Collaboration and innovation often go hand in hand. For us, feedback from our global network of partners is invaluable in helping develop and improve our innovative products and solutions.
Here we explore how we work with partners to gather feedback, and the ways in which we apply it to our processes and products.
Working with partners towards a common goal
Partnerships have been central to our success from early in our company journey. We recognized that it was impossible to achieve the best results on our own, and quickly realized the importance of close collaboration with those we work with to solve problems. The success of our partner ecosystem is driven by a shared goal to innovate and deliver the highest quality products and solutions for our growing customer base. This has enabled us to stay flexible, motivated, and able to respond quickly to disruptions and new use cases as they arise.
As our partners build and deliver solutions to address real world challenges, they often hear these pain points first-hand. The right conversations push them to think differently and spurs research and development into new designs. This is where the real gold lies – the anecdotes and feedback heard on the frontline directly influence our product direction and any changes that need to be implemented to make our solutions better, more effective, and fit for purpose.
Our approach to collecting feedback
Often the best insights are gleaned from conversations which happen by chance, and we receive feedback via many different channels. However, it’s important for us to have a standardised approach to collecting and collating this valuable information. In addition to our ‘open door policy’ regarding the opinions and suggestions of partners, we conduct formal surveys several times a year to ensure we’ve collected as much data as possible. It gives us the opportunity to dig a bit deeper and ask the right questions which will yield the best responses to help us move the needle.
The surveys explore a range of different factors. These include where we’re performing well, such as our committed stance to delivering high quality products and services, as well as maintaining our position as a trusted and knowledgeable market leader. They also serve to highlight areas where we can take greater steps forward, such as offering more transparent communication.
Once we collect the responses, we dedicate a significant amount of time to reviewing the thoughts and suggestions shared by our partners. This gives us the space to reflect and then formulate a plan for implementation. This has been an effective approach and the development of our designs and selection tools is deeply correlated with the feedback we receive from our surveys. Also, this information has resulted in the addition of new functionality to our tools and business processes.
The response to partner feedback
However, asking for and receiving feedback is one thing. It is something altogether different to act on it. We value the input from our partners so highly that the feedback has allowed us to make several developments and enhancements to our offerings. For example, we launched our Technology Integration Partner Program as a direct response to partner feedback. We have also developed two specialization tracks within the Channel Partner Program; AXIS Camera Station specialization and Axis network audio specialization – with a view to give qualifying members of our Channel Partner Program access to exclusive resources and tools that would give them a competitive edge in the marketplace.
The value of a robust feedback loop
As the world changes and evolves, we’ll be faced with different challenges we previously hadn’t imagined or anticipated. Being agile and responsive is now a superpower and the key to longevity for many businesses. Creating new iterations of our products and processes relies strongly on the robust and regular feedback from our partners. We encourage a culture of open communication in our partner ecosystem which ensures that we receive the most valuable information throughout our year. This provides an excellent resource that we can mine for ideas and build into our product innovations. It also supports a culture of continuous assessment to ensure that we’re providing the best service possible. Through this process we ensure that we’re living up to our own ethos of creating a smarter, safer world.