How Monday.com uses its partners to evolve their product offering

Carly Giltrap, Director of APJ partnerships, discusses the burgeoning APAC market for the company.

When project management software company Monday.com releases products, it uses partner feedback to evolve their CRM and work management tools.

Carly Giltrap, director APJ partnerships, Monday.com spoke to CRN Australia exclusively on the important relationship the software company has with its partners.

“Sometimes we've learned from our partners as well, CRM, for example, was a product and use case that came through our customers and partners, because they were using our project management solution and making a CRM out of it,” she said.

“We could see that there was this big demand for these use cases, because partners were moulding and changing our products to fit these new use cases.”

Giltrap said partners give Monday.com good frontline feedback on their products.

“They're the ones that are implementing it and training customers. Often we have direct lines with our product team, with our partners to give that feedback, which is so important,” she said.

As the product offering grows and diversifies, Giltrap explained how this impacts their partner relationships.

“For them, it's been an exciting journey, because every time we've released a new product, and we've gone to markets, it is a revenue stream for them, new pricing, new implementation packages,” she said.

“Particularly for products like CRM, customers are used to thinking about, what does the change management look like? What does the implementation look like?

“That's something that has attracted new partners for us, but also for our existing partners, there's been new packages and new solutions that they've been able to go to market with, so they want that evolution.”

Giltrap oversees both the ANZ and the Asia Pacfiic (APAC) region, where she sees there is ample opportunities and actions she can take from a partnerships perspective.

“There's different things, strategies that you're focusing on within each of those different countries to be successful,” she explained.

It isn’t an easy job overseeing a large region, but Giltrap said it is about where you need to focus your time and attention to be successful.

“It's not one specific hair on fire situation, it's more what are the three or four big rocks that we're focusing on to make us successful. Continuing the momentum that we're seeing year on year that will continue to evolve the partnership with channel as we go into next year.”

The company is in the throws of planning the partnership evolution with the leadership team for the next two years.

"You want to get those right, that's where you're investing your head count. That's where you're investing your marketing resources. It's really thinking about in Asia is like, what are the big roles that are going to make us successful in the next five years?”

Asia Pacific as a changing marketplace

The footprint in Asia is changing and growing significantly, according to Giltrap.

“The demand for strong channel partners and developing channel partners in the region is significant for us now because we're starting to do some of the biggest customer deals in those regions,” she explained.

“We need really strong channel partners to implement on board and service those customers as we go up market within Asia.”

Over the past 10 months since Giltrap has been in the role, she noted what has changed significantly is the increased presence from their leadership team and investment into the region.

"[There are] conversations around which offices are we opening in the region? How are we investing in more head count in the region? What are the types of partners that we need to recruit to really be successful in Southeast Asia?

“I'd say that's probably the biggest area that I've seen change and focus, because we can see that that is an exciting area that's gaining a lot of momentum,” she added.

Giltrap explained what the ideal partner in the Asia Pacific region would look like to Monday.com.

“Firstly, for us is about growing the region. They need to have some scale, they need to have a capability of scaling within the region with us and they need to have a combination of strong selling capabilities,” she said.

“Do they have a sales force within there that selling well within the practice? What is their quality from a delivery standpoint? Can they deliver good solutions that are going to make customers happy, implement them relatively quickly, do a good job and get good feedback.”

Giltrap said Monday.com wants to work people that can help the company scale as they grow.

“They need to have a depth of resources,” she added.

“The other thing is an area of specialty, so whether it's an industry use case or an area of specialty in manufacturing or retail and understanding that domain or a product specialty.

“So, they know the CRM space well, they know the dev space well, and speak with confidence to that, because that gets good cut through. That usually means they have a strong customer base that we can work with.”