Episode 21 - Gina Batali-Brooks

In this episode of the ChannelWaves Podcast Steven Kellam and Gina Batali-Brooks tackle the pivotal yet often overlooked impact of data on channel partnerships. They explore the challenge of harnessing actionable insights from disparate data sources and the transformative potential of AI in deal-making. The conversation also touches on the critical role of strategic data architecture, the evolving responsibilities of IT departments, and the debate between centralized and decentralized data strategies. This episode is a concise guide for those looking to leverage technology and data to enhance partnership outcomes in the fast-evolving tech landscape. Listen in now!

What is Channel Waves by StructuredWeb?

A podcast for Channel Marketers, Channel Waves is a place where channel leaders share success strategies, best practices and emerging trends, brought to you by StructuredWeb.

Welcome to ChannelWaves, the podcast where channel

leaders share success strategies, best practices, and emerging

trends brought to you by StructuredWeb.

Here's your host, Steven Kellam.

Welcome, everyone, to ChannelWaves, StructuredWeb's

view into everything channel.

And I'm your host, Steven Kellam.

Thanks, everybody, for joining us today.

Very excited to have Gina

Batali-Brooks joining us today.

Hi, Gina. Hey, it's Steven. How are you?

Well, so those of you who don't know Gina, and

you should know Gina if you're in the channel.

Gina is the founder and president at it Is Inspired.

We're going to talk about

integrations today, by the way.

That's where we're going to head in fairly quickly.

And I think I live integrations

on a pretty regular basis.

Gina lives them on a daily basis.

And it's become such a staple of everything that

I'm talking about or we're talking about in every

conversation with all of our clients or our prospects.

And I don't know if I want to say it's getting worse.

It's just getting deeper.

And just the expectations from my perspective is the

bar has been raised so high on integrations that

you just got to have it down today.

And what we're going to talk a little bit today

is why that is what's happening in the world today,

some of the challenges, and we're going to leave you

with some best practices on things you can do.

And maybe we don't even have all the answers,

but hopefully we could have the questions that you

can ask to get those answers right.

But anyways, from my perspective, Gina, and I'll let you

take it from here or start it from here.

The expectations on how fast and what the results

of integrations are, are just through the roof today.

When we get on calls with the IT team, like, if

you're not on all cylinders on how to get that done,

they don't want to have anything to do with you. Okay.

Their patience becomes very slight.

So maybe you could start today with, from your

perspective, maybe tell folks a little bit about what

you do and why you're so involved this.

And maybe we can talk a little bit

about why integrations is so important today. Yeah.

So Is Inspired is a

channel infrastructure consulting company.

So we focus on all things

partnership in the tech stack.

So that's data systems, processes, and the people that

make that all tick so that you can be

successful with your programs and your channel strategy.

And so it's really about, we always say we speak

geek and we speak channel, and we like to combine

those together so that it makes the channel program sing.

And so, obviously, a big piece of any tech stack

is the integrations and how to make those work.

And actually, the core to me is the data. Right.

And so anybody who's worked with me knows that

for years and years since I started, data has

been kind of the foundation to us of what

data needs to be, where to drive what.

And so to me, that's the core of the

integrations and why they need to be there.

And I think one of the things that we're seeing

so much is with whatever you want to call it,

ecosystems, federated partnerships, whatever term you want to call.

But what we're seeing is this ability to meet

the partners and the aspects of the ecosystem where

they're at, and to provide the data that's needed

in a very real time and meaningful way.

And so we're starting to see, not

just within an organization, the integrations being

important, but outside the organizations to make

the full partnerships actually work.

And I think that's kind of an

interesting dynamic that's making the integrations much

more relevant and much more challenging.

Much more challenging.

I personally, since I was a partner,

that's been a long time, I'll always

look at it from a partner perspective.

And I remember when I was running an

MDF company, Gina, this goes back so far.

This is probably before you and I met.

There was a report that the partners wanted

from a very large vendor, and they wanted

to see their MDF, their rebates, their incentive.

They want to see all of these.

And you could probably pull leads into that as well, too, but

they wanted to see all of it in a single place.

And this was back when you had incentives were in

one place, and MDF was one place, and rebates were

in one place, and leads were in one place.

And as a partner, they used to drive me crazy.

And I remember the first time I saw

a partner benefit summary page at this vendor,

and it had all been pulled together.

And to get that data now, it seems pretty easy, right?

Okay, we'll talk about that.

But to get all that data in one place, I remember we

showed it to a partner, and they were like, oh, my word.

And then the vendor was like, can you imagine,

sorry, total aside, can you imagine being a partner

manager, a CAM, and trying to show the benefits

of all the benefits that you're giving to a

partner and trying to pull them together in four

different places and four different slides?

It's just a nightmare for everybody. Yeah.

Obviously, with things like AI

being in the forefront everywhere.

Being able to have real time access to

the data that you need super important, and

quality data is super important to do anything

to realize some of the benefits of AI.

And so, again, the integrations and some of the

things we're starting to see around, and not that

these are new terms, but I'm actually starting to

see them being implemented, and implemented well, in some

cases around things like data mesh and data fabric,

and looking for ways to unify, to come and

look at data, regardless of which systems they're in.

And that enables you to be able to get

rid of some of the point-to-point integrations

that have been going on, which are fragile, especially

when you get outside of an organization.

One side changes something, and all

of a sudden it breaks everything.

And so we were working with a customer who

had done that and done a great job of

integrating with some of their partners, some of their

big partners, and they said just the maintenance of

trying to keep the integrations up was so hard.

And so I think some of the new structures coming

out and seeing people, I talked to somebody the other

day who's got a data fabric implemented, and they said,

literally, they're getting ready to change out their CRM, and

it's no problem because the data fabric is there.

And it's not a point-

to-point integration with anything.

It's one integration they have to

write into the data fabric.

And so, to me, that was just, like, kind

of mind blowing, because you hear, I'm not to

cut you off, but I haven't heard that yet. I have yet.

To be in a situation where someone

has said that, that's actually pretty cool.

And I would think that most of our

listeners and viewers have not experienced, you know,

like I said, data fabric is a term.

NetApp has been talking about it for years.

I mean, it's a term that's been around there.

And in concept, it's always interesting.

And I know Forrester's got a lot of stuff

around it, but to hear a customer talk about

it actually being implemented and the fact that they

can switch things in and out is just.

I mean, it was pretty cool.

I think the opposite side, I was on a call

the other day, and it was an hour long call.

Someone's replacing their PRM and their TCMA, and the

nightmare in dealing with the CRM and the nightmare

of that call, you could see the trepidation.

It was interesting.

And you might relate to this because you're in

the middle of this, more than I am.

I was sitting back and listening to it.

And normally I think about, okay, what's the effort

level on my side at a TCMA, or my

partner at the PRM or the MDF?

I literally was thinking, Gina, what's the effort level of

the client that they're having to go through this?

Because it's very opposite of what you're talking

about with all the point-to-point integrations.

That's right.

And I think the other thing I was reading that

was kind of interesting is Accenture said that 90% of

the data has been produced in the last ten years.

And then Forrester came out with a report saying

that 32% of the people they interviewed are not

getting any value out of the data.

It's 90%.

But how much is relevant? Yeah.

And I think it was 27 or

28% are saying that there's no actionable.

Only 27 or 28% say they can

actually take action on the data.

And so if you think about that and think

about what we're trying to do in the partnership

world where you're using, ideally you can be able

to say, hey, based on a transaction that's happening,

what's the right contact content and the immediate recommended

next action for somebody to take in order to

have the best chance of closing that deal?

That data is coming from multiple places.

Some of that might be in your data warehouse,

some of that might be in your content library,

some of that might be in your CRM.

And so how do you get all of

that together to start really making that happen?

It's exciting, and I think there's a lot of

movement in this space, but people need to really

start thinking about what that data architecture looks like

and how they want to have these integrations that

can be maintainable over time. Right.

Because the other thing that's happening, as you know

all too well, is the amount of the functionality

that's coming out in systems and the system availability

in the partnership space, and how new things are

coming out all the time.

And you want to be able to take advantage of

those little point things that make your life easier.

And how do you then integrate that all in together?

I mean, this is exactly what you had me thinking about.

And if one lags behind the other, you just

minimizing the effectiveness, for instance, as well as I

do that some of the functionality is, well, what

if we could, in a deal registration, have that

content lined up from an AI perspective to automatically,

as you say, go to that, right, partner? Based on what?

But it's the base, on what side?

So the functionality is there in the

tech stack to get that there.

But then you have to figure out who is

that right partner, where in that buyer's journey.

And I feel like we're a smidgen away from that.

I think the tech stack is actually

caught up in some of that functionality.

And we just need to get that

data to be able to get that. Right, partner.

That's right.

And not rely on the partner to tell you that.

I had to laugh because I was the partner. Yeah.

And they don't have time.

The whole point I was like, hey, we got

this really cool thing for you, and it's really

automated and AI is going to make this beautiful.

Oh, but wait, here's the missing part.

You now have to tell us stuff versus just going in and.

Yeah.

Being able to learn it from what's

in your environment and the deal past

experiences and all those kinds of things.

So, yeah, the vision that I've had for years

about where this could be going, it's so exciting

because you can start to see it happening.

We've got a ways to go, but it's pretty cool, right?

It's pretty cool. Okay.

We could talk about AI.

We could talk about this forever, but we're going

to wrap this up and let you reach out

to Gina or you can reach out to me.

If you want to get deeper on this, you can go online.

But I thought I would wrap it up

with what's the biggest challenge that you see

out there and what's the biggest opportunity?

Yeah.

So I think the biggest challenge comes to really

having a strategy about how you want to do

your integrations moving forward and having that be making

decisions on, are you going to have centralized processes

for it, decentralized processes for it, how are you

going to govern it and make sure there's security

around all of it right.

As you're reaching outside of walls.

And so to me, that aspect of figuring out the

approach that you want to take for that, what's the

biggest opportunity that you see out of this, right.

And who's going to win by taking advantage of this.

So who are going to be the

winners and what's the biggest opportunity?

Yeah, so I think the biggest opportunity is to

harness the value of the data, to drive processes,

actionable insight, AI, and to be able then to

use that across all of your systems. Right.

And so I think that's the biggest opportunity.

I think, as it relates to who's going to win,

it's the people that figure that out and really understand

now that they have to get the strategy in place

for that so that as things mature around AI and

the integrations and systems and all of that, as that

all starts to mature more and more and take advantage,

they'll be able to take advantage of that functionality.

Okay, I know I said that was a wrap up, but I've got

one more question for you on this, and I can't help it.

This promise, the last thing, because we were

trying to keep these things short and sweet.

Who's owning this?

And the reason I bring this up

is because my stakeholder has changed.

We're in the through channel marketing automation, but

we tie into everyone else there, right.

Integrations are 100% key for us.

But I'm looking at who owns the big project

and it used to be point based, right.

The marketing individuals or owners would do one.

You had the MDF and you have PRM.

I'm personally seeing people in the IT department

owning the whole project and the whole landscape.

I'm seeing a shift towards the

person who owns those integrations.

And it's interesting, they're having to take this all up

a level and pull in all of these business owners.

It's been fascinating to me to watch how that goes.

I'm curious what you're seeing is what I'm seeing just

kind of a one off on some of my opportunities,

or is it moving more towards this direction in general?

Yeah.

So I think it all depends on the strategy.

So obviously the data and IT organizations are

from a data strategy and integration strategy are

going to drive a lot of this. Right.

The question comes down to of

which type of strategy you choose.

Do you choose more of a decentralized, like a

data mesh type of an approach where you have

products from a data perspective and you have organizations

that are the data owners and they're publishing products

that other people can use?

Or do you have more like a data

fabric perspective where it's more centralized and governed?

More centralized.

The systems still are in their relative areas,

but how the data is looked at is

more central still allowing you more flexibility than

all the data being in one place.

I think it's going to really depend on, and there's

pros and cons to both of them as start talking

to people and I was talking to somebody else who's

done, who's implementing data mesh right now, and to take

advantage of some of the AI and they feel like

they can move faster because they can provide that to

different departments but still have an overall.

It just, I think it really depends from an

ownership perspective how it lays out down the road.

All right, Gina, thank you for joining us today.

It's been a pleasure. Steven.

Always a pleasure.

It's great.

And what's the best way for people to

reach out to, to talk to you offline?

Yeah.

So you can always reach out to me via LinkedIn.

[e-mail] is my email.

Love to talk to.

I love this stuff is so interesting to me.

If you have thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

Fascinating.

So here's my last plug for Gina.

This was several years ago, before we met, and I

was asking someone in my space of friends who's the

most unbiased technology person I could talk to.

That's no BS, is just going to tell me

exactly what they see and exactly what they work,

what works, and treat me like an adult.

Not to the left, not to the right.

Just give me the facts.

And they recommended that I reach out to you.

So that was a pretty big

compliment for someone to say that.

And I have to say, I believe they were correct.

It's what we believe in, right?

There's different answers for different problems.

And the most important thing is to understand the

problem first and then figure out the solution.

So that's what we're all about. Okay. All right.

Once again, Gina, thanks for joining us. Listeners.

Thanks for joining us.

Have a great day. Bye.