WOTC Panel On Challenges, Specialization And Building Perfect Channel Programs

Pam Johansen, Paula Gil, Penny Philpot and Tricia Atchison
Pam Johansen, Paula Gil, Penny Philpot and Tricia Atchison

Tricia Atchison, Sr. Director, RTM & Channel Marketing, Symantec: I would also echo some of the comments that have been said. Also, when you look at your partner base you have these really big partners that you work with that require certain things but, particularly with Symantec, we also have a pretty big base of smaller partners. Trying to bridge the gap between the two and figuring out what the right investment models are from a Symantec standpoint gets a little tricky sometimes to keep that whole partner community afloat.

Mackenzie: How are you finding information to help make those decisions and make those changes? Where are you going to get that?

Philpot: For me...if you don't know, ask. I'm always the first person to put my hand up and say I don't know. I know that everyone else is always thinking the same question. I don't mind looking stupid –It's an English thing. What I'm doing is I'm asking everyone I could possibly know, all my partners, looking at doing partner surveys and also talking to some of our top partners, stakeholders, product owners, the businesses, also using analysts a lot and also looking at what colleagues as well as competitors [are doing]. I think the answer is out there and it's going to be different for everyone. I'm a data junkie and data is my friend. I want to analyze as much of as we can, but don't take too long about it otherwise [the problem will] move on. Get your stake in the ground and then move on and see how that goes. That's in the plan.

Johansen: One thing is the sharing. Even with your competitors. We all may compete but we all may have really great ideas and we need to be able to share them. That's one of the things that we do – we go out and talk to our competitors. First our partners say here is someone to go talk to, but it's the sharing. We're going to find our own very unique thing that's in there and works for us and other companies will look at other things. My comment to that is let's share it with each other, for sure.

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