Giant Step | Channels & Alliances Specialists - Case Study - Channel Development Services for Chordiant

Chordiant builds impressive sales pipeline through strategic engagement with key technology partner

"We have a much stronger pipeline than 12 months ago and are confident that this is just the tip of the iceberg. We can see a clear channel of business for next year and the year beyond. This simply hasn't been the case before now." Bryan Richter, Vice President, Chordiant

Chordiant solutions and services help major enterprises around the world deliver the best possible customer experience. Unlike traditional business applications, Chordiant Customer Experience (Cx) solutions blend insight with agile business strategies and decisions to uniquely understand the customer's behaviour. In addition to its direct sales model, strategic partnerships form one of Chordiant's core channels to market.

Chordiant's UK operation had identified a major technology company as their preferred go-to-market partner for insurance solutions. Chordiant was already working with this company, in the UK, within the banking and finance division and, globally, within its insurance division. It wanted to bring these two elements together to establish a stronger relationship with the UK insurance division, an area that had previously not been exploited.

Chordiant believed that it had a good fit with the partner, particularly around pull through implementation services, and was looking for incremental revenue through software licence and maintenance contract sales. A successful partnership would see joint penetration of the UK insurance market; creating a leadership position with major, referenceable, customer wins.

Building new relationships

Unable to provide this project with the focus it needed, Chordiant engaged alliances specialist, Giant Step, to help it build new relationships and establish a model for the two organisations to work together successfully.

Bryan Richter, Vice President, Chordiant, says: "We engaged Giant Step to help us build relationships with the partner. This was a really strategic project for the business and it was vital that it was given real focus. Any internal resource would inevitably have been distracted by other tasks. We were confident that with Giant Step there would be a clear and specific focus on achieving the objectives we had set."

Articulating value

Giant Step worked with Chordiant to create a strategy for successful engagement, ensuring that they were able to articulate their value proposition to the insurance division. They helped them to establish a clear picture of perceptions and mindshare within the relevant partner teams. Richter says:" Giant Step's role in helping us build our value proposition was fundamental. Their knowledge of the partner's internal structure meant they could very quickly map our organisation onto their ecosystem and rapidly gauge perception of Chordiant. This is something that would have taken months for us to do ourselves. I don't believe we could ever have been so well-informed or able to articulate our value to the right people if we hadn't had Giant Step's help."

Giant Step helped Chordiant to create specific objectives and build these into a structure for achieving results. They provided Chordiant with a contact map across the partner's insurance service and software business and set up briefing meetings for partner teams to sell the value of Chordiant's products.

Delivering results

Because Giant Step had taken time to identify key individuals and understand realistic reasons why they would want to work with Chordiant, It was able to create and evangelise a strong Chordiant value proposition for the UK insurance market. Richter says: "Giant Step is very results orientated, which is what drew me to them in the first place. It's important, when embarking on projects like this, to focus on tangible specifics rather than having meeting after meeting about strategy. Giant Step understood our proposition and articulated, very clearly how working with Chordiant would help partner contacts achieve their business objectives. Crucially, they were also able to define exactly what a joint proposition, between the partner and Chordiant, could deliver for customers."

Having established relationships and confirmed a positive desire to work with Chordiant, the next step was to create and implement a joint action plan. Richter says: "We were extremely conscious of the need for actual results to prove potential and build evidence for a strategic partnership. Giant Step helped us focus on some tactical engagements to jointly test propositions and get some real opportunities into the pipeline." The resultant action plan far exceeded original expectations for levels of activity and proved much broader than the original scope of work.

Creating a valuable pipeline

With input from Giant Step, Chordiant and the partner worked together to produce joint account plans for target customers. They created messaging for joint Insurance sector value propositions and jointly developed supporting demos. The result was a clear pipeline of significant sales opportunities. Richter says: "We had set a number of milestones for our engagement with the partner but basically had to tear these up and throw them away. Giant Step consistently over-delivered on our goals, both within the Insurance division and other areas. The partner is extremely positive about Chordiant. We have got some really good sponsors now who are keen to evangelise our offerings and the joint proposition to customers."

Giant Step's work within the partner account led to engagement at multiple levels within multiple divisions. Says Richter: "Giant Step's consultant became the linchpin of the whole project. Her networking skills and knowledge of the partner were invaluable. Her penetration of the account was so comprehensive that we are also gaining significant traction within the Media and Telco divisions."

Developing relationships

Chordiant is now planning to develop this depth of relationship into other vertical divisions of the same partner. It also intends to apply this successful model to working strategically with other partners. Chordiant's vision is to develop its value proposition and look to partners to develop their own intellectual property around Chordiant solutions.

Case Study - Chordiant

Chordiant builds impressive sales pipeline through strategic engagement with key technology partner