#129 Lisa Conway: How Telos Launched a Whole New Business with Help from Partnerships

How can a company make existing solutions work for new markets and customers?

After Telos successfully completed their IPO, this is exactly the question they had to answer.

By strategically forming partnerships, Telos optimized their solutions for entirely new verticals and gained the trust of their new customers.

In this episode, Lisa Conway, Vice President of Sales Operations and Strategic Partnerships at Telos, joins Ecosystem Aces and discusses how she and her team manage the company’s new and growing ecosystem partners.

Lisa shares:

• How Telos forms partnerships to enter new markets
• Why your company needs to co-selling joint solutions
• Why Telos partners with Microsoft Azure and AWS

Launching New Businesses with Partnerships

For decades Telos has been a leader in delivering advanced cyber security solutions to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), intelligence and civilian agencies of the federal government, and NATO allies. So when the company completed their IPO last November and opened themselves to a new set of enterprise customers, Telos built an ecosystem of partners to help them rapidly mobilize their solutions in these new markets.

Telos built on established and trusted relationships with existing partners and developed new partnerships to help penetrate into new markets and reach customers looking for the kind of advanced cybersecurity solutions Telos had become known for in the public sector.

Because Telos’ partners had deep knowledge and expertise in cybersecurity use cases in private sector verticals, Telos and their partners were able to work together to adapt and apply Telos advanced technology into entirely new verticals in the enterprise market

Co-Selling and Co-Building Joint Solutions

Customers don’t want to buy point solutions anymore. They want a well-integrated package of solutions that drive value across the full customer lifecycle. For Telos, this means finding compatible offerings and collaborating with partners to create more appealing joint solutions.

Building joint solutions can be a delicate process, so building trust between partners is extremely important. Make sure that your partners know their individual value propositions and clear up concerns of potential overlap. Ensuring that your partners and customers understand that your company isn’t replacing but enhancing partner offerings should be a top priority.

Partnering with AWS and Microsoft Azure

While Telos has only recently established a thriving business in the enterprise market, the company has been in business for 50 years and has flagship products with proven success. Telos has partnered closely with AWS and Microsoft Azure to put their extensive offerings on the AWS and Azure marketplaces and have gained access to a whole new set of customers.

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129: How Telos Launched a Whole New Business with Help from Partnerships

There are lots of different ways to inject new life into a company. One of the best is implementing a partner program. The right partners can make a 50-year-old company feel like a startup. At least, that’s what happe...

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• Learn more about how WorkSpan helps customers accelerate their ecosystem flywheel through Co-selling, Co-innovating, Co-investing, and Co-marketing.
• Join the WorkSpan Community to engage with other partner ecosystem leaders on best practices, news, events, jobs, and other tips to advance your career in partnering.
• Find insightful articles on how to lead and get the most out of your partner ecosystem on the WorkSpan blog.
• Download the Best Practices Guide for Ecosystem Business Management
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• To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about modern partnering, he can be reached on Twitter, LinkedIn, or send Chip an email at: chip@workspan.com

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