Does the role of partners evolve in Industry 4.0?

In the Industry 4.0 era, driven by a shift in customer expectations from product delivery to the enablement of outcomes, companies are increasingly realizing the need to redefine their offerings, accelerate and broaden innovation, and deliver solutions in partnership with ecosystem partners.

We can now witness this evolution from single-capability to cross-value chain capabilities in several specific areas:

• Through their IP partners can fill product gaps or add new features. 
• Partners with a strong marketing brand or sales teams are engaging earlier in the sales demand-and-planning cycle, developing joint go-to-market plans. 
• In their role as multivendor implementers, many partners have developed new delivery capabilities with faster and more extensive support for new solutions or use cases. 

With partners constantly redefining their roles in the market, they will need to enable four cornerstone elements to set up a long-lasting and flexible partner infrastructure and stay ahead in the current disruptive environment:

1. Clarify and customize the value proposition to each partner archetype: In Industry 4.0 companies that mostly provide basic partnership advantages will not thrive. Since the needs of each partner archetype are different, the value propositions must be tailored to set them up for success.
2. Design a partner programme with a foundation that’s consistent but flexible enough to cater to evolving archetypes: Companies also must consider capabilities such as seamless partner fulfillment, support, partner commissions, and partner success, via tools and programmes for not just one but various factors.
3. Launch a flexible yet simple incentive structure: With changing roles, partners are not just supporting sale of products or one-time delivery of services—they are supporting consumption-based models. 
4. Augment financial metrics with leading customer and enablement metrics: In this continuously changing ecosystem, it is crucial to periodically evaluate partnerships and adapt to the changing business, customer, or partner needs. 

As new players are coming in, existing players are expanding their roles, companies are expecting more value, and ecosystems are getting more complex. With more changes coming, companies and partners need to work together in an integrated manner.

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Source: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/industry-4-0/partner-ecosystem-industry-4-0.html