The Kerio Partner Advisory Council, or PAC as we internally call it, helps us obtain input on channel initiatives early in the planning stages. Our Partner Program Manager, Elise Hymes, shares her thoughts on what makes channel PAC valuable for both members and vendors.

What is next for the Partner Advisory Council?

Given our findings over the past year, we have discussed transitioning into regional PACs. I find that most of the conversations we have are either US focused or European focused, and it is difficult for PAC members to give a global perspective on everything. Some of them understandably care about things that are relevant in Europe - like security, cloud and data centers.

In my experience, and that would be my recommendation to anyone trying to form and run a Partner Advisory Council, you're better off setting up regional PACs as opposed to a single global PAC body. In regional councils, partners are more likely to engage in conversations relevant to their business and markets they are familiar with.

In the case of our current PAC, we are debating having a European and an American/APAC group, with ideally 7-10 members per group moving forward. We'd also like to bring in some new members who sell outside of Kerio to provide a different perspective on what the other partnerships they have are like, and then apply that to our business.

Additionally, we are looking into using the Salesfoce and Marketo functionality integrated into the Kerio Partner Portal to provide lead management, allowing us to pass leads directly to partners. If we decide to go this route, we have the ability to put custom code into Samepage so partners could log into their accounts, and there would be a feed of their leads.