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Improving Business Performance through Partner Learning August 2005 Authors:   Eilif Trondsen Del Langdon Contributor:   Rob Edmonds About This Report Table of Contents   Download the full report About This Report Perhaps not surprisingly, most reports about learning and learning technologies have a strong learning focus and address business issues and goals only at the margin. This tendency to shortchange business issues may explain why learning operations in most organizations often have no representation in decision-making bodies. This situation is starting to change, particularly in organizations that have chief learning officers or analogous executive positions with learning responsibilities and the ability to ensure close links between learning and key business functions and operations. Organizations today cannot afford for learning to take a back seat. They must ensure instead that learning leadership and operations are in position to have a business-performance impact. For these reasons, this report focuses on a key business issue—the role of partnering and the ways in which various forms of partnering can generate business value—and examines the learning and knowledge implications of the growing use of partnering in business. New approaches to partnering are emerging. In recent months, companies have been redesigning or making important changes in their partnering models and approaches to make them more effective. Recognition is growing that learning and knowledge can play a significant role in business partnerships. As companies restructure and redesign their partnering operations, they are coming to recognize the importance of including new roles for learning and knowledge support. This recognition reflects a better understanding of the business impact that improved learning systems and processes can have. It also reflects the existence of new learning solutions and technologies that can help make learning more effective and more affordable. Competition for partner talent is growing. Whether companies use exclusive or nonexclusive partners, growing competition and the 80/20 rule (typically the top 20 percent of partners contribute 80 percent of revenue) require companies to work harder and smarter to bring top partners onboard. Recruiting and retaining top talent as partners is a key success factor, and learning can play a key role. This report first provides a strategic context for partnering and partner learning and then examines partnering value and learning from several business perspectives. Doing so highlights the wide range of partner types and uses—and associated learning requirements—throughout the value chain or the extended enterprise. It thus closely connects the role of learning and learning technologies with key business issues. PARTNER-LEARNING PRACTICES presents two case studies that illustrate many of the issues and trends that earlier sections discuss. It describes how two leading companies in the insurance and enterprise-software industries are using partnering and what role learning and learning technologies play in their partnering relationships. The final two sections present some perspectives on partnering and learning—in part to stimulate readers to examine their own situations and consider the extent to which changes will affect their partnering and the role of learning and knowledge. They also present recommendations and action steps that enterprise adopters and vendors should consider. We welcome feedback about this report and the program, and we encourage you to contact us with any questions or suggestions. For more information, contact Eilif Trondsen, director, Learning-on-Demand (LoD) Program; telephone: +1 650 859 2665; fax: +1 650 859 4544; e-mail: etrondsen@sric-bi.com. We appreciate your support of our program and look forward to working closely with you as a Learning-on-Demand sponsor. Table of Contents About this Report 1 Executive Summary 2   Strategic Context 2   Partner Value and Learning 3   Partner-Learning Practices 3   Partnering Outlook 3   Recommendation and Action Steps 4 Strategic Context 5 Partner Value and Learning 11   Partner Value 11   Partner Learning 15     Strategic Learning 15     Customer Learning 15     Learning about Partners 15     Processes, Process Network, and Collaboration 17     Partner Learning and Knowledge 18   Development and Management of Partner Value 19     Management of Partner Relationships 20     Design of a Great Customer, Partner, and Employee Experience 21     Management of Interdependence and Development of Trust 23 Partner-Learning Practices 24   Fireman's Fund: Independent-Agent and Broker Learning 25     Strategic Context 27     Approach and Solutions 30     The Role of Learning 33     Future Directions and Challenges 34   Autodesk: Knowledge for Channel Partners 37     Strategic Context 37     Approach and Solutions 39     Business Impacts and Lessons 41 Partnering Outlook 44   Business Imperatives for Partnering 44   The New Technology Infrastructure 46   Learning Implications 46 Recommendations and Action Steps 48   Enterprise Adopters 48   Vendors 49   Tables Summary Description of Case Studies 25 Business Turnaround's Impacts on Training and Learning 34 Desktop versus Life-Cycle Solutions 39   Figures Learning-on-Demand Conceptual Framework 7 Partnerships across the Value Chain 8 Business Shifts through Partnering 13 Partnering and Learning across the Value Chain 14 Framework for Learning about Business Partners 16 Dynamic Portal Environment for Partner Processes 18 Framework for Managing Channel-Partner Relationships 20 Key Learning from Process Performance 22 Fireman's Fund Business Turnaround 29 Interdependence Management and Learning Solutions 32 Fireman's Fund Business-Value Transformation 35 Autodesk's Strategic Business Context 38 Autodesk's Packaged Service Offering 40 Value-Chain Transformation 45 Evolution of Partner Value 50   Boxes Cross-Border University Partnerships in Asia 6 Fireman's Fund Insurance Company 26 Indirect Channel Growth in the Wholesale-Mortgage Industry 36 Autodesk 37 Support of Channel-Partner Growth at EMC 43

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