Conifer Consulting

Partners Revisited – Seven Watch-Outs

by Reena Kapoor

Jeff Thompson, my partner at Aventi Group, and I recently worked on a project where we helped an important client revisit and optimize their channel strategy. The problem was that our client who sells directly and indirectly to the SMB segment, had partnerships agreements in place with over 9000 partners.  But what they did not have is a clear picture of which partners were performing or even active.  Note that this is a client for whom the SMB segment (yes I know it is not one monolithic segment) is key and selling through partners is very important. Also our client is a leader in understanding this segment and providing incentives for making their partners successful in selling to SMBs. 

Finding a home for Product Management: Part 2

by Reena Kapoor

So it took me longer to get back to my blog than I thought  (I had to be out of the country at short notice). But I want to get back to reasons for why product management belongs in marketing - and not in engineering.  The first factor was of course around defining marketing properly (it's much more than marketing communications).  Another key reason is that product management needs to reflect the voice of the customer and market realities in the product requirements.  If product management is part of engineering then this imperative risks being lost.