How Agility and Governance Are Key to Thriving in the Evolving Partner Ecosystem

Mature alliance partnerships have enabled vendors across the spectrum to collaborate as they realize the value of the ecosystem. Cultural, portfolio and leadership DNA have shaped vendors’ behavior when it comes to go-to-market efforts and partner strategies, which is not surprising given that vendors often lean on what they do best when pursuing opportunities. Go deeper in ecosystem research with our new Voice of the Partner Ecosystem Report. Access the entire report with a free trial of TBR Insight Center™. Sign up today!

GenAI Could Disrupt Existing Relationships If Partners Cannot Demonstrate Agility Backed by Common Governance

State of the Ecosystem Landscape

With new technologies including generative AI (GenAI) influencing vendors’ strategies, we expect new relationships to emerge, whether bidirectional or multidimensional, as vendors realize that positioning themselves as end-to-end providers is a thing of the past. We understand that the buyers will be the ultimate judges of these efforts, but laying the groundwork, backed by robust common governance and accountability, will separate leading and lagging alliances.

 

Overall, vendors across the profiled groups are satisfied with their alliance partners, despite differences in commercial, staffing and client management models. We believe the value of the ecosystem has placed some pressure on vendors to think creatively about ways to monetize opportunities with partners.

 

Thus far, the services vendors have demonstrated greater agility compared to other vendors, such as OEMs, that are often stuck in their traditional ways of doing business. Industry specialization appears to be one area where all vendors agree, and we believe this industry focus provides the connecting tissue between relationships, as clients — direct and joint — are all part of a particular vertical, compelling vendors to either demonstrate value through industry know-how or rely on partners.

Vendor and Partner Expectations

Differences in expectations around what will drive the business in the next two years provide a reality check that vendors’ priorities do not always align with their partners’ views. One can attribute some of this difference to vendors’ place in the traditional technology life cycle.

 

For instance, OEMs try to accelerate the hardware refresh cycle and sell more infrastructure to support growth in newer areas such as 5G and edge, whereas cloud vendors remain focused on spinning the meter to support ongoing cloud initiatives.

 

In contrast, services vendors aim to secure foundational revenues in areas like cloud migration and cybersecurity while gradually paving the way for new growth in data management. Despite the ongoing GenAI hype, all vendors agree that the technology will not be the predominant driving force for most opportunities in the next two years. This sober outlook confirms vendors’ understanding of the complexity of the IT enterprise landscape and the need to demonstrate ROI, underscoring the importance of deeper collaboration.

Cultural and Portfolio Synergy Determine Vendors’ Ability to Partner Well and Maintain Steady Trust Within the Ecosystem

Qualities of a Successful Alliance

Although there were a few instances of unhappy partners in TBR’s survey, overall, IaaS and IT services providers appear to generate the most consistent and satisfactory experiences across the ecosystem, with 79% and 81%, respectively, of partner respondents claiming they are either satisfied or very satisfied working with these vendors.

 

We attribute the high levels of satisfaction to vendors’ ability to work with and sell through the ecosystem using embedded sales and project teams as well as their willingness to take on additional risk to drive business outcomes, using frameworks that resonate with end buyers.

Satisfaction Rankings

OEM, management consulting and Big Four vendors appear to have similar overall satisfaction scores, which we see as an area where these vendor groups could align further in the future. While their business models might not be perfectly aligned — OEMs are rooted in a transactional mindset whereas the other two groups are more business focused — they can complement each other, especially as the OEMs appear to be looking for partners that are better able to orchestrate the ecosystem as well as approach opportunities with the end customer in mind, something the management consulting firms and Big Four vendors could help with.

 

Similarly, SaaS and India-centric vendors have similar overall satisfaction rankings, which we believe can give vendors confidence about collaborating more closely, with the SaaS companies’ engineering background and the India-centric vendors’ fee-for-service approach providing the backbone for deeper collaboration.