Sharon Lee
US ISV and Application Builder partner lead
@whatsup_sharon, LinkedIn, Yammer
If your company is a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, you have access to a powerful asset that can be used for business growth, competitive advantage, and increased profitability.
What is that asset? It’s other partners in the network.
Building and nurturing strategic partnerships should be part of every Microsoft partner’s business plan. Establishing relationships and trust with other members of the Microsoft partner ecosystem will be well worth your investments of time and effort. According to a recent IDC study, building strategic partnerships can result in valuable benefits for your business, like visibility in new geographies and markets, access to customer- and industry-specific expertise, and exposure to IP solutions that can enable an end-to-end customer solution.
The first few calls in our US ISV and App Builder Community call series focused on the value of partner-to-partner relationships, and how to effectively partner strategically. These are excellent overviews of a few different approaches to partnering, and are available on demand:
- David Tillman from Spanning EMC talked about the value of their relationship with Insight. Watch on demand
- Sue Fernand from Cirrus Insight talked about their program for Microsoft Office 365 resellers. Watch on demand
- Diana Kreklow from The Kreklow Group presented the P2P Maturity Model, a framework for effective partnering from the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP) Watch on demand
Recommended reading
- Better together: making partnership work for you
- How MPN is helping you connect with customers: Connecting complementary partners
- Flex those cloud muscles: look for strategic partnerships (Marching Orders 2016, Redmond Channel Partner)
Connect with complementary Microsoft partners
- Leveraging the partner network
- Microsoft Pinpoint
- Microsoft Partner-to-Partner Yammer network
- P2P Maturity Model playbook and training
Plan to attend WPC 2016
- Worldwide Partner Conference is the premier event for Microsoft partners. At this annual business and sales conference, you’ll have the opportunity to expand your professional network and identify new business opportunities. WPC 2016 is in Toronto, Canada from July 10–14. Learn more
In my discussions with some of our most successful partners, the element of working with other partners is always present. If you have a great partnering story, I’d love to hear it. Email me at sharonl@microsoft.com, and connect with me on Twitter (@whatsup_sharon), LinkedIn, and Yammer.
