Goodbye Spreadsheets, Hello Go-To-Market Network for Alliances
Too often, tracking cross-organizational alliance initiatives involves complex spreadsheets. WorkSpan has a better way.
News & Press
October 6, 2017
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News & Press
September 26, 2017
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WorkSpan Launches Go-To-Market Network for Alliances
WorkSpan introduces a new way for alliances from multiple businesses to go-to-market
News & Press
September 6, 2017
Get The Full Scoop
WorkSpan Raises $9 Million for Go-To-Market Network for Alliances
Mayfield's Managing Director Navin Chaddha takes board seat
Press Releases
June 4, 2018
WorkSpan Announces Availability of Alliance Relationship Management on the SAP® App Center to Unlock Strategic Alliances
WorkSpan integrates to SAP Cloud for Customer Suite—delivering alliance automation at scale across the globe
FOSTER CITY, CA and ORLANDO, FL — June 4, 2018 — Today at the SAP Partner Summit at SAPPHIRE NOW, WorkSpan, the only Alliance Relationship Management solution, announced that it is now available on the SAP® App Center, the digital marketplace for SAP partner offerings. Through the SAP® App Center, SAP customers can purchase WorkSpan to deliver exponential growth through strategic alliances by launching joint sales, joint marketing and joint solution initiatives at scale.
Today WorkSpan also announced integration with the SAP Cloud for Customer suite to provide alliance leaders visibility into key attributes of joint opportunities with their partners—including joint customer name, opportunity description, joint solution, expected dollar value, expected close date, deal stage and more. These integrations allow alliance leaders to see a full portfolio of opportunities, manage joint selling motions, speed up alliance deal closings and accelerate win rates across their partners.
“SAP launched the SAP® App Center to allow customers to easily discover, try and buy innovative solutions like WorkSpan—a solution that integrates with SAP Cloud for Customer Suite and helps the customer drive more revenue by better operationalizing their alliances,” said Uddhav Gupta, Global Vice President & General Manager – SAP Digital, SAP. “We are thrilled to announce WorkSpan is available for purchase via the SAP® App Center.”
Record Customer Momentum
In addition to expanding the SAP relationship, WorkSpan has signed on new Fortune 500 customers—adding to the ever-growing list of companies joining the network. The network effect is taking hold as more and more companies are joining to engage with their partners—sharing sales plans, driving joint sales opportunities, running joint programs and finding joint funds to amp up current programs.
“WorkSpan is incredibly excited to join the SAP® App Center to make our alliance relationship management solution even more accessible across SAP’s many partners,” said Amit Sinha, Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer at WorkSpan. “As our network gains even more traction with customers like SAP, we’re looking forward to forging closer ties with the company to strengthen the partner community. Keep any eye out for us at SAPPHIRE NOW and the SAP Partner Summit this week.”
When companies join the WorkSpan Network, they have immediate benefits including:
- Access to industry-leading technology companies in the IoT, big data, public cloud and high-performance computing space—already driving more than $3.1 billion of influenced pipeline a year
- Tracking joint sales opportunities, managing pipeline and running joint forecasts—showing the impact of partnerships and course-correcting with speed across company boundaries
- Integrating each partners’ CRM and marketing systems for a real-time system of record across partner companies—in one place
- An array of tools like a shared content library, cross-company workflows, joint calendar and joint funds to increase participation and drive accountability in the field
Additional Resources
About the SAP PartnerEdge® Program
WorkSpan is a partner in the SAP PartnerEdge® program. As such, it is empowered to build, market and sell software applications on top of market-leading technology platforms from SAP. The SAP PartnerEdge® program provides the enablement tools, benefits and support to facilitate building high-quality, disruptive applications focused on specific business needs—quickly and cost-effectively. The program provides access to all relevant SAP technologies in one simple framework under a single, global contract.
About WorkSpan
WorkSpan is the only Alliance Relationship Management solution to automate and report on joint sales, marketing and solution initiatives. Translation? WorkSpan helps companies partner up to offer awesome joint products and services—with the ability to engage, manage and measure at scale. It is as easy as connecting with partners who are already on the WorkSpan network, or inviting them to join the ever-growing list of companies that are running over $130 million in managed funds and $3.1 billion of influenced pipeline a year. WorkSpan is a privately held company backed by Mayfield, and is currently in use by global enterprises including SAP, Infosys, SUSE and Lenovo. For more information, visit https://www.workspan.com and follow @WorkSpan on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
The Alliance Economy
In 2018, no company goes to market alone. Think back 30 or 40 years: business was dramatically different. Companies grew through acquisition and became massive, fully-integrated value chains—from production to customer.
Today, the business environment requires a different model.
The pendulum has been swinging toward disaggregating large companies into highly specialized, focused entities — creating value for customers in very specific market niches.
Fragmentation has come to every part of business.
Cloud and API technologies have advanced to a point where you can form and run a company without capital outlays, and by leveraging business component services that have fully replaced the function of what used to be entire departments.
Market forces have driven business in this direction.
Disaggregated businesses are more agile, more competitive, and more able to react to changing market trends.
Rather than growing through acquisitions, organizations can form “loose ties” with other organizations through strategic alliances to take advantage of market opportunities quickly.
And when the market changes again, they can form a new alliance and shift investment to the business or relationship — to go after the new opportunity with speed and agility.
Too much worry.
If you’re locked into a value chain, you can die when the market is transformed. Brick-and-mortar stores are the embodiment of this phenomenon.
And they wonder why you’re always worried…
Every day, you read about a new retail chain like Toys-R-Us, The Limited, Radio Shack, or Payless Shoes closing their doors because of the capital outlays and fixed investments that have them stuck idle in the market. Who wants to be in their (Payless) shoes? 😉
The market today is a hyper competitive, consumer-oriented economy. Power has shifted from producers to consumers.
The Alliance Economy.
Buyers have an unlimited array of information on product capabilities, competitive offerings, consumer feedback, alternative pricing, channel options, and more.
This has made consumers buyers very demanding — products must be easy to buy and available at the most convenient locations. It’s also made them fickle. If you’re not delivering, they’ll switch to your competitor. If your product is not at the point of purchase or point of decision, you’re toast. This dynamic has driven innovative brand tie-ups like:
- Spotify becoming an offering with Hulu for college kids
- Showtime offering their content to Netflix viewers
- Starbucks opening stores inside Safeways, Targets, and other retail outlets
- HBO putting their shows on Amazon Prime for greater distribution and access
- Lyft aligning with Allscripts to let 180,000 doctors call rides for their patients
- Lyft adding a “Taco Mode” button to have drivers stop at Taco Bell along a passenger’s route. Not to mention, there are Doritos Tacos on the menu.
The list goes on. More and more alliances are being announced every day. And the wave is growing!
Thirty years ago, less than 2% of revenue for a typical company came from alliance relationships. Today, 30–40% of revenue is driven by alliances — and in some organizations — as high as 75–80% of revenue.
Alliances are on the rise, delivering higher revenue and not going anywhere!
Why is this happening?
Alliances help companies meet the demands of competitive markets. Here are just a few of the benefits of working with alliance partners:
- Innovation to combine solutions in ways never dreamed of before
- Flexibility to change as the market changes (and it’s always changing!)
- Access to new customers through alliance routes to market
- Growing geographic boundaries creating alliances with established presence
- Focusing on your specialty with your alliance partners focusing on theirs
- Access to specialized skills you don’t intend to invest in
Based on a WorkSpan industry survey.
Competition never slows.
Competition for customers is fierce, and competition has created a cycle of constantly increasing and changing expectations on the part of consumers.
A decade ago, who would have thought an online order could be delivered reliably in one hour? But that’s the standard today with Amazon PrimeNow. I’m sure you can think of examples in your industry that are just as challenging. How do you compete with that? In a word: Alliances!
We’re seeing the rise of the Alliance Economy.
A new wave.
Companies that are winning have figured out how to be agile, how to be where customers are buying, and how to shift at a moment’s notice to new markets, new technologies, new offerings, new channels, new geographies, and new skillsets.
Hyper competitive markets and ever-increasing expectations from customers are accelerating this trend to new heights. But we’ve only scratched the surface.
The Alliance Economy is taking off.
…But it’s becoming more and more unmanageable.
IT systems have been optimized to handle business processes occurring inside the company. This is true for everything from HR to sales automation.
There have been no effective means of managing business relationships, approvals, workflows, and funds together with your alliance partners across company boundaries.
Alliance leaders have been hamstrung—trying to grow and manage their alliance revenue using spreadsheets, emails, and conference calls. Ugh.
The many difficulties of going to market together without a dedicated, automated alliance network.
WorkSpan is changing that.
WorkSpan is The Go-To-Market Network enabling the Alliance Economy at scale.
Watch how we do it!
WorkSpan helps companies create and run alliances, managing shared business processes across company boundaries so they can offer all the awesome joint products and services we’ve been talking about.
The WorkSpan Go-To-Market Network allows companies to engage, manage, measure, and report on alliance activities to optimize their alliances across the network.
Surf the Alliance Economy wave now!
Alliances are the only way to surf the next wave of go-to-market — and yet — we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg.
Companies that recognize this trend are building thriving ecosystems and capturing more market share.
Companies that deploy a bold alliance strategy with a system to operationalize will be more agile than their competitors, and first to market with the next industry-shattering innovations.
In companies that learn how to operationalize alliances, CEOs recognize that a robust alliance strategy is critical to their success.
This means we’ll start having Chief Partner Officers in the leadership teams and boardroom to drive growth, agility, innovation, and revenue.
Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready.
Born in this age, companies like Twilio already recognize the critical importance of alliances and have a Chief Partner Officer in the leadership team.
THIS is how you stay ready.
The Alliance Economy is taking shape — companies will win or lose market share based on their alliance efforts.
Where is your company on the curve?
June 4, 2018
WorkSpan Announces Availability of Alliance Relationship Management on the SAP® App Center to Unlock Strategic Alliances
WorkSpan integrates to SAP Cloud for Customer Suite—delivering alliance automation at scale across the globe
FOSTER CITY, CA and ORLANDO, FL — June 4, 2018 — Today at the SAP Partner Summit at SAPPHIRE NOW, WorkSpan, the only Alliance Relationship Management solution, announced that it is now available on the SAP® App Center, the digital marketplace for SAP partner offerings. Through the SAP® App Center, SAP customers can purchase WorkSpan to deliver exponential growth through strategic alliances by launching joint sales, joint marketing and joint solution initiatives at scale.
Today WorkSpan also announced integration with the SAP Cloud for Customer suite to provide alliance leaders visibility into key attributes of joint opportunities with their partners—including joint customer name, opportunity description, joint solution, expected dollar value, expected close date, deal stage and more. These integrations allow alliance leaders to see a full portfolio of opportunities, manage joint selling motions, speed up alliance deal closings and accelerate win rates across their partners.
“SAP launched the SAP® App Center to allow customers to easily discover, try and buy innovative solutions like WorkSpan—a solution that integrates with SAP Cloud for Customer Suite and helps the customer drive more revenue by better operationalizing their alliances,” said Uddhav Gupta, Global Vice President & General Manager – SAP Digital, SAP. “We are thrilled to announce WorkSpan is available for purchase via the SAP® App Center.”
Record Customer Momentum
In addition to expanding the SAP relationship, WorkSpan has signed on new Fortune 500 customers—adding to the ever-growing list of companies joining the network. The network effect is taking hold as more and more companies are joining to engage with their partners—sharing sales plans, driving joint sales opportunities, running joint programs and finding joint funds to amp up current programs.
“WorkSpan is incredibly excited to join the SAP® App Center to make our alliance relationship management solution even more accessible across SAP’s many partners,” said Amit Sinha, Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer at WorkSpan. “As our network gains even more traction with customers like SAP, we’re looking forward to forging closer ties with the company to strengthen the partner community. Keep any eye out for us at SAPPHIRE NOW and the SAP Partner Summit this week.”
When companies join the WorkSpan Network, they have immediate benefits including:
- Access to industry-leading technology companies in the IoT, big data, public cloud and high-performance computing space—already driving more than $3.1 billion of influenced pipeline a year
- Tracking joint sales opportunities, managing pipeline and running joint forecasts—showing the impact of partnerships and course-correcting with speed across company boundaries
- Integrating each partners’ CRM and marketing systems for a real-time system of record across partner companies—in one place
- An array of tools like a shared content library, cross-company workflows, joint calendar and joint funds to increase participation and drive accountability in the field
Additional Resources
About the SAP PartnerEdge® Program
WorkSpan is a partner in the SAP PartnerEdge® program. As such, it is empowered to build, market and sell software applications on top of market-leading technology platforms from SAP. The SAP PartnerEdge® program provides the enablement tools, benefits and support to facilitate building high-quality, disruptive applications focused on specific business needs—quickly and cost-effectively. The program provides access to all relevant SAP technologies in one simple framework under a single, global contract.
About WorkSpan
WorkSpan is the only Alliance Relationship Management solution to automate and report on joint sales, marketing and solution initiatives. Translation? WorkSpan helps companies partner up to offer awesome joint products and services—with the ability to engage, manage and measure at scale. It is as easy as connecting with partners who are already on the WorkSpan network, or inviting them to join the ever-growing list of companies that are running over $130 million in managed funds and $3.1 billion of influenced pipeline a year. WorkSpan is a privately held company backed by Mayfield, and is currently in use by global enterprises including SAP, Infosys, SUSE and Lenovo. For more information, visit https://www.workspan.com and follow @WorkSpan on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
May 15, 2018
The Alliance Economy
In 2018, no company goes to market alone. Think back 30 or 40 years: business was dramatically different. Companies grew through acquisition and became massive, fully-integrated value chains—from production to customer.
Today, the business environment requires a different model.
The pendulum has been swinging toward disaggregating large companies into highly specialized, focused entities — creating value for customers in very specific market niches.
Fragmentation has come to every part of business.
Cloud and API technologies have advanced to a point where you can form and run a company without capital outlays, and by leveraging business component services that have fully replaced the function of what used to be entire departments.
Market forces have driven business in this direction.
Disaggregated businesses are more agile, more competitive, and more able to react to changing market trends.
Rather than growing through acquisitions, organizations can form “loose ties” with other organizations through strategic alliances to take advantage of market opportunities quickly.
And when the market changes again, they can form a new alliance and shift investment to the business or relationship — to go after the new opportunity with speed and agility.
Too much worry.
If you’re locked into a value chain, you can die when the market is transformed. Brick-and-mortar stores are the embodiment of this phenomenon.
And they wonder why you’re always worried…
Every day, you read about a new retail chain like Toys-R-Us, The Limited, Radio Shack, or Payless Shoes closing their doors because of the capital outlays and fixed investments that have them stuck idle in the market. Who wants to be in their (Payless) shoes? 😉
The market today is a hyper competitive, consumer-oriented economy. Power has shifted from producers to consumers.
The Alliance Economy.
Buyers have an unlimited array of information on product capabilities, competitive offerings, consumer feedback, alternative pricing, channel options, and more.
This has made consumers buyers very demanding — products must be easy to buy and available at the most convenient locations. It’s also made them fickle. If you’re not delivering, they’ll switch to your competitor. If your product is not at the point of purchase or point of decision, you’re toast. This dynamic has driven innovative brand tie-ups like:
- Spotify becoming an offering with Hulu for college kids
- Showtime offering their content to Netflix viewers
- Starbucks opening stores inside Safeways, Targets, and other retail outlets
- HBO putting their shows on Amazon Prime for greater distribution and access
- Lyft aligning with Allscripts to let 180,000 doctors call rides for their patients
- Lyft adding a “Taco Mode” button to have drivers stop at Taco Bell along a passenger’s route. Not to mention, there are Doritos Tacos on the menu.
The list goes on. More and more alliances are being announced every day. And the wave is growing!
Thirty years ago, less than 2% of revenue for a typical company came from alliance relationships. Today, 30–40% of revenue is driven by alliances — and in some organizations — as high as 75–80% of revenue.
Alliances are on the rise, delivering higher revenue and not going anywhere!
Why is this happening?
Alliances help companies meet the demands of competitive markets. Here are just a few of the benefits of working with alliance partners:
- Innovation to combine solutions in ways never dreamed of before
- Flexibility to change as the market changes (and it’s always changing!)
- Access to new customers through alliance routes to market
- Growing geographic boundaries creating alliances with established presence
- Focusing on your specialty with your alliance partners focusing on theirs
- Access to specialized skills you don’t intend to invest in
Based on a WorkSpan industry survey.
Competition never slows.
Competition for customers is fierce, and competition has created a cycle of constantly increasing and changing expectations on the part of consumers.
A decade ago, who would have thought an online order could be delivered reliably in one hour? But that’s the standard today with Amazon PrimeNow. I’m sure you can think of examples in your industry that are just as challenging. How do you compete with that? In a word: Alliances!
We’re seeing the rise of the Alliance Economy.
A new wave.
Companies that are winning have figured out how to be agile, how to be where customers are buying, and how to shift at a moment’s notice to new markets, new technologies, new offerings, new channels, new geographies, and new skillsets.
Hyper competitive markets and ever-increasing expectations from customers are accelerating this trend to new heights. But we’ve only scratched the surface.
The Alliance Economy is taking off.
…But it’s becoming more and more unmanageable.
IT systems have been optimized to handle business processes occurring inside the company. This is true for everything from HR to sales automation.
There have been no effective means of managing business relationships, approvals, workflows, and funds together with your alliance partners across company boundaries.
Alliance leaders have been hamstrung—trying to grow and manage their alliance revenue using spreadsheets, emails, and conference calls. Ugh.
The many difficulties of going to market together without a dedicated, automated alliance network.
WorkSpan is changing that.
WorkSpan is The Go-To-Market Network enabling the Alliance Economy at scale.
Watch how we do it!
WorkSpan helps companies create and run alliances, managing shared business processes across company boundaries so they can offer all the awesome joint products and services we’ve been talking about.
The WorkSpan Go-To-Market Network allows companies to engage, manage, measure, and report on alliance activities to optimize their alliances across the network.
Surf the Alliance Economy wave now!
Alliances are the only way to surf the next wave of go-to-market — and yet — we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg.
Companies that recognize this trend are building thriving ecosystems and capturing more market share.
Companies that deploy a bold alliance strategy with a system to operationalize will be more agile than their competitors, and first to market with the next industry-shattering innovations.
In companies that learn how to operationalize alliances, CEOs recognize that a robust alliance strategy is critical to their success.
This means we’ll start having Chief Partner Officers in the leadership teams and boardroom to drive growth, agility, innovation, and revenue.
Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready.
Born in this age, companies like Twilio already recognize the critical importance of alliances and have a Chief Partner Officer in the leadership team.
THIS is how you stay ready.
The Alliance Economy is taking shape — companies will win or lose market share based on their alliance efforts.
Where is your company on the curve?
In The News
January 10, 2018
The Global Economy is Changing the Way We Collaborate
As we become a more global business society, we’re seeing a lot more companies collaborating with other companies – which can present the challenge of keeping confidential information secret, while still effectively working with outsiders. Provided they can get past these barriers, businesses can gain a competitive edge by leveraging the resources of a partner.
IBRS Technology Industry Analyst Dr. Joe Sweeney Reviews WorkSpan
Former VP of Research at Gartner, and current technology industry analyst for IBRS, Dr. Joe Sweeney shares his impressions of WorkSpan after a recent briefing and demonstration. Read his thoughts on why WorkSpan isn’t simply another vendor in the already-crowded “collaboration” category, but instead provides a purpose-driven solution helping alliances jointly plan, fund, and measure program performance across companies to more effectively execute joint go-to-market initiatives.
WorkSpan’s CEO & Founder Mayank Bawa on Joint Go-To-Market Alliances
Digital innovation is driving the move to bring together the organization’s own systems and contributions from outsourcers and “as a service” providers. As many recent studies back it up, more and more marketers remain committed to a best-of-breed approach to vendor selection rather than seeking the advantages of single-source solutions.
Goodbye Spreadsheets, Hello Go-To-Market Network for Alliances
If your go-to-market plans involve working with partners, whether it’s one or one hundred, you know how complicated it can get managing the relationship and shared programs.
WorkSpan Launches Go-To-Market Network for Alliances
The company says this is the first to allow management of multiple initiatives between an unlimited number of businesses.
WorkSpan Raises $9 Million for Go-To-Market Network for Alliances
Redwood City-based WorkSpan has raised a $9 million Series A led by Mayfield Fund for its alliance go-to-market networking platform.
WorkSpan Marks Global Debut With $9 Million Series A Funding
A new Silicon Valley startup is aiming to make it easier for alliances to go-to-market across channels, teams, and regions.
WorkSpan Secures $9M In Funding, Announces General Availability
Using WorkSpan, alliances can establish a shared system of record; align, create and share programs; and propagate them to internal and external partners, according to the company.
WorkSpan Allows Companies to Redefine How They Engage with Strategic Partners
Companies need to engage with thriving ecosystems of partners to make themselves strategic and valuable for their ecosystem.
January 10, 2018
The Global Economy is Changing the Way We Collaborate
As we become a more global business society, we’re seeing a lot more companies collaborating with other companies – which can present the challenge of keeping confidential information secret, while still effectively working with outsiders. Provided they can get past these barriers, businesses can gain a competitive edge by leveraging the resources of a partner.
November 7, 2017
IBRS Technology Industry Analyst Dr. Joe Sweeney Reviews WorkSpan
Former VP of Research at Gartner, and current technology industry analyst for IBRS, Dr. Joe Sweeney shares his impressions of WorkSpan after a recent briefing and demonstration. Read his thoughts on why WorkSpan isn’t simply another vendor in the already-crowded “collaboration” category, but instead provides a purpose-driven solution helping alliances jointly plan, fund, and measure program performance across companies to more effectively execute joint go-to-market initiatives.
October 27, 2017
WorkSpan’s CEO & Founder Mayank Bawa on Joint Go-To-Market Alliances
Digital innovation is driving the move to bring together the organization’s own systems and contributions from outsourcers and “as a service” providers. As many recent studies back it up, more and more marketers remain committed to a best-of-breed approach to vendor selection rather than seeking the advantages of single-source solutions.
October 6, 2017
Goodbye Spreadsheets, Hello Go-To-Market Network for Alliances
If your go-to-market plans involve working with partners, whether it’s one or one hundred, you know how complicated it can get managing the relationship and shared programs.
September 26, 2017
WorkSpan Launches Go-To-Market Network for Alliances
The company says this is the first to allow management of multiple initiatives between an unlimited number of businesses.
September 6, 2017
WorkSpan Raises $9 Million for Go-To-Market Network for Alliances
Redwood City-based WorkSpan has raised a $9 million Series A led by Mayfield Fund for its alliance go-to-market networking platform.
September 1, 2017
WorkSpan Marks Global Debut With $9 Million Series A Funding
A new Silicon Valley startup is aiming to make it easier for alliances to go-to-market across channels, teams, and regions.
August 23, 2017
WorkSpan Secures $9M In Funding, Announces General Availability
Using WorkSpan, alliances can establish a shared system of record; align, create and share programs; and propagate them to internal and external partners, according to the company.
August 23, 2017
WorkSpan Allows Companies to Redefine How They Engage with Strategic Partners
Companies need to engage with thriving ecosystems of partners to make themselves strategic and valuable for their ecosystem.