Vivek Venkatesh on Unlocking the Secrets of GSI Partner Marketing

1 - > SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm Rick Courier, and this is Never Go to 2 - > Market Alone. 3 - > More than a show, it's a community where tech, marketing, 4 - > and the human connection come together. 5 - > You're not just a listener, you're a GTM friend. 6 - > And friends don't let friends go to market alone.

7 - > Let's go. 8 - > Hey everyone, thanks for joining. 9 - > Today I sit down with Vivek Vankatesh, someone I worked with 10 - > for years when he was at AWS and I was at Foundry. 11 - > And we did a lot of thought leadership programs to drive 12 - > pipeline for those partnerships.

13 - > Specifically, global system integrators, GSIs. 14 - > It's a partner segment we haven't dove into too much in 15 - > the show. 16 - > Yet I'm seeing a lot of consistent common challenges 17 - > working with GSIs across the partner ecosystem. 18 - > So I'm very excited to share this episode with you today, 19 - > especially as people out there are trying to figure out how I 20 - > can drive more impact working with the accentors and Deloits 21 - > of the world.

22 - > Well, Vivek shares practical lessons from his time at Intel, 23 - > Dell, and AWS on what actually works when you're trying to 24 - > engage these GSIs. 25 - > We even dive into what are some practical things you can do if 26 - > you don't have a massive brand behind you like an AWS. 27 - > For example, we talk about building internal champions, why 28 - > storytelling matters more than product specs, and how EBM plays 29 - > into enterprise partnerships. 30 - > Lastly, why relationships are still at the center of 31 - > successful partner marketing, especially in the world of GSIs.

32 - > We talk strategy in this episode, but we really get into 33 - > some actionable takeaways for anyone in the world of partner 34 - > marketing, especially working with global system integrators. 35 - > So with that, let's get into today's episode with Vivek Bank 36 - > Attached. 37 - > And as always, if you're enjoying Never Go to Market 38 - > Alone and want to support our mission of helping partner 39 - > marketers through best practices and community, please share this 40 - > episode with someone in your network.

41 - > Sign up for our newsletter at partnervista.co slash 42 - > newsletter. 43 - > And lastly, leave us a rating on your favorite podcast platform. 44 - > It really helps us spread the word.

45 - > I hope you enjoy this episode and cheers. 46 - > Hey Vivek, how's it going? 47 - > Hey, Ricky. 48 - > Good morning.

49 - > I'm doing well. 50 - > It's nice to uh have you on because a lot of times I'm 51 - > talking to people I don't know very well or in some cases I've 52 - > never met before. 53 - > And but I've worked with you for over a year. 54 - > So this is kind of fun.

55 - > I get I get to have you on as a friend and a guest. 56 - > Thank you so much for inviting me. 57 - > I know it was a long overdue, right? 58 - > So why don't we start with a little bit of of your 59 - > background?

60 - > I know we're gonna dive into the world of GSI uh partner 61 - > marketing today, which is I think great because we haven't 62 - > talked a lot about global system integrators, but why don't you 63 - > give a little background about yourself and kind of what you've 64 - > done over the years? 65 - > And you know, how how do you even know to talk about GSI 66 - > partner marketing? 67 - > Yeah, sure. 68 - > Sounds good.

69 - > SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so I think uh I landed in partner marketing 70 - > like most others, I think by accident. 71 - > Uh people usually come into marketing. 72 - > And then uh in my case, I was at Intel for a long time and I'd 73 - > moved over to the partner business. 74 - > And uh one of the key things that I learned at Intel was you 75 - > know how being on the partner side helps you scale and 76 - > basically help you maximize the number, you know, you only have 77 - > a certain number of sales or marketers that you have, but the 78 - > moment you go to the partner side is when you can actually 79 - > scale out your uh products and systems as long as there's 80 - > demand for it, right?

81 - > And you can, you know, build it out globally as well. 82 - > And that was the thing that I learned in the partner world. 83 - > And organically, you know, I did a bit of partner sales and then 84 - > I moved into partner marketing. 85 - > And within partner marketing, when I was at Dell or after 86 - > Intel, again, that's when I basically started working quite 87 - > a bit with the global system integrators.

88 - > Uh, you know, saw how they operated in terms of building 89 - > out their business practices for very specific high-growth 90 - > products that they wanted to sell, and how we could, you 91 - > know, build a better together sort of story as well. 92 - > And over the past seven years, I've been at uh Amazon Web 93 - > Services till April of uh this year, uh, where again I worked 94 - > very closely with some of the largest uh global system 95 - > integrators, trying to get out a lot of the AWS services to 96 - > market.

97 - > And now, you know, over the past two years, especially with AI 98 - > being one of the core themes, trying to figure out how we 99 - > could, you know, sort of integrate some of the 100 - > third-party uh large language models with whatever AWS had in 101 - > terms of their underlying infrastructure, and then adding 102 - > a solution that partners could leverage so that we actually 103 - > delivered benefits for the end customers as well. 104 - > So that's been my story in terms of how I learned it with partner 105 - > marketing.

106 - > SPEAKER_00: No, very cool. 107 - > It's it's you know, I think a lot of people like you kind of 108 - > ended up in partner marketing and we've never left. 109 - > So, you know, it's not the first time I've I've heard that. 110 - > I I'd love to get into you know what's different about marketing 111 - > with a GSI as opposed to another partner.

112 - > But before that, you know, more broadly, what have you seen 113 - > change in partner marketing over the years? 114 - > And this might apply to GSIs or not, but I mean, you've been at 115 - > some big companies, you've been doing a lot of different things 116 - > across partner marketing. 117 - > What's changed for you over those years? 118 - > SPEAKER_01: I think uh the reason why people once, you 119 - > know, even they come in by accident, I think they 120 - > intentionally then stay for a long time because things do not, 121 - > things change almost every year, right?

122 - > The type of partner that you work with is very different. 123 - > Even though you're trying to sell the same products, uh, the 124 - > type of work that you do with different partners, the culture 125 - > that the partner has, the go-to-market motions that 126 - > partners have is very different. 127 - > And that is why I think you know, people tend to stay in the 128 - > partner marketing world once they actually come in. 129 - > Um, and what I've seen also over the years is earlier, I think 130 - > most companies used to think of partners as something on the 131 - > side, you know, something like a cherry on top of the cake.

132 - > But now it's becoming more and more an integral part of the 133 - > entire go-to-market motions that any product marketing, team, any 134 - > product team is trying to build out, right? 135 - > So they intentionally think, okay, you know, X amount of work 136 - > can be done by our uh sales teams and our product marketers 137 - > and our marketing team. 138 - > But we do need the additional help from our partners. 139 - > And that's where partner marketing is becoming more and 140 - > more strategic in terms of the ecosystem build-out, especially, 141 - > you know, once a new product is coming into the market or a 142 - > whole new set of products are coming into the market, which is 143 - > the case as we are seeing with AI now, where a brand new set of 144 - > products are coming into the market and people are trying to 145 - > figure out okay, how do we build alliances?

146 - > How do we try to ensure that you know we get the maximum amount 147 - > of piece of the pie? 148 - > And the way that for you to get the piece, the larger piece of 149 - > the pie is by partnering. 150 - > And that's when partner marketing becomes very important 151 - > because you go to market becomes a very important part of the 152 - > entire uh motion that you have. 153 - > SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I think we've talked a lot about in this 154 - > show, just in terms of how integral partner marketing has 155 - > been to the overall growth engine of the organization.

156 - > You know, like you mentioned product, right? 157 - > I'd love to know from your perspective, GSI partner 158 - > marketing. 159 - > What makes it different for you know, someone who might be in 160 - > partner marketing but not working with GSIs? 161 - > Why is it such a unique partner set within the greater partner 162 - > ecosystem?

163 - > SPEAKER_01: No, great question. 164 - > I think um the thing to realize with the global system 165 - > integrators is, you know, in the name itself, right? 166 - > They are large global companies. 167 - > These are companies like Accenture, Deloitte, Cap Gemini, 168 - > who have more than 100,000 consultants.

169 - > And there are advantages and disadvantages to that, right? 170 - > So if you are able to convince those consultants to sell your 171 - > product on your behalf, you effectively have 100,000 172 - > salespeople who are selling your product. 173 - > But the challenge is how do you convince those 100,000 people to 174 - > actually sell that product for you? 175 - > And that is why you know you have uh that's why it's a unique 176 - > challenge for partner marketers.

177 - > Uh for a lot of other partners, you know, and that's why the 178 - > GSIs are pretty different from a lot of the other partner 179 - > marketing uh motions that you have, whether with product 180 - > companies or distributors or some of the large, you know, the 181 - > other parts of partner marketing, in the sense that 182 - > these are uh you know really large companies. 183 - > They take a long time to uh decide on working with you. 184 - > And but once they decide to work with you, you know, that's when 185 - > you see a huge quantum jump in terms of the per uh uh you know 186 - > uh uh per uh unit sale, for example, will be one of the 187 - > highest, right?

188 - > So if you're setting a product for X dollars with some of the 189 - > other partners that you have, the moment you start selling it 190 - > with a GSI, for example, it'll be you know easily 5x, 10x of 191 - > your average sale value that you have with some of the other 192 - > partners. 193 - > SPEAKER_00: Sounds like so much of it is maybe not marketing, 194 - > but but sales enablement. 195 - > So, you know, I mean, you you need to activate that that 196 - > global sales team at one account while you're building programs, 197 - > building content.

198 - > Like walk me through some of the challenges you faced trying to 199 - > bring some of these partnerships to market from a marketing 200 - > perspective and and what worked for you in achieving that? 201 - > SPEAKER_01: Right. 202 - > No, great question again. 203 - > Um I think uh, you know, not so much at AWS, but in my previous 204 - > company, which was called Booby.

205 - > Uh it was a small startup that Dell had acquired. 206 - > And one of the things that uh they wanted to do was obviously 207 - > accelerate uh their revenue stream through working with some 208 - > of the large system integrators. 209 - > And what did work again, you know, like you rightly pointed 210 - > out, was the enablement strategy. 211 - > You need to find out champions within the large system 212 - > integrators.

213 - > And the advantage that I had was within with Boomi, there were 214 - > some champions at Deloitte, and they are the ones who actually 215 - > took the product, tried it out, and then started convincing 216 - > folks internally that this is a great product that we should 217 - > then provide to our customers. 218 - > And it became easier for us because then they helped us 219 - > actually build out uh the enablement toolkit, the type of 220 - > case studies, what will resonate internally within uh you know 221 - > those teams.

222 - > And you know, they acted as internal champions. 223 - > And that is the key for any partner marketer listening to 224 - > this podcast and trying to work with the GSI that they have not 225 - > worked with before, is along with your partner development 226 - > manager or your partner manager, try to figure out who the 227 - > champions are for your product and cultivate them, uh, you 228 - > know, provide them with you know, at least more information 229 - > than they can consume so that they are then best equipped to 230 - > internally evangelize your product and act as the champion 231 - > for your product.

232 - > And that's, you know, I think one of the keys that I I would 233 - > think for. 234 - > SPEAKER_00: I think that's a great takeaway because I think a 235 - > lot of partner marketing teams are being impacted with AI for 236 - > for better or worse. 237 - > Um, you know, but that's not something AI can replace in 238 - > terms of, you know, building a relationship with an internal 239 - > champion and move the partnership forward from your 240 - > perspective and in terms of driving impact.

241 - > That's just old school personal relationship building. 242 - > SPEAKER_01: Yep, correct. 243 - > I know. 244 - > And that's something I don't know, until you know agents are 245 - > there on all sides, I don't think that can be the case.

246 - > unknown: Yes. 247 - > SPEAKER_00: That's good. 248 - > That's some job job security for us that that know how to do it. 249 - > I want to ask you a little bit about content because I know you 250 - > and I, especially when you were at AWS, you and I did a lot of 251 - > work together around content.

252 - > Talk to me a little bit about the role that content plays in 253 - > the role in in the world of GSI partner marketing and and you 254 - > know, what kind of content were you developing that was driving 255 - > impact on your programs? 256 - > SPEAKER_01: Uh again, you you don't come to the core of what 257 - > works with part for GSI partner marketing again. 258 - > Uh you know, the the way that part GSIs sell to their 259 - > customers is leveraging case studies and uh use cases, right?

260 - > Uh they typically tend to sell to Fortune 2000 companies, so 261 - > some of the largest global companies that are there in the 262 - > world. 263 - > And so they they have a pretty limited set of customers that 264 - > they work with. 265 - > And their key is uh to sell more and more of their services to 266 - > the same set of customers. 267 - > And one of the key ways that they do it is every time they 268 - > work with a new product company or you know, a new 269 - > infrastructure company like AWS is trying to build out new 270 - > services on top of the products that these product companies are 271 - > providing to them.

272 - > And uh the way that they convince their end customers is 273 - > through case studies. 274 - > So they basically say, hey, here's what I have done with 275 - > this manufacturing company leveraging AWS's services or AWS 276 - > products or Boomi products. 277 - > I, you know, you are another manufacturing company, and I can 278 - > help you leverage and get the same value out of leveraging 279 - > this product. 280 - > And you know, the work that we, you know, the insight that we 281 - > had was we sort of twisted the case study a little bit.

282 - > A lot of the case studies from product technology companies 283 - > tend to be, you know, highly focused on speeds and feeds, 284 - > right? 285 - > They're people are passionate about the products that they've 286 - > built out. 287 - > They think it's going to provide value to their end customers. 288 - > And there is a heavy tendency for those uh uh for those case 289 - > studies to be technical in nature, saying that, you know, I 290 - > have put in this additional uh you know, widget in here, which 291 - > is why we can increase the speed of your application by 5x or 10x 292 - > or some other number.

293 - > But the challenge with that sort of a case study we found with 294 - > GSIs is that they were not able to convince, for example, in my 295 - > case with those manufacturing companies saying what's in it 296 - > for me. 297 - > So we sort of twisted it and you know, brought a different uh 298 - > angle to it where we said, okay, imagine that you are an end 299 - > customer of the customer of the GSI, and think about how you 300 - > want to present a case study to that end customer.

301 - > So, for example, uh, you know, if uh one of the GSIs was 302 - > working with Toyota Motor Corporation, and the way we 303 - > presented the case study was if you're leveraging uh AWS plus a 304 - > GSI's products, what will happen is an end customer of Toyota, 305 - > because of the work that we have done on Toyota supply chain, is 306 - > able to place an order on the Toyota website, see how their 307 - > actual car is being manufactured on the factory floor, actually 308 - > follow the entire process till the car is actually being 309 - > delivered to the dealership.

310 - > And that's the way that we, you know, we did talk about, you 311 - > know, in the case study, we talked about how AWS's services, 312 - > the services that Deloitte in this case was providing, but we 313 - > did not focus so much on, okay, we improved your supply chain by 314 - > X percentage. 315 - > We basically said because of this uh usage of AWS products 316 - > and the services institutions provided by Deloitte, it's the 317 - > end customer of Toyota who's able to get their cars delivered 318 - > to them in three lesser months rather than taking so much time.

319 - > And that's the way it really resonated. 320 - > So we used a lot of these case studies across the board with a 321 - > lot of customers. 322 - > We use them in a lot of campaigns, and we see, I know we 323 - > saw a tremendous amount of success, uh, you know, trying to 324 - > basically give the spin on the case studies that we create. 325 - > SPEAKER_00: Now, I think that's super helpful because I know, 326 - > you know, personally working with a lot of GSI partner 327 - > marketers, how important content is, you know, that go-to-market 328 - > strategy, but just thinking through what kind of content.

329 - > And so I think that's really helpful in understanding not 330 - > just case study content, but how to approach a case study through 331 - > the lens of the customer, the results, the story you want to 332 - > tell. 333 - > So I think just tactically, that's that's really helpful to 334 - > the audience. 335 - > Yep. 336 - > Thank you.

337 - > Um, I want to ask in terms of, okay, you have content. 338 - > Now we got to get that in market. 339 - > And I know working with a lot of GSIs, hyper focus on you know, a 340 - > specific number of accounts. 341 - > So, you know, how did ABM typically play into your 342 - > programs and any advice, best practices, or your approach to 343 - > ABM working with GSIs?

344 - > SPEAKER_01: Yes, I think uh uh no great question again. 345 - > I think ABM becomes even more important. 346 - > And uh the other thing with GSIs also is that they are they focus 347 - > mostly by vertical. 348 - > So they have a very specific universe of consultants working 349 - > on financial services, consultants working with 350 - > manufacturing, with auto, with energy.

351 - > So once you create the content for these specific verticals, by 352 - > which I mean you have those white papers, those solution 353 - > briefs, and those end customer case studies. 354 - > That's when we try to put together uh, you know, uh ABM 355 - > campaigns or a full lifecycle campaign, right? 356 - > So it will include content syndication, uh, you know, 357 - > targeting universe of just manufacturing, for example. 358 - > Uh that's the one that we took.

359 - > Uh focus just on a specific geo. 360 - > And sometimes you know, uh GSIs used to come back to us saying, 361 - > no, we just want to focus on the Northeast financial services 362 - > companies, for example. 363 - > So you just focus on a specific Geo, on a specific set of 364 - > customers. 365 - > So the key then becomes uh, you know, trying to track and 366 - > keeping account of who and all from a specific customer in 367 - > financial services or manufacturing are you touching 368 - > through your campaigns?

369 - > So marketing operations becomes much more important. 370 - > And that is something, you know, on the back end that you as a 371 - > partner marketer should ensure that you're crossing your T's 372 - > and dotting your I's because you may be touching uh, you know, 20 373 - > people from a large multi-billion dollar, you know, 374 - > um auto manufacturing uh organization, for example. 375 - > And it is your responsibility as the partner marketer to ensure 376 - > that you're tracking it so that you get the credit for all the 377 - > activations that you have done with that specific company uh 378 - > and ensure that, you know, when a multimillion dollar deal is 379 - > closed in an 18-month timeframe, you are actually given credit 380 - > for the type of work that you have done across the board.

381 - > SPEAKER_00: All right, let's dive into that last part a 382 - > little bit in more detail because I think that's the part 383 - > a lot of partner marketers struggle for. 384 - > And, you know, I'm not sure there is any universal solution 385 - > to it, but in terms of just tracking and measurement, you 386 - > know, 18-month deal, multi-million dollar deals, 387 - > large global system integrators, large customers, you know, how 388 - > are you tracking and measuring pipeline and success on these 389 - > large, lengthy deals?

390 - > SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, that is actually, I think, the key of 391 - > where, you know, the success and failure of partner marketers 392 - > with GSIs, because tracking becomes hyper important, like 393 - > you said. 394 - > And I, you know, the best practices that I have and you 395 - > know, where we had at AWS as well, is primarily having 396 - > campaign codes for every campaign that you're running and 397 - > ensure that you're tiering them as well. 398 - > So you may have a parent campaign code, but under that, 399 - > for every activity that you're doing, whether you're doing a 400 - > round table, whether you're doing webinars, you are sort of 401 - > putting it into a into a you know parentry uh sort of 402 - > parent-child sort of tree so that you are tracking the number 403 - > of campaigns that you're doing and you're oversharing with your 404 - > counterparts at the GSIs, right?

405 - > So you have to work really closely with the partner 406 - > marketers on the other side as well, because the two of you are 407 - > a team and you have to work together hand in hand for you to 408 - > A, be able to track it and B, ensure that both of you get 409 - > enough credit for the type of activations that you've done. 410 - > But there we go. 411 - > Back not, yeah. 412 - > Unfortunately, back to the relationship side though, right?

413 - > SPEAKER_00: And it's like operations, yeah, computer is 414 - > part of it, but if you're not in that, you know, if you don't 415 - > have that relationship, you might be missing some pipeline 416 - > report on it. 417 - > I love it. 418 - > Sorry to cut you off there. 419 - > Uh I want to ask though, you know, Dell, AWS, big brands, 420 - > obviously GSIs are going to work with you as a partner.

421 - > You know, what if you're coming from a not so large brand and 422 - > you're trying to establish a partner program with the GSI? 423 - > Any advice for those partner marketers who maybe may A GSI 424 - > partner marketer at a mid-size or smaller organization. 425 - > I'm trying to get something off the ground with a GSI. 426 - > What advice do you have for those folks?

427 - > SPEAKER_01: Yep. 428 - > I think even at Dell, when I did work at Dell for a couple of 429 - > years, I worked with a startup that Dell had acquired called 430 - > Boomi. 431 - > And uh it was not a well-known product at that time. 432 - > It was an integration platform as a service.

433 - > It was a brand new, you know, uh industry or a brand new product 434 - > space that they were launching in. 435 - > And uh I think the key to success to to get that product 436 - > off the ground with GSIs was getting champions within the 437 - > GSIs. 438 - > So you do need consultants, technologists who are using that 439 - > product, and they become, you know, that product is one of 440 - > their favorites. 441 - > So you have to identify those champions within the GSIs, and 442 - > that's when your work becomes easier because they are the ones 443 - > who act as evangelists for your product and take it through 444 - > within that company, you know, within that GSI, they tell you 445 - > how to operate, they tell you who the key players are, and 446 - > they act as uh, you know, one of the you know success metrics for 447 - > you.

448 - > So the advice that I would give is, you know, if you have, if 449 - > you think you have a great product, try to identify who's 450 - > downloading the product that you have. 451 - > And if you have somebody at some of these larger system 452 - > integrators, the Deloitte's Accentures, Cap Gemini's of the 453 - > world, uh identify them and then try to build relationships with 454 - > those uh consultants. 455 - > And if they are, you know, and get them to act as evangelists 456 - > for you.

457 - > And once they become evangelists, they can, you know, 458 - > hold lunch and learns for more such developers to come in and 459 - > try the product. 460 - > And that's when you build, you know, a religion within that 461 - > consulting organization so that they can then evangelize on your 462 - > behalf. 463 - > SPEAKER_00: I think that's why I love partner marketing so much 464 - > because the role is so multifaceted. 465 - > I mean, you're you're almost describing a sales rep and uh 466 - > from a sales rep perspective, in the sense that like I've worked 467 - > large accounts as a sales rep, and that's kind of what I had to 468 - > do, right?

469 - > You find your internal champion, you do those things to help 470 - > facilitate, educate, engage, bring other, bring other people 471 - > on board. 472 - > But that's just one part of the job, right? 473 - > You're also developing copy and doing operations and doing 474 - > marketing. 475 - > And so it's like you wear many hats.

476 - > But I think the the main theme here I picked away though is 477 - > like whether you're thinking about going to GSI partner 478 - > marketing or you're hiring a GSI partner marketer, like you got 479 - > to have that foundational marketing operations side of 480 - > things, content storytelling. 481 - > But if you can't build relationships, you're gonna be 482 - > in an uphill battle because it sounds like GSI partner 483 - > marketing is is very much relationship-driven.

484 - > Correct. 485 - > It is. 486 - > SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, and uh I I remember some old pot 487 - > marketer a few years back said basically you act as a you know 488 - > chief marketing officer for that relationship, right, with that 489 - > GSI. 490 - > Because you're doing all sorts of things, like you said, 491 - > between marketing operations, you know, tracking the stuff, 492 - > running events, you know, and working on campaigns, building 493 - > out content.

494 - > And over and above, you need to have those relationships with 495 - > uh, you know, your counterparts in those GSIs to actually build 496 - > a you know very successful partnership on the partner 497 - > marketing side as well. 498 - > SPEAKER_00: Well, I think this has been a great conversation in 499 - > terms of figuring out how do I want to become the CMO of my GSI 500 - > partnership. 501 - > So Vag, thanks for sharing all the inside baseball. 502 - > It's this has been fun and it's it's good to finally get you on 503 - > the podcast and we get to have this fun conversation.

504 - > SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much, Ricky, as well. 505 - > I know I really enjoyed this conversation. 506 - > And if your listeners have any questions, uh feel free to pass 507 - > them to me and I'll be holding. 508 - > SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.

509 - > Yeah, and we'll we'll we'll pass on on your uh LinkedIn profile 510 - > on uh on the show notes so people will know how to get in 511 - > touch with you. 512 - > And thanks for coming on, Vivek. 513 - > It was a lot of fun. 514 - > Yep.

515 - > SPEAKER_01: Same here, Ricky. 516 - > Have a good rest of your day. 517 - > SPEAKER_00: Thanks. 518 - > That's it for this episode of Never Go to Market Alone.

519 - > If you liked what you heard, subscribe, leave a review, and 520 - > share it with another GTM friend. 521 - > For new episodes or to see how we're helping partner marketers 522 - > succeed, visit partnervista.co because friends don't let 523 - > friends go to market alone.