How COVID-19 Has Impacted the ISV Ecosystem

Author:

Aurelien Mottier
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Episode

87

How COVID-19 Has Impacted the ISV Ecosystem

Aurelien Mottier

CEO at Operatix

Michelle Auchinachie, Steve Jemmott, and Michael Ford

Sage, Sicon, and Castaway Forecasting

There is no doubt that businesses all around the world have been impacted by COVID-19.

But how has it impacted the ISV community? And how have vendors reacted to support their partners to thrive? 

In our most recent B2B Revenue Acceleration podcast episode, we interviewed 3 guests with alternative perspectives on how vendors and ISVs have faced COVID-19.

Michelle Auchinachie, Head of ISVs – UK at Sage, shared how she was able to facilitate connections between community members – who would not otherwise have ever met.

Steve Jemmott, Sales Manager at Sicon, discussed how he had to pivot to digital communications and why there is such a systems emphasis in the ecosystem right now.

Michael Ford, Founder & CEO at Castaway Forecasting, told us about his strategic relationship with Sage, his ruined plans for a UK office, and how he’s still had his busiest year yet.

Let’s dive into the discussion!

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We wanted to figure out how to help and support each other, our partners, and our colleagues.

Michelle Auchinachie – Head of ISVs – UK at Sage

The impact of COVID-19 on ISVs

Michelle shared her general views on how the market has been affected by COVID-19, and it’s not as dismal as it first appeared.

“In the last six months, we’ve really tried to kick off ISV marketing in the UK,” she said. “We’ve been running a lot of ISV enablement sessions to our sales teams and channel and we’ve run a virtual customer event recently as well.” 

Sage immediately took the position that its team members are here to support their customers and the ISV ecosystem, but most importantly to get closer to their community. “We just wanted to figure out how to help and support each other, our partners, and our colleagues,” Michelle said.

These were some of the tactics Sage implemented to support their ISV community: 

  • A COVID hub. This was a portal for customers and partners to access for the latest updates, including government updates (with help in learning and understanding these also) and company responses. 
  • Webinars. At one point, the daily webinars from Sage had 2,000 people attending.
  • Virtual coffee mornings for ISVs. “Some people were working by themselves and didn’t have that kind of system we had at Sage, so we built up virtual coffee mornings and happy hours,” Michelle said.

Being able to get everyone together to talk about COVID-19’s impact on their businesses, as well as on their personal lives, helped people connect in completely new ways.

ISVs who had never met in person before began to build relationships and collaborate with each other.

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Sage very much supported and set the bar, using Teams, calling us in, so we looked at utilising that technology… but more importantly, looking at what collateral could we give to support our partners.

Steve Jemmot – Sales Manager at Sicon

An ISV perspective on COVID-19’s impact

Steve spoke to us about the impact of COVID-19 on Sicon, an exclusive Sage ISV partner.

They’d just had a record year and were planning on even more growth until everything seemed to slow down because of the impact of the pandemic.

“We had a decision to make. Should we utilise the government’s furlough scheme?” Steve said.

The directors decided not to furlough their team but instead used the time to re-examine their internal processes and invest in further training and enablement for the team so that everyone could come out of this period stronger and more prepared. 

One of the changes Sicon had to make was regarding their product demonstrations. Prior to lockdown, Steve used to do them onsite, but he had to accustom himself to remote communication.

Testing internal processes and transitioning to greater technology use helped him strategise what he could provide in order to support his customers and partners.

In regard to the support Sicon received from Sage, Steve said that Sage’s weekly coffee mornings allowed him to share and hear stories from the breadth of the ISV community, as well as understand what other companies were doing to grow their businesses during this period. 

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Sage has been strong as a partner. They opened up a pathway for us to launch hard in the UK this year without being there physically. None of the other vendors we’re dealing with had that opportunity.

Michael Ford – Founder & CEO at Castaway Forecasting

The importance of partnerships

Michael had ambitious plans for 2020 before COVID-19 hit the market. Castaway is an Australian-based company that had been planning to break into the UK market in 2020.  

He intended to attend numerous trade shows and had plans to set up an office and hire employees in the UK. “Our entire plan for 2020 was in a mess,” he said.

COVID-19’s impact meant that his ‘on-the-ground’ opportunities were lost. Instead, Michael relied on Sage for additional introductions, connections, and partnerships, which has actually made 2020 a success.

“We couldn’t put people on the ground, but we were able to access a whole bunch of customers in the UK via the Sage account network,” he explained.

Ways that Michael has adapted:

  • Embracing virtual trade shows. Michael didn’t leave Australia, but he was still able to be present.
  • Attending virtual hangouts. Michael and Steve wouldn’t ever have met otherwise.
  • Leveraging networks. He’s learnt that he can deal globally right from Sydney, Australia.

Swapping sales for education. Nowadays, he can speak with a prospect for 30 minutes to an hour without pitching anything.

“Your work has turned into education. We all stopped selling hard and started educating as thought leaders,” Michael said.

Michael is proud to have rotated in order to serve his community in alleviating the impact of COVID-19. 

To learn more about Sage, Sicon or Castaway, you can get in touch with our guests on LinkedIn:

About Operatix

Operatix is a Sales Acceleration company specialized in supporting B2B Software vendors to identify new revenue streams, increase qualified sales pipeline, and accelerate channel development across Europe and North America. Operatix has a wealth of experience in working with the biggest tech players worldwide as well as a multitude of emerging software vendors.

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Digital transformation is changing how companies buy and use business solutions, making vendors re-assess the capabilities of their channel ecosystem. With channel dynamics in constant flux, vendors need to be ready to cut ties with partners that don’t share their vision or have connections with the right B2B buyers.

 

Operatix has supported numerous vendors in their path to Channel transformation by assessing current partners and recruiting new partners that are more aligned with their new channel strategy. Once the right partners have been identified, Operatix built scalable outbound sales development programs that accelerated their routes to market.

Inbound Response Management

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Identifying the accounts that are more likely to buy from you is part of our expertise. We will research the market, identify verticals and industries that can benefit from your solution and set up qualified sales engagements for your teams to kick-off the sales process. 

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Account-based Marketing

An Account-based Marketing strategy is only as successful as the revenue it generates. At Operatix we will support your 1:1, 1:few or 1:many approach to get your team in front of decision makers in the accounts that matter the most to you. 

Lead Qualification

If your marketing leads aren’t converting, it might be a lead qualification issue. Operatix can help sieve through leads that need further qualification, so they are ready for an AE or sales team member to engage with.

Account-based Selling

At Operatix we will support your 1:1, 1:few or 1:many approach to get your team in front of decision makers in the accounts that matter the most to you. 

Pipeline Generation

Generating Pipeline for our clients is our key-objective. And we do that by using a multi-touch, multi-channel approach to generate qualified sales engagements for our customers’ sales teams.   

Account Intelligence / Deep Dive

Understanding buying centres, hierarchies and relevant personas in strategic accounts is a fundamental step to increase conversion rates. By leveraging account intelligence in a sales conversation your team can tailor their message and provide value to their prospective customer. But sales & marketing teams often struggle to dedicate time and resources to do the deep research and this is where Operatix can help.

DMID – Decision Maker Identification

Finding quality data is an on-going challenge for B2B Tech vendors. The accuracy of data platforms is questionable and that is why Operatix developed a manual process to identify & verify contact details for decision makers within strategic target accounts.

Playbook design

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Sales Playbook Development

Operatix can develop Sales Playbooks that enable teams to sell more effectively. Your Playbook will be fundamental to implementing the correct messaging, accurately position your solution against competitors, and adapting the communication of your value proposition to different buyer personas.

Lead Qualification

If your leads aren’t converting, it might be a lead qualification issue. Operatix can help filter through leads that need further qualification, ensuring that they’re ready for an AE or sales team member to engage with and progress through the funnel. 

Partner Portal / Marketing Concierge Service

Vendors often spend thousands of dollars building multifunctional Partner Portals to help channel partners educate their teams, manage opportunities, and create marketing programs. Still, these portals are often underutilized due to lack of bandwidth and capacity from vendors to offer support in enabling their partner community. Operatix, through their Partner Development team, can support your partners to make the best use out of your partner portal, managing the relationship with your partners and helping them set up co-marketing campaigns to drive more revenue for both businesses. 

Marketing & Sales Alignment

The sales development function is often seen as the “glue” that brings sales & marketing teams together. By working as an extension of your teams, Operatix will be your predictable source of pipeline, sales & revenue.

Optimization of MDF

Market Development Funds are an important component of any channel ecosystem, though vendors believe they are not maximizing the return on investment they should be getting from their MDF programs. At Operatix, we build scalable outbound sales development programs that will give you the visibility of return over the invested spend and will provide clear value for your channel partners.

Increase Partner Productivity

The 80/20 rule is still very applicable to the channel, which means that investing in partner productivity should be a priority for vendors looking to grow their businesses. Operatix can increase partner productivity and shorten sales cycles, by identifying ready to engage sales opportunities for your most valued channel partners.

Virtual Channel Account managers

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Tier 1 & Tier 2 Activation

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Solution Selling Training

Far too often vendors insist on enabling their channel partners to talk about features and technical details of their solutions. Customers don’t buy features; they buy the benefits your solution can bring. Operatix will work with your partner community to train them in articulating your message from a high-level business perspective, enabling them to talk to prospects about the value your solution can bring to their company from a board-level perspective.

Channel Enablement

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Partner Recruitment

Recruiting the right Channel Partners is the first step for a successful channel program. Operatix has helped over 350 B2B Software vendors recruit suitable channel partners across EMEA and North America, supporting them to scale and expand their presence in different geographies and verticals. 

Risk/Reward Business Model

To truly work as an extension of our client’s sales & marketing teams, we have also adapted our business models to show how our clients operate, and how their success is measured. With our risk/reward business model your investment is proportional to the results our team delivers.

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Increase Revenue & Decrease Cost

Building an internal sales development team comes with many additional costs and challenges that aren’t always taken into account: recruiting resources, training and enabling them etc. You also need to take into account the need for having the data and tools to make them successful, which in turn requires time, capital and effort. By outsourcing your sales development to Operatix you will see your revenue increasing, while decreasing costs and business risk.

Predictable Pipeline Generation

On average, our clients see a 26X ROI on the programs we deliver. By understanding your revenue targets and sales pipeline gap, we will work on a sales & marketing plan that will deliver tangible results.

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Revenue Acceleration

Operatix helps your business get to revenue quicker. By providing qualified sales engagements for your direct sales team (to kick-off new sales cycles), or by accelerating the growth of your channel partners, our focus remains on delivering tangible results for your business. 

Persona-based Selling

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