A special relationship

I have just touched down from a trip to New York to visit our new partners...exciting times ahead

As you may recall, CRN has formed a partnership with the 2112 Group in the US - a like-minded analysis and media company.

I have recently returned from New York, along with CRN's publisher Alan Loader, and our head of sales Colin Logan, to meet with our partners and hold the first of many showcase events to demonstrate to the market what we can achieve with our combined forces.

Our first event - the Global Channel Summit - was based around some research where we questioned channel players on both sides of the pond about their expansion plans.

This could either be setting up a new office in different territories or collaborating with peers in different countries to gain an international presence.

Interestingly, both sets of partners picked each other as the region they most want to do business in. The Special Relationship is alive and well.

And the overwhelming message was that they wanted to work more closely with their vendors to help them achieve their growth ambitions. In particular vendors with a multi-national presence.

Also that a large number of respondents believed the way US vendors handle partner programmes in that territory, greatly affects its programmes in other countries. The US is seen as a thought leader.

We presented the research to a room of senior level executives from vendorland and what struck me was the difference in attitude over there. Nobody was shy to share their views in front of their peers and indeed we had some really interesting discussions during the session.

We are planning a similar event in the UK - so watch out for announcements on that.

Vendors want to hear more from their partners about what they can do for them and how they can work more closely together, and we have lots of interesting projects that we are keen to launch which we hope will make everybody's lives easier.

The future is very exciting.

Aside from that I was in New York - one of the best cities in the world. What could be better than that?

I felt extremely positive walking around there, and there seemed to be a positive vibe radiating from the business people we met as well. One thing the Americans do exceptionally well is not talking themselves down. Something perhaps certain organisations (national media) a little closer to home should maybe listen to.

Now I've just got to conquer this jetlag.