8:00 Chairperson’s Welcome And Opening Remarks

8:15 OPENING PANEL DISCUSSION: Building A Cohesive And Effective Channel Management Strategy

Success of a channel management strategy has to do with perspective, timing and getting away from a “one-and-done” mentality. Channel management is an interactive process that has to be flexible enough to respond to multiple ongoing changes in sales, operations, service and marketing.

• Getting the right content for partners and marketing
• Avoiding losing touch with sales
• Gaining necessary integration expertise

9:00 OPENING KEYNOTE: Managing Partners Throughout The Program Life Cycle: Best Practices For Maximizing Your Returns

Today, many businesses understand that the ultimate goal of process optimization is generating more value out of current programs rather than increasing the breadth and volume of activities and adding other programs. However, “channel management” encompasses an almost limitless number of things that vendor teams can pursue, and many companies fail to get the level of leverage they expect out of their partnerships due to the widely varied (and often frenetic) approaches used. This presentation will focus on creating and applying a clear and simple framework that everyone in the organization can understand and support, along with the best practices for that should represent the core activities for channel teams. Attend this interactive session and discuss the following:

• ROI-based Classification & Partner Profiling
• Core Processes for Channel Management
• Territory planning for Channel Teams
• Business planning with partners

Christopher Doggett
Vice President, Global Channel Sales
Sophos

Check Out Chris Dogget’s presentation from 2009

Formalizing and Globalizing Channel Partner Programs

10:45 Roundtable Discussion:

Join The Relevant Discussion For your Business And Focus On How To:

Stay up to date with the latest technologies, win new business, find new customers, find and retain employees, and consider managed services as a line of business

1. Identifying and Selecting VARs: How to Know a VAR is a Good Fit

Because many of the real benefits of VARs are intangible, selecting the right VAR is a critical challenge to overcome. What specifically do you need to look for in VAR? How do you help them to understand your business and its unique challenges? How do you build effective communication to avoid a cookie cutter approach to price?

Robert Cohen
President & Business Editor
Integrated mar.com Corporation

2. Service Business Model: Managed Services

When your partners deliver your technologies as managed services you need to be able to effectively address number of challenges. What rewards do you offer: financial and marketing? How do you define and set necessary requirements: labeling opportunities, auditing?

Steve Hale
VP, Global Datacenter Channel Lead
Novell

3. DMRs: Building and Implementing a comprehensive Network of Partnerships in the DMR Space

Working with DMR poses very distinct and unique challenges! Each component of your DMR strategy should be measured against company’s strategy and overall business goals! But how to achieve that and what approach should be taken to maximize your efforts? This requires a complete understanding of the DMR space to determine fit and enable predictable success at an account level.

Carole Amos
Director, Channel Management
IronKey

11:30 SOCIAL MEDIA DEBATE: How Effective Is Social Media For Your Channel Programs?

A common challenge in leveraging social media for your channel management initiatives is identifying what results can be expected and should be expected from social media campaigns. Attend this interactive debate and answer the following questions:

• How to define success in social media?
• What metrics and measurements should be deployed?
• Is social media “strategy” too disconnected from other areas of the business?

Mark Chellis
Director, Worldwide Channel Marketing
Motorola

1:30 PANEL DISCUSSION: Evolving Channel Engagement Models: Select The One That Works For YOU!

Effective channel engagement model allows your partners to concentrate on their core competencies. In this way, they fulfill their obligations to the end user as competitively as possible. But, selecting an effective model that would prove to be the most beneficial for your business is not an easy task. Join this interactive session and learn how to:

• Identify the range of various solutions from simple product sourcing to more complicated mixes
• Identify the necessary components of your model: management and monitoring, corporate policy development, technical and sales consulting, education and IT infrastructure design
• Select the appropriate financing option

2:15 Panel Discussion:

Part 1: Demand Generation: Motivating Your Partners to Bring Additional Self-generated Sales Opportunities

Best partners do not simply execute on the leads that you have provided for them. Best partners are motivated to uncover additional opportunities. What changes to your current business model need to be made to help your partners to take this extra step?

Part 2: Taking Control over the Flow of Leads: Partner Performance

As it often happens, partners discard poor quality leads without providing feedback on the quality of leads. A general rule of PRM is that you can’t expect too much feedback from your partner. In reality, partners are more akin to customers! Join this interactive session and learn how to sell them on using your leads, instead of your competitor’s.

Check Out Proxim’s Presentation from 2010

Partner Enablement and Training

4:00 Case-Study: 5 Things You Need To Know To Build An Effective Partners’ Certification Program

Certification of knowledge and skills through a strong certification program plays a major role in ensuring the success of your partner program! However, there are many questions that need to be answered: How frequently do your partners need to be certified? What certification do they need to receive – products/services, customers? Attend this interactive session and learn how to:

• Build a smart partners certification program to strengthen market recognition and branding
• Help partners to benefit from an increased level of support, branding, and economic incentives such as access to best-in-class products and services, technical support, productivity tools, online training, marketing resources, and sales promotions
• Manage and evaluate a certification program identifying the necessary steps for improvement

Donna Buffett
VP, Americas Channels
Citrix Systems

4:45 PANEL DISCUSSION: Marketing To VAR’s: Best Practices

Last year many companies have changed their VAR marketing strategy to reflect the changes in the economy. However, since many of last year’s decision were survival driven, which strategy trends are here to stay and which ones should change? Join this interactive panel discussion and re-evaluate the following:

• Up-selling: stay or change?
• Reducing, stagnating marketing budgets: stay or change?
• Joint marketing campaigns with complementary companies: stay or change?

5:30 Close Of Day 1