For the past three years, we’ve conducted our State of AppExchange Partner Survey to understand the trends partners care about most. We then roll up these findings into our State of AppExchange Partners Report and present these findings at Dreamforce for an expert-led partner panel. For those who aren’t able to attend Dreamforce, we host a follow-up session.
This year, our CEO, Brian Walsh, was joined by President of Geneia, Heather Lavoie, as well as Director, Strategic Partnerships & Pricing at Sparta Systems, Brian Rash, to discuss their results and share their predictions for the coming year.
We’re bringing you just a few of the insights shared during the session here. If you want to listen to the session in full and get a free copy of the report, simply register here.
Prime Time Isn’t a Destination. It’s a Process
This year’s theme for our report was It’s Prime Time, which is based on Dr. Ichak Adizes’ corporate lifecycle model.
The Prime stage is where every organization strives to achieve. Indicators of the Prime Stage are consistent, above-average growth; goals being set and exceeded; and intra- and inter-organizational integration and alignment.
We see that each aspect of these indicators is met for partners on the AppExchange. 65% of respondents stated that participation in the ISV Program increased their revenue.
When some partners hear these stats, they worry that they may have already missed their opportunity to take advantage of the growth that the ecosystem is experiencing. However, when looking back at the Adizes framework, he notes that the Prime stage isn’t a destination that organizations reach and then rest.
As Brian Walsh calls out, “without continued investment…if you start taking profit off the table at that point, you start going to the other side, which is the decline of business.”
We find there is continued investment from Salesforce into the AppExchange and the Partner program. Here is a shortlist of investments we heard at Dreamforce: new clouds (both organic and through acquisition), new segments, new industries, new license types, and innovation across the entire partner program.
With these investments and innovations, we expect that the AppExchange will continue to remain in the Prime stage.
Brian and the panelists go on to examine the challenges that come with participating in an organization that has experienced extended periods of growth, and we surface some of the thoughts from our survey.
Those Responsible for Growth are Seeing Their Bets Pay Off
For business leaders, the Growth section of the report remains a top interest area. As we called out earlier, for those in the Prime stage, investment continues to happen, and this echoed in our findings based on partner growth patterns.
50% of respondents who said their revenues are significantly increasing predict a significant increase in all three major areas of their businesses: sales personnel, developer personnel, and R&D investments — both internally through hiring and external through work with partners like PDOs.
We hear from Brian Rash as a leader for Partnerships and Pricing at Sparta with his growth experiences on the frontlines of the Partner Program:
“The results of this report are entirely accurate in Sparta’s experience, in terms of where we’re growing and where we need to grow and what kind of investments we’re making. We have equal need from growing Sales and Engineering talent this year.”
He goes on to share how Sparta found unexpected growth in the ecosystem. They already had a strong on-prem client base. So, their goal was to convert those clients to a SaaS model. The entire organization expected that conversion to take all of the team’s effort and energy. Amazingly though, they also have seen “tremendous growth in new logos.”
With more partners joining Salesforce and finding solutions on the AppExchange, the team at Sparta quickly realized that they had to stand up a new team to support these partners and accelerate the innovations they are investing in.
A Fruitful Relationship with Salesforce is a Two-Way Street
As a channel, working with Salesforce can be complex — especially those navigating the process for the first time.
Our survey shows us that 41% of participants rank their AppExchange listing as their number one lead driver. But, as we have said time and time again, “the Salesforce platform is not a build it and they will come model.” For this year’s survey, we opened it up for respondents to provide open feedback to us, and we found that many had much to say, both good and challenging.
Channel conflict and service and support issues tend to be a consistent concern for partners. Anecdotally, we do find that those who partner deeper with Salesforce overall have higher satisfaction and better results than those who simply look to Salesforce to fill pipeline.
Heather Lavoie of Geneia shares her experiences and strategies when working with the various teams across Salesforce.
“We work with our ISV partner [at Salesforce] and relationship teams. We’re presenting to the Sales teams and AEs at various events and called webinars, educating them on the use cases. And we’re meeting with certain Account Executives to do account planning jointly. We end up bringing a lot of leads over to Salesforce and vice versa.”
It is this blended approach that ultimately drives success for partners and Salesforce alike. At CodeScience, we don’t just build products for partners; we also educate them on how to speak Salesforce and position themselves in a way that resonates. Because ultimately, it is our mission to see these partners thrive on the AppExchange.
We also cover exclusive insights on technology trends and ISV as well as showcasing our investment section with data and insights from Crunchbase. You can listen in full if you register here.
Whether you’re investigating your opportunity to start a new partnership with Salesforce or are hoping to get more from your existing product, we bring experience from over 250 commercial applications to help you thrive. If you’re interested in learning more, get in touch!
