238 – The New Era of Chief Partner Officer: Innovation, and Driving Success

Janet Schijns, CEO of JSG, Joins Ultimate Partner®

Today, we’re joined by Channel Legend, Janet Schijns Co Founder and CEO of JS Group. Join us as we dive deep into the evolving landscape of partnerships and leadership in the tech industry. In this episode, we explore a wide array of topics, from the potential pitfalls in e-commerce management to the changing roles of CEOs and CIOs in the age of cloud tech.

Janet Schijns is a dedicated and strategic leader known for her protective and defensive approach in supporting business partners. She keenly understands the delicate balance between shielding partners from disruptive market noise and ensuring management remains receptive to critical feedback. Her leadership focus aims to prevent any slowdowns in partner sales momentum, while also fostering transparent communication channels within the organization.

We’ll unpack the complexities of modern partner ecosystems and the rise of new marketplace dynamics, emphasizing the critical importance of Chief Partner Officers (CPOs) and why they could be the most sought-after CEOs of the future. Janet and Vince will also highlight how companies like Vodafone and Infosys are making substantial commitments to tech giants like Microsoft, and discuss the nervousness surrounding traditional distribution channels amidst these shifts.

Moreover, you’ll hear insightful predictions about the future of marketplaces, how generative AI is reshaping repetitive business tasks, and why an inclusive partner strategy is paramount. We’ll also delve into the economic uncertainties we face, the booming investment in cloud infrastructure, and the critical role of alliance managers in navigating these new terrains.Whether you’re a tech enthusiast, a business leader, or someone interested in the future of partnerships, this episode is packed with valuable insights. So, tune in as we explore how to stay ahead in a constantly evolving business landscape and why the next big CEO might just come from the CPO ranks. 

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

00:00 – Introduction 

00:00 – Overprotection hindered feedback; significant channel change.

04:17-  Decreased customer interaction with salespeople in purchases.

07:20 – Outdated training, needed skills lacking, partner-focused.

10:51 – Ultimate partner summit: engage, learn, achieve, innovate.

15:02 – Advising boards on market strategy topics.

17:32 – C-suite struggles relinquishing control over channels.

21:18 – AWS became 5th largest distributor with $1B+ clients.

24:12 – Thrilled to announce partnership with Impartner.

26:18 – Power is crucial due to Gen AI compute.

29:21 – Failure prompts crisis responses; opportunity prompts growth planning.

34:08 –  Firms investing in marketing achieve higher growth.36:11 – Join UPX for exclusive insights and community.

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https://youtu.be/W63c9MbK4X8?si=XqC0t-JuQlvYYQ9t

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Transcript

Janet Schijns [00:00:00]:

So how do you partner? Right? What are the tenants of partnering? It’s interesting how confusing that is for some traditional channel organizations.

Mike Gervais [00:00:11]:

Microsoft’s purpose is in service of your purpose.

Jay McBain [00:00:15]:

And, again, 2024 is the year that partners come out as the leading edge of the spear on finding this buyer intent. You show up to every meeting and demonstrate why you are relevant.

Sharon Schoenborn [00:00:26]:

Every day, I have to force myself to make sure that I’m taking one step ahead in terms of my own learning.

Vince Menzione [00:00:31]:

That flywheel success is where you will build momentum, and that momentum will continue. And then you feed into the other systems to say, this is what we did. This is how we did it together. You know, we talk happy talk sometimes about channel and partnerships. But the truth of the matter is it isn’t always and partnerships, but the truth of the matter is it isn’t always easy. It’s not. And organizations still struggle here. Like, I I have phone

Janet Schijns [00:00:48]:

calls and I have DMs

Vince Menzione [00:00:49]:

from people. It seems like every day I get a new one. Like, I’m building a practice. Right. We’ve been at it for 7 years.

Janet Schijns [00:01:01]:

Something’s wrong. Or our

Vince Menzione [00:01:02]:

leadership our leadership still doesn’t get it.

Janet Schijns [00:01:04]:

Right. Or I got the last push through on cost of channel again

Vince Menzione [00:01:08]:

from the

Janet Schijns [00:01:08]:

CFO. Yeah. Yeah. I get those same tax, and it’s changing so quick.

Vince Menzione [00:01:11]:

Right? It is.

Janet Schijns [00:01:12]:

So that’s part of it. Part of it is even the old dog channel leaders That’s right. Having to learn some new tricks. And so you and I get a lot of calls because of that.

Vince Menzione [00:01:20]:

Yeah. And we we’re gonna talk more about that as well, some of the new tricks that they’re learning.

Janet Schijns [00:01:24]:

Yeah. So some of those new tricks learning.

Vince Menzione [00:01:26]:

But why do you think organizations still struggle here? What what what would you say is the main reason? You’re face to face at the board level. You’re talking to the c suite. Right? You’re with the channel chief or the chief partner officer, whatever the title is these days.

Janet Schijns [00:01:40]:

Yeah. Why

Vince Menzione [00:01:41]:

do you think that they’re still struggling?

Janet Schijns [00:01:42]:

You know, increasingly, it’s interesting. Increasingly, we’re being pulled in by the board or the c suite and not the channel leader.

Vince Menzione [00:01:48]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:01:48]:

Because so much is changing. Yep. Right? Because so much is evolving, and they’re not sure what’s supposed to happen. And I think the reason why so often there’s a little bit of a gap I’m not gonna say disconnect because I don’t think it’s a disconnect. I think if you speak to the c suite, they understand, particularly if they do 75% of their sales through the channel

Vince Menzione [00:02:06]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:02:06]:

That the channel is important to them. The disconnect comes from the fact that the channel chief has long been, and excuse me to our audience listening at home, the shit umbrella Yeah. For the channel. Yes. So their job has been to hold the umbrella up. And no matter what the CFO said, no matter what the sales leader said, their job was to protect the partners.

Vince Menzione [00:02:26]:

Yes.

Janet Schijns [00:02:27]:

Right? So you hold that umbrella up. I I did that. I hit a very, you know, sore and

Vince Menzione [00:02:31]:

very large. Defend and

Janet Schijns [00:02:32]:

protect. Defend defend and protect, and don’t let that hit the partners because if you let that noise hit the partners, they’re gonna slow down and stop selling. The problem though is that umbrella also keeps the feedback from the partners getting up to the management. And so I think what happened in in protecting the partners, they actually overprotected leadership. And so we just finished a survey. Doctor Ashlyn Silva, who’s the head of our research survey, just did a CRO survey of firms that had channel leaders. And the channel leaders all said that the change in the channel was significant. That was the most common answer, significant change in the channel.

Janet Schijns [00:03:08]:

The CRO said some change.

Vince Menzione [00:03:11]:

Interesting. That was some mean by significant change?

Janet Schijns [00:03:13]:

Significant changes in routes to market, in partners, and how we’re gonna go to market, and how we’re gonna partner. Right? As we dug down in the survey, in our channel survey, which comes out later this year, the CROs, while they saw some change, mind you, some change, they did not see that that overwhelming level of change. And, again, I think it’s because that umbrella now is so lodged in place. They’re not getting that feedback.

Vince Menzione [00:03:36]:

The transparency isn’t there No. No. No. Back up to the c suite.

Janet Schijns [00:03:40]:

It’s just not getting to the c suite. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Vince Menzione [00:03:42]:

Is it a translation issue as well from the chief partner officer or the channel chief up through the c suite or maybe a lack of trust or understanding?

Janet Schijns [00:03:51]:

Play protect me games all the time as the channel leader, which a lot of folks in the traditional business have had to do. Thankfully, in some of the SaaS businesses, it’s been more transparent. But when you have to play that protect me game, it gets to the point where the channel chief is kinda covering their, you know, butt for the issues too.

Vince Menzione [00:04:08]:

Right.

Janet Schijns [00:04:09]:

Right. So I think it’s partially transparency. I think the other part is the c suite only specializes in channel during ops reviews

Vince Menzione [00:04:16]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:04:17]:

And board meetings and earnings calls, and they don’t specialize in the channel the rest of the time. And so what we’ve seen, and I know I’ve shared this stat with you, but not probably with your viewers. What we’ve seen is in 5 years, we’ve went from 51% of the time a customer spends in a b to b tech purchase being with a salesperson to only 14% of the time they spend with a salesperson. Yes. So this motion that we used to have where if you added more sellers, both partners or direct sellers

Vince Menzione [00:04:43]:

Right.

Janet Schijns [00:04:43]:

You would get more sales. This was a common, right, has been something that that’s how everybody’s looked at the channel. It’s just more salespeople. We heard this

Vince Menzione [00:04:51]:

feet on the street, reach.

Janet Schijns [00:04:52]:

Yep. You’re extending your coverage. Right? We’ve all heard this reason for having the channel. Right? Because they’re a sales channel. Well, now you’ve got a Microsoft who’s adding, you know, what, 90% of their partners are adding aren’t transacting.

Vince Menzione [00:05:04]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:05:05]:

We’re seeing this across the space. It’s about influence and advocacy. And and so when that starts to happen, it’s very difficult if you’ve been reluctantly in your c suite partnering in the first place now to let these people Yeah. Do even more. And believe me, they are referred to, for those of you in the channel listening, as these people, by a lot of by a lot of c suite leaders.

Vince Menzione [00:05:29]:

CFOs particularly love yeah. That’s yeah. We’re gonna dive into the chief partner officer role. So I don’t wanna because I think that we what you’re uncovering here is it’s important. Let’s go there first.

Janet Schijns [00:05:42]:

Okay.

Vince Menzione [00:05:43]:

I had Greg Sarafin here just a few weeks ago from Awesome. Chief partner officer. Yep. Different role. Yeah. Different role. Different set different set of skills.

Janet Schijns [00:05:52]:

Yes.

Vince Menzione [00:05:53]:

We spent almost an hour and a half in in the studio here. He gave us a master class and what he did at taking them from a 1,000,000,000 to about 8 or 9,000,000,000. He’s retiring. And so I think about that chief partner officer. Right? That role. I think the role that the nomenclature around the role is being overused and overhyped personally. Right?

Janet Schijns [00:06:16]:

When everybody becomes a CPO, no one’s a CPO. No.

Vince Menzione [00:06:18]:

But no one’s a CPO. But I do think that there’s a new set of skills.

Janet Schijns [00:06:23]:

Very different set of skills.

Vince Menzione [00:06:24]:

Set of skills. And I look at a person like Greg as an example of that, honestly, who comes from Yes. Comes from a financial acumen

Janet Schijns [00:06:31]:

Right.

Vince Menzione [00:06:32]:

Where the channel chief is somebody who maybe grew up in the channel, maybe was at at a vendor like a Microsoft or an HP or a Cisco

Janet Schijns [00:06:40]:

sales experience.

Vince Menzione [00:06:41]:

Sales experience mostly. And the translation back to the c suite isn’t as fluid, transparent, or the conversations that are being had are not being understood the way they need to because they’re not in the language of the of the

Janet Schijns [00:06:54]:

And and and half

Vince Menzione [00:06:55]:

of the

Janet Schijns [00:06:55]:

time, it’s skills. Yeah. Right? And we’ll talk on that. The other half of the time is just the culture of the company. Right? The channel chief has kinda been this, I don’t really know what he does, but or she does, although there’s very few she’s. I don’t really know what they do. She’s.

Vince Menzione [00:07:08]:

I don’t

Janet Schijns [00:07:08]:

need another thing. We’ll talk about that. Yep. They’ve kind of been cloaked in this little bit of secrecy. Right? There’s a lot of hugs. There’s a lot of mugs. Yeah. There’s a lot of events, and they’re doing a lot of things.

Janet Schijns [00:07:20]:

And, you know, they bring in sales, and the company says, hey. You know, that’s good, and and we’ll talk to you again and give you a hard time next next month or next quarter. But the skill set has not been invested in. No. So despite the fact that there’s so much change in the channel and that the channel leaders see that, what you see is still very traditional training. When we go in and do our partner expert training for teams, and that is really around how do you partner, not just resell or sell.

Vince Menzione [00:07:47]:

Give me that word again.

Janet Schijns [00:07:48]:

Partner expert.

Vince Menzione [00:07:49]:

Partner expert. Mhmm. Interesting.

Janet Schijns [00:07:51]:

So how do you partner? Right? What are the tenants of partnering? It’s interesting how confusing that is for some traditional channel organizations because then they start to say things like, no. No. No. Our product team handles that stuff. Oh, we have an alliances organization, and it’s in the strategy group.

Vince Menzione [00:08:08]:

Exactly.

Janet Schijns [00:08:09]:

We have a program group, and this is an interesting new trend that I’m seeing at variety of companies, including Verizon as an example, where the program team for partnering now reports to the CFO.

Vince Menzione [00:08:21]:

Interesting.

Janet Schijns [00:08:22]:

And in a in an attempt I can only believe to control money

Vince Menzione [00:08:25]:

So like a shadow organization for the partner organization?

Janet Schijns [00:08:28]:

Well, it’s the actual program team, and they’re not the only vendor I’m seeing doing this. So starting to move that partner program, you know, your traditional triangles, silver, gold,

Vince Menzione [00:08:36]:

you know. Trust in the channel chief

Janet Schijns [00:08:39]:

and something.

Vince Menzione [00:08:40]:

And holding the dollars.

Janet Schijns [00:08:41]:

Because you’ve seen it in the past in marketing. Yep. We’ve seen it in the past in the channel, and we’ve seen it in sales. We’ve seen the CRO have it. Now all of a sudden, I’m starting to see a trend of it moving that or just the program

Vince Menzione [00:08:52]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:08:52]:

Moving to either some level of compliance.

Vince Menzione [00:08:56]:

Mhmm.

Janet Schijns [00:08:56]:

And, you know, we’ve seen some bad stuff happening, so I understand why, or finance. And the reason I point this out is because partnering has now become something that’s all hands on the field.

Vince Menzione [00:09:06]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:09:06]:

It’s not just the it used to be pretty simple.

Vince Menzione [00:09:09]:

Right?

Janet Schijns [00:09:09]:

You wanna partner, see the channel chief, they’re over there. Yeah. Now

Vince Menzione [00:09:13]:

And they have the partner program, and then they have a bunch of organizations.

Janet Schijns [00:09:17]:

They run almost like a different company.

Vince Menzione [00:09:19]:

So They’re bolted on.

Janet Schijns [00:09:20]:

They’re bolted on. They’re kind of this good thing. Now then we started having companies say we’re gonna be a 100% channel. They still don’t mean that. No. They mean they’re gonna put sales through the channel on their paper.

Vince Menzione [00:09:31]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:09:32]:

And then we have companies like Microsoft, like E and Y, like AvPoint, which I’m honored to sit on the board for, who look at partnering as systemic across the organization. Approach. Holistic approach, it’s embedded. It’s not a separate thing. Right? Although they have a program and they have all the elements, it’s part of everybody’s job to partner. And that’s the world we’re moving towards. And that’s why the skill for that CPO, that ability to reach cross organization, Greg has that skill. Right?

Vince Menzione [00:10:00]:

He has that skill.

Janet Schijns [00:10:00]:

That ability to to understand that there’s a bigger gain than signing the PO today. I was talking with Infosys. I’ll use them as an example. They’re genius at partnering, and they’re doing $7,000,000,000 deals with 37 partners in them.

Vince Menzione [00:10:17]:

Wow.

Janet Schijns [00:10:18]:

So you start thinking about the scope of partnering. Right? And in the past, you would have said, oh, good. They’re gonna do the install and config and management. That’s not the case anymore. Right? These are really complex situations.

Vince Menzione [00:10:31]:

They are.

Janet Schijns [00:10:32]:

And so the partnering, I actually think the next CEOs will come from the CPO.

Vince Menzione [00:10:38]:

Well

Janet Schijns [00:10:39]:

yes. Partnering is so embedded now in what the go to market motion for every company truly needs to be.

Vince Menzione [00:10:51]:

We’re excited to announce ultimate partner live executive summit, October 22nd 23rd in Las Colinas, Texas. We’re bringing back the event that we hosted last year, but in a new facility with state of the art capabilities and live streaming. This is your opportunity to engage with other technology leaders to learn the what, why, and how to achieve your greatest results partnering with Microsoft and other tech giants. Featuring leadership tracks, fireside chats, and workshops designed to help you achieve more. Why do you believe that CEO needs to be a partner leader?

Janet Schijns [00:11:34]:

Well, because I think I want the audience to think about 10 years ago when we started saying every company is a tech company.

Vince Menzione [00:11:39]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:11:40]:

Right? Car companies stopped being car companies. They started being tech companies. Right? Tesla was iPhone. Companies were everybody’s a tech company.

Vince Menzione [00:11:48]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:11:48]:

And that’s become true. Right? Every company is primarily led by tech. COVID sped that up.

Vince Menzione [00:11:53]:

Or a platform company.

Janet Schijns [00:11:54]:

Or a platform company within being a tech company.

Vince Menzione [00:11:56]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:11:57]:

But it was like, hey. Everybody’s a tech company. Now everybody’s a partnering company. So that’s the next evolution. We’re only at the tip of that evolution. Yeah. We’re not somewhere where it it’s advanced yet. Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:12:09]:

And so what’s happening By

Vince Menzione [00:12:10]:

the way, new jobs, new opportunities for those of us who are in the tech world to venture outside of traditional tech. Gosh.

Janet Schijns [00:12:17]:

We we’ve been on conversations, you know, with Lynn and health care and others, and everybody’s partnering. Now what’s interesting about that is some companies, and you know I’m talking about you if I’m talking about you, they’ve just named their channel chief CPO because you’re supposed to have a CPO. Yes. Much like what happened initially when everybody became a tech company, they named CTOs.

Vince Menzione [00:12:36]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:12:37]:

And many times the CTO was just their CIO with a fancy new branding.

Vince Menzione [00:12:40]:

And in

Janet Schijns [00:12:40]:

fact, you saw a lot of people do CIO, CTO. 10 years before that, we saw the same thing with CISOs. Right? Originally, the CISO was just some guy who knew about security. Right? Then it became

Vince Menzione [00:12:50]:

Bob in the closet

Janet Schijns [00:12:51]:

back in the day. Bob manages our McAfee licenses. Right? Okay. Let’s make him do so. And then it became a career, a profession, and a very difficult one. And the same with CTO, and now they think the same with CPO. So we’re probably in year 2 of this trend, and it’s a 10 year get to

Vince Menzione [00:13:09]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:13:10]:

Maximum capacity ability. And so I think what you’re gonna see is a lot of failures in the current CPOs, the same way we saw when CMOs started.

Vince Menzione [00:13:19]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:13:19]:

CMO started the average tenure was a year. Right? Because everybody thought, I know, oh, we need a CMO marketing. We’ll just get somebody’s better.

Vince Menzione [00:13:26]:

That’s right. Somebody was good with Marketo.

Janet Schijns [00:13:27]:

Right. We’re gonna we’re gonna make them a CMO. Like, this is good. That person’s good at arts and crafts. They’ll be good at this too.

Vince Menzione [00:13:32]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:13:32]:

Not so much. And so we’re seeing the same thing now with the CPO, and the skills are very different. Right? The channel chief is about sales, about partner management. Right? And it’s down. I’m managing you, mister partner, missus partner.

Vince Menzione [00:13:47]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:13:48]:

The CPO is about managing up, sideways, down, you know, spinning in circles saying, how do we put something together that’s so exquisite for our customers through our partnerships with both our customers and our providers and our partners that we can’t be beat we can’t be replicated and then turn that into a partnering platform, if you will. I think the 2 end up kinda

Vince Menzione [00:14:12]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:14:12]:

Smudging together and make something that is I can’t think of another word. I said it already, but I’ll say it again, exquisite for our customers. Yeah. And we are very early days in that.

Vince Menzione [00:14:22]:

Very early days. And, you know, we talked about Microsoft being prescient and being a harbinger of things. Microsoft has been good at doing this internally. Some of that is organizational. We’ll talk a little bit more about that. But some of it you know, I talk about things like mindset Yeah. Commitment, trust, and execution is 4 areas. When we talk about this CPO role Mhmm.

Vince Menzione [00:14:41]:

That I think we need a lot of work here.

Janet Schijns [00:14:43]:

We need a lot of work.

Vince Menzione [00:14:45]:

Go back to Greg. And, Greg, you’re getting a lot of kudos here today. But I think about the ability that in we talked about the influence strategy and the ability to be credible, to have trust

Janet Schijns [00:14:55]:

Right.

Vince Menzione [00:14:55]:

With that leader, that partner leader.

Janet Schijns [00:14:57]:

Correct.

Vince Menzione [00:14:58]:

It cannot be the person who was the channel chief last week. Now it’s just changing their title.

Janet Schijns [00:15:02]:

Well and that’s we’re seeing that. Right? We’re seeing people say, hey. Let’s do that. And what I’m trying to explain explain or or help the c suite and the board, I sit on several boards. Right? And having that conversation, being asked to present to other boards, being asked to be an adviser to a board on this topic is it’s not about routes to market.

Vince Menzione [00:15:19]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:15:20]:

That’s been true. Now not not to say you’re not gonna have routes to market. Right? Of course, you are.

Vince Menzione [00:15:25]:

Yep.

Janet Schijns [00:15:25]:

But your strategy for partnering is not about routes routes to market. It’s about commercialization of innovation.

Vince Menzione [00:15:32]:

Yes.

Janet Schijns [00:15:33]:

How will you commercialize innovation amongst your ecosystem? And that starts with a trust ecosystem. So who will you treat as a partner? And this gets them every time as well and as poorly as you treat your own employees.

Vince Menzione [00:15:47]:

Wow.

Janet Schijns [00:15:47]:

Because a good partner should be a part of your team.

Vince Menzione [00:15:51]:

Yeah. What’s the answer you get when you ask that question?

Janet Schijns [00:15:53]:

We can’t do that. Then you’re not ready. You’re not not

Vince Menzione [00:15:56]:

ready for that.

Janet Schijns [00:15:56]:

You’re not ready.

Vince Menzione [00:15:57]:

Right.

Janet Schijns [00:15:57]:

Right? So how do you make that happen? How do you make it so that your partners I want people to be confused about who works for which brand. Yes. This is Right?

Vince Menzione [00:16:05]:

This is the joint value proposition.

Janet Schijns [00:16:08]:

Through integration. Right? And it’s multiple parties.

Vince Menzione [00:16:11]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:16:11]:

And so what we’re seeing now is some heroes. We’re starting to see the alliance manager who has long been tasked with this

Vince Menzione [00:16:18]:

Yeah. This

Janet Schijns [00:16:18]:

webbed weird

Vince Menzione [00:16:20]:

Fuzzy role.

Janet Schijns [00:16:21]:

Fuzzy role of press releases and product releases and trying to manage one of your biggest customers slash partner slash developer slash slash

Vince Menzione [00:16:31]:

Yep.

Janet Schijns [00:16:31]:

They’re starting to rise up as heroes because this kind of nebulous territory has been something that they’ve they’ve broken their teeth on.

Vince Menzione [00:16:38]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:16:39]:

Right? And they they do have a little more ability to work in the gray zone, and that’s the key. The channel chief, a lot of times and some of them will retrain. Some of them will retrain and be fine. I have no doubt of that. There’s always the exceptions. But the rule is the channel chiefs have been in a black and white arena for a long time.

Vince Menzione [00:16:55]:

And a lot of it is the vendor partner role or vendor channel

Janet Schijns [00:16:59]:

role Correct.

Vince Menzione [00:17:00]:

Which is more one-sided.

Janet Schijns [00:17:01]:

Correct. And I am not, so that the audience hears me, not saying that the channel chief role goes immediately away tomorrow overnight. No. Because that would

Vince Menzione [00:17:08]:

be primary function.

Janet Schijns [00:17:09]:

Right. It’s a primary function. Yeah. It’s like it would be like saying your direct sales leader’s role is gonna go away. Of course, that’s not gonna go away. Right. So any significant route to market that you have is still gonna have a sales leader.

Vince Menzione [00:17:20]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:17:21]:

Right? That makes sense. It’s the layer above that. It’s the understanding that you could be in a in a sale. Yep. Right? There could be 37, as I mentioned earlier, partners.

Vince Menzione [00:17:31]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:17:32]:

And so in that scenario, you don’t get to be in charge. And this is the hardest conversation I have because the the c suite is so used to, we’re going to let the channel sell that product. We’re going to give the channel this discount or give the channel this commission. We’re gonna block the channel, always my least favorite discussion, from key accounts because we own them. News alert, no one owns an account. Want the audience to hear that. But those tenants

Vince Menzione [00:17:59]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:18:00]:

Right? They don’t work in a partnering world.

Vince Menzione [00:18:03]:

And this is where mindset

Janet Schijns [00:18:04]:

sales world.

Vince Menzione [00:18:05]:

This is where the shift in mindset has

Janet Schijns [00:18:07]:

to happen. Very hard because then and especially my friends in the European markets. Right? They’re they don’t like stories. Americans like stories.

Vince Menzione [00:18:13]:

Or storytellers.

Janet Schijns [00:18:14]:

They want, like, metrics and measurements. And, like, how am I supposed to measure that? And what I say to them is, look. I read your last 10 press releases where you made an announcement mega megacosm. My term, megacosm. Right? Right. Name your megacosm of partners because I do believe it’s gonna be a megacosm. It is.

Vince Menzione [00:18:26]:

Forgot ecosystem,

Janet Schijns [00:18:27]:

it’s gonna be a megacosm. Like, it’s this is where

Vince Menzione [00:18:30]:

we’re going. We went channel sales We’re talking unit

Janet Schijns [00:18:36]:

partnering ecosystem, megacosm. Yeah. So you’re gonna go with a megacosm strategy. And your metrics already are messed up because I took your last 10 press releases, and then I went and talked to your head of sales. And I said, they announced 10 things. Oh, with IBM, we’re doing this. We’re doing this with Microsoft. We’re right? All over the news.

Janet Schijns [00:18:56]:

How many sales did you make? Not very many.

Vince Menzione [00:18:59]:

Goose goose eggs.

Janet Schijns [00:19:00]:

6. Yeah. And so you’ve been doing these press releases. You have been in effect partnering. You haven’t figured out how to commercialize that.

Vince Menzione [00:19:08]:

That’s right. And That’s where the alliance leader, the check the chief revenue officer, the CFO. This is where everybody. So this is that whole influence strategy bringing corralling that whole

Janet Schijns [00:19:18]:

Correct.

Vince Menzione [00:19:18]:

Group together in the right in fact,

Janet Schijns [00:19:20]:

like really wanna see everybody’s eyes roll

Vince Menzione [00:19:22]:

Yep.

Janet Schijns [00:19:22]:

Then you start to talk about, okay. So advocates, who might be your advocates? Who else is there? Who else did you partner with? Some of them are very unnatural. They’re not who you would naturally think. And who are your detractors? And they’re like detractors. What do you mean? So I was just at CCA, Cloud Communication Alliance. Great event, by the way. Yep. I was talking with a group of CEOs and CROs, and I brought this up and they were like detractors.

Janet Schijns [00:19:43]:

What do you mean? And I said, okay. You all do stuff that’s, you know, aiding collaboration and communication. Do you not think the CSO is a detractor for you sometimes or whoever their security consultant is is a detractor for them making progress?

Vince Menzione [00:19:56]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:19:57]:

Oh, yeah. And how about the website guy? Whoever’s running their website in ecommerce, do you not think the website ecommerce provider is not a detractor for your service? You’re saying we could put chat bots in. They have their own approach to it. Your call center application, your c cast application fails.

Vince Menzione [00:20:13]:

Do you

Janet Schijns [00:20:14]:

really think they like you when they just did a web campaign and they’re getting judged on ROI? You have detract natural detractors.

Vince Menzione [00:20:19]:

It’s fascinating.

Janet Schijns [00:20:20]:

So partnering is not just about the positivity.

Vince Menzione [00:20:22]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:20:22]:

Right? It’s also about the negativity and how do you manage the negativity. How do you lower the noise and the friction in the system? And that’s why I think they will be the next CEO because as every company becomes a partnering company, every company starts to learn to manage the megacosm. The person who won, they’re gonna be the most hotly pursued CEO ever.

Vince Menzione [00:20:41]:

I agree. I agree. So, we could riff all day

Janet Schijns [00:20:45]:

on this topic. I

Vince Menzione [00:20:46]:

mean, we can talk about mindset, execution, executive commitment because that’s this all ties into this. There’s a topic we’re gonna talk about together. I’ve been talking about quite a bit. We’ve been talking about the tectonic shifts. What we’ve been seeing at the again, the c CEO becoming the new CIO Yep. And how that’s impacting these cloud decisions. Right? You know, you come out of the telco world. Vodafone just signed a was it a 1,000,000,000 and a half dollar commitment with Microsoft?

Janet Schijns [00:21:13]:

Yes. They did. And I

Vince Menzione [00:21:14]:

know the person who executed it.

Janet Schijns [00:21:15]:

And they’re all doing that.

Vince Menzione [00:21:16]:

They’re all

Janet Schijns [00:21:16]:

doing that. This is all this is happening. Yes.

Vince Menzione [00:21:18]:

It’s happening. So now I’m in the line of business, and I’ve got this huge cloud commitment in a company, and I’m talking to an ISV or a security company or, know, somebody, MS whatever whatever the role is. I wanna I wanna cobble it together. We’re talking about the whole marketplace concept here. Right? And then last year and Jay talked about this in in our conversation. 5 organizations got to a $1,000,000,000 or more with AWS, which made it AWS with the 5th largest distributor.

Janet Schijns [00:21:45]:

I think it did. Yeah. And I think they’re on their way to 4th this year.

Vince Menzione [00:21:48]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that changes July. That changes things.

Janet Schijns [00:21:52]:

You’re nervous if you’re in distribution.

Vince Menzione [00:21:54]:

You are nervous. And and somebody asked me yesterday, I won’t mention the name of the company, but it was somebody asking me for advice from one of the large hyperscalers, was about what what what happens to distribution for us? What do we think about with distribution? So we can go in a lot of different directions here. A lot

Janet Schijns [00:22:08]:

of different directions. And I think

Vince Menzione [00:22:10]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:22:10]:

You know, the key to me with marketplaces is they’re not a panacea. Right? You can’t just say, hey. We’re gonna go on the Amazon Marketplace or the Microsoft market and be done because you’ve got health care companies that have very specific requirements. Yes. You have highly regulated industries like utilities and Telcos. And Telcos. Right? And so I am seeing that not only are the hyperscaler marketplaces coming up, but so are the specialized marketplaces coming up. So you’re starting to see the Cerner’s and McKesson’s and other and health care, right, kind of rising up.

Janet Schijns [00:22:39]:

You see Workday and Salesforce and others. And so I think there’s going to be to go back to our channel experience, almost like a triangle of marketplaces, right, that says, okay. At the top, you’re gonna have your hyperscalers for specific broad based, marketplace, and then you’re gonna have specialized marketplace and then hyper specialized marketplace.

Vince Menzione [00:22:58]:

This ties into your megacosm too if you think about it from that perspective because you have the hyperscalers, and then you have the galaxies and

Janet Schijns [00:23:05]:

the solar system. Exactly. And it kinda comes into this megacosm. And so and instead of being a triangle, it’ll kind of be a big circle. Right? It kind of squeezes together. But what we see is that the folks that are ignoring that trend and we do see it. Right? And Yeah. I’m sure you see it too.

Janet Schijns [00:23:21]:

I do. Hey. That’s not gonna be us. It is

Vince Menzione [00:23:23]:

A lot of the large ISVs still, by the way, because because they don’t wanna disrupt their channels of distribution. They’re just

Janet Schijns [00:23:28]:

distributors that.

Vince Menzione [00:23:29]:

And the 31,000 partners downstream on the long long tail.

Janet Schijns [00:23:33]:

But what I would say is, and I’m gonna say it to the audience, it’s an and strategy. It’s not an or. Yeah. Right? So it’s an and strategy. It’s I have a traditional channel. I have a traditional distribution. Let’s face it. Right? Bread’s just bread without a toaster.

Janet Schijns [00:23:46]:

Can’t be toast. So there’s hardware. There’s gonna be hardware. Right? That that’s just reality.

Vince Menzione [00:23:50]:

Yep.

Janet Schijns [00:23:51]:

But there’s also gonna be marketplaces, and your customers like buying from them. And so we’re seeing more and more, I think, what I saw last week. I think it was from Tackle. It might not might have been somebody else. It was 21% of the deals were being done by a partner.

Vince Menzione [00:24:04]:

Yeah. It could have been. I don’t know if they didn’t see the tack of research.

Janet Schijns [00:24:07]:

And Microsoft is empowering that.

Vince Menzione [00:24:09]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:24:09]:

So we’re gonna see an end strategy here.

Vince Menzione [00:24:12]:

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Vince Menzione [00:25:11]:

So lots of numbers coming out with regards to marketplace. Right? Our our good friend Jay and the Canales organization said 45,000,000,000 by the end of 2025. They said that they’ve under called it. Tackle, who you just mentioned, right, who’s actually gonna be here for our event in here on May 30th, in fact. Little plug for our May 30th event. Dallas. They’re saying a 100,000,000,000 by the end of 2026.

Janet Schijns [00:25:33]:

Yep. I’ve seen that number too.

Vince Menzione [00:25:34]:

So are we in a hype phase? Because I’ve been talking about the marketplace moment, and I’ll I’ll be self inflicted maybe that I’m helping to create some of the hype speaking on stage at the at the channel partners event and some other places about this that everyone needs to get on board. But is it a hype phase?

Janet Schijns [00:25:49]:

There are certainly gonna be winners and losers. Right? So you might pick wrong in a marketplace. You might pick the wrong strategy, but it’s not a hype. It’s just early adopter phase. Right? And and I know for some people listening, they’re like, we’ve been on a marketplace for 5 years. It’s not early adopter. It still is pretty early in the adoption

Vince Menzione [00:26:07]:

early adoption.

Janet Schijns [00:26:08]:

Cycle. And so who’s gonna win and who’s gonna lose? And I think we all can say Microsoft’s definitely gonna win at the hyperscale or Amazon and Google.

Vince Menzione [00:26:14]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:26:15]:

Right? They you know, they they’ve they’ve got so much investment.

Vince Menzione [00:26:18]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:26:18]:

And the other thing that we’re many times failing to realize is that with Gen AI, there’s almost this big bang moment coming where Gen AI uses so much compute power. Quantum computing leaps on top of that, and all of a sudden, the most precious thing in the world to every company becomes power. Yeah. Because you gotta power those data centers for all that compute power. Yep. And so what we’re seeing is Amazon now the number one provider of alternate energy. Yep. Right? Microsoft talking about power.

Vince Menzione [00:26:48]:

They’re they’re putting their data centers near power in your high and dry.

Janet Schijns [00:26:51]:

Seen $1,000,000,000,000,000,000 contracts for power from the hyperscalers happening in the coming years. And what’ll happen is they will eat up the power.

Vince Menzione [00:27:01]:

Yep.

Janet Schijns [00:27:02]:

So even if you’re a specialized marketplace, you will end up in a hyperscaler marketplace just from a consumption of power standpoint because there will be no power left.

Vince Menzione [00:27:13]:

And layer on top of that, like Microsoft last year, $32,000,000,000 in cloud build out.

Janet Schijns [00:27:18]:

Right.

Vince Menzione [00:27:19]:

They’re spending each of the hyperscalers is spending an inordinate amount of their investment dollars on chips right now.

Janet Schijns [00:27:25]:

That’s right.

Vince Menzione [00:27:25]:

They’re buying Nvidia stock is where it is.

Janet Schijns [00:27:27]:

Right. They’re buying up processing capacity. Yeah. Achilles’ heel is power, so they’re buying up power. 2nd Achilles’ heel is chips. Right? Because we saw what happened during COVID.

Vince Menzione [00:27:37]:

Absolutely.

Janet Schijns [00:27:37]:

Got Intel building a monolithic chip manufacturer in Ohio that will still only do about 2 or 3% of the chips that are needed. Yeah.

Vince Menzione [00:27:44]:

And we need a lot more chip capacity here in the United States. What what’s happening in the in China and and Taiwan right now is still

Janet Schijns [00:27:52]:

Still very

Vince Menzione [00:27:53]:

far

Janet Schijns [00:27:53]:

with peril. Right? And so I think you’re gonna see a world where it’s not always the best solution that wins. It’s often the person that dealt with risk best. And in fact, when we go in and do our market action planning practice, shameless plug, it’s a great program. Our market action planning actually starts with failure first.

Vince Menzione [00:28:12]:

Failure first.

Janet Schijns [00:28:12]:

So what would be the things that would make you fail? How would you fail? How would your biggest competitor kill you? What would happen? What and, by the way, it’s a depressing structure. It’s a I’m not saying it’s not By

Vince Menzione [00:28:22]:

the way, the military organizations go through this strategy exercise. Right?

Janet Schijns [00:28:26]:

Fail first.

Vince Menzione [00:28:27]:

Fail fast. Right?

Janet Schijns [00:28:28]:

So so we do fail first, and it opens up. You watch the aperture and people’s brains open up around partnering particularly. Right? And in the marketplace world

Vince Menzione [00:28:39]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:28:40]:

Around how they’re gonna handle partnering in a marketplace driven customer self serve world, and they start to realize that their failure points are very different than their failure points would have been for channel sales.

Vince Menzione [00:28:52]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:28:53]:

Right? Channel sales was, oh, there’s another vendor comes in. The partner likes their program better. They pay more. Right? Those were the failure conversations. Now the failure conversations are somebody inks an exclusive partnership with somebody else, and we don’t have access anymore.

Vince Menzione [00:29:05]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:29:06]:

And our customers turn because all their money unless, remember, that’s how the marketplace works.

Vince Menzione [00:29:10]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:29:11]:

CIO puts money into it.

Vince Menzione [00:29:13]:

A cloud payment.

Janet Schijns [00:29:14]:

A commitment, credits, whatever that specific marketplace calls it, and you then get forced into that funnel.

Vince Menzione [00:29:21]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:29:21]:

And so when we do our failure planning, a lot of times, that’s how marketplaces then becomes in their plan. So when we do the optimistic planning and by the way, for everybody listening, you race to a crisis, you walk to an opportunity. It’s human nature. So when we talk about opportunity, it’s always how do we grow 30%, how do we grow a 100%, how do we right? What how do we do this? You start talking about failure, all of a sudden it’s, oh, shoot. Yeah. And all of a sudden What’s

Vince Menzione [00:29:46]:

our contingency planning? Plan again. Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:29:47]:

So during the optimistic portion, marketplace was down low in the top ten for a lot of the boards and CEOs. When you start talking failure avoidance, marketplaces pops up

Vince Menzione [00:29:57]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:29:58]:

Way up into the top 5, top 3, top 2 for Menyorg.

Vince Menzione [00:30:01]:

And this makes the alliance leader more relevant to the conversation more relevant. Because they’ve had the relationships with the Microsoft, Amazon, Synodos.

Janet Schijns [00:30:09]:

Tentacles in there. They know where to knock on what doors.

Vince Menzione [00:30:12]:

And then the conversation about placing your bets across all 3. Correct. On all 3 sets of rails.

Janet Schijns [00:30:18]:

Correct. And then we start having the conversation about how do you operate. How what’s your operating model in that? That’s right. Right?

Vince Menzione [00:30:24]:

That’s the piece where I feel that most ISVs at least struggle.

Janet Schijns [00:30:28]:

Struggle. And the first thing I always tell an HR loves me for this one. First thing I always tell them is you gotta get away from thinking of your operating model like an org chart.

Vince Menzione [00:30:36]:

Yep.

Janet Schijns [00:30:37]:

I want you to think of it like a deck of cards. Mhmm. And you can play any number of games with a deck of cards. Right? You can play Rummy. You can play hard.

Vince Menzione [00:30:45]:

Thought about that Harry.

Janet Schijns [00:30:46]:

You can play whatever you want. Yeah. Right? Yeah. But it’s a deck of cards. And in the deck of cards, you gotta have kings and queens and aces and right. But you can play a different game with that. So it’s less about organization structure and more about the plays you’re trying to make

Vince Menzione [00:31:01]:

I love

Janet Schijns [00:31:02]:

it. That deck of cards. Right. And it really changes how people start thinking because they’re like, oh, that changes who my aces are. Right? That changes who your this partnering strategy changes who you today, your aces are CEO, CFO, CSO, CIO, CMO. Right? You got your aces. Right?

Vince Menzione [00:31:18]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:31:19]:

But they’re not your ACEs anymore. So now how do you manage in an org chart when your ACE is the alliance manager who’s been there for 20 years and knows where everybody is buried at the biggest hyperscaler? So that’s the it’s really becoming an interesting full bodied conversation around operating model when we do our market action planning days.

Vince Menzione [00:31:40]:

Do you wind up with a new org?

Janet Schijns [00:31:42]:

Yeah. You wind up with a new org Yeah. Or at least a shadow org strategy. Because operating model and that’s where I love everyone, but that’s where a lot of companies start with org model Yeah. And then they try to push operating model into it. Just start in the market action planning to start with

Vince Menzione [00:31:57]:

It’s like stuffing operating model. Stuffing people or or process into it.

Janet Schijns [00:32:01]:

Right. And so I’ve you know, I I think that that world of partnering is gonna get away from that command and control finally in corporate. Yeah.

Vince Menzione [00:32:09]:

We are almost at the midpoint of 2024 already. I can’t believe it. Like, it was just New Year’s Eve here.

Janet Schijns [00:32:15]:

Like that. And Florida wish you happy New Year 7 seconds ago.

Vince Menzione [00:32:17]:

Exactly. Exactly. How should we each prepare? What should we be doing differently going into the second half of this year? What what what great advice or strategy,

Janet Schijns [00:32:28]:

that you can great question. We had a silent recession in 23.

Vince Menzione [00:32:32]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:32:33]:

I’m talking to you. Right? You all know it’s true. We just didn’t talk about it in the

Vince Menzione [00:32:37]:

Economic headwinds. 470,000 people laid off last year. Right?

Janet Schijns [00:32:41]:

Right. And we’re, I think, in you know, if you watch, layoffs. Io, I think we’re over a 100,000 already this year in the tech space and

Vince Menzione [00:32:49]:

the start of the space. Not over.

Janet Schijns [00:32:50]:

It’s not over. No. In fact, the big ones are just starting. Right? Tesla yesterday. Right? So I think the economic uncertainty continues at least through 25. I don’t care what the pundits say. Right? You’ll at least you’re gonna see a pop because of the election.

Vince Menzione [00:33:03]:

Yep.

Janet Schijns [00:33:03]:

Get ready. If you need to get a mortgage, get ready. Yep. Because you’ll have a little window right before November where things will come down.

Vince Menzione [00:33:10]:

Insurance. Right? The interest rates will come down again.

Janet Schijns [00:33:12]:

Right. So just personal advice. Get ready.

Vince Menzione [00:33:14]:

Refinance if you’re ready to do that too.

Janet Schijns [00:33:16]:

High rate time, right about October. On top of that, we’re gonna see tech continue to grow.

Vince Menzione [00:33:25]:

Yes.

Janet Schijns [00:33:25]:

It’s just where it’s growing and where it’s declining. Right? We’re gonna see generative AI really swap out, finance teams, core repetitive task teams, contact centers. So we’re gonna hear these big numbers, 30% laid off, 25% laid off. Right? But it’s gonna be in those routine tasks, easy to replace with a machine area.

Vince Menzione [00:33:46]:

Yes.

Janet Schijns [00:33:47]:

And any partner who’s not involved in generative AI, not using generative AI as an understand it, will be making a huge mistake.

Vince Menzione [00:33:54]:

Huge mistake.

Janet Schijns [00:33:54]:

Basically signing their termination papers.

Vince Menzione [00:33:56]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:33:57]:

We’re gonna see marketplaces continue to rise. The biggest reason is because it lets you compare and contrast offers

Vince Menzione [00:34:02]:

That’s right.

Janet Schijns [00:34:03]:

And manage costs.

Vince Menzione [00:34:04]:

Manage costs.

Janet Schijns [00:34:05]:

And in the current financial environment

Vince Menzione [00:34:06]:

Streamlines the process. Streamlines the

Janet Schijns [00:34:08]:

process, manage cost is a good thing. Yep. The third thing we’re gonna see and we continue to see, marketing is leading the way in sales. Yeah. The firms that get it, and we just finished a a study on this. The top growth firms in our industry invested more in marketing and got more leads from marketing than the bottom growth companies who were still trying to push the sales mantle. Right? Hire more salespeople. Hire more salespeople.

Janet Schijns [00:34:30]:

This is a failing play.

Vince Menzione [00:34:32]:

It is a failing play.

Janet Schijns [00:34:33]:

You could, in fact, and we have the data to prove it, let go of half of your sales team. Spend half of that money so you’re still saving money on marketing and double your sales.

Vince Menzione [00:34:43]:

Absolutely.

Janet Schijns [00:34:43]:

This is the world we’re moving into. Right? Self serve world where people learn on their own, and marketing is who helps us.

Vince Menzione [00:34:49]:

So we’re

Janet Schijns [00:34:50]:

gonna see this huge pump in marketing. And then we’re going to begin to see the pushback on partnering.

Vince Menzione [00:34:54]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:34:55]:

Interesting. Before you push through any innovation

Vince Menzione [00:34:58]:

You’re gonna get the resistance.

Janet Schijns [00:34:59]:

You get the resistance. Right? That’s how you know you’re there.

Vince Menzione [00:35:01]:

Yeah.

Janet Schijns [00:35:02]:

Right? A little like, when there’s no resistance, you’re not there yet. We’re gonna see I think it’s gonna be early for

Vince Menzione [00:35:07]:

We’re birthing. We’re birthing. Birthing.

Janet Schijns [00:35:09]:

End of 24, beginning of 25, you’re gonna see some massive pushback on partnering.

Vince Menzione [00:35:14]:

Yep.

Janet Schijns [00:35:15]:

Right? A a little like no. Right? No. And then it’s gonna pump through, and it’s gonna be I

Vince Menzione [00:35:20]:

can’t wait for that day. I can’t wait for that day.

Janet Schijns [00:35:22]:

Crazy. So if you’re not partner enabled, get there.

Vince Menzione [00:35:26]:

Yeah. I love it, Janet. You are so so good to have you here.

Janet Schijns [00:35:29]:

Oh, thank you for having me.

Vince Menzione [00:35:31]:

Well, we’re gonna do this again. Yes. So, we’re gonna get you back here in the studio.

Janet Schijns [00:35:35]:

Would love to be nice

Vince Menzione [00:35:36]:

to have you. Janet Shines. If you don’t know her, you need to know her. The JS Group is it was formerly known. Yes. Our incredible organization.

Janet Schijns [00:35:44]:

Now dot com, if you’d like to see our

Vince Menzione [00:35:46]:

And, an amazing friend. And so so good to have you here.

Janet Schijns [00:35:48]:

So great

Vince Menzione [00:35:48]:

to be

Janet Schijns [00:35:49]:

here with you.

Vince Menzione [00:35:49]:

I love what you’re doing. Thank you

Janet Schijns [00:35:50]:

for everything you’re doing to champion and save the channel.

Vince Menzione [00:35:53]:

Thank you. And you’re a mutual admirer as well. We really appreciate you. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of Ultimate Partner. Hopefully, this episode and all the episodes we’ve recorded are helping you better align your partner strategy to achieve your greatest results. So I wanna ask you something.

Vince Menzione [00:36:11]:

Have you implemented everything you’ve been learning? And are you now achieving the growth and revenue objectives that you hope to achieve? If not, it’s time to take action now. Join ultimate partner experience. We’re building the community I’ve always dreamed about. With UPX, you get access to exclusive industry insights, unparalleled networking opportunities, tons of educational resources, and support from a community that shares your goals. Join us now. Visit our website, the ultimate partner.com, and sign up today.