In our Channel Training courses, we talk about how companies evolve through five stages of partnering maturity:
- Novice – vendor is unsure of partner value
- Tolerant – there is ad-hoc engagement with partners
- Reliant – recognition that there is a need for partners to achieve targets
- Aligned – the vendor’s systems fully support partnering
- Centric – the whole business is partner focused
For a company to be at Level 5, that means everyone, from the CEO down, must view their business and job role through a channel lens. This article about Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is a great example of a CEO that is driving his company to be Channel Centric.
