October 04, 2016

Industry Day 2016: The Secret to Great Partnerships

By: Kip Karwoski

What constitutes a great business partnership? Or better yet — what is important to customers as they measure the impact of their partnerships?

These are important questions to be able to answer to have great customer relationships.

Return on investment is an indisputable key measurement for success of any organizational investment. But in addition to ROI, what other factors are critical to the success of any business relationship?

Industry Day 2016

That's why every year we host Industry Day, an event where we invite a few of our industry customers to our Michigan office to gain greater insights into their measurement criteria in how they evaluate a partner relationship. This face to face interaction with our customers and our Sircon team members is crucial in helping us understand their perspectives and organizational goals. We can then discuss where the industry is going and better understand how we can assist our customers in mapping those goals to strategically lead the industry with a competitive edge.

But what do our customers think of our partnership? Here's some of the feedback that we received at Industry day:

"Our relationship is better defined as a partnership, not a vendor. Our open partnership allows us to share our vision and work with them to figure out how to reach those goals– we always have confidence that the Sircon team is going to deliver."

To dive a little deeper into how we're able to achieve great partnerships, another customer discussed the importance of working together while keeping industry regulatory updates top of mind.

The Sircon Value

This customer's number one point in stressing their Vertafore relationship was the "value of working together to improve all entities and individuals in the partnership to meet a common goal. The Sircon Value is their close ties to thought leadership and industry innovation to overcome industry challenges. The effectiveness and responsiveness of your Account Support Team directly assist our successful performance and relationship."

So, based on our feedback from our customers this year–what did we find is the secret to a great partnership?

Communication.

At Vertafore, we have the good fortune of having not only great customers, but great relationships with our customers. The strength of a partnership is directly proportional to the amount of communication that is had. With our customers, communication and collaboration allows us to align the future of Sircon solutions with our partner's business goals. If the Vertafore staff can understand where our customers want to be, we can integrate that much better with our partners to help in their overall strategy to reach their goals.

Not only at Industry Day, but our day to day activities revolves around just that. By coupling our customers' goals and our knowledge of the industry, we're able to collectively strategize steps to reach those goals together.

As stated by one of our customer attendees: "Good partnerships start with a clear and deep understanding of your customers' business and related areas of concern." It's simple– relationships that go well have better communication.

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