Growing your business through partner training

In these unprecedented times, many organisations are cautious when it comes to future plans. However, many others use this moment to accelerate their organisation’s digital transition and see new business opportunities.

“With massive disruption comes massive opportunity. I've seen many organisations rethinking their business model, with digital learning becoming an enabler to help them extend reach, drive new channels or implement new business approaches”, says Russell Donders, imc’s Director of International Markets. “(Digital) partner training is definitely one of these opportunities to grow businesses in challenging times.”

The approach of empowering partners through training, is often referred to as Partner Training or Extended Enterprise Training.

But what is an extended enterprise?

An extended enterprise acknowledges that its growth and success is (partly) dependant on its network of partners. Therefore, it invests in its partner relationships and strives for optimal communication and collaboration with these partners, ultimately, to achieve shared business goals.

Aligning and training are essential in leveraging the collaborative relationship of all the partners involved in this extended enterprise.

And that is not just sales partners. Customers, members or even the general public can also be valuable partners who can contribute to your business goals. Keep that in mind when we are talking about partners; among all those external audiences connected to your organisation, there might be more potential partners than you think.

The concept of an extended enterprise sounds perfect for businesses, but what about not-for-profit organisations? Such entities often don’t see themselves as businesses or any form of commercial enterprise, for that matter.

Thankfully, the principles and ideas of extended enterprises for commercial entities also work well for non-profit organisations.

Remember that the word ‘partner’ can refer to all kinds of external audiences. If you run a not-for-profit organisation, the extended enterprise concept and the idea of training the partner network can also apply to e.g. your members or volunteers. Educating those external audiences will help your not-for-profit organisation achieve its goals, even if these goals are not primarily commercial.

The concept of partner training sounds good in theory. But, how does it work in practice?

You may be worried about the logistics, the complexity or data security, data privacy, and compliance. All these thoughts conjure up many red flags in your mind and cause alarm bells to ring.

In other words, the mere thought of partner training is causing you to break out in a sweat.

But what if setting up a training environment that caters to all your needs isn’t as complicated or scary as it sounds?

The most important takeaway is: do not try to reinvent the wheel.