Partners Make The Modern Tech Stack

As we prepare for the new year, a trend in the SaaS world is the pivotal role of partnerships. We now have to focus on 2021 and a big pillar of every company’s success should be “teamwork.” Teamwork applies internally and externally and specific to partnerships, we’ll discuss some of the advantages of sharpening your toolset to work together with other platforms in this ever-competitive digital landscape. The partnership role is essentially building bridges and forming alliances with similar platforms that mutually benefit each organization. Citing from David Brinkman of Software Magazine,

Partner programs are popular business strategies that vendors use to grow their sales footprint and diversify their network of users. Not only can they bring in revenue, but they can also be important links between vendors and customers. Similar to a company’s advisors or collaborators, partners can be crucial to the overall success of a business. Their impact on sales, market share, innovation, and even brand recognition can be enormous.

A partnership typically comes either in a technology partner (ie. formal integrations) or a solution partner (ie. referrals and recommendations). An example of a technology partnership would be an analytics platform and a notification platform while a solution partnership could be a marketing agency working with an engagement platform through a referral partner agreement. The options are endless but it’s good to start thinking about how your go-to-market offering can be more than just your solution. Often the path of least resistance offers the best foot forward to get started and you can build off that momentum. 

Now that we understand what and why, let us answer how to get a partnership program started! it’s easy – start networking! Individuals in partnership roles are always keen to chat. They can offer a concise summary of their products and services and quickly gauge if there’s a potential partnership opportunity. It definitely helps if you have mutual customers to talk about but if not, a simple conversation of vision and value will do. Keep in mind a partnership has to be mutually beneficial so focus on the bigger picture – helping your customers. After a little research, a few outbound emails and a couple of discovery calls, you are on your way to set up a partnership program. 

All in all, SaaS is a small world and is more intertwined than you might think. We’re all working towards a similar goal and the role of partnerships is the conduit. Here at Taplytics, we officially launched our Taplytics Partner Program last year and already have over 35 technology and solution partners in our directory. If you are interested to learn more about our program and how to get involved, please reach out to partners@taplytics.com. Until then, happy networking and we hope to be a partner of yours soon!