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Conducted 50+ consulting projects for technology companies with an emphasis on understanding external market factors such as customers, competitors, technological trends, channels, etc. to inform corporate and product strategy. Ensured recommendations are implementable by assessing internal capabilities and adopting best practices through several large benchmark studies regarding use of social media for customer support, lead generation, channel management, etc. Also created tools for salesforce to help implement strategy, e.g., ROI/TCO calculators, white papers, case studies, etc.

For a leading network computing infrastructure solutions provider, benchmarked six (BEA, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec) competitors’ partner programs in order to develop a ‘play book’ for our client as they reorganized their own partner program. Conducted a comprehensive analysis of how competitors managed their entire channel, including direct sales force, distributors, VARs (value-added resellers), ISVs (independent software developers), SIs (system integrators), developers and websites. Topics covered included program requirements, benefits, compensation structure, and retained margins. Client subsequently redesigned and re-launched their partner program to incorporate best practices identified.For a leading security and availability software company, prioritized marketing support available for select group of global strategic partners (Accenture, CSC, Dell, EDS, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel, Network Appliance, Nortel, SAP, Unisys, etc.). After conducting interviews with executives to generate initial list and critical buy-in, benchmarked client against five competitors in order to learn from industry best practices. Then defined and weighted range of criteria against which he ranked partners by soliciting votes from client executives. Framework established a repeatable, standard, corporate-wide decision-making framework and process for selecting and prioritizing partners that can now occur without our assistance. This enabled client’s partner management teams to stay focused on long-term, world-wide marketing initiatives versus meeting ad-hoc needs associated with particular business units, deals, etc.For a leading network equipment provider, developed a prioritized market and partner strategy. Client had a broad set of underutilized technologies (including kiosks, unified communications, workflow automation, video, security, etc.), and wanted to find a partner that could help them increase revenue in the short-term and move up the value chain in the long-term. Assessed market size, growth rate and other variables which influenced different market segments’ attractiveness to our client and came up with a prioritized market segmentation strategy. Then then developed a range of criteria to judge different categories of partners (SIs, VARs, etc.) and prioritized potential partners within each category. For the market leading SaaS company in the HR (applicant tracking, performance management, compensation) industry, conducted competitive analysis by interviewing recent wins/loss accounts. Interviews were with decision makers in HR and IT departments and focused on why they did/did not choose client's solution. Information helped sales and marketing teams better position themselves against competitors (BrassRing, Kenexa, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Success Factors, etc.). The rapid and consistent market intelligence on pricing, latest product enhancements, and positioning also dispelled myths and weeded out inappropriate references and account managers.Client needed to integrate $1B acquisition into its go-to-market strategy, which was indirect through VARs/SIs versus acquired SaaS companies’ direct sales strategy. He assessed impact of SaaS on clients’ traditional channel partners and led workshops with partners to explain economics of SaaS and how type of professional services they typically provided would change, e.g., managed services, application development, etc.