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Developing State & Local
Solution Partners
Developing State and Local
partnerships with the solutions providers can be a real challenge
-- even more so than in the Federal market.
In the S&L market, there are so many
variables to consider in identifying key solution provider partners,
the many different solution areas, the numerous states, localities,
regions and contract vehicles.
One way to approach partner
development is to start by breaking down your business into some key
areas/components:
- What States/geographic areas can you
realistically provide sales and support?
- What solution sets/business problems
does your technologies/services best map to?
- What S&L past performance can you
leverage?
Now you’ll need research help.
INPUT and Federal Sources (FSI) are good tools to use in dissecting
current activity and awarded contracts within the S&L markets.
In using these tools, develop the
search criteria by awarded contracts (over the last 3 years) and in
the key solutions areas in which you can feel you can play (i.e. law
enforcement, social services, ERP, CRM, security, mobility, information
sharing...). In creating these searches, make sure you use the
“incumbent” field. You’ll want to see the names of the firms that are
winning (as a prime) in your definite areas.
Then narrow your finding by the
geographic areas in which you can truly support (i.e. geographic
region, by the specific states and/or localities).
You should now have your draft “hit
list” of potential partners by the solutions areas and by the
geographic regions and/or states in which you can play.
Once you break down the list
geographically, you will find that there are multiple potential partners
all doing similar solutions, but they are only operating in specific
states/regions. What that means is that you may end up attempting to
partner with multiple solution providers chasing the same solution
areas, but you will choose these partners based on the region and/or
states in which they have experience and where you can provide coverage.
For example, you will find that
solution providers doing finance-related ERP in the Northeast will
be different than firms providing similar services in the Southwest.
After developing your draft “hit list” more work will still need to be
done.
More homework will be needed to trim
down the draft list to develop your final targeted “hit list”. Then
the real hard work comes in developing and executing your go-to-market
strategy in creating those real meaningful partnerships (we can discuss
that one in a future PSP Channel Insights e-letter).
I hope this has been helpful in getting
you get started in the development of your ‘hit list’ of potential State
and Local partnerships.
See you next month.
Scott Lewis
President
slewis@pspartnerships.com
PS Partnerships
www.pspartnerships.com
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