This New Year, we’re kicking things off with a bang! To celebrate 20 years of ManageEngine, the ManageEngine Global Partner Business Meet taking place January 23-27, 2023 at our headquarters in Chennai, India, will be bigger and better than ever before!
But first, why do organizations choose to collaborate with partners?
The earth is home to 195 countries and 8 billion people, each with their own cultural identity, values, and traditions. Promoting and selling a product to these incredibly diverse groups of people is no easy task.
When dealing with a foreign market, there’s a multitude of variables to consider, a few examples being the prevailing attitudes, tastes, and trends in the target market. Moreover, marketing and sales strategies that work in one country may not work in another. For example, let’s assume a company hasn’t done its research before marketing to a foreign audience. There are three outcomes: they get lucky and the product somehow sells; no one is interested as they aren’t convinced they need the product; and worst of all, the marketing campaign is straight-up offensive.
Moving on to the matter at hand, there are two approaches to doing business internationally: some organizations may choose to operate offices outside the home country that they have total control over, whereas others may choose to collaborate with local third-party firms to do business in the target market. This is known as channel management and is where partners come in.
The need for partners
Surely a multinational company can afford to do business abroad all by itself, so why work with partners?
Cultural resonance
The culture and traditions of a market should always be considered before entering it. We’ve all heard the saying “familiarity breeds contempt,” but this isn’t always true. And if we’re being honest, people generally desire familiarity (at least in a business context), which is something an organization needs to keep in mind when entering a new market. The consumer should be able to relate to the marketing strategy, and who better to provide familiarity than a local firm? Partnering with a local firm that has experience dealing with the conditions and is aware of the norms in the target market can assist in market entry and share growth.
Greater reach
Working with a partner in the target market provides several opportunities for the parent company to expand the reach of all its promotional activities. If the partner firm is well-established, it likely has a fairly large existing customer base, and working with this partner on marketing campaigns is bound to be more effective than going it alone in a foreign country. The more the merrier, right?
Moving on, most multinational corporations have partner programs that describe all the expectations and benefits of such a relationship, and ManageEngine is no exception.
What’s our partner program like?
We have a large network of 220 partners in over 80 countries. What’s more, most of these partners have worked with us for several years and have played a part in helping us ease into new markets where it would have otherwise taken much longer to gain a foothold.
To us, the relationship aspect of a business partnership trumps all else. Yes, you read that right. Everything else, including the monetary impact. Our partner relationships are based on trust and mutual respect. We recognize the work our partners have done establishing themselves in their respective markets, and we’re happy to be working with them on increasing our presence in these markets. Our partners aren’t just sales enablers; they also help us stay connected to our customers, making it easier to provide instant and around-the-clock service.
“Where partner relationships are concerned, all parties involved must be able to rely on each other. Trust is the foundation for any working business relationship, and we can confidently say all our partnerships are built on the pillars of trust, commitment, and good faith, which is a winning combination.” – Promoth Kumar, Vice president, global sales and channel, ManageEngine
We’ve come a long way since our inception 20 years ago. In these two decades, we’ve seen incredible growth and have broken into several new markets, even establishing offices in some of them. And our partners have accompanied us for most of this journey.
A substantial percentage of our partners have worked with us for a long time—we’re talking ten to fifteen years—but why? The answer is knowledge sharing and an aligning vision:
As an OEM, we’re more than willing to provide our partners with all the required technical know-how relating to how the products work and how to use them. In return, partners often provide valuable feedback from themselves and the customers that helps us improve our products.
However, most remarkably, our partners believe in our vision of simplifying and bringing IT together, and this is even more important than knowledge sharing, as shared motivations are required for any successful relationship. Don’t believe us? The longevity of our relationships speaks for itself.
We’re beyond excited to be able to meet all our partners after two long years. Ultimately, we’re all part of the same team, and as the hosts, we are looking forward to a time of invaluable knowledge-sharing and interaction which can help ensure all of us are committed to achieving a common objective. So, to all our partners, we’re hoping to see you at the meet.
Interested in becoming a partner? Click here.
