Editor’s note: In mid-June, we brought together some of our technology clients — Cisco, Sage, Citrix, and Red Hat — to discuss challenges and opportunities associated with market development fund (MDF) programs. We had lively debates and discussions, heard outside perspectives from Forrester and CDW, and shared program best practices. This is the second article in a series that captures our learnings and workshop highlights.
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Do you ever wonder what the day-to-day is like for your channel partners? We do. They are the primary end users of our Ansira Edge Technology Suite™, so we wanted their perspective represented at our recent MDF workshop. We asked CDW Partner Investment Supervisor Tristan Towne to lead a panel discussion. Her team handles more than 300 partners, for whom MDF is one source of funding.
On any given day, her team shepherds more than 50 MDF claim activities through their various original equipment manufacturer (OEM) processes — of which no two are the same. Roughly seven to 10 people within the partner organization (CDW in this case) touch some aspect of the claims process, and those stakeholders stretch across departments, from marketing to finance. Each stakeholder has a role to play, but his or her activities often occur in isolation.
With help from Towne, we covered a range of topics and delved deep into MDF challenges and opportunities as partners see them. These are some of the takeaways from our discussion:
Top partner challenges:
Top opportunities for greater partner engagement:
This information not only provided critical input for the remainder of our workshop, but it also reminded us that insights don’t have to be revelatory to make an impact.
Read other articles in our MDF workshop series: