Nearbound Daily #551: Why Workday Is Expanding Its Partner Ecosystem
According to Roman Kirsanov, Workday, a leading SaaS company with $7.3Bn in annual revenue and $21 billion in revenue backlog, made partner transformation its top 5 strategic priority.
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PRINCIPLES
Another ’show me you know me’ opportunity
Partnerships = mutual value.
But it doesn’t have to be the exact same value.
Lean into your strengths and get on the same page early on.
Take the example of partner marketing. If one of your teams is great at paid social and the other is great at the back-end set-up, divvy up your responsibilities accordingly.
You both bring certain strengths to the table so make sure your partnership deals reflect that.
It shows that you know your partner when you build the partnership deal around their strengths.
TACTICS
How to build your customer journey map
Effectively building your customer journey map is actually more simple than you think.
Nelson Wang explained that one of the most important parts of this building process is focusing on the customer and understanding their journey.
Here are three important ways to do that:
- Interview your top customers and hear it directly from them.
Hearing the language they use is important. You can learn from it, adopt it, and use it to give you credibility.
Saying “I’ve met with 50 of our top customers and learned...” goes a really long way!
- Interview your internal cross-functional teams.
This will help validate what you learn in your customer interviews and also give you insightful viewpoints from different roles.
- Interview the companies your customers are already working with.
You’ll hear firsthand how they are helping and what the business impact is.
To make this process easier for you, in partnership with nearbound.com, Nelson made a free template with 3 major partner types in mind (Resellers, Solution Partners / Services Partners and ISVs / Technology partners) that maps to the customer journey.
Read more and get the template here.
TRENDS
Why Workday is expanding its partner ecosystem
According to Roman Kirsanov, Workday, a leading SaaS company with $7.3Bn in annual revenue and $21 billion in revenue backlog, made partner transformation its top 5 strategic priority.
“Previously the company’s ecosystem playbook was centered on collaborating with 19.5K service consultants who deliver Workday products to customers. Now the company emphasizes a joint go-to-market and co-selling with partners, including hyperscalers like AWS.”—Roman Kirsanov
Why?
In 2023 they recognized the untapped potential in joint GTM strategies with partners and in FY’24 they saw partners as one of the main drivers of their progress, and they wanted to continue capitalizing on this partner momentum.
“We are absolutely looking to expand the partner ecosystem, and not just for partner sake, but also for go-to-market operating leverage. And that’ll take a while for us to get right, it’ll take a while for us to get, you know, uh, the momentum we want to augment what we’re doing in our direct side.” —Carl Eschenbach (CEO at Workday)
Here’s how they’re transforming their strategy:
- Leveraging GTM partners for growth
- Deepening Collaborations to drive sales and innovation
- Exceeding partner program goals
Read the full story here.
MEME OF THE DAY
Partner hunt > egg hunt
UPCOMING EVENTS
Stuff you don’t want to miss!
- April 3rd—What Exactly is Partner Experience?—Join Greg Portnoy (CEO of Euler) and Scott Pollack (CEO at Firneo) where they will dive into the essence and significance of partner experience in the evolving world of partnerships. Register here.
- Nearbound Summit 2023 Recordings—The future of GTM is Nearbound. Watch the recordings to hear how B2B leaders across departments unite with Nearbound strategies and tactics. Listen here.
You’re all caught up.
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See you tomorrow
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