FINAL WORD
Challenging partners to
build better businesses
W
hen I joined Epicor in February
2016 as Senior Director
responsible for growing our
international channel, my number one
priority was to review the entire partner
landscape; everything from our partner
programme and the geographical and
vertical partner mix, to the partners
themselves. The goal was to widen our
geographical reach and vertical expertise,
deliver best-in-class customer service
and ensure the highest levels of customer
satisfaction by establishing a strong channel.
In March 2016, we surveyed our
entire international channel network and
the results were eye-opening. It was clear
there was a gap in the relationship we
shared with our partners and how we did
business with them.
One finding in particular stood out for
me. The old programme, with its reward
structure tied solely to revenue, meant
that a partner could achieve the highest
status level by virtue of a single multi-
million-dollar deal.
This favoured larger partners over
some of our smaller partners, which often
had specialisations like specific vertical
experiences, technical capabilities or
professional services that could benefit
the customer but didn’t have the ability
to achieve a higher status level just
because of their size. As a result, many
of these smaller partners, with excellent
capabilities and specialisations, felt
sidelined by both us and the customers.
This was our eureka moment. These
smaller partners brought significant value
Hesham El Komy, Senior Director, International
Channels at Epicor Software.
to the table by allowing us to capitalise
on their specialisations, but they were not
getting rewarded for it, which led to the
decision to revamp the programme. Our
goal was to craft a partner programme that
rewarded and incentivised partners for the
‘value’ they brought to the relationship,
irrespective of size and brand.
When we set about the task of drawing
up the new programme, we looked at
all major vendors’ partner programmes
and, barring a few minor variances,
the programmes were essentially the
same: they had three partner tiers,
with tier status tied solely to licence/
subscription revenue. As such, there was
no incentive for partners to grow their
business in other ways, for example, by
adding certified technical salespeople or
marketing resources.
Our programme is very exciting and
innovative; its core purpose is to challenge
our partners to build better businesses.
All partners know how to sell but this is
just one aspect of running a robust and
profitable business. We want our partners
to build out their business to include
marketing, technical resources, sales
support network, technical support and
even product and module development.
We essentially want our partners to be an
extension of Epicor and mirror what we do.
Under the new programme, we reward
our partners based on the ‘value’ they
add to our ecosystem. They are rewarded
for doing what they do well but, just as
importantly, they‘re incentivised for
making improvements in areas of their
business where they may be less proficient.
To keep things simple, the Epicor
Business Partner Programme does not
have a lot of complicated tiers or processes
based on the type of business the partner
is in. It doesn’t matter how the partner
defines its business; it can be a reseller,
system integrator, cloud aggregator,
cloud reseller, hosting partner or certified
application vendor, there is only one path
of engagement; one reward structure
that’s based on an individual partner’s
commitment to Epicor’s business, and
one final margin amount reachable by
all. The path begins at referrer/influencer
and progresses to authorised partner and
certified partner.
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