you spend a fraction of that by taking the training online. And, for many trainings there’s no cost at all! With virtual instructor-led training you still get the engagement through breakout rooms, whiteboards, polling, chat, video conferencing, live access for hands-on labs, and more. You can also scale the subject matter experts more effectively to provide coverage to a global audience versus a small group.

Where is enablement headed in the future?

We are going through a dramatic shift in terms of how learning content is presented to users. At this point in time, we are using learning management solutions, which are consolidated content repositories that users must search through to find what training they want.

In the near future, companies are looking toward a next level of learning experience. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will play a major role in learning. Artifical intelligence (AI) engines will determine exactly what kind of training you have already consumed and automatically recommend new opportunities for you to consider. There will be improved analytics and more blended learning with video micro-learnings.

With all these revolutionary technology elements, digital enablement is going to be very exciting. Perhaps learning from an avatar in the future is going to be no different than sitting in a classroom. There might even be a hologram on your desktop as a virtual instructor.

At 麻豆原创, we are driving learning topics in various forms, and these will integrate together under a new learning experience platform. It will be an exciting endeavor for 麻豆原创, partners, and customers. We will soon be releasing new search functionality for 麻豆原创 Learning Hub, and we will modify Learning Journeys to add more personalization 鈥� a part of a phased approach to continue improving the user experience.

What is your call-to-action for 麻豆原创 partners?

We want partners to take advantage of a variety of great enablement content and assets that are available free of charge. The easiest way to access this material is to register on and to ensure they receive the relevant newsletter information.

By logging onto our one-stop shop, 麻豆原创PartnerEdge.com, they will be automatically authenticated to access the 麻豆原创 PartnerEdge Edition of 麻豆原创 Learning Hub, which contains our solution and the role-based . Free, online workshops and webinars can be found in the events calendars of 麻豆原创 Learning Rooms or through the partner enablement calendar on 麻豆原创PartnerEdge.com.

On top of that, twice a year, we conduct a fully digital, 24-hour virtual 麻豆原创 Innovation Day for partners, where 麻豆原创 executives from across the partner organization outline 麻豆原创鈥檚 vision, strategy, and partner-specific opportunities. A virtual event not to miss!

All for One Group realized, however, that customer success is about more than growth. The company views customer success as enhanced competitiveness in a digital world, stronger market position, and increased ability to face today鈥檚 challenges as well as those that lie ahead.

, managing director for Customer Success Management at All for One Group, says, 鈥淥ur customers also made it perfectly clear that they wished for a stronger relationship and closer, better communication between our company and theirs in order to make our common projects and implementation processes more successful.鈥�

鈥淲e aim for long-lasting, strong, and trustworthy customer relationships, which allow us to provide and implement services and solutions that perfectly meet 鈥� or, even better, exceed 鈥� our customers鈥� needs and expectations,鈥� adds Zitz. 鈥淲e want to be a strong and reliable partner so that they gladly recommend us within their network.鈥�

Evolving into a Customer Success-Oriented Business

Establishing a business united to support and ensure the growth of its customer base was one of All for One Group鈥檚 major moves throughout its 鈥淪trategy 2022,鈥� a comprehensive realignment its business strategy containing several cornerstones.

All for One Group established a Customer Success Management team, which consists of 50 team members, 35 of whom are customer success managers (CSMs). Dedicated to All for One鈥檚 existing customer base, CSMs serve as the primary points of contact for existing customers. Additionally, they take a proactive approach to providing comprehensive support throughout the customer life cycle.

CSMs are an integral part of All for One Group鈥檚 six-phase Customer Success Management program, the #Customer4Life Process:

1. Getting to know CSM: An initial meeting that can include discussion of a roadmap for partnership and establishing the role and importance of the CSM
2. Evaluating the status quo: Using a Qualtrics online survey to assess the status of the current partnership
3. Creating a future vision: Identifying the customer鈥檚 goals, ambitions, and visions based on the survey
4. Developing a success plan: Prioritizing topics and tasks that will help the client鈥檚 business meet its goals
5. Implementing measures: Defining concrete measures to achieve goals based on the success plan
6. Measuring success: Continually reviewing, giving feedback, and identifying potential areas for improvement

All for One Group is divided into market units that address specialized fields, such as conversion, intelligent enterprise resource planning (ERP), 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, customer experience, strategy and transformation, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Each CSM has market unit expertise, and they are assigned to customers based on geography and industries 鈥� including industrial machinery and components (IM&C), automotive, and consumer goods 鈥� as well as the types of solutions the customer uses. Additionally, all market units work together to meet customer needs and expand accounts with the products and features they need.

Enabling cooperation and communication across a team of 1,800 employees was a major undertaking for All for One Group. With the introduction of customer success management, the business initiated a cultural change that broadened an employee鈥檚 focus from only their market units to a company-wide, customer-focused perspective and established regular meetings where project statuses and new ideas can be exchanged.

鈥淎lthough we have not yet fully completed our transformation, we are already seeing major changes in the mindsets of our colleagues and can feel the progress we make as a group,鈥� Zitz points out.

Positive Response

Although All for One鈥檚 customer success management program is new, running its pilot from January 2019 to September 2019 and then fully launching in October 2019, the response from customers shows that they strongly agree with the new approach. Feedback includes comments such as, 鈥淭his is exactly what we have been waiting for 鈥� a point of contact at C-level鈥� and 鈥淎fter being introduced to All for One Group鈥檚 customer success management, I can confirm that this is 100 percent the right way for us.鈥�

鈥淎 clear change we noticed right after introducing customer success management is that we were able to establish closer contact with our customers, allowing us to gain further trust and better, more direct and open communication with them,鈥� says Zitz.

鈥淭he most important thing is always putting your customers first,鈥� he adds. 鈥淭his might sound mundane, but we strongly believe it鈥檚 the only way to go if you want to establish long-lasting relationships built on trust and understanding of customers鈥� goals and requirements.鈥�

鈥淲e continuously measure our customers鈥� opinions and satisfaction using Experience Management solutions from 麻豆原创 and Qualtrics and, furthermore, maintain a fairly good overview of how successful we have been so far, based on our sales pipeline, key performance indicators, and by comparing our realized revenue per customer to numbers from previous years,鈥� Zitz comments.

In the future, All for One Group plans to leverage experience management for automated feedback at each customer touchpoint. 鈥淭his will allow us to react better to their individual needs, desires, and requirements and, ultimately, offer them exactly what they want and need,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e aim for a relationship at eye-level to which both parties contribute equally toward reaching one common goal: strengthening our customers鈥� competitiveness.鈥�

Here, Burger looks back at the last 12 months of Partner Enablement at 麻豆原创, reflecting on the accomplishments, the challenges, and the direction going forward.

Q: Congratulations to you and your team on a stellar first year. Can you tell us more about the journey so far?

A: The last year kept us very busy, with the ongoing pandemic requiring us to accelerate the transformation to remote and digital partner enablement. We put the long-term enablement strategy in place, and now we have a great story to tell about global partner enablement at 麻豆原创. I am very proud to lead an extraordinary team of individuals whose work has had a tremendous impact so far.

This past year we have been focused on bringing the ive to our ecosystem, helping our partners innovate, grow, and deliver exceptional experiences. Partners are more relevant than ever to 麻豆原创鈥檚 success because our partner ecosystem has the potential and capabilities to deliver the Intelligent Enterprise to our customers. Providing our partners with the best-in-class enablement in the industry is not only a competitive advantage for 麻豆原创, but also helps ensure that our partners deliver a world-class experience to their customers 鈥� every single time.

Can you talk about the key focus areas for the last 12 months? How has the partner learning experience transformed as a result of addressing these?

We set ambitious goals that are driving us forward and taking partner enablement to another level. This past year we took significant steps in addressing these goals.

First, we focused on providing a one-stop-shop for partner enablement consumption within , where partners can easily access all enablement content. Through this platform, we launched over 160 . These are role-based, according to the individual resource needs of our partners, and go beyond normal classroom training, with experiential learning and hands-on coaching. We cover the entire 麻豆原创 solution portfolio.

In addition, we launched more than 35 with outcome-based guidance for partner C-suites and decision-makers. This allows partners to effectively identify the enablement needs for their teams鈥� individual roles, and the required investment into learning secures their business decisions. They can increase or change their footprint within the 麻豆原创 solution portfolio, build implementation quality, demo excellence, package their customer offerings, as well as keep their skills current and up to date.

And it goes without saying that our partners鈥� input is fundamental. This year, we established a continuous listening and improvement cycle as part of our Next-Generation Partnering initiative, including a partner enablement experience survey.聽 Having received over 6,000 responses, we are committed to acting on the feedback to deliver the best experience going forward.

What do you consider as some of your biggest achievements, and how do you measure them?

We have had a jam-packed 12 months of development in Global Partner Enablement.

For me, was one of the peak moments of the year 鈥� not only because our team was heavily involved in the execution of the event, but also because we launched some of the most pivotal Next-Generation Partnering initiatives in the partner enablement and experience space. The event itself was a huge success and had more than 16,750 registrations and 11,500 attendees on the day. In addition to the fantastic keynotes, 麻豆原创 CEO Christian Klein joined to echo his belief in and the commitment of our ecosystem to deliver the Intelligent Enterprise together.

We introduced a shared option for the partner demo environment, which gives 麻豆原创 partners聽free access to a new shared demo landscape with dedicated enablement,聽to expedite sales conversations and demonstrate the power of the Intelligent Enterprise. This is a major milestone and a key highlight for us and, ultimately, for our partners, and I am very proud of what the team has achieved. Since the launch in early June, more than 695 partner companies have completed the mandatory training, of which more than 440 are already demoing in the .

At the same time, we are extending 麻豆原创鈥檚 commitment to share resources to support our partner business and their customers. From July 1, 麻豆原创 partners meeting the criteria can get for 12 months.

Our partners deliver 90 percent of 麻豆原创 projects to our customers.聽The quality of those services is critical聽to customer success. Within the partner delivery quality framework, our team provides the partners need to enhance project quality, build聽consultant聽capacity, and safeguard the delivery of partner-led customer projects.

As we experience the effects of COVID-19, what is your team doing to help build the path to business resiliency?

Now more than ever, agility, innovation, and the聽ability to redesign and sharpen business processes is crucial to business health and future competitiveness. It is imperative that software implementation projects can be delivered swiftly, without risk, and with a clear and predictable outcome and fast ROI.

Many of our聽聽already contain offerings that are highly relevant in our 鈥渘ew鈥� world of social distancing 鈥� such as remote learning, improved analytics, and increased supply chain elasticity and efficiency. These solutions are combinations of market-leading 麻豆原创 software and a partner鈥檚 services and intellectual property, creating a unique and highly targeted offering. Currently, there are more than 1,100 solutions created by over 440 麻豆原创 partners to choose from.

In addition, to help midsize customers resolve the current challenges quickly, recover, and build resiliency for the future, based on a predefined scope that can be delivered by partners remotely, with implementation in days or weeks rather than months, with low to no project risk. Based on this relevance, more than 140 partner packages are ready to be consumed by customers in the COVID context.

The transformation to digital partner enablement accelerated dramatically in the last months and, going forward, virtual partner enablement will be the new normal. From an enablement perspective, we responded to this need and offered聽聽on how to use digital tools on a daily basis to meet, interact, and collaborate virtually as well as on best practices to create engaging virtual training content with聽听迟别肠丑苍辞濒辞驳测.

Looking ahead, what can 麻豆原创 partners expect?

In 2020, our team has been recognized and rewarded for our work and our cross-collaboration capabilities. Going forward, we are committed to delivering what our partners ask of us and need the most, helping them to deliver the Intelligent Enterprise for our joint customers.

Delivering the best enablement experience to our partners can only happen if we continuously demonstrate and deliver excellence by ensuring all our partners are provided with the right capacity and competencies. We also must lower the costs of partnering, including cost of learning, and offer the same demo capabilities to partners as 麻豆原创 presales.

For instance, our plan for the coming months is to add up to 20 intelligent enterprise online demos to the 麻豆原创 Partner Demo Environment. We will also continuously increase the number of more than 250 existing offline scenarios for partners in 麻豆原创 Demo Store 鈥� packed with the latest technology innovations, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. In addition, service partners can expect higher value coaching to deliver successful implementations to their customers.

With SMEs accounting for about 80 percent of our customer base, we understand their need to optimize and simplify IT processes. We will deliver an intelligent enterprise story to 麻豆原创 Business One and bring intelligence and automation to fast-growing cloud midmarket businesses with 麻豆原创 Business ByDesign. Helping customers become intelligent enterprises will require the right combination of technology and expertise from 麻豆原创 and our partner ecosystem, who are uniquely positioned to deliver the intelligent enterprise strategy and message.

creates new business opportunities with an integrated go-to-market model. Building on the Intelligent Enterprise strategy, 麻豆原创 is putting resources into expanding its vertical solutions and investing heavily in the partner ecosystem 鈥� both in enablement programs as well as development efforts. Partners can leverage this momentum to focus on building vertical innovations and deploying them much more easily and efficiently, together with the industry-specific 麻豆原创 solution portfolio.

Partner enablement will be a core component of the , especially around competencies 鈥� like rewarding and recognizing partners鈥� investments in high-quality delivery practices that drive customer adoption 鈥� , readiness transparency into 麻豆原创 for Me, and the .

How did you personally experience the last few months, and how has your own daily life been affected?

I am convinced that COVID-19 has changed all our lives, and it is on each of us to take away some positive gains on the private and business sides. In the very first phase, it was about securing health and keeping the lights on. Then, we quickly switched gears to transform the services to our partners to help ensure we add the same value in a remote environment. Partners麓 responses to that were very encouraging and rewarding. The digital way of delivering our job will give us a maximum of scale. Once the pandemic is safely behind us, we look forward to meeting our partner family in person and maintaining our trustful relationships.

During the lockdown, I learned how to be more flexible at balancing my time between family and work. In the future, I will travel less and work from home more often for a healthy mix 鈥� that鈥檚 a gain for my personal life!

What do you do when you are not leading Global Partner Enablement at 麻豆原创?

There is a very simple answer to that question! As a father of three children, I spend and enjoy as much time as possible with my family 鈥� sharing a good meal, sitting at the table with the entire family, or enjoying a good bottle of wine with my wife and our friends.

So what does the future of the partner business look like? What tools do partners need in their armory to treat customer success as a centripetal force in their business?

麻豆原创 Chief Partner Officer Karl Fahrbach : Next-Generation Partnering. Although the Next-Generation Partnering initiative was established before COVID-19, it has become more pivotal now.

What Is Next-Generation Partnering?

Next-Generation Partnering is a multi-year, transformational movement for 麻豆原创 partners, providing them with the requisite tools to rapidly exploit the expanding innovation economy.

It is not a program or certification that a partner can join or attain; it鈥檚 an ongoing journey emanating from a deep commitment from 麻豆原创 to guide its partners to constantly innovate so they can deliver exceptional customer experiences.

This initiative can help partners strategically advance on a track that will make them champions in the experience economy.

Partner Innovation: Innovate to Unlock Unlimited Possibilities

To inculcate the culture of innovation and to share its findings, 麻豆原创 encourages partners to聽聽and allow the spirit of innovation to flow freely.聽As part of this initiative, partners will get to innovate and develop their own intellectual property (IP) that can lead them to create new choices for their customers, with unrivaled support from 麻豆原创.

This ecosystem-centric initiative focuses on partner-led customer innovations where, by developing their own IP, partners will be able to expedite the reach into new markets and unbolt a new revenue style. Through Next-Generation Partnering, our joint customers can run their businesses more efficiently and work to realize the dream of becoming an intelligent enterprise.

Partner Economics: Produce Value-Driven Growth

Value-driven growth doesn鈥檛 mean merely hunting for high economic performance; it also means aiming for frugal spending. That鈥檚 why value-driven growth is considered more sustainable. In a constantly changing business scenario, especially in the post-COVID-19 landscape, partners will need a commercial model that delivers both profitable and sustained growth.

Creating new lines of digital solutions, an obvious outcome of innovation, will lead to revenue. On the other hand, many economical provisions are in place for more sustainable cloud partnering:

• Reducing learning and certification costs and increasing free test and demo offerings
• Assisting partners in building a best-in-class cloud delivery practice
• Creating attractive, new, cloud-centric commercial models
• Continuously optimizing partner policies to make an ecosystem-centric model

With these far-sighted arrangements, partners can reap benefits and, in effect, create value-driven growth.

Partner Experience: Deliver the Synergistic Experience聽

Generating an ideal partner experience that creates ecosystem admiration is a cardinal foundation that Next-Generation Partnering rests upon. To underpin this partner management initiative, 麻豆原创 works to improve the end-to-end journey for software partners, offer a self-guided user experience, optimize the process from application to publishing and transacting new apps on the app center, and harmonize partner digital enablement. Above all, Experience Management solutions from 麻豆原创 (Qualtrics) act as a natural pulse reader of partner sentiments.

Companies do not create new industries, but ecosystems do. Next-Generation Partnering works to create an atmosphere where partners and their customers can realize the power of becoming an intelligent enterprise.

The idea of Next-Generation Partnering appears similar to that of a robust tree. As the roots strive to expand and anchor the body of the tree firmly into the ground, partner innovation aims to do the same for a partner organization. Moving upward, the trunk represents the wealth accumulation for the tree, just as a partner economy leads to value-driven profitable growth. Bearing fruit is the final ambition of a tree, and, similarly, delivering an absolute partner experience and helping to grow intelligent enterprises is the pivotal objective of Next-Generation Partnering.

Ajitabh Das is a partner experience manager at 麻豆原创.

In this interview, Fahrbach discusses how innovation, economics, and experience form the basis of the movement — and why he believes, 鈥減artner success is customer success.鈥�

Q: The 麻豆原创 partner business came out of 2019 with strong momentum. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has transformed global business. What is your advice to 麻豆原创 partners as they navigate this unprecedented business environment?

A: I certainly hope that our partners and their employees are feeling well and staying healthy. That鈥檚 the most important thing for all of us. On the business front, I hope everyone is adapting quickly to this new remote business environment.

For partners, no matter what your customer engagement model was in the past, you must put your focus on effective digital marketing and sales right now. Like every crisis, it comes with an opportunity, and this is how we reinvent our offerings to serve customers in a different way: An even greater adoption of digitalization is a must. Talk to customers with empathy and a keen understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on their particular industry.

We have created a COVID19 partner task force to identify temporary safeguards to help partners retain business continuity during this trying time. We are evaluating the evolution of this situation almost daily and what measures we can put in place to help our partners. So far, we鈥檝e rolled out the following resiliency measures:

• Partner program levels are protected from downgrade until further notice.
• More flexibility in market development fund (MDF) usage, with no expiration until December 18, 2020.
• If a partner business is facing serious constraints, 麻豆原创 partner managers are available to help find solutions. Email partner@sap.com.
• Subsidies are available for virtual learning and certification on 麻豆原创 Learning Hub to increase consultant capacity. This includes 20 hours of free 麻豆原创 S/4HANA consultant training.
• Partners can promote their own free software in a .
• We鈥檙e offering free digital tools and training as well as free campaigns to boost marketing and demand.
• 麻豆原创 PartnerEdge program fee payment will be postponed.

You鈥檝e been chief partner officer for one year now. What have been some of your top priorities during this time?

When I stepped into this role, understanding partner needs was my priority, and I spent a lot of time meeting one-on-one with partners and listening. Our Next-Generation Partnering movement is in response to their input. Since we began rolling out the initiatives, we have received a lot of positive feedback from partners of all sizes serving a range of industries.

This movement is all about innovation, economics, and experience. 麻豆原创 can鈥檛 deliver all the components for the Intelligent Enterprise ourselves. That is why the initiatives are so important. Partners should find it easier to work in the cloud and with 麻豆原创. They should experience strong collaboration and ease in bringing their own innovative solutions to market, developing business models for profitable and sustained growth, and providing a seamless customer experience.

Also key was to generate awareness at all levels in the company of the importance and relevance of partnering. Today, partnering has become one of the strategic areas for 麻豆原创.

麻豆原创 is emphasizing experience management for customers, brand, employees, and product. How is 麻豆原创 transforming partner experience?

An excellent partner experience is needed to create a strong customer experience. Partner success is customer success. To address this, we have streamlined our own internal partner operations to give our partners a single “go-to contact” model to get business done. Another big priority is to build products that are more partner-ready. Partners should find it easier to innovate on top of 麻豆原创 solutions to best serve their customers.

What we also focus on is retooling our partner program. Partners will no longer be evaluated on how much they sell, but instead will be evaluated and rewarded for successful customer outcomes. Implementation is another crucial area. In January, the first wave of the improved partner enablement experience was rolled out: a one-stop-shop enablement area on the . This includes learning materials for every solution in the 聽portfolio, for all partner types and roles; for partner decision makers; and a continuous listening and improvement cycle to make the engagement experience the best. In the second wave, partners can expect harmonized and complete 麻豆原创 PartnerEdge learning materials to help partners to bring our vision of the Intelligent Enterprise to life.

麻豆原创鈥檚 cloud business grew 39 percent in 2019; at the same time, the company doubled down on its commitment to provide maintenance support for the 麻豆原创 Business Suite into 2027, and 麻豆原创 S/4HANA until 2040. On this broad playing field, what are the opportunities for partners?

The opportunity is in the cloud. In the coming years, cloud-based activities will account for more than 60 percent of net new revenues for 麻豆原创 partners. One of the largest opportunities for partners is creating their own innovative packages. offer partners the opportunity to build their own IP on market-leading 麻豆原创 software with industry or line-of-business expertise, specialized services, customizations, configurations, or applications. We had more than 400 partners fueling this category with more than 1,100 packages by the end of 2019.

Let鈥檚 talk about the role of specialization for partner success. We鈥檝e recently heard 麻豆原创 Co-CEO Christian Klein say 鈥渙ne vendor cannot do it alone.鈥� How is 麻豆原创 fostering collaboration among partners?

I totally agree with this sentiment 鈥� 麻豆原创 can鈥檛 do it all alone. We need partners. They are essential to 麻豆原创鈥檚 vision and delivery of the Intelligent Enterprise, as there will be white space and gaps. That is where partners come in. is one place where partners can see how other partners are driving their business on 麻豆原创. Today, it has more than 1,800 麻豆原创 partner solutions across a wide variety of 麻豆原创 technologies and lines of business.

Watch this interview with Karl Fahrbach for more information about Next-Generation Partnering:

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That is why innovative companies like 麻豆原创 gold partner are redefining sales organizations into teams with a dedicated focus on existing customers and adding Customer Engagement Executives (CEE) roles.

Distinct from the company鈥檚 Net New Sales team, the Customer Success group focuses exclusively on existing customers. According to CEO , since establishing the CEE role, VistaVu鈥檚 recurring revenue has grown year over year and now represents 50 percent of total revenue. This outcome aligns with research from the that says customer experience is highly correlated with loyalty and software companies stand to retain the most business from existing customers.

Characteristics of a Stellar CEE

Lamb said that success reflects the skills and characteristics of the people on the Customer Success team, such as CEE .

Burns, who formerly worked in the oil and gas industry, a target market for VistaVu, began her role at the company managing 40 to 50 customers. Her skillset soon proved to be so effective that her responsibilities shifted to that of only 15 key accounts so she could give even greater attention to helping them meet their objectives.

Although her focus has changed, her primary objectives have not: 鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 matter who or what size customers are. They should all have the same experience,鈥� Burns said. 鈥淲e want everyone to be raving fans of VistaVu, whether they鈥檙e big or small.鈥�

Burns said it is important to fill CEE roles with people who are organized and good communicators. 鈥淵ou need to be able to translate information to customers in ways they can understand, not using technical jargon or our own internal vocabulary.鈥�

She added that successful CEEs are not necessarily money-driven either. 鈥淚鈥檓 more focused on customer happiness, and when they come back and show true, honest appreciation. That drives me more.鈥�

Lezli Giguere, vice president of Customer Experience at VistaVu, pointed out that successful CEEs like Burns take initiative. 鈥淎mi has a willingness to ask tough questions and get into the thick of things with the customer,鈥� she said.

A Day in the Life of a VistaVu CEE

Although each day brings new and diverse challenges, the CEE role at VistaVu can include the following on any given day:

• Single Point-of-Contact: Any time a customer needs to address a problem, pursue enhancements to an existing process, or start a new project, CEEs are the first to get the call.
• Advocacy: Burns describes the role as an extension of her customers, an advocate or 鈥渉ound dog鈥� working for them so VistaVu delivers what a customer needs to be successful and meet business objectives. CEEs work directly with one or two key contacts within the customer organization on the front lines of day-to-day operations and have direct influence on their buying decisions.
• Listening for Opportunities: While the focus of customer interactions is not selling, Burns listens for opportunities: 鈥淭hey may say they鈥檙e spending too much time entering data and that they know they can build an integration, but they need to know how they can do it. Or, they may ask how they can reduce the time their employees spend on administration so they can focus on quality tasks. I take those opportunities from start to finish so they receive a consistent experience.鈥�
• Seamless Handover: CEEs lay the foundation for a strong relationship with a new client with a smooth transition from the Net New team. Burns prefers to begin her involvement during the implementation phase to understand details of the client鈥檚 solution. She also reviews documentation. 鈥淐lients are usually clear in the RFP what they want to achieve. The official handover process begins with a warm introduction and discussions about the client鈥檚 needs and objectives.鈥�
• Scheduled Calls: Burns establishes a calendar of calls with clients, depending on whether they prefer weekly, biweekly, or, most commonly, monthly calls. She tailors interactions based on initial goals and how much progress has been made. Progress can be measured quantitatively and qualitatively, reviewing data as well as asking the client鈥檚 perception of how the technology is working 鈥� 鈥渆nsuring that the customer is leveraging their technology solution to their maximum value.鈥�
• Achieving Goals, Not Quotas: CEEs are not required to meet quotas; instead, team goals are set annually and relate to maintaining recurring revenue, gathering customer testimonials, and responding to customer feedback. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the healthiest way to realize value for the customer,鈥� Burns explained. Instead of being driven to meet quotas, she is encouraged to help her customers succeed. 鈥淲hen I see a customer鈥檚 corporate announcement about a new business accomplishment, I know we helped them achieve that.鈥�

Future of Customer Success at VistaVu

The success of the first phase of VistaVu鈥檚 CEE initiative coupled with the positive feedback the company is getting from its Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys has inspired VistaVu to explore new opportunities to involve customers in its business growth.

The second phase is a deeper advocacy strategy and creating a symbiotic ecosystem with customers. 鈥淐ustomers are invested in wanting to make VistaVu better for them,鈥� Burns said. 鈥淭hey want to learn what other VistaVu customers are doing to solve specific problems.鈥�

In 2020, VistaVu will explore going deeper in understanding the customer journey and increasing the value it can bring.聽聽Customer communities will create opportunities to network, share information, and increase knowledge.

鈥淲e鈥檙e excited to see how that will develop, and the impact it will have on our overall company,鈥� Giguere shared.

鈥淔rom the beginning, we鈥檝e been focused on business management software and assisting efficiency, operational effectiveness, collecting information to run a business in a timely manner, and presenting data in a format that managers can use to make good decisions,鈥� he said.

However, Lamb also shared, 鈥淚n recent years, we鈥檝e become very conscious of how important it is to understand the customers鈥� journey and modify our processes and methodology to create not only consistent but delightful experiences as well.鈥�

Customer Success Defined

The 麻豆原创 North America partner works in competitive markets, including industrial machinery and components, life sciences, industrial , aerospace and defense, food and beverage, and high tech. Lamb pointed out that solution providers in these spaces are 鈥渙nly as good as your last project.鈥�

Furthermore, customers talk: 鈥淲ord of mouth is important in any business鈥� buying decisions. We set out to create engagements that are so remarkable that our customers are compelled to tell others.鈥�

That is the basis for VistaVu鈥檚 鈥淩ock Star鈥� initiative, which aims to turn clients into raving fans.

鈥淪uccess to me is our customers telling our story for us,鈥� said Lamb.

Taking Action at VistaVu

To deliver customer experiences that turn customers into advocates, it takes more than situational awareness and core competencies, according to Lamb. For VistaVu, it meant establishing new roles and teams.

From its inception, VistaVu had operated under a typical organizational chart: Sales, Marketing, Operations, Finance. In 2018, however, Lamb opted to divide its delivery team into two units: Net New and Customer Success.

VistaVu created the new role of customer engagement executive (CEE) and now places dedicated services teams with existing customers 鈥� now a focus for more than two-thirds of the company 鈥� and established a separate sales and delivery team for net-new customers.

鈥淲ith a CEE, the goal isn鈥檛 about trying to sell something. It鈥檚 about creating an experience that is so valuable the client will want to go deeper with their relationship with us,鈥� Lamb said.

The Customer Success team achieves that in part by clearly setting expectations and delivering value.

鈥淓RP clients often under value the effort required in implementation while overestimating what can be accomplished,鈥� Lamb pointed out. 鈥淲e work with them to understand business objectives at the outset and set realistic expectations.鈥�

CEEs are also tasked with moving clients from solution stabilization to optimization phases to considering new ways to leverage their technology to achieve greater benefits.

鈥淐EEs look to understand upcoming customer needs and find opportunities to increase automation or improve decision making,鈥� Lamb added.

At first, the new approach was met with skepticism internally. Some wondered about the potential for missed revenue as the balance shifted more toward improving relationships. Ironically, Lamb attributes VistaVu鈥檚 growing success to the entire organization embracing the model.

鈥淚t鈥檚 working well,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e never been bigger, and Customer Success has never sold more. They don鈥檛 have quotas, but they find opportunities to help in every conversation.鈥�

Recurring revenue has grown substantially year over year 鈥� now 50 percent of the total business 鈥� and VistaVu鈥檚 business valuation has grown five times.

Rave Reviews, Radical Realizations

In addition to establishing its Customer Success team, VistaVu began using Net Promoter Score (NPS) to understand its effectiveness in delivering experiences that delight customers. It asks the standard NPS questions: 鈥淗ow likely are you to recommend our company?鈥� and 鈥淲hat can we do to earn a higher score?鈥�

It is important to note that VistaVu does more than collect this data; it acts on it. When some clients requested faster response times, VistaVu reached out to see how they define acceptable turnaround and began capturing related data on a weekly basis 鈥� and soon achieved and exceeded the expectations.

鈥淲e鈥檙e insatiable listeners,鈥� said Lamb. 鈥淲e鈥檙e doing everything we can to make sure all customer experiences are remarkably positive.鈥�

He explained that his company鈥檚 new organization has also changed the way they sell to net-new customers: 鈥淵ears ago, we sold to everyone. Today, we鈥檙e a lot more selective. One of the first questions we ask is if they have a chance to become a raving fan. The size of the check isn鈥檛 what matters. The relationship needs to be successful. That鈥檚 what fuels ongoing growth.鈥�

鈥淭oday we have over 50 percent of our client base that we can call to advocate and provide a reference for us,鈥� Lamb said. 鈥淏ut we never want to get complacent. We want all of our customers to be pillars of our reputation and potential sources of new business.鈥�

To shorten the learning curve for our partners, 麻豆原创 is publishing a series to share best practices with the 麻豆原创 partner ecosystem. We will hear from partners that are leaders in their approaches to customer success and hear from the Customer Success team at 麻豆原创

In these stories, learn how these partners define customer success, what drives the changes within their businesses, and how they measure impact. 聽In interviews, partner customer engagement executives (CEEs) will share firsthand how they execute their business鈥� customer success strategy.

Benefits of a Customer Success Mindset

Implementing such a strategy can lead to substantial business growth and valuation, reduction in the cost to acquire customers, reduced time to sale, and increased customer references.聽 This is supported by research from Bain & Company, which revealed and increase in customer retention by five percent can result in an increase in profits between 25 and 95 percent. 聽Our interviews with 麻豆原创 partners will demonstrate similar real-world results of adopting a customer success model.

Where to Start

Learn how some 麻豆原创 partners came to realize the need to differentiate their businesses through exceptional experiences and strategies that ensure customer success. The first in the series will showcase customer success strategies at , a North American 麻豆原创 Business One and 麻豆原创 Business ByDesign partner, and how its CEEs put accounts on the path to success.

These inspiring stories and firsthand accounts of growing recurring revenue and business growth can provide the insights needed to begin to devise a customer success strategy of your own.

• , chief partner officer
• , vice president of Mid-Market Channels

Fahrbach and Lazina are among the 2020 Channel Chiefs who have shown outstanding commitment, an ability to lead, and a passion for progress within the channel through their partner programs.

The honorees were chosen by the CRN editorial staff for their dedication, industry prestige, and exceptional accomplishments in driving the channel agenda and evangelizing the importance of channel partnerships.

Fahrbach is leading a movement, the Next-Generation Partnering initiative, to help ensure 麻豆原创 partners are able to create their own IP and become part of the $200 billion economy that 麻豆原创 partners are expected to create by 2024. Under his leadership, 麻豆原创 is providing an unparalleled economic opportunity and improving the overall partner experience, believing this is a key lever for a good customer experience.

Lazina was recognized as one of the top women of the channel by CRN in 2019 and has increased partner deal registration and more than doubled the number of indirect (partner) cloud deals from the previous year. Under her leadership, the North America channel is stronger than ever, helping 麻豆原创 drive strong cloud adoption across the region.

鈥淚DC sees that customers of all sizes everywhere in the world need counsel and support when it comes to evolving their next-generation system landscapes,鈥� said Steve White, program vice president, Channels and Alliances, IDC. 鈥淚t鈥檚 great to see 麻豆原创 encouraging their partners to enrich the 麻豆原创 portfolio of solutions with their own intellectual property, supporting those customers to streamline the acquisition and use of these technologies.鈥�

麻豆原创 is executing on its . Partners aligned with this strategy are well positioned for long-term growth and opportunity. Market momentum for 麻豆原创 partners has never been stronger. The 麻豆原创 partner economy is expected to double in the next three years, driven by a proliferation of partner-developed innovations in conjunction with 麻豆原创.

CRN鈥檚 2020 Channel Chiefs list will be featured in the February 2020 issue of CRN Magazine and online at .

Partners spoke and 麻豆原创 listened. With Next-Generation Partnering becoming reality, 麻豆原创 wants to enable partners to deliver a world-class experience to customers through the best-ever enablement experience. Based on valued feedback, the company is taking steps to improve the partner experience.

Steps to a Next-Generation Enablement Experience

On the transformation path to a next-generation partner enablement experience, we want it to be the best in the industry, and to help partners deliver a world-class experience to customers. We want all enablement content to be easily found and always in the same place. Therefore, 麻豆原创 is driving significant enhancements to the learning experience, focusing on a one-stop-shop enablement consumption within the .

麻豆原创 is harmonizing enablement offerings, starting with complete and easy-to-use 麻豆原创 PartnerEdge learning journeys for every solution across the entire solution portfolio and for all partner types and roles, including more applied skills enablement and coaching services. Learning journeys are interactive guides designed to easily help navigate a learning path — explore, filter, and access a curated set of learning offerings.

麻豆原创 has built outcome-based guidance for partner C-level leaders, practice leads, and decision-makers, in order to help drive guided decisions through specific outcomes, resulting in investment decisions to increase or change the partner footprint within the 麻豆原创 solution portfolio.

Feedback matters to 麻豆原创, and the company is establishing a continuous listening and improvement cycle to make the enablement experience the best.

The first wave transformation toward a next-generation partner enablement experience has been accomplished. The second wave is soon to come.

Here鈥檚 what you can expect today:

• Harmonized and complete 麻豆原创 PartnerEdge learning journeys for 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud, the on-premise edition of 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solutions, 麻豆原创 C/4HANA, 麻豆原创 Ariba software, and the Intelligent Enterprise to help ensure all relevant applied skills enablement offerings are made available. Access and leverage these learning journeys can be accessed in the . Alternatively, the 麻豆原创 PartnerEdge learning room of choice can be selected on the 麻豆原创 PartnerEdge site, and learning journeys can be accessed through the training tab or tile.
• A new outcome-based guidance tool to provides enablement consumption across the entire 麻豆原创 solution portfolio, built with the purpose of accelerating the adoption with clear, guided steps. Getting enabled is an investment; 麻豆原创 wants to make investment decisions easier, linking them to business outcomes that relate to strategy. This tool is now available through the site.
• An improved, continuous partner enablement experience feedback loop, with the purpose of getting closer to partners and receive input based on their experiences.

Harmonized, Updated Next-Generation Learning Journeys

Next-generation 麻豆原创 PartnerEdge learning journeys are role-based and available for sales, pre-sales, delivery, development, CEE, and marketing. They are structured alike:

• Start with an overview: Get a general understanding of the topic.
• Become competent: Get an in-depth knowledge of the topic, as well as the respective requirements for product authorization.
• Stay current: Find all the content you need to stay up-to-date.
• Expand your skills: Broaden your skills and skill-up in particular areas.We have included direct access to the events calendar with an overview of available trainings, and sessions globally or in a particular region.
• Apply your skills (news): Actively practice your skills.Within this content area, we provide you with a new functionality. You can now apply your classroom competencies and your skills, get coached by 麻豆原创 with hands-on experience and ultimately apply all the knowledge gained when interacting with the customer.

Following this structure for any role, allows participants to gain the training that develops all classroom competencies needed for a particular solution. and please provide feedback through the thumbs-up and thumbs-down icons at the end of each learning journey.

New Outcome-Based Guidance for Partner Decision-Makers

A new tool built to provide decision makers in an organization with enablement consumption and outcomes across the entire 麻豆原创 solution portfolio. These outcomes are clustered by solution based on the various knowledge domains: marketing, sales and pre-sales, delivery, customer engagement, and development.

The tool will empower users to build the capabilities within staff that are required across all solutions and roles. It will also guide participants to keep their skills current and up-to-date. A fit and well-educated team empowers the ability to monetize an investment into the innovative and fast-evolving 麻豆原创 solution portfolio more quickly and efficiently.

Decision-makers need clear, concise, and actionable guidance to find out what actions need to be taken to achieve critical goals, such as:

• Do employees have the required skills and knowledge needed to effectively position, sell, and demonstrate solutions?
• Do they need to improve implementation quality?
• Do we need to develop packaged offerings with a compelling value proposition?

Actionable outcomes to such questions will be provided, leading to the relevant content and tools required to accelerate adoption of 麻豆原创 solutions, such as role-based 麻豆原创 PartnerEdge learning journeys, web applications, or downloads of required resources, as well as lay out the steps to quickly take appropriate investment decisions.

. Browse directly into outcomes for the product or domain of your choice, or .

Check back regularly, as 麻豆原创 continuously expands the actionable outcomes to help with driving guided decisions. The following outcomes are planned for released in the coming weeks:

• Expand your 麻豆原创 S/4HANA practice to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud
• Expand your 麻豆原创 S/4HANA practice to the Intelligent Enterprise
• Expand from HCM to HXM by adding Qualtrics to your 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors practice
• Drive more net-new names with qualified partner-packaged solutions
• Improve win rates with demo excellence
• Hire and ramp-up X new cloud for sales consultants right from university
• Move your on-premise HCM installed base to 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors

Share submissions for missing or additional outcomes through the feedback button on the homepage of the tool.

Both the new outcome-based guidance and the next-generation 麻豆原创 PartnerEdge learning journeys are game changers to boost the partner enablement experience one step further — start leveraging today.