Recent resaerch from Alliance Best Practice suggests that LinkedIn can have a major impact on alliance manager effectiveness.

1. Social Networking
Technologies: Do They
Improve Alliance
Performance?
Mike Nevin
Alliance Best Practice

2. Contents
This executive briefing document covers the folowing areas:
1 Background
2 How the research was conducted
3 Companies participating
4 Key Findings
5 Observations on the Findings
6 Implications of the Results
7 Alliance Areas Affected
8 Further Detailed Analysis – Full Report
Page  2

3. Background
ABP surveyed over 400 alliance managers across seven technologies
Number of Practicing Professionals Researched
 Alliance Best Practice (ABP) surveyed 400 alliance & channel managers from
over 80 companies to determine the effect of new social media technologies on
alliance managers.
The Core Question : How has social networking technolgies affected you?
 The core question we asked was ‘Have these technologies contributed directly
to incremental revenue generation in your partnerships and if so how?’
Social Networking Technologies Assessed
 The technologies assessed were: Jigsaw; LinkedIn; Twitter; Plaxo; Facebook;
Spoke; and Hoovers or OneSource.
Page  3

4. How the research was conducted
The research used the proven ABP scoring technique
 The research comprised an online Score out of 100
questionnaire asking whether these
100
technologies had any beneficial
90
impact.
80
 Beneficial impact was graded as a 70
score out of 100 with 0 = None and 60
100 = Critical 50
40
 If the respondent answered ‘yes’ to
30
a degree more than 50% or 50/100
20
then they were further interviewed
10
one to one for an hour by telephone
0
to determine ‘What help specifically
did the technology provide? And
‘How did you utilise it to maximum
effect?’’
Page  4

5. Companies participating
Alliance and channel managers from the following companies participated
 IBM, Dell, Intel, Cisco, Juniper, Kingston Technology, AMD, Lenovo,
Hardware Sun, APC, HP, Xerox, Kofax, NEC, Sony, Westcon, and Motorola
 Apple Inc, Micro Focus, uLogistics, Microsoft, Oracle, Sage (UK), SSA,
IBS, Genesys, Avaya, Chordiant, SAP (EMEA), Siebel, i2 Technologies,
Software Frontline, Lawson, Kana, McAfee, SAP (UK) SAS Institute, CA
 BT Global Services, Accenture, Atos Origin, Bearing Point, Capgemini,
Deloitte, IBM GBS, Logica CMG, BCX, Csiper, Siemens Business
Services Services, IDS Sheer, Ciber-Novesoft, IBS, BDO Unicon, Tieto, TCS,
Wipro, Satyam, Everis, Aenis, Delaware
 Vodafone, BT, Bell Canada, Nortel, Telus, Telmex, Sprint, Verizon,
Telecoms Telefonica, O2, Motorola, AT&T, Singtel, and Nokia-Siemens Networks
Page  5

6. Key Findings
LinkedIn was clearly the most practical technology researched
Specifics from the survey:
100%
 43% of respondents do not use Jigsaw nor has
90%
it ever helped them to win a sales opportunity;
80%
 65% of respondents say that LinkedIn has
helped them win sometimes or often; 70%
 35% of respondents say they don’t use Twitter. 60%
Always
Of those that do, 27% say it has not helped 50% Often
them win;
40% Sometimes
 16% of respondents say that Facebook has had Rarely
30%
negligible impact Never
20%
 90% of respondents do not use Hoovers or
OneSource or they have never helped them to 10%
secure an alliance sales opportunity. 0%
 49% of respondents say they have had limited
success with Spoke
Page  6

7. Observation on the Findings
LinkedIn is becoming ubiquitous (i.e. “I googled him – I LinkedIn her”
 LinkedIn is clearly the favourite. Hoover’s and OneSource) came in
second.
 Twitter is a polarising technology. Some people love it and some
people hate it. We could find no hard evidence that it critically
affected results.
 Many respondents reported that their internal firewalls blocked
automatic messages generated from (for example) LinkedIn.
 Facebook was deemed inappropriate by our respondents for a B2B
environment although many said they used it in their home lives.
 ABP believes that a growing band of younger alliance managers are
beginning to integrate LinkedIn into their day to day activities e.g.
 “I looked him up on LinkedIn before I went to the meeting.”
 “I got a good handle on his experience through LinkedIn”
Page  7

8. Implications of the Results
Alliance managers are hard pressed to co-ordinate & manage virtual teams.
 The community that we  The number of technologies  Between November 10 2009,
interviewed typically needed is bewildering. and January 22, 2010 we
to co-ordinate activities both  Sometimes the technologies asked 400 alliance and
internal and external to their simply waste valuable time channel managers for their
organisations. rather than develop the experience with the “new
 All agreed that this gives relationships social media.”
them a particular need to use  Many do not have the time to  We looked at six technologies
social networking skills / tools. invest in learning a new from ones getting the most
technology attention to older, proven
tools.
Page  8

9. Alliance and Channel Areas Affected
Where technologies were used their impact was seen as extensive
Alliance Areas Affected Channel Areas Affected
 Identifying Key Stakeholders in Partner  Documenting and Disseminating Shared
Organisations Objectives
 Identifying and tracking the alliance /  Defining Relationship Scope
partnership process  Articulating and documenting B2B strategic
 Creating Joint Teams alignment
 Developing and delivering internal and external  Identifying other relationships with same partner
communication plans  Determining a common relationship vision
 Creating Senior Executive Support  Building Trust
 Developing Business Value Propositions  Identifying and articulating a decision making
 Conducting quality reviews / exec reviews process
 Enhancing B2B operational alignment  Researching Possible Partner Organisations
 Enhancing and clarifying internal alignment (Due Diligence)
To see a detailed discussion of these areas please see the full report.
Page  9

10. The full copy of this report is available for a
fee at: www.alliancebestpractice.com
Alliance Best Practice has a growing library
of relevant, authoritative and unique
research-based content focused on
alliance: performance, benchmarking and
optimisation.
As a direct result of our analysis of this
research Alliance Best Practice is currently
developing a LinkedIn training / coaching
workshop for alliance managers.
If you would like further details please feel
free to contact us at:
info@alliancebestpractice.com