Whether you’ve heard of the term or not, you’ll be a part of a network of businesses that will collaborate to help each other grow.
And with it estimated that by 2025 nearly a third of all sales will come from your ecosystem (Mckinsey & Company)—it’s probably time to learn what it is and how it can affect.
In this post we’ll cover:
What a partnership ecosystem is
The importance of it
How businesses are using strategic partnerships
And how you can make the most of your ecosystem using Reveal
So by the end of this post, you’ll at least have the basics down and be ready to start making the most of your Ecosystem.
What Is A Partner Ecosystem?
In the most basic form, a partner ecosystem is a collection of cross-industry partners who work collaboratively to provide enhanced results for their customers.
Whether we realize it or not. Partner ecosystems are EVERYWHERE.
No business operates independently, and companies that not only recognize but also utilize this fact can increase their reach to unimaginable levels.
The types of partnerships you can find within a B2B partner ecosystem can vary dramatically, but the most common and influential are:
Tech
Strategic
Channel partners
Brands are starting to realize the power of working together. According to Accenture, 76% of businesses believe that in the next 5 years, their business model will become unrecognizable due to their ecosystem.
The possibilities of partner ecosystems are limitless, and whether you want to acknowledge you’re a part of one or not—it is going to impact you.
How Are Partner Programmes and Partner Ecosystems Different?
Although they are similar, there are some key differences. The main one is that a partner ecosystem allows you to identify partners that would otherwise remain hidden through traditional partner programs.
Ecosystems are more extensive and include relationships that are usually outside the stereotypical scope of a partnership.
Meaning that partner ecosystems produce more leads, more opportunities, and more revenue.
How Do I Tap Into the Potential of My Partner Ecosystem?
Overflowing with untapped potential, utilizing your partner ecosystem is often the key to boosting profit margins and widening your reach.
Yet, to fully benefit from your ecosystem's magic, it must be done effectively.
The easiest way to tap into your partner ecosystem is via account mapping.
Account mapping is the process of cross-referencing contacts and prospects with your partners using a platform or manually via a spreadsheet to spot potential opportunities for each other or deals to collaborate on.
The benefits of nurturing your partner ecosystem are vast. With unlimited access to brands and endless partnership types at your disposal, the opportunities for your business start coming in thick and fast.
Some of the juiciest benefits are:
Enhanced creativity—It all comes down to collective intelligence. Two heads are better than one. With more minds working together to solve a problem, creativity is abundant.
Red hot leads—Gone are the days of countless hours chasing leads who aren't interested. When using an ecosystem optimizer like Reveal, you have access to a host of potential customers who you know are already interested in similar solutions.
Reduces Competitors—If you aren't asking for a partnership, you can guarantee your competitors will be. Leveraging your ecosystem transforms potential competitors into allies and enables you to work together to create solutions other businesses won't have even dreamed of.
Drives growth—With an unlimited supply of potential pipelines to investigate, resting on your laurels is no longer an option. When fully optimized, your partner ecosystem produces relationships bursting with potential revenue and enables you to tap into geographical areas that ordinarily wouldn't be possible.
For more about how your partner ecosystem can benefit specific departments within your organization—click here.
Great Examples Of Partner Ecosystems That Work
We would like to share 3 examples of top companies that successfully leveraged the power of their Partner Ecosystem:
PayFit is a payroll and HR management software that generated 30,000 highly-qualified leads last year. To reach their target, the Growth team relied on using Reveal to leverage their ecosystem and bring in a high volume of high-quality prospects.
PayFit connects with companies to match the company’s clients with PayFit’s prospects in order to prioritize the pipeline. Then, they handed over these qualified leads to their SDRs. In doing so, PayFit was able to drastically increase its conversion rates. In just two months, they saw a 60% increase in their lead-to-demo conversion rate and a 50% increase in the demo-to-customer rate.
Rydoo is an expense management solution; they help companies digitize their processes to become fully compliant and paperless. One of the final goals for their Partnership team was to identify the solutions that their customers were using and pursuing an integration with these companies.
They started using Reveal to uncover their ecosystem opportunities. As a result, Rydoo could quickly identify the number of common customers and opportunities they shared with their potential partners. In the past few months, Rydoo’s Partnership team has developed a laser focus on their most valuable partnerships. Now, Rydoo has better retention rates, a more productive Sales team, a more straightforward process to discover and get introduced to new partners, and a 3x increase in their qualified pipeline.
SmartRecruiters is an HR Tech company that provides a Talent Acquisition Platform to help companies redefine their hiring processes and recruitment marketing approach. In 2020, SmartRecruiters’ Partnership team faced three main problems: lack of processes, opportunities, and security issues in manual account mapping.
As a solution, they decided to rely on their partner ecosystem. Reveal helped SmartRecruiters execute automated account mapping in a matter of seconds, which let them view common opportunities that they shared with their partners. By having a macro view of their ecosystem, SmartRecruiters was able to drive integrations with 15 Enterprise size companies.
So that’s a whirlwind tour of what a Partnership Ecosystem is and the impact it can have on your business. Some of the key takeaways from this post are:
Ecosystems are everywhere and underpin society
Partner ecosystems are a network of interconnected businesses that work together
Account mapping allows you to quickly identify organizations within your ecosystem and utilize their connections
Reveal enables you to view your partner's CRM data and identify warm leads
Partner ecosystems drive growth, creativity, and innovation
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