Excitement over Partner and Community Ecosystems is at an all-time high. There is even a rumor that CEOs at SaaS companies are fully bought in and Partner Professionals have all the resources and support they need to crush it.

Unfortunately, the rumor is false.

What CEOs do acknowledge is that Digital Transformation is and will continue to re-shape markets and that new business models will be mediated by and through Ecosystems. What they don’t know is how that will happen or the strategies that will allow them to grow and thrive with and through Ecosystems.

The GoToEcosystem imperative

Where does this leave those of us who run or work in the Partner or Ecosystem Orgs within our business?

The good news is that the very fact that you work in the partner org means that your CEO has given you the Keys to build and drive your Ecosystem. The bad news is that they have also given Keys to other Lines of Business (LoBs) like Product, Marketing, Sales, and CS, and that they are better able to marshal resources.

This leaves most partner people with limited budget, and thereby limited impact. These LoBs have a hard ROI ($1 investment = $X return), whereas most Partner LoB do not have this hard ROI return model in the bag.

To help solve for the problem of lack of resources and low partner investment prioritization, in concert with PartnerHacker, Digital Bridge Partners has created V1 of the GoToEcosystem Maturity Model to help Partner Leaders achieve three objectives:

1. Systematically evaluate the current maturity of partner and community strategies, processes, and results.

2. Develop a game plan that leverages best practices to overcome challenges and address gaps.

3. Drive impactful transformation to turn Ecosystems into a top 3 imperative for the CEO and Board.

The GoToEcosystem framework

Last month, Digital Bridge Partners landed the GoToEcosystem Model, a three-part transformation framework based around Strategy, Alignment and Orchestration. (See our 3-min video intro here.)

GoToEcosystem is now widely viewed as the first comprehensive approach to unlocking the vast potential of Partner and Community Ecosystem and is targeted initially at B2B SaaS Companies. Here’s picture of the framework for those who are not familiar with our posts.

The GoToEcosystem maturity model

The GoToEcosystem (G2E) Maturity Model, designed around the Ecosystem imperatives of B2B SaaS companies, articulates a Four Stage Ecosystem Journey that aligns to the Strategy, Alignment and Orchestration in the G2E Framework. 

Here are the Stages and associated focus areas, objective, and key results:

Calls to action

What Partner Leaders and aspiring Ecosystem professionals can do to accelerate their Ecosystem results within their organizations and with their partners:

• Attend our session on How to Leverage the GoToEcosystem Maturity Model at SaaS Connect on April 27, 1:30pm.
• Attend our session on How to Align Product, Marketing, Sales, and CS with GoToEcosystem at Crossbeam SuperNode on May 18, 12:30 pm.
• Please complete our GoToEcosystem Maturity Survey and we will help you self-profile and advise on priorities to accelerate your progress to the next G2E stage of development.
• Sign up to join our mailing list and receive the G2E Newsletter and Community invitation.

Meanwhile, we wish you all the best as you crush it with your GoToEcosystem Strategy!