Making Private Equity Firms Your Partners

Balaji Subramanian, Vice President of global partner ecosystem at Zuora, joins Changing Channel’s Larry Walsh to discuss the emergence of private equity and venture capital firms at go-to-market partners and productive members of channel ecosystems.

The channel is evolving to incorporate new types of partners. Everyone from accounting firms to non-tech product developers to social influencers is becoming a part of the indirect go-to-market process and sales model. Some people say that everyone and anyone has the potential of becoming a channel partner.

If that’s the case, why not private equity and venture capital firms?

PE and VC firms are the money people of the business. They provide the funding that underwrites innovation and drives technology progress. While they rely on the channel to deliver the sales and market share growth of their portfolio companies, they’re not exactly building channel programs and indirect go-to-market relationships.

As more vendors turn their attention to ecosystem sales models, some industrious channel chiefs are exploring and developing relationships with PE and VC firms to extend the reach of their channels and drive more sales relationships through their portfolio companies.

Incorporating PE and VC firms into channel programs is new, but not experimental. For some vendors, the relationship with these new partners and influencers are paying dividends in accelerating market coverage and channel sales growth.

A channel chief leading the charge on this new partnership type is Balaji Subramanian, the vice president of global partner ecosystem at Zuora, a provider of subscription management services. Subramanian joins Changing Channels to discuss how PE and VC firms are adding value to Zuora’s channel strategy and program.