Partner Management

Partner companies (in short: partners) are and have always been a key part of VSHN’s success. With this domain, we want to strengthen and improve partner management for the future and make it clear for everyone involved who is doing what and what’s expected by partner management.

There are partner companies with whom we do a substantial amount of business or see a high potential growth in the future. It can be that we’re reselling their software, platform or infrastructure or that we even create a combined offer and sell it together.

The tasks and goals of partner management is to know what’s going on at the partner company and to grow the relationship and business done together. This includes knowing the key people & stakeholder, knowing the strategy & market(s) the partner operates and what benefits we can deliver to the partner (or in short: why are we working together).

Partner management also drives initiatives such as sales & marketing campaigns, knows the contractual situation and certification status as well as knowing the reporting / license / subscription situation (if there is any).

On a more task or operational level, sales & marketing roles will or can be distributed by VSHNeers who are working with the partner company.

A Partner Manager has the overall overview of all things partners.

Core tasks

Strategic

  • High level overview

  • Regular business and strategy planning

  • Get marketing & sales budget

  • Keep in regular contact

  • Know all the important contacts

  • Good understanding of VSHN products which includes the partner

  • Track VSHNeers certifications for partner status

  • Track risks of suppliers or partners in accordance with "Sicherheitsrichtlinie für Lieferanten"

Sales

  • Joint deals

  • Contact lists

  • Opportunities

  • Dealregs

  • Roadshows

  • Sales initiatives

Marketing

  • Events (joint meetups)

  • Campaigns

  • Webinars

  • Combined marketing collateral such as fact sheets

  • Make sure brand guidelines are met

  • PR: make sure partners' PR guidelines are met

Operational

  • Attend / organize recurring sync meetings (weekly/fortnightly/monthly) and inform team on any important topics

  • Make sure VSHNeers get certified / accredited by partner in order to achieve / maintain partner level status

  • Plan quarterly sales & marketing initiatives together with partner

  • Create, issue and track marketing / sales funds within the partner’s tool

  • Create, issue and track VSHN invoices for marketing / sales funds and make sure they get paid

  • Reporting: (monthly) reporting of licenses / subscriptions used and making sure VSHN accounting is aware of any (bigger) upcoming invoices

  • Knowing partners' pricing / reporting details and / or discount possibilities (for example purchasing yearly subscriptions instead of monthly)

  • Contractual situation

  • For bigger partners: organize (quarterly) get together that the teams actually know each other

Constraints

Evaluation Criteria

  • Business partnerships are well maintained

  • New partners can be easily onboarded

  • We make the best out of partnerships

Types of Partners

VSHN has several types of partners, they’re defined here:

Consultant & Reseller

We help each other generate more business. Can also be a "competitor" who needs our help for a specific project. A consultant or reseller brings business to VSHN and gets a kickback. We might work with a consultant on bigger projects or public tenders.

CSP (Cloud Service Provider)

Cloud Service Provider (CSP) or infrastructure provider is selling VSHN services to their customers or we buy infrastructure and sell it to our partners (or combined offer).

Software Vendor

VSHN is selling 3rd party software to VSHN customers. We might need to get certifications to be able to resell / work with them.

Distributor

Intermediary between (software) vendor and us. Often creates offers on behalf of vendor, handles licensing and supports in marketing & lead generation.

Customer

We call our customers partners. We deliver a service and get some money in return. Most important for us. They’re not in scope of this Domain.

This domain is tracked and reviewed as VIP-115