140 | Time to rethink partner tech strategy and eliminate buyer’s remorse

Jon Busby: Welcome again to another episode of the Tech Marketing podcast. We've got a kind of a special episode today. This is an internal one. We don't often do these. Um, but I'm joined in the virtual recording booth, uh, by my colleague Seb, who heads up all of our channel solutions and services here together.

And we're, we decide to jump in the, the virtual booth today. 'cause we're going out somewhere next week, aren't we? Sep

Seb Tyack: we are. We are venturing into the world. Uh, going to San Diego, which is gonna be a nice destination.

Yep. Um, so the Coronado Bay Resort, I think it is, which, uh. Looks very nice for a, a brand new event the first time it's ever been put on.

Jon Busby: Yeah. So we thought we'd use today's podcast just to talk a bit about the event that we're heading to, why and why we think it's such a, an important time to be having this discussion. So, um, so let's go for a Seb, shall we? Let's, um, before we jump into it, Seb, do you wanna give a little bit of an intro to some of our listeners?

'cause some of you, some of them may have heard you on the podcast before, but. Some maybe brand new. So that's,

Seb Tyack: it's been a little while. It's probably been, I don't know when the last time we, we, I joined the podcast, um, with you, John Wood. So, yeah, so I, I'm the MD of the channel Solutions team at together, and we provide a variety of, of services focused around helping our clients better engage their partner ecosystems.

Um, and we do that in a number of ways from better marketing. Um, creating programs to engage your partners across a wide range of areas. Um, but then also developing technology. You know, that's at the core of a lot of what we do. Um, some of that's custom applications, but we also develop a number of platforms which we take out to market.

Um, and that's certainly the focus for us next week as we, we go to partner TechX.

Jon Busby: And I'm sure we're not gonna, we're gonna try and not talk too much about our own product, but it's gonna be difficult not to get excited about it. Um, but yeah, partner Tech X, I'm, I'm really excited about going, firstly because I've never been to San Diego, but secondly, uh, because it's, it really recognizes how important technology now is in these partner ecosystems.

Um, you know, it's recognizing that it's become, when you know, when me and you got started, I, I was. Talking about someone earlier today around, around this, you know, we got started in in channel technology in 2009 and most channel technology was probably still using a fax machine back then. Um, I don't even think deal registration tools existed and certainly nothing like some of the stuff we're talking about today.

But, you know, Sam, why do you think this is such an important time, uh, to reflect on partner technology and specifically innovation in partner technology?

Seb Tyack: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think. When I think about the, the reason for this event existing, I'd often wondered why doesn't it exist? You know, we go to a huge number of events around channel, which are around thought leadership.

I would say kind of strategies, um, marketing a a lot, but we've had a lot of different events. And then there are big grand events which are focused around the tech industry, the tech channel, and the different businesses involved in them. But within our world, we've never had an event, which has actually said the focus of this is the technology that is helping tech companies engage their ecosystems and, and make them more productive and grow more effectively.

Um, and the reason it's crazy is because everybody has been buying technology like crazy for the last 15 years, trying to piece together better experiences for their partners, better transactions, kind of better ways of working together. Um. Despite that huge proliferation of tech, there's never been an event focused around helping those companies assess technology.

Mm-hmm. And understand what would they need to do to make this technology successful. And all of those questions. And I think that the, probably the slightly, not negative, but I think one of the, the reasons from the organizer's perspective for doing this is that idea of buyer's remorse. We've seen it with lots of our.

Clients and customers, and it's what we try so hard to ensure none of our customers ever have is I bought all of this tech and it's turned on, but why is it not working and doing what I was told it would do. You know, why do I not get from it what I want from it? So I think this event's gonna be fun because it is not only gonna have lots of technology, businesses that are gonna show the latest and greatest and what their innovations are, but also the businesses that can help you.

Take that technology and implement it successfully in your business. You know, and I think that's where it's gonna be an interesting dynamic is it's, you know, two questions. What's the tech, but also what do I need to do to make it work that can be answered at this event?

Jon Busby: You, you know, what? You, you strike a, a nerve with me there, Sev, and I say this quite often on the podcast, which is.

You know, technology's really only a small part of the solution that you are delivering. It's only really a third. You've gotta train people, you've gotta implement it and integrate it properly. Um, and actually one of, one of one of our previous podcast guests, I'm gonna give him credit here, is, uh, 'cause he does this in, in his own industry.

I, I guarantee if you chart the investment and money spent on partner technology, on portals and marketing solutions and deal registration solutions and sales and e-learning, and you chart the, the. Channel outcomes, they probably wouldn't be much different from how they were in 2009, um, when we got started.

Um, so I think there's a, yeah, there, there is a lot to be said to say actually spending time together as all of us in, in the channel technology space or partner technology space or ecosystem technology space. But everyone wanna say today. Um, you know, it's all three of them apply it. And figuring out how we then get the most out of our solutions and, and how we do that for an outcome for a customer, I think is vital.

Yes, it's a very important point.

Seb Tyack: A hundred percent. And it, but it's, it's definitely why I think it, it's gonna be a super interesting week and, um, and it, and I guess it becomes more and more critical. You know, now when you, when you look at what it takes to succeed and win. As a technology manufacturer, whether it's software or services or hardware, you are trying to engage customers who are often working with your partners.

Like that's the nature of it today, where you can have specialist businesses that can help you implement and manage your it and, um, you've got a super competitive marketplace where it's quite hard to have the best product or, or have the best price point. It's gonna be a, a world where it's about your ability to work and deliver success, which is gonna be potentially the differentiator between you and your competition.

Um, and it's exactly the same with winning with your partners. You know, winning in your ecosystem is about being easier and, and better to work with than your competitors. Um, and this is the age old thing we've always heard. We want to be the easiest business to work with. The reality is tech can help you be that business.

You know, you are not gonna be that business by employing hundreds of thousands of people. It's gonna be technology and automation, which is gonna help you deliver that personalized, fast, easy, transparent experience that we all love as people that give us reassurance. And we go, right, yeah, we will have more of that.

Um, and I think that's why we've seen this huge investment in tech. You see the number of companies selling technology specifically into the channel and into ecosystem growing every year. Um, but that's the opportunity and I think it's, it's the opportunity for, for technology manufacturers, but it's the opportunity for companies like ourselves and other vendors and suppliers to this market to, to kind of deliver on that, that promise, because I think that's the, the bit that's been very difficult for lots of companies to do.

Jon Busby: I think, I think we're seeing three, like looking at the agenda for this event. Um, so we're exhibiting there, you know, big plug to us, you, you know, it's the first time we've actually invested in an event like this at, at our scale. I would say it's the first time they run this event. That's why we, we invested in this for the first time as well.

Um, but the, you know, you know, it's the first time we're, we're, we're, we're pushing ourselves out into that ecosystem. But looking at the three big trends that are happening, I think they're quite aligned to some of the things we are battling in our own. You know, with many of our clients as well. So yeah.

If I look at these trends, there's partner experience you, you've just hinted at that said, but let's dive into that in a moment. We've got providing ROI to the C-suite, right? That is something we've discussed on this podcast. Um, I would say to death, but I still don't think we've done it justice. Yeah. Um, and then ai, like we can't talk about technology, uh, anything like in today's market without mentioning what does AI look like.

So if I, you know, look at the agenda, these three things are coming across loud and clear as, as, as the biggest kind of blockers, you know, said from your side. Partner experience is something that's, that's driven us, like having been born out of an agency, been born out of caring about the, the colors and print margins that people use.

Um, and, and translating that to software. It's always been something that's, that's, that's been called key to our Heart. Heart, yeah. But what are some of the biggest blockers that you've seen in delivering a good partner experience today?

Seb Tyack: So, I think, so it's interesting because I think there's a, there's a connection between all of those things, between partner experience and ROI and.

Um, AI and probably one of those connections is data. Mm-hmm. You know, and I think that's one of the, the big challenges because when we started in 2009, so many operations and processes run on spreadsheets. That was just the def facto way that you ran your world on your spreadsheets and other people ran theirs on theirs, in, in your business and so on.

And it's still remarkable. How many times you'll see a business that can see what they could do, but will just be like, but our data's not good enough to do it. You know, we don't have access to the data, we can't operationalize it. It's fragmented, it's siloed. And I think that's, you know, that's one area that undermines and underlines all of those different areas, uh, for sure.

But it's also an area where there's been lots of good advances and lots of benefits. But if you say the first thing you need for a good partner experience, let's just say data, and it's the ability to just know what's happening, and then based on something that's happened, can we now trigger a communication to go, you have successfully submitted your deal registration, here's your code.

Rest assured it's done. Let that simple idea. Mm-hmm. Um, that's the basis of like partner experience and just building and building on this and, and ideally trying to make every. Every partner when they interact with you, whether it's with your people, with your systems, they see things that are relevant to them, that are specific, timely, actionable.

And if you've done all of those things, then you've become more useful. You'll be easy to work with. And I feel like your partner experience is now, you know, becoming a really good one. And that's what, that's what we're always trying to look at. To do all of those four things of being relevant and specific, timely, actionable.

That's not just data. You know, data is the foundation on which you go, right? I know what's happening with that, you can then automate and create something which happens simultaneously for lots of partners without any human doing anything. So that's a good thing because now we're being timely and specific and so on.

But the bit that makes it a great partner experience is. Communication, the layer on top, which makes everything clear and easy and inviting and, and lots of things that are less tangible than data. You know, that's when UX becomes important, um, creative. Like how do we present what we're doing in a way that feels very like intuitive and, and elevates that brand kind of experience.

Um, so I definitely could say like, partner experience for me is, is like, how do we get to. Where everything's happening simultaneously for everyone, and it means exactly what it needs to mean for that one person everywhere.

Jon Busby: Yeah. I, I think, I think we've, the two things that stand out for me, firstly, completely agree with data there, Seb, um, like, you know, making the comparison to the, the rest of, uh, the B2B industry, like we talk around how the importance of first party data and how you need to make sure you, you.

I know where it is first and collect it. And I think many, um, channel organizations are struggling to do just that. You know, their data sits in, in multiple different silos. Small plug. That's what us, that's what part of you what we're gonna gonna speak, think about. Yeah. Um, so if you have got that problem, do drop as a call.

Um, told you they were gonna, we were gonna fit those plugs in there. But I think that the kind of, the other bit that stands out and it comes into you, the point you made right in the intro, seb, which is. Many I, I, many people look at their channel and think some of these solutions can kind of fit together almost as Lego blocks.

Um, and it's. All you end up doing is, is if you, if you don't do it deliberately with some intent, you create a very convoluted and disconnected experience for your channel partners. Uh, and so having that common layer of data is one way of achieving it. Yeah. I also think you need to be, people, vendors need to be more deliberate in their.

Um, in their parlor experience. Mm-hmm. Um, everyone wants to be the easiest to do business with, yet we all, we see this constant trend of people buying off the shelf tools so there's no differentiation in your pla platform and experience to anyone else. Um, and then cobble them together in ways that is quite often, you know.

It the opposite to how the kind of experiences we expect online with Yes. An Amazon or an Uber. Yeah. Um, and you know, we, we, I think when we come to ai, we touch on this a, a, a bit deeper. Like Yeah. You know, we, we are not, we're not using this technology to make any of our life easy. In fact, we're making many of our partners life easy.

In fact, I've got a stat on this somewhere. Let me pull out this stat that I've got, um, because I think this highlights it really, really heavily. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull this out now because this is. I forgot I even had this right. This is from canals last year in Forrester, last, last year or like in 2023 actually.

Um, so they, canalis stated 65% of partners feel overwhelmed by the number of software solutions they need to manage.

Seb Tyack: Yep.

Jon Busby: Right? So that's a big problem. And 70% of partners. This one absolutely flawed me. By the way, 70% of partners. Believe the relationships with multiple vendors is difficult and negatively impacting their business.

Yeah, right. So let put that, put it the other way. Only 30% of partners actually are happy with the work, with the vendors they're dealing with and the way they deal with those vendors and that probably,

Seb Tyack: yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? And that probably. It says, it says a lot. It says a lot, and it's, it's a challenge.

And that's the competitive world we're in. It's like you are asking your partners to engage with you, and they've got many other businesses all trying to do the same. So you've gotta be great at everything. You've gotta have a great product. There's no, there's no getting around that. Like you've gotta have a, a valid commercial model that can align with your partners and give them an opportunity to see growth and, and real benefit.

And then you've gotta make the experience of working together. As easy and as good and as, you know, delightful as it can be in, in a world of business. Um, but I think one other plug I'm gonna put bring in for next week, I think is interesting when you were talking about the, you know, the need to cobble together these different tools and that that's difficult and challenging.

Um, one of the, the initiatives we're involved in is we are part of an ecosystem organized by 360 insights with. The aim of trying to bring together best in class technology in a more configurable way, like a pre-configured way, which hopefully we'll be able to save some of that challenge in piecing together the technology.

'cause your options are always gonna be one, you know, buy one platform. So next week there'll be lots of those companies that will be really interesting versus this idea of like having. A group of technologies that can be aligned and procured easily. So I think there's gonna be five of our partners are gonna be at TechX next week as well, so that will be another interesting like dynamic to see the different approaches of the one platform for all purposes versus the kind of more modular.

I kind of approach

Jon Busby: it's ecosystems all the way down really, isn't it? Um, it's,

Seb Tyack: it's, and it's us living and practicing what we're kind of preaching as well.

Jon Busby: Yeah. Which is, which is, I, I'm just excited to spend some time with customers and see what the challenges are and it's such a tech focused event. Um, you know, quite often.

Quite, quite often the, you know, some of the channel events we've run in the past, we've had previous guests on from the channel meetup, uh, that, that we used to run. Um, you know, the, the topics never really evolved, so it's just interesting to see how this, how this would evolve and, and how it'll be positioned.

Seb Tyack: Yeah, no, I, I think, I think the, the events to focus more around strategy and around approach and, and kind of the, some of the principles around running good partner programs and partnering really valuable. It's just, it's a different kind of forum. So I'm also excited to, to kind of hear what our customer's looking for, what are their challenges, um, but also meeting some of the other technology companies, there's, there's not much opportunity to really kind of, you know, meet in a more collegiate type like environment.

Jon Busby: Mm-hmm.

Seb Tyack: You know, and understand what's going on. Um, so that'll be exciting. Let's get back to your free, the free trends we were talking about. Yeah. Talking

Jon Busby: about meeting and aligning. Let's go to the second one. Yeah. So

Seb Tyack: C level reporting.

Jon Busby: Yeah. And this is, this is a, this is a challenge that we've seen. Um, and I, I, it's been, I'm gonna say for the last, probably one of the biggest trends I've seen in B2B marketing for the last two years.

Um, two years back in 23, if you were speaking to people, you started to see kind of the role of A CMO kind of start to adapt, and I think 2024 I saw a big change where we were, we, we started to theorize that. You know, it's the role of CMO even relevant anymore. And should we start to rename ourselves, we start, we saw things like the Chief Revenue and growth officer come out.

Um, uh, as a, as a role. We've seen kind of chief product officers now be more important and be aligned, you know, almost giving the same responsibilities as, as CMOs like. And I think it's the same, same for channel, really. Like everyone is now being driven to redemonstrate the difference they're making on the business.

1. Um, and the channel is not immune to that, are they? Seb?

Seb Tyack: No. No. Not at all. I mean, it, it's interesting when you think about the, those change in C-level job titles, um, because you're now seeing chief partner officer as, as kind of the, the evolution of some of the roles that will previously a sales role or could be a marketing role or, you know, could be even a finance role, but there's now a need to talk about.

Our ecosystem and are we making our ecosystem as productive as it can be? Um, which is leading to the rise of a, you know, a new C-level role, which is fundamentally owning that piece. And how that aligns with other roles inside the business will be interesting to kind of understand. But that's probably another podcast we could, we could have a on, you know, there's a couple of people we could bring on definitely to talk about, you know, that change at the, the C level.

Um. But I think when we get to the ROI piece, um, and this is probably why I connect those free areas all with data, is one of the things I'm excited about. And again, not to plug our our own platforms, so I'm not going to, but if we can help our partners manage more and more activities and actions and give them experiences and views, which really place them at the heart of what they're looking at, it's all about them.

We begin to collect and aggregate huge amounts of data, which we can then look at. And I think sometimes, you know, this isn't gonna get quite into the ROI area, it could be more the intelligence space. But I think if you can use partner experience to drive change to use data more productively, you are then gonna start aggregating huge amounts of data that's now qualified and.

Usable and is, is an output of seeing what partners are doing everywhere, and you can start to explore it, you know, and that's where I think intelligence can become much more sophisticated than, than we've probably had in the past. And where I would hope things like ROI might begin to be, be something that can be reviewed or viewed much more intelligently within each business.

Kind of specific business. I would say it, it always seems quite difficult to kind of come up with the standard, like, here's the standard ROI metric for channel. Now it's gonna be very different for, for different businesses.

Jon Busby: I, I'm, I'm always gonna be a little bit more reductive than that. 'cause I think there is two levels.

You're, you're, you're right, Seb, uh, on that. But being much kind of simpler for a moment, you, and this is. Kind of some of the problems we've set out to solve with, with the products we've built is just exposing and de-siloing the data to the right people, is the first step. Doesn't, we don't need to do anything that intelligent with it.

It's just exposing it to the, to. To the C level to so that they're able to rank their partners by the revenue they're, they're creating or go and have an intelligent conversation with them. Yeah. Now we know that C level execs have used the tools that we've created to go and have those conversations, which is shows that we're must be presenting and providing the right level of information back to those C level execs.

Now, that might not be ROI yet. But it's, if they're using it and they're, and they're going out and having conversations, being able to structure conversations with partners about the next stage of their business, then I think we're getting, getting some success.

Seb Tyack: Yeah. Massively. Oh, no, I, I totally agree. And I think it's, it's often where if you, if you go back to the, the, the beginning of, there's two things you don't often hear from someone about their, their business is the, in the, in the partner team, they'll never go, oh, my biggest problems are I've got too many people never will hear that.

And probably won't ever hear, and my data's absolutely on point. You know, we know there are businesses that have invested a lot around being very organized, but if, if your data's not on point, and of course it, it, it's not gonna go up, um, the ladder, so to say, for, for sea level execs to be able to use it in, in a, in a useful way.

Um, so I think you're totally right. Like it's one of. Making it available and, and kind of that immediately enables people.

Jon Busby: And I, I've been constantly surprised about how unavailable some of that data has been, but I've really also heard so many businesses now a working activity to, to solve it. So. I think the, the kind of second half of that, which goes into to what you were mentioning is now you have made that data available.

We can now start to build out new models and new metrics and new ways of, of evaluating that data in order to show what's providing ROI to, you know, to the C-suite. And I don't, that's the bit that I think is, you know, let's not get carried away. No one has really solved yet. Um, of what does that, what does that actual figure look like?

Um, or what if we were to try and solve it, what are some of the questions that people should be asking when it comes to their partner data set? Like what, like with those two tracks, just making it available and then starting to bring it together into a better metric. Like what are the questions that we should be asking ourselves?

Seb Tyack: Yeah, so I think the, the first one to make it available is. I, it's, it's probably not so much a question 'cause the, the people, one of the first questions you're gonna have is, do you have, is there missing data? So you might mm-hmm. See data that's not there and go, well that's a problem. So is it somewhere else?

Like, that's the process almost of, of trying to understand what's the current state. The, the piece of exposing it to people is when you feel like, well, we've got a full data set. What will be very difficult to know is, is it accurate? Like, is it everything? Is it correct? So exposing it to people in the business that will know.

So particularly for us all as partner account managers, really valuable community, um, you've exposed that, that first view of data potentially to them because they'll be aware of, of what's there and what isn't there. Um, and I think that's the process then of you've started the ball rolling, you know, and at the point internal teams are happy.

You can expose that data to partners. There might be new things that you don't find out aren't right. And that's okay. You know, I think that's one of the main points is, is if you are worried it has to be perfect or we shouldn't do it, it's like you're probably never gonna do it. Like mm-hmm. You know, you need to be in a process where the world is moving, things are changing, businesses are buying businesses, people are leaving.

You are always gonna be a little bit behind the real world data. It's just being as close to it as possible. Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Busby: Um, so I

Seb Tyack: think that that's definitely the piece about exposing it and then just letting people utilize it for conversations with partners, for conversations with each other, for understanding, you know, simple things.

Why does this set of partners in this country seems to be way better than every other set like them in every other country? It just becomes a visible, like it's a question you can ask, which is, which becomes evident. Um, and I think that's the, the first. Kind of the good use of it from those conversations, then you might work out what is, what's happening differently there?

You know, is that a person in particular? Is it a process that that team has done? Is it something where you can then look to see if you can replicate that or, or bring it through? I, I think the ROI question becomes just really big. 'cause there's so much money that's often put into. Into a channel program, into an ecosystem.

So the, the question we've had many times is MDF, you know, how much is being driven back through? So everybody's formulated ways of building pipeline, of trying to put a value in the pipeline, of trying to see conversion. But of course trying to say that particular investment in that partner led to that sale some months later.

That's quite difficult to, to do. Which is why I feel like there's always the question of like, ROI is just a big question, isn't it? In the sense of you've got all of this, like your whole business is about ROI.

Jon Busby: Uh, I, and I think the, the big question for me comes out there, which is we've seen a. Trend in companies investing in their channel recently as the main growth.

Leather, leather growth, leather, leather lever lever, leather, whatever, whatever I wanna say. Um, but the, we've seen them, we've seen them using channel to say, well, we're gonna invest in our channel partners and they're gonna grow the business and we're gonna probably fire a load of sales people. Mm-hmm.

And quite often I think that's, that's a. The completely wrong direction to go down. 'cause you just, if you don't have some of the right data set up, you're just, you're just praying and hoping that you, that everything works. It's just, it's, it's not gonna, it, you know, it's not gonna, it's not gonna work really.

Seb Tyack: No, I mean, I think there's definitely data points when you look at a lot of, there's data points to support that decision because a lot of businesses, and so Salesforce is quite a good one and I don't have the. A salesperson there would see a, a deal done with a partner who's providing a service wrapper around the sale will be two and a half times larger than a sale on its own and will lead to higher recurring revenue and higher customer satisfaction, which is all of the things that you want.

So I think there's definitely, you know, there's a reality around partnerships drive. A multiplier

Jon Busby: mm-hmm.

Seb Tyack: Is the piece on, on a sale. So, so hence it becomes a really attractive proposition because, you know, it, it's, it makes sense. It's a more communal, I mean that's where ecosystem's kind of an interesting, an interesting place for technology to play.

Jon Busby: Yeah. I mean, let, let's move on From ecosystems to te um, back to technology now, which is one of the key trends we've got at Partner TechX has been a focus on ai. Um, we hear, we hear a lot about looking in some of the panels. There's gonna be some discussions, some that I violently disagree with, um, and some that I, you know, obviously have been part of as well.

Um. What do you hope to hear from your side sev, around AI's role in Pan Ecosystems?

Seb Tyack: I, so I'm fascinated to see what we're like, what are we gonna see, what are we gonna hear? Because I feel there's been so much hype around AI and its potential, but for a long time, and I say a long time, this is why I'm excited 'cause I've probably, it's been some months since the last time I've seen a panel.

Where the use of AI has been much more about productivity of people and less about actually we're transforming the way in which we are doing something in a significant way, you know, in a way which, when we say transforming

Jon Busby: you, are you saying you'd prefer that it to be about productivity of people or about

Seb Tyack: No, I'm saying I'm, I'm, I'm can't wait to hear someone who's gonna show, this is how AI is, is being truly transformative.

Um. And changing the way in which we would, we do business with our partners in a way that we'll never go back from, you know, so that's, that's almost the promise is it's gonna be, the future will be, you know, another epoch in effect the AI age will mm-hmm. Be so different that it will make us feel like we were in the steam age Now, you know, that's, that's the promise.

And so what, what I've seen so far has been lots of good productivity gains. Our individual working lives. Um, so that's what I'll be, I'll be really interested to see. Have, is there a, a significant jump? I feel like it's going to, there's so many places for AI to play a role.

Jon Busby: Hmm.

Seb Tyack: I'm fascinated around the future of partner marketing and the potential for AI to help drive what is, you know, well, you could hear from.

Canalis about 28 touchpoint in a customer buying journey. There's seven businesses around every customer who are the trusted advisors that technology will flow through. So marketing the world, really it's not the funnel and a simple kind of like four stages of. Engagement after procurement, and then we make a a buying decision.

There's, there's a huge amount happening. So I feel like marketing, I love that it was a, a comment, um, that the, the golden age of partner marketing will suit me, be upon us because it will become the great kind of accelerator of ecosystems. And, and so, and so I'm like, who's gonna do this? Like, who's gonna go from.

Generative ai, which can take an email and say, I'm gonna rewrite this email for you for a slightly different audience. And, you know, lots of productivity gains that are great, but actually turn it into, you know, an engine which is gonna use data of which, you know, we might generate lots of that data, but there'll be huge amounts of data, uh, to take that forward.

So I'm hoping someone's gonna show us that next week.

Jon Busby: Uh, yeah, that's some of the bits that I violently disagree to agree with, you know? Yeah. You know, my view on this said, but, um, and I'm not gonna subject our listeners to it yet. I'm gonna go, I need to go in with an open and curious mind. Um, but I, I, I think there's, there's a lot to be said for how much we're using Gen AI to generate content.

Yeah. And I think we're, we're due and overcorrection Well, we know it's happening in the SEO space at the moment. Um, you know, Google is, is, is heavily pushing us away from, from, from that and finding ways to solve for it. I think we're gonna, you know, we are, we talked about partner experience at the beginning.

It it, it might give your partners a better experience, but if it gives your customer a much worse experience mm-hmm. There's a, there's a big question there, but I, I do think there is still a role for AI and the way I would tend to describe how you just put it forward there is. There's this, there's this question around whether you are an AI company or whether you are a company solving a customer outcome.

Mm-hmm. And so I would, I actually slightly disagree with how you approached your, your earlier statement said, which I think we, I think we should just focus on what are the productivity outcomes we want to achieve, or what are the outcomes we want to achieve? And if AI helps us achieve them, then great.

Mm. But we shouldn't go in saying we want to transform with AI without knowing the clear use case. Um, the.

Seb Tyack: Yeah,

Jon Busby: no,

Seb Tyack: I, I agree with you on that. I think it's, it's, um, it's why, but like I said, and it is not being cynical, I'm probably just, if the thing around the, the, the hype phase of ai and it's like there's always a hype phase and then you move out of that into kind of like the, the, the real world piece.

Um, and so I, I'm not sure within the, the world of the channel, whether we're still in that hype phase or not. But I, where, where there's definitely an area for ai. I, I, I do think, um, to help that partner experience, to move things along quickly, to be specific, relevant, timely, actionable, AI can help do that.

Um, I think the data intelligence capability, um, that AI could bring around business intelligence. So I don't know if that's a gen BI that we've been talking with. Some pretty big tech companies about the, the kind of how they productizing business intelligence, um, capabilities. I can see a huge value in that.

So understanding patterns, actually identifying mm-hmm. Like that simple question of why are these partners succeeding in this area and others aren't. That might be answered, you know, before you even know it's a question. There's an answer coming to you. Yeah, potentially, which would be really interesting.

Jon Busby: Yeah.

Seb Tyack: So I, I can, I can feel that application certainly we're interested in looking at that.

Jon Busby: For, for me it's, to put it a different way, it's using respecting human connections. We've talked about this on the podcast with, um, with, with Samsung actually respecting human connections, but using AI to, to make them.

Let's say more performant. Um, really, isn't it? It's like it, you, you still, you don't want, uh, you know what, what I worry about with Gen AI content is you have this wonderful AI bot generate some content and then it go hit someone's inbox, and then Microsoft Co-pilot then turns it into a summary. You know, you may as well just send the summary that you use to generate the original content.

Like, it's just, yeah, like we're, we're getting to a point of, and it's really reductive, but uh, we're getting to a point where it's like, that's just. It, it, from a sustainability standpoint, NGU standpoint, it's worrying. Um, and it's not adding any value to, to anyone's day, but help using it to be able to make better connections, I think, I think is vital.

A

Seb Tyack: hundred percent No, I can, I can agree with that. It it, for me, it's when it comes about partner experiences about being relevant, specific timing actually more useful, you know, and it's that thing of going, if we are being useful, then we're doing a good job. Everyone appreciates. Something that's useful.

Yeah. You know, and so that, that's a good starting point. Um, but it'll be interesting, like I said, just to see how everyone presents what they're doing. Um, we're all using ai, we're all investing in ai. It's in all of our roadmaps. But to your point, I think you're totally right. It's, it's not for the sake of being or using ai, it's trying to improve an area or trying to do something, um, differently.

So it'll be, it will be interesting. But that's, like I said, for us as tech people, the opportunity to talk with other companies to make those connections as well as with customers is really interesting. You know, I think in the tech space, I'm sure we saw it with Reveal and Crossbeam last year, that there's, there's a huge swelling of technology and there naturally is gonna be alignment of tech and standardization.

This will be an interesting area to see how that, um, develops.

Jon Busby: Yeah. When we

Seb Tyack: talk about data and ROI and things, if there's no standardization, it's very difficult to sort of provide something that can give you a good, um, you know, a good data point and something that's comparable and make sense and. So, yeah, be

Jon Busby: interesting.

So, so we've talked obviously with the, the event's called Partner Tech X. So we've talked a lot about tech. Um, but let's give our listeners one thing to go away with, and I'm gonna try and answer this first actually, even though I haven't thought of an answer yet. What's the one shift you think leaders need to make in order to really take advantage of tech?

I, I think for me it's about being deliberate. It's about being deliberate with your partner experience. It's about being deliberate about the data you collect to generate ROI, and it's being deliberate about the use cases used to, to apply artificial intelligence as well. So the one shift is, is to to step back, you know, take a big deep breath and be deliberate about the strategy that you want to apply with your tech.

And then come visit our stand to you. What's, what's. Uh, shift. I,

Seb Tyack: I love that. I think 'cause being deliberate feels like it's, it's a necessary Yeah. It's, I think I totally agree with you. So if, if, if I was gonna say one, I would, I would approach technology as a, a component of service provision. And that if you look at your engagement with your partners, with your ecosystem, with your customers, even if you are a tech company and you are, you are selling licenses and you're looking.

Whatever your model is, look at your technology as a key component of a service delivery. You know, design those services that experience for everyone. It's not gonna be solved by technology alone, but think of it as service, and you wanna provide the best service to your partners, and that's how you're gonna win.

So service design, service delivery. View your technology as as part of that, and it's there to enable people, and that's a key part of your service delivery as well. So there's companies that will be at Ecx that can help you work that out, including us. Hopefully. That's one of our nice things. We've been quite hybrid around.

System integration, technology, service design, you know, that's what helps us create partner experiences that mean no one has buyer's remorse, which is what we want.

Jon Busby: Awesome. Well, thank you very much for joining. That's one answer. Yeah. Thanks very much for joining me on the Tech Marketing podcast again today, Seb.

Um, and this has been a funny one for me 'cause I've had to have an opinion, uh, for once instead asking questions. Of course, I'm no, not, not shy if I'm having an opinion on channel tools. Uh, if anyone wants one, of course, visit our stand next week. Um, but yeah, we're looking forward to, to seeing what we can learn in in sunny San Diego.

Um,

Seb Tyack: we should definitely do a 15 minute wrap up in a couple of weeks time. To share with everyone what did we hear and what did we like

Jon Busby: exactly. But no, it's been a pleasure having you on the podcast again, eb, and we will see you again in a fortnight.

Seb Tyack: Thank you. Do your job.