welcome to develop your servicenow partner strategy part of our leading practices series in this video you'll learn how partners help you achieve your outcomes and the different types of partners customers work with how to develop a partner strategy using our prescribed best practice steps and where to find additional resources and next steps to get started to start a servicenow partner is a vendor you work with to implement and capture value from servicenow they help you achieve your outcomes by bringing experience from previous engagements deep technical knowledge and strategic management guidance to transform your operations the best partners will have thorough knowledge of platform capabilities and experience implementing the specific solution you're deploying there are four main types of partners servicenow recommends working with those that provide implementation services resell products and solutions outsource or manage services and technology partners that develop apps and integrations partners are segmented into tiers based on development and go-to-market maturity and they most commonly help customers implement servicenow solutions choose a partner that specializes in the specific objective you're trying to achieve when it comes to developing your partner strategy we recommend following these four best practice steps first establish your partner evaluation and selection approach second search evaluate and select a partner third set your partner up for success finally manage the ongoing partner performance let's dig into each of these starting with step one the first step is establishing your evaluation and selection approach do this by building a team to evaluate and select partners and then define a process this team can apply your evaluation team should be cross-functional to incorporate multiple inputs work with your team to define the required partner skill sets and expertise based on your objectives then create an evaluation scorecard to translate your requirements and for objectively evaluating the different partners against one another we have a sample scorecard available on the customer success center to help you get started the second step is to search evaluate and select a partner first assemble a list of potential partners use tools like the partner finder and now community to help you in your search narrow down your list of partners and then send now to rfp or rfi to gather more information next you need to select your partner evaluate the submitted information asking for clarifications where needed conduct a final evaluation of the candidates through a series of interviews and when you're ready agree on an sow with your selected partner which should have clearly documented objectives for the engagement once you've selected a partner set them up to succeed and deliver the outcomes you expect step three is about making sure you set your partner up for success to do so assemble an internal servicenow team to work with the partner your partner should know their counterparts and what role they play complete a knowledge transfer to help your partner understand your context this includes things like your organization's strategic objectives how you use the now platform and your expectations of them lastly create an onboarding plan to reduce ramp up time make sure to provide your partner with the right level of access to systems stakeholders and anything else they may need to be successful the last step is managing ongoing partner performance it's important to identify issues early on and hold your partner accountable to their commitments first assign a strong partner manager this should be someone with experience and relationship management next make sure to continuously measure performance one framework to think about this in is whether your partner has the right plan design and team for their engagement objectively scoring them against these factors on a consistent cadence will keep everyone aligned and on track finally maintain transparency and collaborate with your partner you want your partner to treat you as a customer of choice so make sure you treat them as an extension of your organization there are three key insights we want you to remember from this video first understand your own context and needs before starting the partner selection process second select a partner based on your objectives not purely based on prior relationships or cost finally set partner expectations early and manage to them throughout the engagement so what should you do next first take time to review the leading practice resources we have on the customer success center these materials will give you more details and insights from experts on how to pilot and expand your partner strategy second take what you've learned and have a discussion with your executive sponsor about how your partner strategy can help you improve the velocity and scale of value you deliver with servicenow lastly start thinking about who should be on your evaluation team what role they'll play in the process and the criteria you'll use to select a partner remember that servicenow can deliver enterprise workflow transformation and a partner strategy can play an important role in your innovation for more information or advice contact your servicenow team thank you for watching