Cherwell is overhauling its global channel program. These changes will continue to drive stellar customer service, but don’t use it as an excuse to outsource Cherwell learning and development.
Source: Cherwell Service Management at SoftwareReviews, February 2019
Our operations analyst team briefed with Matthew Peeples, VP of Worldwide Channel at Cherwell. Matt is new to the organization, and one of his first public-facing actions was to overhaul the partnership program.
Cherwell will start to distinguish partners with these types and tiers:
Organizations can choose to be a partner in all three aspects (channel, delivery, and technology alliance), or only in one. Previously, Cherwell did not distinguish between channel partners and delivery partners. Cherwell also did not have tiers for these types of partnerships. A Partner tier in the Channel Sales program or Delivery program reflects:
- The number of annual resells and the number of new customers (for channel)
- The number of Cherwell services projects or billable days (for delivery)
- The number of Cherwell trained sales executives and solution engineers (for channel) or the number of Cherwell certified engineers
- The number of staff with ITIL certifications and project management certifications (for delivery)
No changes to the Technology Alliances Partner Program have been announced.
Our Take
These changes will help to grow Cherwell’s user base without compromising customer service. By requiring staff to have training and certifications, existing clients, and existing projects, Cherwell is trying to ensure a minimum level of competency among their partners.
If Cherwell wants to play in the enterprise space, it needs to have a strong partner program. It also will need to compete directly with ServiceNow, which had year-over-year growth in total billings of 37% in 2017 and 34% in 2018 according to its 2018 annual report. This new partner program should help.
Customers that work with Cherwell’s partners should not consider this announcement to be an opportunity to outsource learning and development. Continue to invest internally in Cherwell, ITSM, and project management training so you can extract the most benefit from your Cherwell solution.
By: Ken Weston