RapidValue: A David That Can Play, and Partner, with the Goliaths
Posted By Jon Lavietes, Monday, April 12, 2021
The David-Goliath alliance is an evergreen alliance topic. No matter the era, industry, or market segment, there will always be opportunities for smaller entities and larger, established companies to generate revenue, develop products, or fill capability and expertise gaps together.
Today, RapidValue Solutions, a technology and services company that helps clients in a variety of vertical markets develop new cloud, mobile, and IoT products, has mastered the “David” role in a handful of alliances with some of the technology industry’s most recognized bluebloods. For its command of the art of educating established companies on its value proposition and bridging inherent cultural differences that come with company-size disparities, the organization was named a finalist for a 2021 ASAP Alliance Excellence Award in the Alliance Program Excellence category.
Oracle and a Little Slack Enable Alliance to Grow
RapidValue’s journey to build a strong partner ecosystem began in 2018 when the company drew up a short list of prospective partners, and then zeroed in on Oracle as a potential collaborator that might welcome its expertise in modernizing enterprise applications using the latest in UX design, application development, integration, and testing. The company had a hunch that it could help expedite the development of new mobile and cloud services for Oracle’s ERP suite and deliver solutions to joint customers on a massive scale. After an aggressive education campaign to distinguish RapidValue from a crowded field of aspiring partners, Oracle decided to collaborate with the emerging digital product engineering firm on a few individual initiatives. After some early customer successes, the partnership took off.
As the two companies rapidly grew their joint portfolio, they instituted a standard governance structure, with regular meetings between core team members to chart day-to-day activities and annual or twice-annual meetings between senior executives to adjust the alliance’s broader vision and strategy. They used a CRM application and other project management tools to track the overall performance of the relationship and make adjustments wherever necessary. The companies also utilized a variety of communications tools to foster close collaboration at all levels of the partnership. Most notably, they set up a series of dedicated Slack channels for the respective marketing, product and engineering, customer support, sales, and alliance teams.
Repeatable and Scalable Framework Helps Meet Sky-High Expectations for Cloud Alliances
Oracle and RapidValue found no shortage of synergies and joint market opportunities, generating a pipeline of more than $20 million over the past few years. More importantly, RapidValue applied the lessons learned from its Oracle engagement to new alliances with cloud leaders Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and more recently Google. It turns out that the Oracle alliance framework was repeatable and scalable. With a few tweaks to the processes, the Amazon alliance took 20 percent less time to scale, while the third collaboration—the one with Microsoft—was up and running in 65 percent of the time it took for the Oracle relationship to hit on all cylinders. The Google partnership, which kicked off this January, is expected to hit top speed in 40 percent less time than the three that preceded it.
As RapidValue’s stakeholders completed certifications in the respective partners’ technologies, results continued to improve dramatically across these alliances. Salespeople were able to reduce deal sales closure times by almost one-quarter, while client conversion rates spiked approximately 15 percent compared to solo deals. The cloud alliances contributed to around 70 percent of RapidValue’s revenue last year.
Without a Doubt, a Go-to Partner
Along the way, RapidValue has overcome the usual challenges that smaller organizations encounter when working with their multinational behemoth counterparts—slower pace, longer approval cycles, and initial skepticism that a relatively unknown company can perform on the same stage with a Global 1,000 institution. However, cultural differences have been ironed out and all doubts about RapidValue’s value to its partners have long been extinguished.
“Today, we are recognized as a go-to partner for various implementations, and we have a strong and growing relationship with each of these Fortune 100 partners,” said Kiran Elengickal, director of business development and strategic alliance at RapidValue.
The 2021 ASAP Alliance Excellence Awards ceremony will be held virtually on April 27 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. EDT. RapidValue is competing with 100-year-old pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk and Augmented Reality (AR) and Internet of Things (IoT) software vendor PTC for Alliance Program Excellence category honors. Register for the event today and celebrate—and learn from—this year’s best-of-the-best in alliance management.
