“Our previous IBM Software Group’s business partner incentive programs like the ‘Top Contributor Initiator Program’, focused the majority of the incentives on fulfillment activity. SVI on the other hand takes a value approach and significantly increases the incentives for the partners that are engaged early in the sales process, at the ‘Identity’ and ‘Sell’ stages, independent of whether they are fulfilling as well,” Acke states.

“This allows the partners to retain more margin than in our previous programs. In addition, SCI offers incremental incentives for partners who sell solutions into the high growth small or medium-sized business (SMB) customer segment,” she adds.

The SVI program allows business partners to retain more margins by leveraging the implementation of what Acke describes as a “very secure opportunity registration system.” This system features a dedicated portal where partners can register their sales opportunities. When the sale closes, partners receive an incentive fee for registered deals which ensures that they will be rewarded for their contribution to the deal closing.

“This allows our partners to protect their profitability and invest in other resources such as people, training, skills development and solutions incorporating IBM’s suite of middleware software solutions,” she elaborates.

Eric Yeo, channel sales leader, IBM Software Group, Singapore chips in, “We are very pleased with the new program. The Software Group which basically sells middleware is certainly one of the more challenging Groups within IBM with a long sales cycle for example. We have modified our program to push partners to value sell and value-add rather than simply resell, and this in turn, will identify and develop more opportunities. This has resulted in a shift in our whole partner ecosystem to create a value mindset for all our partners. It is also a huge leap forwards for IBM, showing our commitment to the channels as we now recognize that partners who identify and sell, may not necessarily be the ones who close the deal. We realize it is crucial to not ignore them for they play a pivotal role in the lifecycle of a deal and therefore, should and deserve to also partake in the rewards schemes.

Acke adds that the main objectives of the SVI program are:

• To grow and build the company’s business eco-system.
• Put in place a mechanism to provide value-add to partners which will ultimately boost profitability.
• Ensure a more structured program (for example ensure that incremental incentives are tied to the value of identification of new opportunities) thereby increasing the Group’s sales value in the SMB marketplace.
• Protect the value of their partners’ contributions.
• Ensure total confidentiality of the system (protect all partners in terms of opportunities/leads they register.
• Keep the program simple and ensure that there are no prerequisites, i.e. that any partner can participate in the program irrespective of the partner-type (SI, ISV, integrator, developer, consultant, etc.).
• Ensure partners can elect what types of sales cycle they want to go into.

Reflecting IBM’s dedication and commitment to the new program and of course to its partners, the company invested in a 6-month consultation period with its business partners, then ensured it put the feedback given to good use.

Yeo adds that it is not easy to roll-out such a program because it involves a change in mindset but IBM ‘stuck to its guns’ and put in a lot of groundwork and effort to ensure a smooth roll-out.
IBM has gone with a staggered launch approach for the program to ensure that they have enough capacity to deal with the registrations, ensure there are no teething problems and ensure the back-end systems were well-sorted and run smoothly. Another reason for this phased approach is because the opportunity registration system feature is currently only available in English. It will be available in other languages such as Chinese and Japanese next year. However, Korea is the only exception because according to Acke, the Koreans were extremely eager for an early roll-out. The Korean version of the SVI will be out in Q4 this year. Yeo also gives his ‘thumbs up’ to this approach because he says that it allows IBM to fine-tune the program to each region.

The pilot SVI program was unveiled in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom in April this year. It hit ASEAN, South Asia and Hong Kong in July.

Acke says that since its launch in the region last month, partner feedback has been incredible and the result has been a positive number of enrolments. “It’s the most successful partner/incentive program launch we’ve ever had so far. The number of partners who have registered for the program is just overwhelming and we are of course very pleased with the take-up rate and deal registration.”

According to her, 150 partners in the Asia Pacific region have signed up so far, and this number is set to climb steadily because enrolments are coming in everyday. Yeo also commented on the positive sign-up rate, saying, “It is always a good sign when one has partners who have found it difficult to get ROI from previous programs, but who are still interested and make the effort to also attend the launch.” He says that a main objective of the SVI program is to not really focus too much on recruiting brand new customers but more partners who were challenged by the older programs. However, he also stresses that new partners who focus on value-selling are always welcome. Yeo adds that so far 18 Singapore partners have signed up for the new program, the majority being SIs and solution providers. “This is the correct mix to have,” he notes.

Lee Hui Song, application consulting manager, of eWorkplace, a leading systems integrator in Singapore and an advanced partner of IBM notes how excited his company is about the SVI program, and adds that they are very pleased with the support given by IBM which has further motivated their company. “We see a lot of potential in this new program. For one, it will allow us to build a better technical team. IBM has marketed the program very well to its business partners and it is good to see them putting their money on as well as concentrating on partners who invest in skills and other resources.” he says.

“Channel partners who make a genuine commitment toward identifying opportunities and educating the marketplace on the business advantages of IBM solutions are now being recognized and rewarded. We believe that the program will yield greater business advantage for partners like eWorkplace and will strengthen our collaborative relationship with IBM, which will ultimately drive more benefits for clients. We anticipate partners like ourselves, who are able to make an early impact in the sales process will also fully embrace this lucrative program.”

He adds that eWorkplace would like to see more co-funding from IBM, citing up to 50% for each partner.

In answer to this, Yeo explains that IBM used to fund everything for partners years back, but this changed because they feel that if partners also invest a little, it motivates them even more. However, he says that IBM is flexible and reveals that the company is considering increasing the proportion of funding to partners on a case-by-case basis.

“What IBM wants to see at the end of the day is our partners enjoying success and becoming even more profitable via this program. We do believe that this program will do exactly this,” he says.