Do we Partner or do we Build a Market??

Through all my profesional life in the IT business I have realized how much has changed the way that companies get into the market. Back in the golden middle 80's the existing IT companies - a number much smaller than today - got into the market directly through their own sales force. The usual process to expand their business was the identification of a large customer, mainly a Bank or Public institution, that allowed an initial settlement of the company.

The change came in the 90's with the sales approach of companies such as SAP or Microsoft, among others,  who started their expansion (and the building of their current empire) with the identification, development and management of a trusted network partner. The result was that most companies started a partner strategy that in many cases competed with their direct sales force. However, there was an important piece missing in the puzzle: most of the sales and partner's strategy focused on the short term, leaving the medium term unattended. The market needed to be much more mature to focus on activities that allowed a medium-term strategy and opportunity management to feed both the direct and partner sales short term strategy. This has been the basic reason to build this service where the business development activities are the first step to build a successful local sales strategy.

As we may realize, sales is one of the most human activities that may exist in the enterprise as it means the building of relationships and trust that brings good results for both parties; therefore, it requires time and goodwill. For this reason, market and business development is a previous step to a partner and distribution strategy that allows both parties to know each other, share their plans, get their commitments and work for a joint project.

I would like to know your opinion...If you share this point of view and want to expand your IT business or improve your current one I would be very happy to meet you!!