Amazon Consulting Acquires PartnerAlliance to Move into Channel

Amazon Consulting, which specializes in matching up IT companies and alleviating frictions to build strategic partnerships, on Nov. 11 announced that it has acquired PartnerAlliances, a San Carlos, Calif.-based strategic alliance development company.
Terms of the deal were not made available.
Amazon Consulting, based in Mountain View, Calif., will now be able to expand its focus on alliances service and strategy development while helping to monetize these strategic corporate alliances with new go-to-market planning and execution tools.
“Now we’ll be able to take those partnerships that work well into the channel,” Amazon Consulting CEO Diane Krakora told eWEEK.
“We’ve always had a very holistic view of channel and alliance management programs and strategies, and this acquisition expands our capabilities with a dedicated focus that allows us to better help our clients put their alliances to work through their existing channels.”
PartnerAlliances does its job for clients by using its own tools and programs for strategic development, competitive benchmarking, communications, partner enablement, and legal and governance, Krakora said.
PartnerAlliances’ secret sauce is its Alliance Life Cycle Tracker, a proprietary tool that tracks and monitors all aspects of a client’s alliance relationship while enabling clients to map out the next steps of engagement.
This tool will be incorporated into Amazon Consulting’s PartnerPath program automation system, Krakora said.
According to the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)-the industry organization that organizes the Codie Awards each year-IT companies face heavy pressure to leverage corporate alliances to achieve greater results, as opposed to doing everything themselves.
The SIIA has reported that 92 percent of U.S. IT companies say that alliances are important to present and future growth and that 77 percent claim they are already involved with strategic alliances. Consequently, these firms demonstrate 43 percent greater revenue than their nonaligned counterparts, the SIIA said.
However, while companies remain interested in partnerships and their potential to increase revenue and establish a competitive advantage, most alliances fail to meet expectations.
Many companies miss the opportunity to maximize adoption of the alliance outcome or product, said Tim Curley, managing partner of PartnerAlliances.
“We have been very successful in this space by providing the services, resources and tools for building and managing strategic alliances,” Curley said. “The union between Amazon Consulting and PartnerAlliances gives technology vendors access to a complete suite of services and expertise spanning both channels and alliances.”