Partnering with Tradeshift: Q&A with Emily Nash-Walker
Emily Nash-Walker is Global Head of Partner Strategy at Tradeshift. Emily spoke to us about the integral role that our partners play in helping us to deliver tailored solutions to customers across the world. She also gave us her take on why partners are attracted to working with Tradeshift and what we’ve been able to offer in return to the likes of Genpact, IBM, and Accenture. Watch the video and read more insights from our conversation below.
Can you tell us a little bit about your role at Tradeshift?
My primary responsibilities are to build out a world-class partner ecosystem.
The relationship we have with our partners has really transformed in the three years that I’ve been at Tradeshift. We place a really strong emphasis on encouraging partners to work with us collaboratively. My role is to ensure that we’re creating an environment that our partners can thrive in.
We generalize this as enablement, but there are a lot of steps in that process. We’ve developed a really comprehensive set of training materials to help partners talk about us at different levels and stages.
I’m also involved in reviewing and refining our target operating model so that we have a clear set of benchmarks and tailored processes for how we interact with partners, including what good likes like from a relationship standpoint.
Why do partners want to work with Tradeshift?
Our edge is the network, and our partners see it that way too. They recognize the virality of Tradeshift and the opportunities that creates. It’s also a proposition that is very sticky. If a customer wants to leave Tradeshift, then they’re leaving a lot behind, and there are no guarantees their suppliers will join them.
Partners like the fact that we’re innovative. Purchasing goods and services and paying for them is as old as time. It’s now whether you’re solving the problem that’s important, but how you’re addressing the issue that partners really care about.
If you look at the stodgy mindset that some of our competitors possess, they have one fixed approach. And in a world where businesses often have different sets of challenges, that doesn’t work. With Tradeshift, we’re flexible, and we’re going to meet each challenge as it presents itself.
What are some of the key ingredients to a great relationship with partners?
Working closely with teams across the business is absolutely critical to the relationships we have with our partners. Partnership is embedded in our culture.
I know it sounds simple, but being open to new ideas and feedback is absolutely at the heart of our mission. We try to bring partners together as often as possible to gather their perspectives so we can incorporate that into our strategy. It’s a shared endeavor.
What makes Tradeshift easy to work with
Being easy to work with means being innovative and flexible. Tradeshift is designed for customers who want to think differently, and partners lean into that. It makes them stand out in a room when prospects have seen ten presentations, all touting the same thing.
A lot of source-to-pay software vendors, and that filters down into a very structured, often transactional relationship with partners. Often the only reason these partnerships really exist is because customers have been forced down a certain path by their IT department. It’s like buying friends. When you partner with Tradeshift, you know that the customer is there because they really bought into what we have to offer.
