Most of you have either started or are about to start your 2010 business plan. As part of your overall plan I would imagine that most of you are (or should be) also reviewing your system integrator (SI) partnership strategy.

As most of you with experience in partnering with the SIs know, over 70% of ALL Government IT spending goes through the system integrators/solution providers.

In reevaluating your strategy, or in planning your strategy for the first time, you need to consider the following:

• Sales/BD Management
• Build your SI partner business development (BD) activities into your overall sales management process
• Define the measures of success that are not just closing business
• Develop compensation plans that reward your agency field reps and your SI BD reps for working together (good sales reps will work their comp plans to their advantage)
• Value Proposition
• Communicate clearly your value to the SI community (i.e., why should the SIs work with you?)
• Map your products and services to solving specific business problems (vs. speeds and feeds)
• Map your value to key business drivers that the SIs care about (i.e., healthcare, security, identity management, virtualization, homeland security, energy efficiencies)
• Developing or Updating Your SI Target List
• Do the research to identify SIs that have or are building solutions in areas and agencies that you best support (consider outsourcing research to someone who understands the data and the SIs)
• Look at all SIs as a possible partners, not just the big guys (mid-size to small SIs are more likely to develop true partnerships). Check out Washington Technology's Top 100 list here.
• Marketing
• Develop marketing strategies to communicate to Government AND the SI community
• Map your percentage of marketing and communications spending to the percentages of how sales are forecasted to take place
• If 40% of sales are expected to go through the SIs, then a similar percentage of your marketing spending should go toward marketing to the SI community
• Develop specific sales and web tools that speak to the SI community
• Develop and maintain a database of key SI contacts and use it for marketing
• Trade Associations/Networking
• Research the 2010 events, activities, and organizations which the SIs are most likely to attend and participate
• If your company become a member of any trade associations you must assign ownership of these organizations by attending, sponsoring, and most of all networking.