MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Feb. 1, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PartnerPath (formerly Amazon Consulting), a leading partnering services firm dedicated to helping companies elevate the impact of partnering, today announced the release of the newest exclusive channel research from its 6th Annual State of Partnering Study titled, "2012 Channel Year of the Dragon." Teaming up with MarketStar and PureChannels, the 2012 State of Partnering Study queried 98 vendors and 250 solution providers worldwide to gain a comprehensive look at both IT vendor and solution provider priorities, challenges and spending plans for 2012.
Overall, the study suggests 2012 will be a year of renewed growth and proactive sales and marketing for the channel. About 90 percent of partners who report annual revenues of between $5 million and $20 million expected their revenue to increase this year.
An Executive Brief of the findings is currently available at http://bit.ly/wccnQn. On February 23rd at 9am PST, the company will host a free webinar featuring the solution provider perspective on the research findings. Visit http://bit.ly/yyRAjD to register for this webinar. PartnerPath will provide the complete study results to its PartnerG2 subscribers.
"In this sixth year of studying vendor and partner relationships, we see the channel emerge from a tough two years, poised and capable of driving significant growth for IT vendors," said PartnerPath CEO Diane Krakora. "This year, we broadened our view of the 2012 State of Partnering Study by adding insights from more than 250 solution providers on their most pressing growth strategies and vendor engagement issues. The preliminary results show a trend on several important fronts: optimism about renewed top-line sales growth, a continued increase in ease of doing business initiatives, diversification of cloud-based selling models, and a boost in marketing funds and demand generation activities."
In 2012, the top channel priority for vendors is increasing their ease of doing business with partners, which supports their continued focus on the channel performance metrics of new business and competitive marketshare gains. "We think the ease of doing business initiative has gained a much bigger sense of urgency this year, because complexity is getting in the way of partners quickly and effectively building the right skills and being able to sell and market," said PartnerPath Vice President Beth Vanni. "This year, vendors are really focused on helping partners to hone their pre-sales assessment skills and conduct proactive and innovative marketing to feature their skills."
Solution providers did acknowledge that their customer decisions continue to be very cost-driven, and they are delaying upgrades and fixing infrastructure instead of buying new. "The smaller solution providers are more challenged, with limited marketing resources and access to capital," said Lee Wells, Vice President, B2B Client Services for MarketStar. "Nearly a third of the partners we talked to highlighted access to qualified staff as a rising barrier to growth. As the vendors increase their business process simplicity and defer to more partner-led selling models, partners are becoming open to having the vendors' staff actively involved in their business planning and growth strategies. But, only about a quarter of the partners said their vendors were actively working in this capacity currently."
"As it relates to channel spending, the one big trend we see this year is around channel marketing," added Ms. Vanni. "More than half of the vendors surveyed said they were increasing marketing fund budgets in 2012. Factors driving this increase are vendors' desire to help the partners sell and market in a more line-of-business relevant way, and the partners wanting to take the skills they've been building over the last 18 months and get more visibility, combined with all the creative web-based and social media marketing vehicles now available."
Nearly 30 percent of surveyed solution providers indicated that increasing their marketing and lead generation activities is their leading growth strategy in 2012. "We think the market pressure for solution providers to have a real marketing strategy and execute it through a diverse set of vehicles is stronger than it's ever been. We hope to see 2012 be the year vendors report that partner co-marketing activities drive really significant results," says Vanni.
Free Webinars Highlight Study Findings To get more insights to this study, PartnerPath will hold a free webinar on the solution provider perspective of this data, on February 23rd at 9am PST. To register for this webinar, visit http://bit.ly/yyRAjD. To hear a replay of the 2012 State of Partnering Study Webinar on the vendor perspective, featuring guest panelists from Dell and CA Technologies, go to http://bit.ly/ygNrvI.
PartnerG2 PartnerPath offers market research studies through a comprehensive annual market intelligence subscription program called PartnerG2. Fueling channel management professionals with valuable research, analysis, thought leadership tools and expert advice to guide partnering success, PartnerG2 offers unlimited users under a corporate subscription, quarterly studies based on industry hot topics, a complete library of thought leadership materials and 4-hours of complementary consulting services. Channel industry analyst and speaker Beth Vanni is the Vice President of PartnerPath, responsible for the management of PartnerG2. She can be followed at http://amazonconsultingblog.wordpress.com/ or http://twitter.com/bvanni.
MarketStar MarketStar pioneered the outsourced sales-and-marketing channel model and has coupled it with flawless execution and seamless deployment. For the last two decades, MarketStar has been the proven expert in designing measurable, high-performing, and innovative sales-and-marketing solutions for leading and emerging companies. As an integrated extension of the world's most admired brands, MarketStar helps clients increase brand recognition and awareness, maximize marketing and sales-funnel efficiency, and drive incremental revenue. For more info, visit www.marketstar.com.
About purechannels Based in the United Kingdom, purechannels offers strategic as well as operational channel-focused marketing services to IT vendors. Their exclusive channel focus, and their specialization in social media marketing strategies, combined with their teams' wealth of experience gained while working in the vendor and distributor communities, sets them aside from other technology marketing agencies. www.purechannels.co.uk.
About PartnerPath Established in 1997, PartnerPath, LLC, (Mountain View, CA) elevates the impact of partnering by designing, implementing and automating effective partner models. PartnerPath's clients entrust them to formulate growth strategies, build route-to-market models, perform competitive benchmarks, design partner programs, facilitate partner advisory councils, and provide temporary experts for project management and program execution. For clients looking to optimize their partner relationships and improve organizational efficiencies, PartnerPath offers a modular partner management automation system. For more details visit us at www.partner-path.com.
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