Why Partner with Aras?

We’ll go ahead and get started. Today’s topic is why partner with Aras? A conversation about opportunity, investment and growth. So with that, I would like to have a warm welcome to my two colleagues here, Don Cooper, who is our vice President of Global alliances, and Michele McCarthy, who’s our director of Partner recruitment. Michele, I will turn it over to you.

Thank you so much, Brigitte and thanks to everybody that joined us today for this conversation. Don, before we begin, I’d like to set just a little bit of context here for our listeners. We tend to get the same questions repeatedly and often from partners, from our colleagues at Aras and customers. So today’s conversation is really going to be a bit of a Q&A where you can help us and the listeners gain some insight as to how we strategize around our partner engagement.

How are we going to market and really help them understand what the opportunity is? Does that work for you? Yeah, it works great for me. Thank you. Okay, great. So let’s let’s dive in with what the moment is right now. So from your perspective, why is this the best time to partner with Aras? Yeah. Thank you Michele. It’s a great question to actually start with because I think it is the is the tip of the iceberg in the industry.

Having been in the industry for over 25 years in PLM, and we’ve all seen those phases and those waves of ups and downs and moves left and move right. I firmly believe that this space in PLM and digital thread is actually at an inflection point. We’re seeing it in customer conversations. We’re seeing it in engagements that we’re in.

And if you step back a little bit and you look at the macro of it, you’ll see that a lot of companies have been deploying PLM technology for many years. A lot of companies are maybe even struggling to get more value out of their PLM. And there’s this movement towards digital thread. And how do you get more information that’s connected and related to the entire product lifecycle management?

And so what we’re seeing in the industry is companies are trying to find that last mile value, and they’re struggling with a lot of monolithic applications. And that’s where Aras comes in. Aras is well suited in this space where different by design. And we’re helping those companies deliver that last mile value. What that means for our partner community is an unbelievable opportunity to actually go after this space with us.

And now you converge in there. Things around AI. How does AI actually augment this product development lifecycle situation? And then the move to SaaS is democratizing how people actually serve information, etc.. So, Michele, I would say it’s a combination of of the history of PLM with new technologies, and companies are looking at technology refreshes, and a lot of people are taking a fresh look at this and saying, what if?

And that’s where I think the opportunity in the space and for our partners comes from. So it’s really the perfect moment. And then if we have partners on the line right now, which I know we do, who are thinking about, do I want to take advantage of that moment? They might be curious to know how Aras goes to market.

What’s our go to market approach? And I know you and I have spent a lot of time on this one. Yeah, we sure have. And and since I’ve joined Aras, we spent a lot of time at the executive leadership team working on our go to market. And the way we go to market here at Aras is is no different than probably most organizations in that we go direct.

We have direct accounts that we’ve identified, but we also have an indirect plan that we actually go through with a segmentation to our resale partners. And so later in this conversation, you know, Michele and I are going to talk a bit about the different partner types. But our main go to market is through a direct indirect model. And it’s very nice because it gives our indirect partners the ability to work indirect accounts and make money.

It gives you the opportunity to go sell into channel accounts and make money. And so we have multiple ways that partners can make money in this ecosystem.

So if the time is now and we’re thinking about that go to market approach, what shifts are you seeing in that market, Don, that create great opportunities here for those who are listening and with us today? Yeah, I think some of these shifts, Michele, come back to the opening question that we had, the shifts that are taking place in the industry, the shifts around what people are expecting, what customers are expecting from the partners and what they’re expecting from the PLM vendors.

They’re expecting a more frictionless user experience. They’re expecting delivery in a hybrid environment, whether it’s on premises or on a SaaS. They’re expecting to deploy and get the value from AI in a very secure, governed environment. And so what’s happening is there’s a lot changing and a lot shifting in the space. That’s where I think our partner program comes in and is delivering unbelievable value for those partners, because partners that come in, that understand the space and are looking and match up to our values around customer centricity, is where the real value and the opportunity comes for both of us, whether you’re a partner or working with us.

Okay. And when you think then about scaling with partners in that market, talk to us a little bit about how those partners might play a critical role in areas in the world where Aras doesn’t go it alone at all. Tell us a little more about that. Yeah, so so we scale Michele in certain regions differently. We scale in certain parts of Southeast Asia, for example, through a 100% partner indirect model.

So if you’re listening in leader live or on the replay and you’re in Southeast Asia, reach out to us. We have markets that are open and we’re happy to work with you in those markets, their partner led regions. We also have regions, for example in Germany and France and the UK, where we actually go through a mixed environment where we have direct presence but also indirect presence.

If you have expertise in industry or that market, reach out to us as well. And then in our, you know, our major markets like the US and Japan, we still have opportunities to work together. We have openings. So the good news is, Michele, regardless of where you are in the world, I think we have a place for you in our partner program.

I agree there we have models that partners can engage with in any geo, but we have geos that are primarily partner led. So I’m happy to talk to any of our partners about where they fit. Yeah. So partner programs, you alluded to this. When partners here partner program often they think tears that they can’t attain things that shift all the time.

They don’t know where the landscape is going. We’ve spent a lot of time working on our partner program and maturing it in the last year. Tell, tell our audience a little bit about the key elements of that partner program. And you alluded to it earlier how we’ve organized that. Tell us more. Yeah. So, you know, I’m a I come from a world of simplicity and being a sales rep in the field.

And I always say, if you can’t figure out your commission check at a stoplight is too complicated. And I think the same thing is for our partner program that if it’s too complicated or if it’s moving around and it’s constantly changing, it doesn’t instill a lot of trust in the partnership. And so our partner program, the tiering program for our resale partners is very simple.

We have a threshold for the different levels that we have. And it’s very and we’re not trying to gamify the whole situation. We’re being very clear and upfront with it. And then number two is we actually know how important it is for you with the renewals. And so we actually put a renewal rate target together that’s mutually beneficial for both parties.

And then we also put an element in there around expansion. And so all three of those if you think about it it really is around supporting the customer. And so we put the customer at the center of our partner program. And then we actually reward our partners from there. Now inside of there there are certain things that we do.

We we expect partners to deliver first line technical support and deliver customer success. All of those things that we know partners benefit from as well. The beautiful thing in this is, is we actually have the program that’s it’s the same program for whether you’re an on premises user, customer or actually in SaaS. And I bring that up because we expect our partners to participate with us in this full SaaS journey as well, because that’s what customers want.

So Michele, it’s really a simple approach. We have a have a tiering model with a target, and we share it out and we publish it and we work together to achieve it. And then we have. Partner types within that program. So can you walk us through those different partner types and where the opportunity is for those partners to drive AR and make revenue for their business?

Yeah. Well, I’m probably gonna need a little longer on this answer because there’s a little bit bigger topic here. But we we have our partner program pretty simple. And that is we have partners that sell they sell products. We have partners that actually service and they service and support innovator. And then those that actually build and they build things.

So let me start with the first one. The first one is the cell partners. Those are traditionally your resell partners. But what’s really nice is we actually have a kind of multiple flavors of a resell partner you can resell on your own. We also have a cassette model where we can you can work with our direct organization, or you might even just want to be in a referral mode where you refer something in and we work it and we pay you a back end commission.

So multiple options, multiple flavors for option number one in the area of cell. And the second area around service. This is where our system integrators, our global system integrators have built building practices to help some of our deployments and your deployments. It’s a great way for partners to build practices to use their consulting expertise and deliver value. The third area is in the area of build, and those are our ISV partners.

And because innovator is built on an open, flexible platform, you have the ability to build applications right inside of innovator. And we have many, many customers that are building or partners that are actually building products for our customers. On top of innovator, we recently introduced a marketplace which actually gives gives partners the ability to reach the customers through our marketplace.

And then the other area of build is where our OEM partners, we have people that have built industry specific solutions out on top of innovator, and they private label and brand knows into the market today. Now many of our partners actually cut across multiple types, maybe all three types of cell service and build because they sell it to the market, they service their own customers.

And then maybe they build an application around change management or bomb management or something like that. And that’s the nice thing here with us is we you do have that ability to serve multiple partner types if that fits your business model. So Michele, we have three main areas. We we sell service and build.

Thanks Don. So if we take a step back for a minute, we’ve talked about timing. We’ve talked about market shifts and what’s happening and how exciting it is in PLM right now, how we go to market with partners, and then the different ways partners can engage and generate revenue. One thing the leadership has been very clear with me on is that Aras is looking for a particular type of partner to participate in that cell service build model.

With that in mind.

What do you think is the, you know, the ideal Aras partner right now? Maybe you could even say within those models. Yeah. You know, it’s I think if I was to pull on one area and one thing to start with, the ideal partner profile is someone that is looking to, you know, add a product line like Aras Innovator to support their domain or industry expertise.

What we find is many companies kind of just navigate to their customer base, and they’re serving their customers in a certain industry. And I think when a partner brings that industry expertise, they’re the trusted advisor often in many of their clients. That’s a really nice marriage and partnership to bring to the table. That’s typically what we see in the in the resale motion.

You can also have maybe a geographic presence and they cover a geography or a space in the market. We see those partners with the most successful in our partner ecosystem. If I look at the service area, those partners that that have built practices around implementation services and support, they do very, very well in our organization. We actually have a motion here where we’re a system integrator.

Partners can coexist. We do actually have a professional services organization. And in that organization we do work together. We work together with with partners. I’ll be very clear. We don’t have, you know, so much business that we have to work on the subcontracting piece. And obviously that’s a question I get often you start in the conversation, Michele, with a repeatable question.

But I just wanted to share that that is a it’s an option and it’s a space that we live in around the service piece. And then the build piece, ideal profile is someone that has domain expertise and an offering. Maybe it’s in a materials compliance area or the example I gave earlier around change management. Those partners that have domain expertise do very, very well in our build motion with our ISV motions.

So that’s those are just three examples, Michele, that I see partners that are successful in our ecosystem.

Now given that, you know, we do like partners to invest for success and we invest in them as well. If there are partners listening right now that are thinking about that investment, they might be in various geographies. Where would you say that were actively looking for partners right now? Is there one region over another or are we looking more broadly?

Yeah, I think the the core regions would actually be in Europe. We’re building out Europe pretty extensively. So Germany is very important to us with a major investment. We have a regional leadership in in three regions. We have four for Europe, Sammy Abu-Hamdan for the Americas, the rest of the world, and then Japan. Southeast Asia. Is Masahiko-san particularly important to us right now is continuing to build out the European region, United Kingdom and France, and that region is really important right now.

So that’s number one priority. Number two priority. We have a major focus in the US because of all of the great success that we’re seeing. On the direct side, there’s the trickle effect. There’s a fact of winning these major accounts in the US, which is causing or unveiling new opportunities, either in the supply chain or other companies that we’re seeing.

And then the third area, as I mentioned earlier, is Southeast Asia. So whether it’s Vietnam, whether it’s actually parts of Korea or Singapore, very, very interesting to us. So those would be the kind of the prioritization of those major recruitment areas. Michele.

We’re still of course open to other areas, but thanks for clarifying the the key areas. Yeah, I get this question a lot. How am I going to invest for success as a partner. So I talk to a lot of potential partners. And I often talk about investing to market, sell and support. But what’s your perspective on how a partner should invest their resources to be successful?

Yeah, it’s it’s interesting. Michele, you said market sell and support because I think that’s kind of the key component of, you know, what we look for in partners. But your question is a little differently to me. And where where would we invest. And I think it starts with sales capacity. I think anything that this, you know, to sell this product, it’s it’s like anything else.

It’s a bit of a creating a vision of what is possible in the area of digital thread. And so it does require an element of hand to hand engagement with your customers and prospects. So I would say number one is some level of sales capacity to actually engage with your customers prospects, etc.. Number two would actually be in the area of technical and I think of technical in two ways.

One is a pre-sales technical competency, one to actually demonstrate the technology in a way that customers could see value. And then the secondary technical piece would be like an implementation services support component. And then the third component would actually be more around the marketing demand generation, air cover type stuff that many companies have. It’s a matter of branding and promoting Arris in your region or your industries.

I think what then comes along, maybe not early on, but once, you know, once the customers start to sign up and the customers start to come your way, is an element of renewal, sales or even customer success support, which oftentimes becomes just a byproduct of the the services engagement that companies offer. So kind of tiered Michele sales first second parts technical third part would be marketing.

And of course Aras invests it in the partner simultaneously as the partner is investing. Do you wanted to say a few words about how we invest in those those partners? Yeah, we’re investing in in multiple areas. One, helping partners with their go to market with their targets, with with a go to market model, with profiling customers reaching out and engaging and preparing the sales reps with some sales enablement, we also do a good job on the technical enablement side, where we’ll actually train on innovator, get your people up to a level of technical compensation competency.

We provide pre-sale support, pre-sales, demo materials. We also provide area of marketing support. It’s a newer muscle for us, I’ll be very honest, but it’s actually something that we’re continuing to build and work with our partners on is doing some more marketing with. But we also have in that go to market question you asked me earlier, we actually do have the ability to share and leads.

Should they come in, we actually will work together on those. And then the other thing, which is really interesting, which I think makes us unique, is in the area of upgrades. We haven’t talked about it much on this call yet, but customers need to go through an element of upgrades. And so inside of innovator, when you’re on a paid commercial subscription area, will actually do the upgrades for the customers.

And so that’s a real value add for our partners is that Aras is is providing that upgrade service and support, and it can actually become a complementary revenue stream for our partners because partners are providing that on the ground support with the customers around upgrades, and then let us continue to upgrade those instances. So there’s a lot of things in there, Michele, that we do, and we offer to help our partners be successful.

And of course, if partners are interested in learning more about the product, because we really didn’t talk about product today, we talk more about how we engage with partners. We we did, you know, skirt the edges of product. But of course, myself and the rest of the GA team, the global Alliances team, are happy to take a deep dive on product with any partner that wants to see what the value is for their customer.

Yeah, that’s a great point, Michele. It’s it’s one of those things that in the journey together, when we when we get to the level with the partners, we typically will actually do a product positioning session where we’ll actually do demonstration of the products and, and then really start to roll back. So, so that potential partners can understand the offering.

True. And that’s where it gets really exciting sometimes for partners where they can see how unique and how different we are. Yeah. So if somebody is watching today listening today or in the future and they think, all right, this sounds like I could be successful with arrows, what’s the best way to start a conversation with us? Well, the first thing is reach out.

Let’s have a conversation. So reach out to to Michele. Reach out to anyone you know inside of us. But Michele is is a great first point of contact. Connect with us on LinkedIn or directly. I think, Michele, you’re going to leave your contact info at the end of this webcast, but reach out to us. You know, this is an important step for both parties.

What we want to do is, you know, have a have a business conversation around what’s what are you doing in your business. How could we potentially work together? The goal here is not to be high pressure or, you know, try to just sign up a partnership to have a partnership. We’re very interested in partners that are interested in growing their business, delivering high value, differentiated solutions to your customers.

And I’d say reach out, let’s have a conversation. And then if they reach out, what does the evaluation process look like? We talked about what the ideal partner profile is a little bit. And what does evaluation look like inside areas to from the first conversation let’s say to agreement you talked about the technical overview. But speak to that engagement just a little bit more.

Yeah sure. I’m going to say when when they partners reach out to us, this is what, you know, typically what we do is we’ll ask for a kind of a sharing session. So we’ll share a little bit about each other in a session where we learn more about you and your business and where you’re going. Number two, we would share a bit more about what we’re doing and where we’re going.

And if there’s mutual interest, what we would do is move to a next stage. And that next stage would be a discussion around the technology and what we’re doing and where we’re going. And from there, what we would start to see is the formation of some type of business plan, of where you could see innovator applying to your business.

And we would ask for just another level conversation around how you’d expect to to sell it, service that support it in the marketplace. And then we would just pull the appropriate parties from an error standpoint together with the partner and really just have a go no go discussion or on the path forward. That really is the front end stage.

Now, Michele, I that typically takes it all depends on the rate and the pace that the partner wants to go. I’ve seen it happen as quickly as a month or two. Sometimes the longest part of is just getting it the contract signed through each of the legal organizations, but it can be a relatively quick process to get a partner signed up, and then we’ll move them to the other side.

And that’s the onboarding side.

Exactly. And that’s, of course, the exciting part. When you really start to get over those legal hurdles and into how you go to market and how you can present errors to your customers. So how long does it typically take to get enabled and ready to sell? Yeah, I would say that that process here again is governed based on availability of the teams.

But it can be as short as, you know, 90 days or you know, or anything outside of that as well. But typically what we do is we we bring someone on, we get them access to our learning management system. The salespeople start to go through the online training, where we start to help them understand the positioning of innovator because it is different.

So we start to actually start to train and enable on our differentiations and our market message. And then in parallel, what we do is we start to bring on the technical organization, and we’re actually in the process of pivoting our technical onboarding plan. What we typically would do in years past is we had more of a full instructor led type program, and we’ve actually fully modernized to a mixed blend onboarding plan there.

On the technical side, where we’re doing more workshop based with instructor support from a technical enablement standpoint. So to answer your question, Michele, directly, it’s anywhere from 90 to 180 days, I think is a realistic expectation of a full onboarding of a new partner for a partner to become competent. And any final words for partners who are considering us today?

What’s your message? I would say my my message. Michele goes right back to where we started and that’s why Arris and why now? It really is an unbelievable moment in the market, in the industry. It’s one of those moments that I would say as much as most PLM companies like to think their marketing organizations are good. Sometimes a good, compelling event or a good market technology shift really helps create a lot of demand.

And because of that, the shift in modernization, the shift assess the shift to AI. And it’s not just about the shift in technology. It’s the macro forces of companies having to be more competitive. The companies that are trying to gain that competitive advantage, that creates an opportunity for those vendors like Aras, that have actually created a product for different by design.

But we also have this ability to be a partner and a partner centric organization. You put that all together, and I think we’re at an unbelievable inflection point for those partners that want to be partners with us and those partners that our partners with us. So, Michele, I’m super excited. I’m excited to to see what the market unveils.

And I think for our partner, our partner community, it’s going to be a great run for the next several years. Thanks, Don. I think that’s a really compelling message to leave our audience with. Thanks. Thank you, Don, and thank you, Michele.