Partnering and Co-selling is difficult. Partnering and Co-selling on the cloud is a whole new challenge altogether. Barracuda’s early entry to the cloud has given them a unique understanding of navigating ecosystems in this new environment.
In this episode, Nicole Napiltonia, VP Of Alliances and OEM Sales, at Barracuda joins Ecosystem Aces and discusses how she manages the company’s ecosystem strategy and how partnering has changed from on prem to the cloud.
Nicole shares:
- How Barracuda is leveraging their early entry into the cloud
- The increasing complexity of managing partners
- Barracuda’s emphasis on Co-Sell
Barracuda’s Early Entry to the Cloud
Barracuda adopted the cloud early but going into any new environment takes careful and strategic planning. Initially, the company’s security solutions were built on prem but with foresight and a strong understanding of their platform partners, the company virtualized and moved these solutions to the cloud.
Now Barracuda works to continue to look ahead and innovate with their solutions. Barracuda is focused on how to be agile in the go-to-market stage as well as doing so in an ecosystem-centric way. Nicole cautions that building a great solution and taking it to market is all for nothing without a clear plan about how partners are compensated and how the ecosystem benefits.
Navigating Complex Ecosystems in the Cloud
In the cloud economy, partnering can be very complex. Barracuda recognizes that their partnership with platform partners such as AWS and Microsoft impacts their ecosystem massively. The company knows that understanding how to effectively sell on these platforms in turn greatly benefits the entire ecosystem.
Nicole says that a key difference between partnering on prem vs in the cloud is the exponential increase in speed. To maximise this pace, partnering has to be done while tightly engaged and collaborating regularly with partners.
Optimizing Co-sell with partners
Barracuda and it’s partners understand that co-selling is a massive opportunity so they are investing heavily in collaborative and engaged partnering. The traditional reseller model now is no longer predominant because the best solutions are made from a combination of each partner’s offerings. Barracuda’s partners have their own intellectual property and couple it with the company’s IP to deliver the most optimal solutions that the market and customers want.
The best partnerships are when all partners have skin in the game, there's a discipline about the engagement and when the planning is rooted in realistic outcomes.
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To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about alliances, he can be reached by:
Email: chip@workspan.com
Twitter: @chiprodgers
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chiprodgers
