Case Study

Corporate Licensing of Channel Institute Learning Modules

Our client is one of the largest technology companies in the world with an extensive team of channel partner managers and channel marketing managers. They also have thousands of channel partners for multiple product lines spread around the world.

Although the client already has their own "Academy" for internal training, they had three key reasons for wanting to engage with the Channel Institute:

• "Build or Buy" decision - they decided it would be more cost effective and faster to license existing training modules from the Channel Institute than to invest in building the same modules with their own teams. 
• Internal staff expressed a desire for third party accredited training rather than just more internal training. The client and Channel Institute worked to align training courses so that staff could take the certificate exams and receive accredited certification from the Institute. 
• Channel partners had expressed an interest in hearing "another voice" rather than just the client's. In particular, they wanted to learn industry best practices and what channel partners of other company's ecosystems were doing, and what was working for them. 

The client and Channel Institute teams worked together to quickly identify which modules from our certificate courses would fill their gaps, while staying within budget. Different streams of content were chosen for internal channel management and channel marketing staff as well as for channel partners.

Courses were aligned so that both internal staff and channel partners were able to take the certificate exams with the Channel Institute and when passed successfully, students were awarded the relevant certificate from the Institute. Channel Partners were allowed use co-op (and in certain cases MDF) funding to pay for the exam.

According to the lead team member at our (confidential) client:

"This was a real win-win for everyone involved. Even though we have developed lots of learning content internally, and have a dedicated team and partners for this, it made huge sense for us to partner with the Channel Institute in this instance. The whole process was incredibly easy and fast as the Institute already had the content developed, market-tested and ready to go. In addition, working with the Institute gave our training the third party credibility that both staff and channel partners craved. Feedback from our staff and channel partners has been fantastic and we are already discussing the next phase with the team at the Channel Institute."