1. Partner
Program
Template
For Tech Startups Who Want To
Partner With a Systems Integrator
Or a Consulting Company
With concrete examples
on how to prepare a
partnership pitch for:

2. Executive Summary
The vast majority of the world’s most successful Tech companies have a thriving
ecosystem of partners, ranging from systems integrators, consultancies,
independent software vendors, developer communities to value added resellers
and distributors.
“Partner Program Template” helps you prepare a compelling partnership pitch:
• Demonstrate understanding of your partner business and position your
company as a valuable asset
• Scope out collaboration areas with concrete milestones
• Define success metrics and strategies to achieve them

3. About the Author
I’m a marketing strategist and an engineer so naturally my passion is to help fantastic tech
products succeed in the marketplace.
My experience marketing tech products ranges from mobile apps, devices and networks
(Nokia), data center and cloud (Cisco Systems), user experience monitoring and
optimization (Riverbed Technology), and application development and management platform
(Apcera).
On the academic front, I studied Strategic Marketing Management and General
Management at Stanford Global Business School after I had graduated from Danish
Technical University and International Faculty of Engineering in Lodz, Poland with a double
degree: M.Sc. E.E. in Telecommunications.

4. Have you seen my “Marketing Plan
Template for Tech Startups and not
only”?
Preview it on SlideShare.
Download it from TechSurprises.

5. Connect with Justyna
@justyna_bak linkedin.com/in/just
ynambak
techsurprises.com

6. The Five Elements of a Partner Program
1. Current Situation
2. Vision for the Partnership
3. Collaboration Areas
4. Success Metrics
5. Next Steps
Goals

7. Current
Situation
Objective: Establish a good understanding of the key
business highlights and priorities for both companies.
How to prepare for the meeting to explore a potential
partnership between two companies? Start by understanding
your partner business model and financials. This background
will help you credibly articulate opportunities your two
companies are best positioned to address together.
There are two ways for you to gather that information:
• Connect with some of the team members of the potential
partner
• Complete secondary research to better understand your
partner business model.
Start your meeting by presenting your key findings and invite
the partner to comment.

8. Source: Forbes, 2014 | Economist, 2014 | TIME, 2013
85%
5.3 8.4
2011 2014
Revenue [$B]
Where McKinsey is Today
60%
Repeat customers
New customers
15%
$400m
HSW McKinsey
Knowledge
Development Budget
McKinsey is a private company, so you need to rely on data from
newspapers (e.g. Wall Street Journal) and magazines (e.g. The
Economist) to understand their business outlook.
Accenture is a public company, so a good place to start is to look
inside the Annual Report and Quarterly Reports.

9. Source: Economist 2013 | HBR 2013
The Consulting Industry is Changing…
“As access to knowledge is democratized, clients no
longer have to pay the fees of big consulting firms.”
“Clients are increasingly demanding specific expertise, not
just raw brainpower.”
Expand your research to look more
broadly at the challenges that your
partner industry or a specific line of
business is facing. Think how your
company can be part of the
solution.

10. … But McKinsey Is Always a Step Ahead
“We help you get more value out of
your systems and facilitate critical
decisions.”
Hugo Sarrazin
McKinsey Senior Partner
Leader of Digital Labs
“Our team has more than 800+
analytics experts includes analysts,
data scientists, data architects and
analytics consultants”
Nicolaus Henke
McKinsey Senior Partner
Leader of Analytics
Start building a case on why
your product/services combo is
relevant to the partner. Perhaps
they’ve recently invested in
technologies adjacent to yours?

11. Source: Wharton 2015
12%
40%
2015 2018
Service Provider Ecosystem at
McKinsey as % of overall activity
Where McKinsey is Heading
“We are partnering with people we never
would have partnered with before. It’s only
12% of our activity now; I’d like it to be
40%”
Dominic Barton
Global Managing Director of
McKinsey & Company
Summarize your research by listing the top priorities for the
partner. Focus on these where a partnership with your
company can make a real difference. By positioning your
offering in the context of the partner’s existing priorities, you
increase your chances of success.

12. Where Accenture is Heading
Similarly, if you’re pitching a partnership to
Accenture, you can pick a relevant quote from their
CEO…
Accenture chairman and CEO
Pierre Nanterme
“The future of the organization and the business model will
involve combining business and technology opportunities.”

13. Where Accenture is Heading
… or a technology leader responsible for
partnerships with companies similar to yours.
“Instead of traditional model or engaging and hiring a
consultant and us billing for it we’re much more focused
now on how do we create an outcome?”
Global Managing Director
SaaS and Emerging Platforms
Saideep Raj

14. <Your Company Name> is a Great Partner
● What’s your revenue?
● How many customers do you have?
● Have you won any industry awards?
● Have you been recognized by major publications?
● How does your partner ecosystem look like?
● Do you have quotes from existing partners and customers?
Now time to introduce your
company and its key
achievements

15. Vision for the
Partnership
Objective: Describe a vision for the
partnership and outline key objectives that
we can achieve together.
Focus on the benefits of a partnership for
both partners and customers alike. Back
your vision up by industry trends.
For example, we live in the age of digital
disruption where newcomers like Shave
Club leverage technology to build direct
relationships with customers and quickly
gain a big market share at the expense of
incumbents ($1bn sale to Unilever). If many
of your customers are Fortune 500
companies, focus on how you and the
partner can help position your key accounts
for success in the digital era.

16. Every CEO Has to
Decide Today Where
They Want to Be on the
Digital Transformation
Spectrum
Very Selectively Digital
There isn’t a single Céline
product that you can buy online
Digital Business Model
Service-oriented online retail based on
direct relationship with customers
?
Begin with your point of view on some of the tectonic shifts
affecting your customer base. For example, The most strategic
technology decision an enterprise can make today is to pick their
spot on the digital transformation spectrum. This decision will
have a tremendous impact on the business model and inform a
broader IT strategy, and the need for specific organizational
capabilities. Some companies will be digital natives born in the
cloud and very independent. Others will be very conservative.
The majority are in the middle of the spectrum.

17. Vision for McKinsey
and <Your Company>
Partnership
Product 1
Product 2
Product 3
Professional
Services
Training
Innovation
Capabilities
Impact on the
Organization
StrategyGoals Cultural
Alignment
Change
Management
Digital Leader
Program
Office
<Your Company Logo>
Introduce the vision for the partnership by explaining how your
customers will benefit from your joint offering.
• For example, the core competencies of McKinsey are defining and
implementing the strategy, re-arranging internal operations and
putting processes in place to deal with change.
• Your company provides the technology for digital leaders.
• Together, you’ll not only provide the digital transformation platform
and tools, but you’ll empower the customer to execute on that
vision and drive it across their organizations for deep and
systematic impact.

18. B2B digital leaders drive
five times more revenue
growth than their peers
5X
Source: McKinsey, Oct 2016
Industry
Average
Digital Leader
It’s always a good idea to back your point of view with research from a respected source. In this
case, I was able to find a report from McKinsey that quantifies financial gains of being a digital
leader. “Digital leaders enjoy 5x higher revenue growth than their industry average.”
Now, you can start envisioning a joint offering between you and your partner. Every CEO knows
that digital must be an integral part of their strategy but how to get there is the big challenge.
How can you help them on the journey?

19. Collaboration
Areas
Definition: Propose concrete areas of collaboration,
such as joint marketing activities, sales enablement
programs and revenue sharing models
Once you have painted a vision for the
partnership between your companies, it’s
time to agree on the go-to-market strategy
for your joint offering. You also need to
discuss the needs for sales and technical
enablement at both companies. Finally,
agree on the financial incentives and
revenue recognition.

20. Areas of Collaboration
Marketing Activities • Thought leadership
• Online presence
• Demand generation
• Events
• Customer Advisory Board
Sales Enablement • Sales playbook
• Pitch decks (executive presentation, technical deep dives)
• “Leave-behind” brochures and whitepapers
Training • Product training
• Services training
Referral Program • Free trial codes
• Re-sale revenue
The key areas of collaboration between partners
include:
• Marketing programs ranging from establishing a joint
brand through various publications, analyst relations
and customer advisory boards to joint events and
demand generation activities.
• Sales enablement programs to create and maintain
sales materials and build a thriving community of
experts on the joint offering
• Training programs covering both formal instructor-
led and online courses.
• Referral program where we can share product
revenue generated a s result of our collaboration

21. Marketing Activities
Thought Leadership • Joint market research studies
• Analyst reports (IDC interviews partner customers about their experience)
• Articles by prominent McKinsey/Accenture and your company executives
Online Presence • Microsites
• App Store
Demand Generation • Email campaigns
• Social media campaigns
• Webinars
Events • Company events
• Industry and analyst events
Customer Advisory
Board
• Inspire CEOs to become the digital leaders and give them the tools to
succeed
Sample marketing activities.

22. Customer Advisory Board
Objective Inspire CEOs to become the digital leaders and give them the tools
to succeed
Digital
Immersion
Invite CEOs to program events at <Your Company> headquarters
and Stanford GSB
Thought
Leadership
• Speaking opportunities for CEOs in the program
• Publications
<Your Company>
If the vision for the partnership between your companies is
to enable more enterprises to become digital leaders, you
need to decide how to engage your customers in a
structured way. For example, you can create a Customer
Advisory Board that requires CEO participation. The goal of
the program would be to inspire the CEOs to become the
digital leaders and give them the tools to succeed.

23. Leader
Practitioner
Novice
No engagements 1-2 engagements Multiple engagements
Customer Advisory Board
Recruitment
Your company recruits
CEO candidates for
strategic McKinsey
engagements
McKinsey recruits CEO
candidates for your
digital transformation
platform
<Your
Company>
Do you and the
partner have any
joint customer?
Both McK and your company will be equally involved in
recruiting the CEOs that would be likely candidates for the
partner services.
We already have a few joint accounts who are digital
leaders, and we’d like to include them in the program as
well to show appreciation, help them build peer networks
and inspire others.

24. Leader
Become a thought
leader
Practitioner
Get inspired by digital
leaders
Novice
Envision a digital
future
No engagements 1-2 engagements Multiple engagements
Customer Advisory Board
Value Proposition
<Your
Company>
There are three tiers of the Customer Advisory Board
program, depending how digitally advanced the
customer is.
2
3
1

25. Venue Time Activity
9 AM CEO Panel
10 AM GSB Lecture: Culture of Innovation
11 AM Boot Camp: Digital Transformation
12 PM Networking: Lunch
1 PM Transport to San Francisco
2 PM Demos: Tour of your company EBC
3 PM CEO Insights: A CEO of a joint account
4 PM CEO Insights: A Digital Strategy Framework (Dominic
Barton)
5 PM Networking: Cocktail Hour followed by Dinner
Customer Advisory Board
Digital Immersion Day
If you’d like to gather several CEOs of your client company in
one room, you have to design an agenda that would be
compelling enough for them to prioritize it. Most leaders
would like to join their peers at digital immersion days and
participate in thought leadership opportunities.

26. Success
Metrics
Objective: After painting a vision for the
partnership and exploring areas of
collaboration, you want to agree on the
metrics that adequately reflect the success of
your joint venture.
It’s critical for both partners to agree on how
to measure success. There are different
types of metrics you can use, for example:
• Product and Services revenue targets
• Number of customer accounts each
partner will introduce the other one to
• Customer satisfaction targets on joint
projects
• Number of customer testimonials

27. Success Metrics for the Customer
Advisory Board Program
Account Expansion E.g. 10% growth in each account participating in the Customer
Advisory Board within one year of joining the program
Customer Acquisition 3 New Customers
Thought Leadership - 3 new customer case studies
- 2 customer speaking opportunities
Customer Satisfaction 100% product/service renewal among participating accounts
<Your Company>
Explain tangible benefits to both
of your companies that the
partnership will bring.

28. Next Steps
Objective: Don’t leave the meeting before you
and the partner agree on the next steps
To ensure a smooth transition from a joint
partnership vision to execution, make sure
you have a list of the next steps required to
achieve success. For starters, you can focus
on a pilot with a short timeline and clearly
defend milestones.

29. Customer Advisory Board
Program Pilot
• Build the program
team
• Invite 3 CEOs
• Invite Dominic
Barton
• Approve the
agenda
• Collect feedback
• Analyze results
• Recommendations
• Agree on the
execution plan with
the McKinsey team
• Invite 3 CEOs
• Invite your
company CEOs
• Finalize the agenda • Deliver the boot
camp
• Collect feedback
January February March April
<Your Company>
Here’s a sample pilot of a Customer Advisory
Board program that allows you to test the
hypothesis on which benefits would your
customers enjoy by within a 100-120 day period.

30. +
Helping Customers Claim Their Chosen Spot on the
Digital Transformation Spectrum
= Digital Leaders<Your Company>
Close the meeting by restating how your companies by
combining forces will help your joint customers close the gap
between the potential that the technology provides and
actual realization that requires a thoughtful and systematic
execution.