Business performance management software vendor Hyperion has formalized a channel program for its more than 700 partners worldwide that are building solutions around its System 9 flagship product.
Under SolutionsNet, partners can now use Hyperion products within their tailored solutions for vertical markets such as packaged goods, banking, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and retail. The program is also flexible to work in other verticals such as the oil and gas sector.
According to Mercedes Ellison, vice-president of global partner sales for Hyperion, SolutionsNet is intended to boost the company’s efforts in markets beyond finance, a vertical it currently dominates.
“The mantra around here is that partners equal solutions and we understand finance. Partners are already building around their expertise with our software, so the question is how can we help them? SolutionsNet basically validates their solutions, that they exist, and there are customers out there using it successfully,” Ellison said.
From their SolutionsNet, partners can work with Hyperion’s inside sales force on new opportunities.
The company has already tested this program with 20 U.S.-based solution providers. The goal is for solution providers to replicate an industry specific System 9-based solutions into other geographies. These solutions would also be promoted on Hyperion’s Web site.
“Depending on what makes sense, we’ll do joint demand and thought leadership activities with partners and build business plans together,” Ellison said.
In Hyperion’s last fiscal year Ellison has added about more 100 partners. The majority of those new partners tackle the small to medium size enterprise market, she said.
Ellison expects that growth number to double in fiscal 2007.
Partner recruitment “is more about quality than quantity,” she said.
“Partners who have a unique domain expertise or territory coverage and can take solutions to market are what we are looking for. If there is a prospective partner out there who has developed a solution, I can give them the technical resources that can help that partner to further develop that solution. There is a lot of hand holding on the front end,” said Ellison, a native of Winnipeg.
SolutionsNet adds margin in a couple of ways, Ellison said, even though the program does not have any specific financial propositions. Partners will gain access to sales leads and be able to work with Hyperion sales force.
“These partners will see additional business they would not have seen otherwise. We look to them to support our sales cycles and I think it is more about increasing business opportunities for the partner to wrap around its value add. Then they can sell that with the margins they see fit,” Ellison said.
Currently, about 25 per cent of Hyperion’s licensed revenue goes through the channel.
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