Some partners apprehensive to ManageEngine’s new partner-developer ecosystem

“If you have aspirations to grow, you cannot be doing only what you do today. You have to expand equally with ManageEngine,” says Rajesh Ganesan, CEO of ManageEngine.

When ManageEngine launched a new partner-developer ecosystem through its ManageEngine Marketplace, there were mixed reactions from its partners around the world. The partner-developer ecosystem is designed to enable enterprises and partners build and deploy extensions and AI agents for ManageEngine platforms, including integrations, add-ons, and plugins.

While the launch enhances ManageEngine's robust platform capabilities to address a broader range of enterprise needs with specialized extensions from its partner ecosystem, some partners feel that they may need to play catch up with their peers that are already enrolled in the program.

According to Rajesh Ganesan, CEO of ManageEngine, over 17 partner-developer organizations have built 170+ turnkey extensions, driving 10,000+ global downloads so far. These partners, which are currently based in India with a global presence, include system integrators and other value-added partners.

“Some of these partners are SIs and some even refer to themselves as boutique SIs. They develop products and want to get their products into the domain of IT management. So, they have expressed interest and some are implementation customers,” he said during a media briefing at ManageEngine’s annual User Conference Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia.

When asked if the global partner ecosystem is concerned on how this could impact their business, Ganesan shared that he has had conversations with some partners who did have apprehension, which he said is a common thing.

“From their point of view, they have been carrying ManageEngine for the last 15 to 20 years. They don't want ManageEngine to change, but we realize we as a company have to evolve and change a lot. We explain to them why we do this. If you have aspirations to grow, you cannot be doing only what you do today. You have to expand equally with ManageEngine,” Ganesan explained,

He also pointed out that some partners feel that this is opening doors for more partners to come in and compete in the ecosystem and markets they operate in. However, Ganesan believes that the reality is that the industry is an open market.

“You will have competition, so you cannot resist these changes. So, we take the time to explain this to them because we compete with the big techs and you need to have the same temperament. You cannot like wish competition away, accept the reality, and we are actually giving you more avenues for you to grow in multiple dimensions,” he added.

Building the partner momentum

For Arun Kumar, Regional Vice President, APAC, ManageEngine, the announcement is still very fresh in most markets. In Southeast Asia, there have been some partners that have shown some interest in being part of the program as they have the needed expertise and can be easily onboarded.

“As we progress, the way we look at this, some of our partners who are business partners today, they work with a lot of ecosystem insight, which means they work with a lot of system integrators, MSPs and they work with a lot of transactional partners and some through distribution ecosystem too. So in a way, they could directly pick up this capability or the ecosystem can also support it. That's how we are looking at it,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ganesan added that ManageEngine has a recruitment process for its partners. This includes training and enabling them and ensuring that these partners have the capability to build extensions and plugins.

“So our existing partners who have the capability have again come through us, apply through us, go through the process of being recruited as a developer partner and then they come. If they want to see it as another monetization channel, they are welcome,” Ganesan said.

When asked about the pricing of extensions, plugins and solutions being built and deployed by the partners, Ganesan stated that the partner developers who build it will also propose the pricing.

“They propose, we sit with them to sort of negotiate what would be the right price. Again, like how we have development guidelines, we also have pricing guidelines. Our partners cannot price it the way they want. There will be some guidelines, but I keep saying guidelines because these are not rule books. If it's reasonable, we are happy, because some capabilities are complex. When they build a complex extension, complex add-on, they can price it for the effort that they put in. But there is a guideline to that, that will follow the ManageEngine philosophy. What I mean is, it will not have dynamic components like token, but it will be, it will be affordable and it will be effective,” Ganesan concluded.