With the transition to a partner-led business strategy, Basware continues to invest a lot of time and effort into its Onboarding Program. This program offers new and existing partners the opportunity to quickly generate revenue from the partnership, through our hands-on approach comprised of continuous mentoring and coaching.
While utilising in-house resources to enable new partners may have been a successful approach in the past, we feel our partners need customised resources to ensure a successful, long-term partnership.
We combined our years of experience in the industry with hundreds of templates, design documents and best practice descriptions created over time, to generate targeted resources to guide our partners through the solution configuration and implementation process. We focused on defining standards and creating step-by-step guidance, ultimately designating our partner training program.
We focused our initial training on the required technical knowledge for configuration and include best-practices and lessons learned from successful customer implementations. We quickly defined these two parts of a successful project delivery:
- Configuration: The technical setup that includes cloud access to Basware, integrations between existing systems and Basware, setting parameters and fields, connections to the databases, and so on.
- Implementation: Outlining a project setup that includes addressing the problems the customer is looking to solve with our solutions, including addressing areas for automation and understanding the client’s existing processes and solutions. This also typically includes user adoption to ensure clients can successfully transition to the new processes.
After reviewing the entire training program, we designed our Basware Onboarding Program, that features training modules, tracks, and easy-to-consume education. It is our goal to be cognisant of our partners’ time, especially in a demanding environment where billable utilisation rate is a key partner KPI and current customer commitments are ongoing.
Partner Training
With partners worldwide, our Onboarding Program supports a 100% remote training setup, including live virtual classroom training modules. Providing e-learning opportunities for our partners allows them to complete each training module at their own pace, providing flexibility around earning certifications.
Project Shadowing
Following the trainings, partners are given the opportunity to shadow a live project with Basware experts. Even with prior experience around procure-to-pay (P2P) implementations with other providers, we believe it is critical that our partners shadow a live project with Basware consultants, to increase experience and provide optimal customer success in the future. Our partners also complete a Readiness Assessment at the end of the Project Shadowing phase to review lessons learned and best-practices moving forward.
Implementation Project
A partner’s first project! This is an exciting part of the Onboarding Program where our partner leads the project with support from Basware. We are available during the build phase to fill in gaps or answer questions. It’s at this time that the partner can really start doing some (billable) activities. With guidance through our partner services desk, it is at this phase that we find our partners really excel, while we continue to mentor, coach, and support them to ensure a successful project delivery.
Certification
As we work on live customer implementations, quality assurance is a fundamental part of the training. Certifications are determined based on customer satisfaction, time to value, and Basware best-practices during this phase. If needed, we encourage our partners to complete additional implementation projects to make sure they feel prepared to branch out.
Partner Ready!
In the Basware Onboarding Program, we can define case-by-case who will do what during the first implementations and support is delivered by Basware’s implementation consultants. In the beginning, partners will utilise our Partner Services Desk quite intensively. After 2-3 implementations, partners are typically able to run the implementations themselves, although we will always be available to help.
The program is mandatory for all partners – as we strive to safeguard the quality and generate a receptive hands-on experience. With this program in place, we often see new partners who have experience in the P2P field onboard even quicker. We have seen partners that run 90% of the implementation on their own, with minimal help from the Partner Services Desk. That is the powerful and agile approach of the model. It is always tailored to the needs of the partner. So those who have more experience can run through the process quickly to enhance time-to-value for the customer.
Continued Partner Support
Basware keeps partners up to date with system updates throughout the online trainings, helping our partners maintain active certifications. Partners are always aware of the latest developments, which helps position the Basware advantages to customers. Furthermore, we host webinars called Partner Expert Sessions on a regular basis to share new functionalities, security updates, additional training, and more.
Partnership Growth
Basware has high growth ambitions with our partners. Currently, we have over 250 active partner employees in our learning management system. In 2021, we plan to onboard 15-20 new system integrator partners worldwide to reach our short-term growth targets. This will result in more than doubling the Basware trained resources to meet the demand for Basware implementation resources.
