Tag: partnership

Managing volunteers in startup projects

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Involving volunteers is a winning strategy for a startup. But a big question arises – what are specific management and motivation activities for volunteers’.

First, the basic recommendation is that you manage volunteers as employees. If a volunteer takes responsibility for a project (its part) she or he is responsible

Second, motivate with giving transparent perspective of the project and potential volunteer’s involvement. It helps a volunteer to align his/her plans with your project. And for startup founders it provides more predictability – if a volunteer goes to leave a project he/she can notify in advance.

Third, agree on schedule in advance, at least a month ahead. For example, a volunteer is ready to be involved 10 hours per week.

15 P2P Tips from a Former IAMCP President

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15 P2P Tips from a Former IAMCP President Per Werngren

Here’s the recipe for a modern approach to P2P:

  1. Make a strategic plan for how to develop your partnership over time. My P2P Maturity Model is a great framework for how to create a structured approach toward successful partnering, and I encourage you to involve your partners in the journey, too. You can achieve some success by just being opportunistic and ad hoc, but long-term success demands a structured approach.
  2. Get full buy-in for P2P from the senior leadership in your practice, business unit or company (depending on your size). I’ve seen a few partnerships end in disaster when people lower in the organization were all on board but the senior leadership did not recognize the importance and failed to fully commit.
  3. Value sales through your partners as equal to sales generated directly. Your salespeople should get the same level of compensation for deals through partnerships as for deals done direct. Compensation drives behavior.
  4. Focus on what you are truly great at and ditch all efforts to sell and deliver in areas where you cannot honestly claim that you are world-class. Get rid of everything that is non-core and either let people go, or re-assign them so that they become part of your core focus. Perhaps you can sell your non-core practice areas to another Microsoft partner; that way you ensure that your redundant staff get a new and more suitable employer. Today’s environment is highly competitive, and you cannot afford to spend time and money on solutions where you don’t stand out as a leading player. Here’s an opportunity to be bold and make the right bets on what is core and let fellow partners help you with non-core needs.
  5. Forge partnerships with companies that can help you in the areas where your customers need help but that are outside your own scope. You should invest time in mapping your needs and create a longer list of potential partners that you then narrow down to a shorter list.
  6. Forge partnerships with companies that can help you sell and deliver in geographies where you are not present. This is less risky and costly than opening branch offices or subsidiaries yourself. And again, spend the time needed to map your needs and identify what you can bring to the table.
  7. Make your partners an integral part of your operation and build trust by being totally transparent under a formal non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
  8. Ensure that everyone in the partnership feels that the relationship is financially successful. If you sell each other’s billable hours and services, the margin should be the same for both; nobody should get a better deal. Make sure that you’re working with decent margins for all parties.
  9. Assign ownership. Someone in your organization needs to be responsible for nurturing and developing your partnerships.
  10. When things go bad, invest in resolving it in a way that makes the customer and your partners willing to continue working with you. Together with your partners, analyze what you can improve to avoid future problems. Long-term partnerships are the most profitable. By being willing to learn from problems, you can deepen your relations with other partners.
  11. Be proud of your partnerships and publish them on your Web site. CIOs love when specialized companies demonstrate willingness to work together, and this will help you win customers.
  12. Be generous and don’t always strive to maximize profits. Instead, ensure that both parties are happy in the long run.
  13. Be faithful and don’t sideline your partners or reduce their abilities to earn money within the relationship. I’ve seen multiyear engagements where one party felt that the company that made the sale is getting too much money from Year 2 and wants to cut the margin to zero. This is a bulletproof way to end a partnership as it demotivates building a business together.
  14. Evaluate your partnerships on a yearly basis and retire relationships that do not work or where you see little strategic value. The portfolio of partnerships needs constant nurturing and sometimes you need to make changes. Those changes are less painful and dramatic when you’re annually evaluating how your partnerships align with your business goals.
  15. Capture your partnership arrangement on paper. This doesn’t need to be complex, but you should document how you’re working together and what the expectations are on both sides. And please review it together with your partners at least once a year.

Good luck, and please reach out to me and share your stories!

Posted by Per Werngren on December 21, 2020 at 7:21 AM

(c) Per Werngren, https://rcpmag.com/blogs/guest-blog/2020/12/15-p2p-tips-from-iamcp-president.aspx

Microsoft Partner of the year campaign starts for FY 2021

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IAMCP members and Microsoft partners can start upload their applications for the prestigious Partner of the Year award in the following categories:

  • Azure awards for partners leading with cloud native app development, migrations, and rising technology.
  • Business Applications has three new Dynamics 365 awards to celebrate partner organizations that have excelled with commerce, customer insights, or marketing.
  • Modern Work & Security awards recognizing achievements related to small and medium business customers (SMB), original equipment manufacturers (OEM), device and OEM distributors/resellers.
  • Awards in our Industry category which recognize a partner organization that excels at providing innovative solutions and services based on Microsoft platforms and technologies to non-profit and defense and intelligence customers.
  • A new Social Impact category that encompasses community response, inclusion, and sustainability and a new award under this category for sustainability changemakers.

Webinar: Scale your Office 365 customers and profits

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Join us on Thursday, December 5th at 10 am PST/1 pm EST to learn how Microsoft Partners are using Nimble, The Simple Smart CRM for Office 365, recommended by Microsoft, to scale their Office 365 customers and profits!

Jon Rivers, Per Werngren, Rosalyn Arntzen, and Jon Ferrara will discuss how you can digitally transform your practice and modernize your go-to-market sales and marketing strategy using Nimble CRM + Office 365!

Save your spot now!: https://buff.ly/35kODZy

Submit for IAMCP 2019 P2P Awards

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Dear members of the IAMCP community,
As the deadline gets closer, I wanted to kindly remind you to submit your partnership stories for the IAMCP 2019 P2P Awards by June 14th.
We are recognizing partners across all 3 regions: Americas, EMEA, and APAC with Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards.
Submit with 3 simple questions here: https://iamcpinspire.org/iamcp-partner-awards/
And like every year, the awards ceremony will take place at Inspire, providing you with the perfect opportunity to showcase how your organisation innovates through partnership. Note that you don’t have to be present at the conference to win.
If you are not quite sure if your partnership story qualifies, you can read our short blog post to get an idea: “5 ways of partnering that you may not have thought about as partnering”.
In addition, you can read about last year’s winners, Wintellect and Airnet Group: “A Smart Partnership for a Smart City”.
It’s easy to enter your submission – 3 simple questions to answer!

 

IAMCP EMEA Partner Event. May 20-22, Madrid

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IAMCP EMEA Board and IAMCP Spain chapter invite IAMCP members and potential members to join face-to-face event.

Leit Motiv: Artificial Intelligence

This event will bring you the following:

  • A deep understanding of the Microsoft strategy and its execution via partners
  • A hands-on framework for understanding and applying Artificial Intelligence in your business
  • A great opportunity for cross EMEA partner to partner (P2P) networking with plenty of informal and formal opportunities for networking.
Register at the event official website till May 10th.

Microsoft Teams brief overview

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Microsoft Teams becomes very popular as a part of the Office 365 and main Slack competitor. The Teams is the powerful tool to organize different types of teams:

  • workgroups,
  • project/product teams,
  • games and sports teams,
  • student classes,
  • hobby or other type communities.

Teams contains the following options:

  • create and manage teams or study groups
  • chats, including file exchange, audio and video calls directly from the chat
  • create and manage meetings
  • record audio and video both in p2p meetings and conference calls
  • share and record selected applications and screens
  • recordings are stored in the Stream service and can be shared or downloaded later
  • close integration with Sharepoint and onedrive services