Strategic partnership
Build or grow your business through a strategic partnership with your cloud provider.
What is a strategic partnership? Let’s first look at the definition of each word. As mentioned in the section on Strategy Management, a business strategy is a comprehensive plan to achieve your business objectives. A partnership, in the legal sense, is a business entity where two or more owners contribute resources, share in profits and losses, and are individually liable for the entity’s actions. Put simply, a partnership is a relationship with a shared commitment on objectives. Therefore, a strategic partnership is a relationship where you have identified shared business objectives, and have aligned on a strategy to achieve these joint outcomes.
Why have a strategic partnership? In business, you have core functions, products, and differentiators that you want to focus on to deliver value in the market. You want your brand to resonate in the market with a particular value proposition. You want your people spending their time on the most important tasks that create the most value and business impact. Doing too many things can dilute your strategic focus and confuse your brand in the market. It can also overwhelm your stakeholders. Yet there will be other businesses, potential partners, who could compliment or provide you with added capabilities. Looking outside your business for a partner can amplify your business value, extend the impact of your stakeholders, and accelerate your ability to innovate in the market.
Who should you partner with? Identifying a prospective partner often stems from taking a wide view of customers within a shared business domain, community, and ecosystem. A business domain will include the terms, processes and roles for an industry segment. Take the business of software. Terms include words such as “license”, “SaaS”, “subscription”, “user”, “developer”, “UX (user experience)” and so forth.
Processes include actions such as “building APIs”, “onboarding a new user”, “billing subscription fee”, “application performance management”, and so forth. Roles include “developer”, “product manager”, “sales rep”, “program manager”, “solution architect”, and so forth. Within the business domain is a community of people and the services they provide. You see them at the conferences you attend for your industry.
An ecosystem is a similar idea, yet it was derived from natural occurring ecosystems, such as the Amazon River in South America, or Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. Natural ecosystems included the air and water quality, the soil, the animals, the natural resources, weather patterns, and so on. In business, an ecosystem will include:
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The terms, processes, and roles of the domain
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The people and services in the community
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The entire business environment affected and influenced by the sum of the domain and the community
Consider software again. The ecosystem includes the devices that will serve the software, the device manufacturers and suppliers. It includes companies that help you deploy and deliver your software such as data storage, network security, and application performance, and more. If you spend some time thinking, your business ecosystem will not only extend farther than you likely realized, it will reveal new customers and businesses where there is value you can offer and receive from a partnership.
These businesses are your prospective partners and you can use them
to create new streams of innovative business opportunities. Popular
examples include the
Amazon
Marketplace
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What are the benefits of a strategic partnership? AWS created the AWS Partner Network
(APN) in 2012, yet has been working with partners since Amazon Web Services launched in 2006. Partnerships are integral to helping AWS deliver customer obsessed solutions, and AWS scales with our partners. An announcement was made for AWS Re:Invent 2021, showing the refreshed APN Partner Paths : software, hardware, services, training, and distribution.
Each of these paths offer unique partnership opportunities. As a business you can participate and benefit from multiple partner paths depending on your business strategy. For each cloud adoption stage (Start, Advance, Excel) think about alignment, accelerators, differentiation, and success stories that will guide your strategic partnership decisions.
Start
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The first place to begin when considering strategic partnerships on AWS is to join the AWS Partner Network
. -
Next, consider which of the APN Partner Paths
you will participate in. There are unique benefits, programs, and resources for each path. Note these paths can be taken simultaneously. -
Put a plan together of how you will progress through the path(s) according to your desired business objectives in order to build your capabilities, offer your products, and reach new customers. If you have AWS resource contacts, use their expertise for what is not readily available in the documentation or from self-serve options.
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AWS programs are designed to accelerate your business. If you offer cloud-hosted software solutions, cloud-integrated products, or cloud-related professional, consulting, or managed services, strategically partnering
with AWS can help you build your cloud expertise , promote your solutions to customers, and drive successful customer engagements . -
As you progress along your partnership journey, use promotional credits, funding benefits, and co-selling opportunities to help you build or grow your business
. Use your cloud provider’s marketplace channel to expand reach, and technical resources to help you mature your cloud-based products and services . -
Publish joint case studies to highlight success in solving specific business challenges.
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In addition to market research, look at AWS partners listed on AWS Marketplace
. Where do you sit in the market? How is your value proposition differentiated? Which partners can you align with to form compelling joint offers? A good example would be if you are a software provider (an independent software vendor, or ISV), you can partner with a services provider for a joint offer of their services packaged with your SaaS product. -
Look for co-sell opportunities with them, and with AWS sales teams if you have reached the relevant APN benefits tier.
Advance
As you improve your capabilities and agility in the cloud, use the strengths of your partnership network, including your cloud provider, where there are operating model overlaps. Look across your business ecosystem. Wherever you identify operating model overlaps, such as marketing or supply chain, assess the strength of your network and determine where deepening existing relationships or exploring new partnerships may allow you to better serve your customers. Engage with them to discover how you both could mutually benefit from a strategic partnership.
There are four primary accelerators:
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Your people
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How you sell
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How you operate
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How you innovate
At the Advanced stage, you are starting to have
systems in place for upskilling your people, perhaps with
AWS Training and
Certification
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To improve delivery and operations, consider AWS Control Tower
, Service Catalog, and service integrations such as those enabled by AWS Service Management Connector. Strategic partnerships with providers of application performance monitoring or security services can improve the value of your offers. -
Also look into the Well-Architected Program
to ensure your applications and workloads are optimized. You can also build Well-Architected services and solutions for your customers. Finally, on the innovation side, as you look to further differentiate your business in the market, consider the resources from AWS Innovation programs, and remember that one of the major benefits of cloud is business agility .
Excel
At the highest level of strategic partnership, with AWS or otherwise, is a clearly defined plan with a roadmap of strategic initiatives corresponding to specific business outcomes and owners. Since it is a strategic partnership, it will often include a longer-term commitment (two-three years+) and require significant resource investment from each of you. Prior to constructing a partnership business plan, you will want to first earn trust by being open with what each of you want, and what you can offer.
Think big! Growth will no doubt be a goal of both partners, yet what
asks are distinct to your respective businesses? What unique
strengths and position can you offer in your partnership? How does
your partnership add or magnify value for your mutual customers?
What is currently working in the partnership, and what is not
working? Having a framework you can both agree on for goals, key
performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics, such as
objectives and
key results
Strategic partnerships that excel provide an opportunity for both
partners to transform their businesses. A
cloud-driven
approach can enhance and accelerate the partnership in each
of the four
CAF
3.0
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From the domain of Technology, there may be technical or operational challenges one partner is better positioned to solve that benefits the partnership holistically, such as creating an important integration or product feature.
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From the domain of Process, are there operational insights
or system pain points that can benefit from your partner’s solution or approach? How can you securely and ethically share data relevant to the partnership, such as when co-marketing? -
From the Organization domain, a major accelerator is creating partner-specific training programs and partner alliance roles to own business outcomes.
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From the Product domain, delivering customer-focused innovation
from customer-centric perspective for your joint go-to-market areas will serve the partnership, especially where you align in mission, values, and the experience of your mutual customers.
AWS offers many ways to raise the bar on your strategic partnerships
including
AWS Professional Services
