Credit: Dreamstime
US-based business management software vendor Apptio is charging up its partner efforts in the local region with the appointment of Marie Nalty as its first channel manager for Australia and New Zealand.
As alliances and channels manager for A/NZ, Nalty will work with vice president and general manager for Asia Pacific (APAC) Ben Allard and be responsible for “reinvigorating” Apptio’s A/NZ partner ecosystem, as well as building up its existing channel strategy and program.
“I will be looking for early successes as much as possible," Nalty said. “Then, I will have a short-term versus long-term strategy in them and try and get some wins.
“Once we've had some wins, we can make it a bit more repeatable in there. It makes the next part of the strategy a bit easier."
In addition, the new channel head is also hoping to bring more consistency to Apptio’s local channel efforts within the first 30 days of her tenure.
Credit: Apptio Nalty comes into the new role with 20 years of experience in channel-facing roles at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Stibo Systems, Western Union Business Solutions, Websense, Oracle and Sun Microsystems.
“I see a really big opportunity in terms of the work that needs to be done with the partners,” she added. “It's really well-aligned with what I've done before in terms of taking elements of a channel and really work to define the strategy, and specifically in this instance, around a refocusing on and working strategically with a few partners in each one of the segments.”
Her most recent position was with online newspaper Le Courrier Australien as its head of sales and marketing.
Read more: CIO's role only becoming more complex: Apptio
“The channel is critical to our go-to-market and growth in A/NZ. In the past, we tended to cast a wide net with our channel strategy," said Allard.
“We are now narrowing that focus to establish close alignment with a key set of strategic partners that have the expertise to leverage Apptio solutions to help customers maximise return on their technology and cloud investments.”
That narrowed focus, Allard told ARN, will see Apptio seek out around two or three systems integrators (SIs) and service providers that are focused on agile at scale and enterprise cloud migrations.
The vendor, which specialises in business management software-as-a-service (SaaS), is now focusing on a “four main buckets” strategy: midmarket and lower enterprise, enterprise and strategic, cloud and enterprise agile planning.
Under the first "bucket", the vendor plans to localise key global programs, with its marketing-in-a-box service — complementary ready-to-go marketing packages for go-to-market strategies — the first to undergo such a transformation.
According to Allard, this localisation is set to occur within the first 30 to 60 days of Nalty’s time at the company.
