What Partnering Means at TouchSource
If you visit the “About Us” section on our website, you’ll notice that the word “partner” forms a large part of the narrative about who we are at TouchSource. There are a lot of reasons for it being a part of our vision, but my personal focus on it comes from twenty years of seeing the good and the bad of partnerships in corporate America. For many companies, the word “partner” simply describes a relationship between two parties that decide to transact business. You are then partners – as simple as that. To me, this is an empty term when used this way. We have spent considerable energy over the last few months defining what it means to be a partner, what we seek in our partners, and what our partners should seek in us.
CLARITY, TRANSPARENCY, AND CONSISTENCY ARE CRITICALLY IMPORTANT
There have been multiple times in my career when I have chosen a higher cost or less obvious partner because they were transparent to us about their solutions and their problems. To be a true partner means being upfront about your obstacles even if it doesn’t put you in the best light. When we partner with our customers, resellers, or go-to-market partners, we have decided to be radically transparent. We will be consistent with our customers and partners, even if it means potential revenue opportunities don’t work out. I’m sure it will be tough for us at times, but my experience has proved to me that honesty will make us and our partnerships stronger.
SIMPLICITY MATTERS
We’ve all had partnerships that required significant effort and stress to do a seemingly simple task like execute a contract. Often, products that we have purchased for our business have been overly complex or unwieldy to implement and manage. We decided as a team that we were going to simplify collaborations with partners and create simple, user-friendly products. This is important because businesses don’t need complexity – they need solutions.
“To be a true partner means being upfront about your obstacles even if it doesn’t put you in the best light.”
PARTNERSHIPS REQUIRE CONTINUOUS INNOVATION
We recently changed one of our suppliers because they weren’t helping us transform. Their products were fine and their pricing was excellent, but they weren’t tied to our success or helping us move forward. Our role in a partnership is to continue to help our partners get better through continuous and constant innovation. If you purchase TouchSource products, you will have a committed partner to help as you face challenges and create opportunities. We are tied to your success and it’s our job to assist you to increase the value of our partnership and your assets, which requires creative thinking and forward motion. It’s a commitment that’s much easier said than done, but our collective team has committed to this and we will forever be committed to our true partners’ successes.
Ultimately, it will be challenging work to succeed as we live up to these values as a partner. It was important for us to define this as a culture within TouchSource, as we have all seen horror stories about partnerships before. As you read this and think about it, we’d love to hear what partnering means to you and how we can help create a strong partnership with you. If these values ring true to you, contact us today and let’s begin.
