Partner-to-Partner Collaboration: How to Get Started

In today’s highly competitive and fast paced channel partner environment, collaboration and facilitation with other partners has taken on a much greater importance. Megavendor ecosystems are growing at a rapid pace and becoming more diverse than ever before, while movement into the cloud and into social communities has encouraged partner relationships on many levels. Partner-to-partner collaboration (or P2P collaboration), is the combining of two or more partner groups, by leveraging both partner strengths and working together to solve complex customer problems. Here’s how to get started.

It is no secret that customers have become more demanding of their partners by expecting holistic solutions to complex problems. The good news is P2P collaboration is able to foster quick development of customer centered solutions, making the whole process easier and more prominent, while benefiting all parties involved.

Darren Bibby, program VP for software channels and alliances research at International Data Corp., said, “80% of P2P veterans earn revenue from P2P networking, and include it as part of their business model. Take some time to decide if vendor initiatives, partner initiatives, distributor initiatives, or third party initiatives are the best route to go.”

Recently, we held a workshop with IDC and Bibby (Twitter: @DarrenBibby), to explore the ways OPN (Oracle PartnerNetwork) can help facilitate partner to partner collaboration, and were delighted by the amount of interesting research available on this topic.

At OPN, we support P2P networking at our events, workshops and online. We have leveraged current social platforms to create communities which make it possible to get in touch, and keep in touch with different partners. By joining OPN’s LinkedIn site, for example, you will align with other like-minded partners and receive updates about their latest activity.

Innovation and change is inevitable, especially as it relates to business procedures. How do you feel about being offered a platform to collaborate with other partners on?  Are you partnering right now? If not, is P2P collaboration something of interest? We’d love to hear from you.

Best Regards,

Lydia Smyers
@lydiasmyers
Group VP
Worldwide A&C and Communications

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