Docusign refreshes partner program to reflect its new IAM platform

Bronwyn Hastings, VP partner development and alliance speaks to CRN Australia on the new specialised partner program.

As Docusign evolves from being just a e-signature company, it has also changed its partner program to better reflect the company’s strategic goals.

The company has been on a journey of becoming an intelligent agreement company shifting beyond contract lifecycle management.

Bronwyn Hastings, VP partner development and alliance at Docusign exclusively speaks to CRN Australia about the two major changes the company has made to its partner program.

Docusign has had a partner program for the past four years, the first iteration had a two-tiered mechanism for a single product view but with its new intelligent agreement management (IAM) platform, the partner program needed to change.

Hastings said, “We're bringing more and more specialisation. We've aligned the partner program into the requirements and to serve the readiness of the partners.”

The first change was bringing in three distinct tracks of build, sell and service.

“Meeting the partners on the motion that they were serving the customer with. Build means building on top of, sell with, and then servicing the products for adoption and driving value,” she explained.

The second is bringing in specialisation along each of those core product areas and categories.

“If you think about IAM, we've got IAM for sales, IAM for procurement, IAM for these different use case contexts.

"What we're doing is ensuring that we bring both certification and accreditations into each of those motions, and we're doing it for both sell, service and build,” she explained.

Hastings said they’ve also brought in new ways to educate and new value propositions for partners.

"Tactically, some additional things, like not for resale licenses that they can use internally, bringing other ways of accessing knowledge sets,” she said.

“The partners have really responded very well to that, and they see the benefit of that.”

A steady transition

Hastings explained that the old partner program will not be shut down completely. For the next 12 months, Docusign is giving their partners the time to come into specialisation.

“Most of the partners that are key to the go to market strategies have leaned in very quickly, because they get to learn and to come on the journey quickly,” she said.

“But we didn't want to make it so that it was really hard. We wanted to give them the option to transition over a 12 month period and give them the chance to build the specialisations and build the certifications that they needed.”

Hastings added, “It's just giving them the bridge, and that bridge is important to respect their investments and the journey that they need to go on.”

Partner value

When asked how partners can make money off this new program, Hastings said, “It's a journey of them having a look at how did they make money, and what is their way of looking at value.”

She highlighted that partners who embrace the IAM product will receive incentives.

“For example, with the IAM product we announced last week, we made mention of particularly, giving an incentive around IAM as well,” she said.

“We're saying we understand you're leaning into a new area. We want to make sure that that allows you to build in this area as well.”

Looking at the commercial aspect as a whole, Hastings said it is about where partners want to make money.

“Are they looking at it from a traditional point of view? Whether it's selling or servicing, or are they looking at it also from the other dimensions when AI becomes relevant, which is data and insights,” she explained.

"I don't think that it's so much us determining where they make money from. It's giving them the tools to be able to choose and decide where the value will be that they want to bring to customers in that process, and making it as viable as possible for them.”

Using partner feedback

In constructing their new partner program, Hastings said they had a “multi-dimensional” approach.

“We spoke to customers, and what would they be looking at from us, and then, secondarily to partners, and where did they feel that they would need more from us,” she said.

“We also looked at different partner motions to the point of, why did we go down the path of not saying it's an ISV, but build? Why did we say it's services, but not implementation services as an example.”

Hastings said it was very much an outside in approach.

“We did go and have a look at partners and shared with them what the opportunity was, and asked them, what would help them, what would be beneficial to them to lean into this, and then structured it from there,” she added.

“Then also looked at where were the pain points we were seeing as we were trying to support partners, and what did we feel would be more beneficial for them at the same time.”

Some of their partners were asking for early roadmaps and insights from Docusign, according to Hastings.

“Can you share early roadmaps, can we get insights of where you're going? Can we lean into the education early? All of those things are part of the program where we are sharing those sorts of things,” she said.

“The second part of things like profiling customers, where this is a good propensity for them based on knowledge set. Those are sorts of things that we're leaning into with them.

“It's all about knowledge, making sure that they understand where the best use cases are, and then can we help them with sales motions that will engage them in growth opportunities at the same time.”

All about specialisation

For the next 12 months, Hastings said it is about building specialisation amongst their partners.

“So that customers can, with confidence, select partners that can do the role that they're looking for them to do,” she said.

“Someone that can talk to procurement is not necessarily the same when they can talk to sales. Making it transparent, making sure that that specialisation is known, and also building more of the solution mindset with the partners where they're solving, not just point solution can also solve across end to end solutions as well.”

For Hastings, she said the shift of the partner base is a journey.

“It's not one and done, it's going to be ongoing. We've done this move, and we'll continue to bring value to them.”

“Intersect that with all of the exciting things that we're announcing with IAM. It's just about growth for the partners, the ability to serve the customers and do that with real, real use cases,” she ended.