Highlights from the Automation Anywhere Partner Summit

Editor’s note:

Recently, Automation Anywhere received a 5-Star rating in the 2022 Partner Program Guide of CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company. That honor is achieved only by select vendors that deliver the best-of-breed partner programs to support and promote growth and positive change.

At the end of last month, representatives from more than 600 organizations across more than 50 countries gathered online for the annual Automation Anywhere Virtual Partner Summit. During the three-day event, attendees heard from Automation Anywhere and industry leaders about the market opportunity, state of digital transformation and automation, as well as what’s coming with our award-winning partner program. They learned about our vision, products, and go-to-market efforts to advance automation adoption delivering customer and partner success.

Following is a recap of what was presented as described by Ben Yerushalmi, senior vice president, global alliances and channels at Automation Anywhere, and Mai Doan, vice president of partner programs and strategy at Automation Anywhere. 


Day One was about the vision. Where is Automation Anywhere heading for the market and our partners? 

Ben:  
In a nutshell, it’s about driving customer success.  
 

Mai:   
And driving the future of work—in both cases, with our partners. The new decade will bring about a demand that companies change how people and operations work, and this transformation will be empowered by automation and artificial intelligence. The transformation will create opportunities for everyone involved. 
 

Ben:  
We’re entering a world where digital workers will do many things that people hate doing—the mundane, repetitive business tasks. Hate it? Automate it.

Mai:  
It’s about how users engage with technology, the expectations they have about that technology, and how the technology can make their jobs better and help them be more productive. For organizations, automation allows them to do more with the workers they have, to plan and build for business continuity and create a resilient workforce through what is clearly a volatile world.

Ben:  
Those are the areas where we’re focusing as a company and as a partner. Together, we’re changing the future of work. 


What role do partners play in executing that vision? 

Mai:  
We have partners in three areas:

• Business partners who provide sales and technical expertise in Automation Anywhere products and implementation services.
• Training partners who offer hands-on automation training
• Technology partners who offer on-premises and cloud core and emerging complementary technologies

Ben: 
Our partners have deep domain expertise in all industries where we want to take automation. They have practices set up to work with the major software packages that we connect with such as Oracle, Genesys, Salesforce, SAP, and more. 

We rely on our partners to leverage our software, as well as their thought leadership, to build solutions and drive customer transformation and success through automation. They give us insights, reach, and depth to bring automation into new markets and customers.  


Partners are essential to executing the vision, yes? 

Ben: 
In my opinion, they are the main influencers of customer success. Partners open the aperture of things that customers can do with automation and can help drive rapid time to value and increased value for those customers. 


So, Day One was sharing the Automation Anywhere vision so that the main influencers are in sync with our direction. What about Day Two? 

Mai: 
We shared automation innovations and insights on our product and technology direction with product showcases to help partners win with their customers. 
 

Ben: 
That included what’s new with our Automation 360 platform and industry- and domain-specific products, as an example, for contact centers and centers of excellence. We're going after key industries such as retail banking, healthcare, and the public sector. We discussed new and innovative products such as FortressIQ, a best-in-breed process discovery tool.

FortressIQ can help companies identify the business processes to automate, often those that people aren’t even thinking about. In addition, FortressIQ can identify processes that should be improved as part of companies’ business transformation efforts.

By understanding our future direction, partners can align and build solutions with us so that we can go after the market segments together.

That was Day Two. 


And Day Three? 

Mai:  
Seeing how it all comes together—from a marketing perspective, sales plays, and programs. 
 

Ben:  
We’re shifting our approach to how we support our partners with programs. In the past, we offered a one-size-fits-all program.

We have partners with different expertise and focus. Some partners are exceptionally good at selling our products, but they don’t service them. Some just want to provide services on our software. We have partners who work with our distribution partners. Others focus on providing customer support or training and enablement. And there are the technology partners and the partners who do everything.

A one-size-fits-all program was not the best fit in every case. So, we’re taking the approach of supporting all those different routes to market and partner motions. That's the evolution of the program, developing enablement tracks, restructuring programmatic levels, and building in different incentives and benefits that support the partners’ go-to-market motions.

And, of course, we will continue to recognize and reward partners for their contributions. 
 

Mai:  
Providing recognition and celebrating was part of the summit as well. Winners of our 2022 Global Partner Awards were announced at the end of Day Three. The awards call out partners worldwide who demonstrate excellence and commitment to customer success, innovative solution development, and deep investments in building technical expertise to support customers. 
 

Ben:  
Again, the key phrase: Driving customer success.