There is a big difference between selling a product and partnering with an enterprise to help achieve certain outcomes, particularly when it comes to complex technology deployments, and that difference often determines the success or failure of a transformation initiative. While this binary is simple to define and nuanced to act upon, organizations considering their own technology relationships should be mindful of the issue, as enterprises can inadvertently fail to get the value they seek due to poor partner selection.
The Problem With Vendors
Vendors, at best, have limited interest in ensuring that an enterprise actually realizes value from a purchased solution. This is not necessarily due to ill intent on the part of the vendor, but simply because vendors are usually only compensated for the sale itself, with less incentive to ensure long term satisfaction from the enterprise customer. This dynamic can lead to a number of issues for an organization trying to implement a certain technology, as the support and guidance that might have been present during the sales cycle can dissipate once a contract is signed, vendors may be less motivated to prioritize roadmap development in areas that are important to the enterprise buyer, and the enterprise itself has fewer avenues to push back or demand changes if the relationship does not meet its needs.
What Sets Partners Apart
Partners continue to engage with an enterprise through implementation, adoption and optimization of a technology, taking a more holistic view of the relationship that is focused on actual business outcomes, rather than mere transactional outcomes like initial deployment. The difference between transactional outcomes and business outcomes is crucial to understanding why partnerships are so important to an enterprise transformation, as it is entirely possible to execute a technology deployment that hits all of the transactional benchmarks while missing significantly on the business side. An enterprise could deploy a system on time and on budget while still fundamentally underdelivered due to poor adoption, improper configuration or inadequate change management, all of which fail to meet key business outcomes.
True partners recognize that deployment is only the beginning of a longer engagement, as they invest time and resources into ensuring that the technology is actually adopted and used to its fullest extent, take corrective action at any point during the implementation or post-implementation if issues arise, and continue to optimize the system even after initial deployment in favor of ongoing improvements to the business.
Why It Matters For AI
Ongoing optimization and iteration is especially important for AI initiatives, which usually involve a longer-term relationship with an organization due to the need for constant model tweaking and updates to governance policies. This is why the question of partnership versus transaction is especially pertinent to AI initiatives, as applying these dynamics to AI, unlike generic enterprise software, means considering a set of long term commitments and responsibilities on both sides.
The nature of most AI algorithms means that they will require periodic retraining as new data becomes available, governance policies may need to be updated for regulatory or internal compliance reasons and the overall scope of what an AI system is responsible for can change as an organization becomes more comfortable with the system and its performance. An enterprise considering AI adoption without a strategic, long term partnership with a vendor may find itself in a position where it has to manage the complexities of AI management, iteration and policy alone, without the benefit of a partner’s assistance, which can impose a much greater burden on the enterprise than managing regular enterprise software.
Assessing Partnership Potential
Enterprises considering the potential value of a particular technology relationship should evaluate the potential partner on several criteria, looking at whether the engagement would be transactional (focused on the sale and initial deployment) or truly strategic (focused on long term business outcomes). Enterprises should look into whether a proposed engagement includes specific postdeployment checkpoints aimed at assessing adoption and business outcomes, whether the potential partner asks detailed questions about the enterprise’s business processes or merely discusses general product capabilities and whether the financial terms and conditions of the engagement promote ongoing value realization on the part of the partner or merely reward them for closing the sale. These factors, among others, will indicate whether an organization is truly positioning itself as a long term partner or merely fulfilling the role of a vendor.
The MonoSpear Perspective
MonoSpear serves as a long term technology partner to enterprise clients by continuing to engage with clients throughout the deployment and optimization of Oracle solutions. This viewpoint informs the approach that MonoSpear takes to its own clients, with the company recognizing that ongoing involvement is vital to ensuring that the technology has the intended business impact while helping organizations optimize their own internal operations. This perspective is particularly important to AI initiatives, where ongoing management, tuning and iteration are essential to achieving positive business outcomes. By focusing on long term value realization, MonoSpear highlights the importance of a strategic, ongoing partnership, particularly for AI initiatives, while also recognizing that such an approach requires ongoing collaboration and investment from both sides to be successful.
FAQs
1. What distinguishes a technology vendor from a technology partner?
A technology vendor focuses on the transaction, while a technology partner focuses on delivering results through implementation, adoption and ongoing optimization, as a strategic difference dictated by diverging incentives.
2. Why is a strategic partnership more important for AI initiatives?
Because AI requires ongoing tuning, iteration and optimization, which are better facilitated by a long term partnership, rather than a simple transaction. AI is an ongoing commitment on the part of an enterprise that stretches beyond initial deployment.
3. How can an enterprise assess whether the technology relationship is a true partnership?
An enterprise should look at whether the engagement promotes transactional or strategic objectives, if the potential partner cares about business outcomes beyond deployment and whether the financial terms incentivize partners to be invested in the long term success of the enterprise.
4. What kind of technology partner does MonoSpear represent?
MonoSpear represents a long term technology partnership, one that recognizes that ongoing optimization and management are vital to maximizing business outcomes, especially in the case of AI technologies.