Channels of the Future Discussing Web 2.0 impact to the value chain
If you are not already active in the various spaces, you may find it interesting to follow: MIke Dubrall on LinkedIn @MikeDubrall on Twitter Channels of the Future Group on LinkedIn
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Michael Dubrall Managing Director Gilwell Group, LLC
Gilwell Group provides research, consulting, and enablement services to help organizations measure, manage, and improve partnership productivity through the use and understanding of next generation products and tools.
“Channels of the Future� Community for Partner Managers www.Gilwellgroup.xeequa.com
MIke Dubrall on LinkedIn @MikeDubrall on Twitter Channels of the Future Group
Channels of the Future Research Service (Vendor and Reseller surveys) Channels of the Future Consulting (Community Development) Social Media Education for Vendors and Channel Partners 2
Today’s Agenda • Traditional Framework for Channel Growth (KPAs) • Social Media Chaos – So Many Sites, So Little Time • How Resellers Are Using Social Media • Site By Site Discussion of Partnering Usage
• On-line Communities • Changing Sales Process • Next Generation Partnering Strategies
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Traditional Channel Growth Framework
Partner Execution
Infrastructure
Objectives
Communications
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Forces Battering the Framework • • • •
Social Media (Web 2.0) SaaS (HaaS, Open Source) Economic Downturn Maturation of the Industry and the Channel
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Earlier today I was once again asked to wrap a neat definition around social media. It seems increasingly hard to do this without sounding like a bit of a tool. Chris Lake on eConsultancy
Social Networking is as old as civilization. It involves the sharing of information among friends/acquaintances to socialize, discuss topics of interest, reduce risks, and make more informed decisions. Social Media is how the internet has changed social networking. It includes the use of Web 2.0 tools like blogs, wikis, video file sharing, and social networking sites like Facebook to expand the reach of social networking and more effectively capture and share relevant information. (Matt Goddard, R2i.ntegrated.com) On-line Communities combine many social media capabilities in one secure place to facilitate communications, collaboration, and networking for social, educational, or business purposes “Social Media is the collection of tools and online spaces available to help individuals and businesses to accelerate their information and communication needs.� - Axel Schultze 6
Technology vendors must All adapt theirOfchannel programs Social Media Impacts Levels The Value Chain in response to the availability of Web 2.0 tools/technologies. Vendor (strategic benefits) - Continuing access to the installed base - A new leverage point with channels - Partner empowerment - Brand distribution
Social Media Value Pyramid
Channel Partners (financial benefits) - Additional service to customers at no cost - Growth through customer advocacy - Members help reduces support cost - Creating a competitive advantage
Customers (direct benefits) - Expanding their network connections - More help in problem solving - Faster skill development - Increased visibility and recognition
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On a 1-10 scale, how active are you personally on the following social media sites?
IT vendor employees are more active on-line. (Partners were asked this same question in a monthly survey.)
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Crossing Over Into Business The speed of acceptance for social media is staggering. 400 M social media users 75% of adults now use Social Media to connect with each other. Forrester
Awareness Magazine, 9/08
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Some of the largest sites today • • • • • • • • • • •
Bebo 40,000,000 Classmates.com 50,000,000 Facebook 175,000,000 Friendster 90,000,000 Hi5 80,000,000 LinkedIn 35,000,000 Orkut 67,000,000 Reunion.com 51,000,000 Tagged.com 70,000,000 Windows Live Spaces 120,000,000 MySpace 253,145,404
Approximately 30% of the one Billion Internet users are now part of a social network. In five years - 400+ million users of social media.
This happened with - zero advertising - zero sales - zero cold calls
YouTube has 500,000 sites linking to it Source: Alexa.com 10
Entire Ecosystems have developed around the most popular sites Twitterholic.com CNN has almost 1,000,000 followers
pwytter
50 Great Widgets For Your Blog 40+ Tools For Google Calendar SKYPE TOOLBOX: 50+ Enhancements for Skype GMAIL TOOLBOX: 60+ Tools For Gmail 11
Some Things to Consider • Virtually all large technology vendors have a formal social media initiative (not with channels) – Plus dozens of informal projects scattered across the company – Partner Sales Managers are increasingly spending their time on social media activities – Partners increasingly concerned about how vendors communicate with them and their customers
• Already there are leaders and followers among vendors and social media activities – There are a lot of thought leaders on Twitter – This impacts branding and positioning – This impacts your ability to influence channel behavior
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What Resellers Are Doing (Or Should be Doing) On-line • • • • • • •
Finding New Customers Improving Proposal Close Rates Shortening Sales Cycles Training Employees and Customers Recruiting Employees Improving Customer Satisfaction Building Partnerships with other Resellers
• Advertising, Public Relations, building brands, disseminating information, filling webinars, and more
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Social Media Sites Where Resellers Congregate Tactical Sites SlideShare – Flickr Issuu – Schribd Podcast – Podcastalley Meetups
Dual Presence Sites MySpace Facebook
Experimental Sites Twitter Digg/Delicious
Training/Communication Sites YouTube – Yahoo Video SlideShare Blogs
Networking sites Meetups LinkedIn - Plaxo Branded On-line Communities Google / Yahoo Groups 14
Meetups 964 in Santa Clara
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SlideShare
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SlideShare
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Flicker Posting photos for tech support and on-line use
EMC = 18,639 on Flickr
Hewlett Packard = 43,507
Microsoft = 211,098
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Scribd - Posting documents for on-line use
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Podcast (Podcastalley) Posting podcasts for easier access
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Dual Presence Sites
Facebook MySpace
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Personal Branding on Facebook
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MySpace
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Experimental Communication Sites
Digg Delicious Twitter 27
Digg/Delicious • Explanation and example of Reseller Use
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Twitter The world’s biggest communication chain
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Sites Used for Training/Knowledge Transfer
Yahoo Video YouTube 37
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YouTube
Videos, Channels, Playlists IBM – almost 10,000 videos
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Sites Used for Networking - Sales
LinkedIn Yahoo Groups Google Groups Branded Communities 42
LinkedIn Prospecting 153 results for Dow Chemical, Vice President Sales 115 results for John Deere, Vice President Sales
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LinkedIn Groups 44,356 results for microsoft partner
14,667 results for Cisco partner
48,488 results for channel partner
3,844 results for value added reseller 44
LinkedIn Research
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Google/Yahoo Groups
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Branded On-line Communities Bring it all Together • Reduce Support Costs – – – –
Source: Lithium Solutions
Direct/Indirect Support Call deflection Faster issue resolution and fewer escalations Elimination of alternative support channels Lower-cost support for multilingual customers, spike handling
• Drive Marketing & Sales – – –
Enhanced SEO and Word of Mouth Promotion Reduced cost of acquiring prospect/customer information Increased close rate and higher average order size
• Accelerate Innovation – – – –
Decrease costs of gathering customer feedback More efficient product and service launches Better targeting of products and services Faster Issue identification and resolution 47
Branded On-line Community Systems
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Tying Branded Communities Together Getting content directly to the existing installed base
Master Consol Distributing smart, non advertisial content such as blog posts, events, white papers, news, video clips to hundreds or thousands of partner community systems.
Like AdWords for “smart content� With a distribution system that is transparent and Channel aware Partner communities Allow selected vendors to syndicate content with their customer community.
Reseller A
Customer Base
Reseller B
Reseller C
Customer Base
Reseller D
Customer Base
......
Reseller N
Customer Base
Customer Base
Value of Programs to Resellers Reseller Rating of Vendor Program Offerings Resellers were asked to rate the programs provided by their vendors, in terms of how well the program helped the reseller sell to customers. Growing resellers rated all programs higher than nongrowing resellers. (Cum JanMarch 09)
Partner Portal
3.01
On-line training
2.92
Webinars / web meetings
2.91
Joint Business Planning
2.73
Mass emails with file attachments
2.61
On-line forums
2.57
Electronic Newsletters
2.21 1=Negative impact on our ability to sell 2=No impact on our ability to sell 3= Modestly improves our ability to sell 4=Significantly improves our ability to sell
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Channels of the Future Research
Personal Activities – Reseller Employees LinkedIn MySpace/Facebook Industry Blogs YouTube Twitter Second Life
4.38 3.61 3.59 2.76 2.40 1.41
participation in the following kinds of Web 2.0 sites, where 1 is no participation and 10 means you visit daily 51
Reseller Social Media Skills Growing Resellers
4.18
How would you describe your MySpace company’s revenue growth over the and Facebook past 24 months?
Non Growing Resellers
3.20
5.36
4.07
Linkedin and Plaxo
Blogs
3.63
2.98
2.96
1.25
Video on Demand Second Life (VOD) like YouTube
2.39
1.10
2.93 Twitter
1.90
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Channels of the Future Research
Reseller Needs from Vendors On-Line Product Demos E-marketing/Storefronts Internet Advertising Help with SoMe On-Line Communities Testimonials on YouTube
6.75 6.50 6.03 5.03 5.00 4.41
Rate your interest in having your vendors provide the following social media tools to make you and your company more successful, where 1 is no interest and 10 is extreme interest. 53
Channel Top Ten 1. On-Line Communities (Branded and Open) 2. LinkedIn 3. Blogs 4. Facebook 5. MySpace 6. YouTube 7. Yahoo Video 8. Twitter 9. Flickr 10.Tactical Sites (SlideShare, Issuu, etc.)
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Regarding Social Media, What’s Holding You (Vendors) Back?
55 © 2009 Gilwell Group, LLC
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Web 2.0
Channels 2.0
• Web 2.0 concepts and tools are transforming the entire value chain – Open and Instant Communications • Isolated silos of information are replaced by content sources and platforms for end users to build on collaboratively
– Freedom & Necessity to Share and Re-use Information – Decentralization of Authority/Decision Making – Many services are low cost or even free
• Changing rules and business models in the channel • Changing the sales process
Non-linear, unstructured, conversational, constantly changing, multi-media, collaborative, low cost
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How end-user customers buy today They rely on the Internet for information – not their sales rep • They do Google searches • They ask friends in their social network • They check forums or online groups or blogs • They get feedback in Twitter or other micro blogs • When they are “ready to buy” the brand and product decision is “far along” • • • • •
They They They They They
hate cold calls increasingly ignore advertising have spam filters and popup blockers throw junk mail into the waste basket have no patience for the traditional sales process
They may not describe it that way – but their purchase decision is increasingly made in the social web. Consumers are becoming Prosumers
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Channel Growth Framework
Partner Execution
Infrastructure
Objectives
Communications
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Channels 1.0
Channels 2.0
What’s Going Out Structured Channels Brand Control Top down communication Complex Solutions Packaged Software Product Brand Power Product “Ownership” Email Blasts/Webinars Web 1.0 Partner Portals Classroom Training Lead Generation
What’s Coming In Go-to-market Strategy
Customer Communities Buzz Days Conversation Clouds
Whole Product
SaaS, HaaS, Open Source Managed Services Globalization Try-and-Buy
Partner Marketing
Partner Communities Social Networking, Suspect Identification, Interactive web sites/wikis, RSS feeds, VOD Training
SMS, Twitter
Responsiveness is critical59
Channels 1.0
Channels 2.0
What’s Going Out Local Partner Territories Named Accounts Telephone Prospecting Knowledge Transfer CRM and SFA Sales Incentives Quarterly Meetings Deal Registration Cold Calling Funnel Management Face-to-face selling
What’s Coming In Territory Management
Boundless Territories Mega Communities Community Prospecting On-line Recruiting
Partner Management
Knowledge Sharing Community Building Community Incentives 24/7 Interaction
Sales Management
Dealing with Prosumers Collaboration Relentless Networking Online Selling
Responsiveness is critical60
When Vendors Don’t Embrace The Future • Excessive channel marketing programs costs – Slower time to market for new programs – Static vs. dynamic knowledge transfer
• Inadequate response time to market changes – Collaboration shackled by bureaucracy – Inability to engage with new partner types – Slower revenue ramp in SMB markets due to limited sales coverage
• Partners and customers cannot take leadership role – Loss of channel influence / leadership – Exclusion from emerging Partner and End-user Communities
• Not present at the purchase decision 61
What Resellers Need to be Doing • Planning for Change – – – –
Upgrading their web sites Finding out where their customers congregate on-line Creating on-line communities for their customers Encouraging their employees to develop and use their online presence for business
“The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise and is not preceded by a period of worry and depression” John Preston - Boston College
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Successful Strategies for Vendors • Vendors need to lead their partners – – – –
End-user customer mapping to social media usage Partner mapping to social media usage Branded community setup - Linking Communities Fund web 2.0 web sites linked with communities
• Individuals/Organizations should embrace Web 2.0 – – – – –
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, SlideShare, or ?? Pick your top five and be disciplined Comment, post, forward, repeat Its not additive – it’s a replacement You won’t get a second chance
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Social Media Map for Partner Managers For each of these social media focal points, understand how many users (partners), how active they are, who are the thought leaders, and how can you connect the activity back to your own community. 100,000 Resellers
Partner Portal & Community
Channel Blogs
400,000,000 Users
Twitter Facebook MySpace
Partnerpedia
3,000 Vendors Gilwell Group
Vendor Partner Communities
Partner Communities SlideShare Flickr Google Groups Yahoo Groups
Industry Blogs Meetups
LinkedIn YouTube 64
Thanks For more information Mike Dubrall http://www.linkedin.com/in/mikedubrall or Channels of the Future Community www.gilwellgroup.xeequa.com
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