Hey everybody, welcome back to Squatify Teams in tech, wherever I started to introduce our guest here today. Anav, would you like to introduce yourself? Yes, thanks Jeremy. My name is Nav Ranaji and I am a Director of Strategic Partnerships at Pega Systems. I don't know if you want to make it my whole background. So, basically I've been in, primarily in the healthcare industry, healthcare technology for the past 20, 25 years, I'm aging myself here. And throughout my career, I started off in, got my start in healthcare with a software company, shared medical systems, doing technical consulting there, then it was with Arthur Anderson in healthcare consulting. For about 10 years, I ran the healthcare product divisions for Bank of America and the third bank. And then I also was a global market leader on healthcare with IBM, and currently I'm now with Pega Systems. Awesome, thank you. I'm very excited to dive into your experience and your wealth of knowledge here. First, I'll introduce myself. Hey everybody, I'm Jeremy from Squatify, team productivity accelerator, enterprise teams like Salesforce, Santa Fe and love Squatify because they achieve a 10 percent increase in productivity, 11 percent growth in team engagement, 13 percent uplift in performance, year over year and 60 percent improvement and happiness at work. So, let's dive right into it. Can you tell us a little bit about your role as a partnerships leader and what you and your team do about Pega Systems? Yeah, so Pega Systems is a AI decisioning workflow automation company. It's about a 40 year old company, originally started in business process management and it's evolved into a complete leading company in AI decisioning and workflow automation. So, my role here is, you know, as a large company, you know, with complicated software, we generally use partners to implement our software. So, my role is to manage those partners, right? And a lot of things come with that. You know, driving go-to-market strategies with these partners, ensuring optimal delivery, meaning metrics that we set with them. So, that's what my role is. Interesting. So, not only, you know, go-to-market for your own company, but how to go to market with the partners as well. I'm curious about sort of the nuances and the intricacies of this work. What are some, you know, sort of basic steps or processes that you take when going through that journey? And what are some of some challenges that you type of behavior? Just curious about a little more. Yeah, so the partners that we work with, you know, range from large, well-known, you know, consulting companies, if you will, like Accenture, EY, you know, to the leading SIs out there, system integrators, such as Cognizant, Tech Mahindra, to smaller partners as well, you know. So, I think we have currently in our portfolio, we're 50 partners. And, you know, when it comes to working with partners, given that they're in different levels, right? We have a program that certifies our partners to be able to implement the various aspects of our software. And, you know, depending on how many people they certify, the metrics that they achieve, they could be global elite partners, for example, right? So, there's different levels of it, you know. So, my role is to ensure that they, both, you know, the ultimate goal for anyone is obviously make sure our customers are satisfied, right? So, we want to ensure that whatever partner we work with, that they have the skill sets, they qualify to be able to implement our software, and they do it well, right? And if things don't go well, you know, again, our job in the partner ecosystem to identify what the issues are, to work with the partners, to upgrade their skill sets, to ensure it doesn't happen again, right? And, you know, if we have to eliminate certain partners that aren't meeting our standards, then we'll do that as well. So, there's a constant, you know, so this takes a lot of handholding, a lot of relationship development. And, you know, so there's another aspect to it, too. So, the way our partners operate, the reason why they want to implement packet system software is because they got services revenue from that, right? So, their goal is services revenue, which we don't get any piece of that, right? We just want to ensure that the project goes well, right? The client is up to the client to hire the right partner that will offer up to them to do the services. And our partners really, you know, their incentives to work with us is to ensure that they're meeting their services goals, right? So, every partner has a different goal, you know? So, in the beginning, so way it works, you asked me, I guess, what was the process? So, really, ultimately, it starts with the business plan. So, we begin every year with the partner, and I work with them closely to develop the business plan. In that business plan, go, you know, this description of who they are. We identified our skill sets, how many certified people do they have on PAGA? We also come up with what our mutual goals are. So, what is your services goal partner? And then we have to put that in a business plan, then we work to ensuring that they will achieve that services goal, right? Now, there's another aspect to the revenue as well, which is licenses, right? So, that's where we make money. So, we also have licenses goals, not all partners are interested in selling PAGA licenses, you know? They may just be interested in services, but many partners are, and the reason they are interested in, you know, they have a PAGA, for example, these larger partners have a PAGA practice, okay? They also have a, you know, sales force practice. They may have a service now practice. So, they all have these practices with various software vendors, and within that practice, they will hire people, right? They will hire some of them will have, you know, one sales person, some may have 10 to 20 sales people, right? Depends on how big they are. And their goal will be to sell licenses, because licenses they sell leads to services revenue, right? So, my role would be to ensure that their sales teams are enabled and educated on what PAGA does. Our latest messaging, our latest technology, we do enablement workshops. So, we arm them with the right things that they need, right tools to sell, right? So, that's one aspect of it. So, that goes into business plan, right? So, what is your current, you know, needs, right? So, identify, we need an enablement session on healthcare. We need an enablement session on financial services, right? We'll map that out. When can we do it? Who needs to be involved? That all goes into business plan. Marketing investments? So, what marketing investments are you partner willing to make? And we'll share, sometimes we'll share the investments with them. And, you know, it's a whole process for that. So, another thing that goes into business plan. Also, they'll need funding for proof of concepts, for demos building, you know? So, we will work with them and negotiate what the proper investments will make in the partner to do these types of things as well. So, all this stuff goes into business plan, and then we'll map it out. Then, we use that business plan throughout the year to manage the progress, okay? So, that's how it generally starts. And, again, this role requires a lot of different hats, quite frankly. So, the first one that I enjoy doing most is driving go-to-market strategy with the partner. So, what that means is, we may have partners that have expertise in a certain industry, like healthcare, which is one area I really focus on. So, they will, you know, for example, EY is one of my partners. So, they have a large healthcare technology leaders, right? So, we'll use their thought leadership, we'll identify a use case, we'll identify a solution that could be built on our platform. So, Pega is a platform where partners can take that technology and build their own workflows, their own use cases on top of that, right? Then, we encourage that with our partners. So, yeah. So, anybody else up there? You have probably many questions. Absolutely. So, there's a lot that comes into this, and it takes a team, I imagine, to be able to deliver on, you know, all of these tasks and work with all these partners, engage with partners, and maintain relationships with these partners. I'm curious, how is your team structure? How do you sort of, you know, divide folks up to work on each of these strategies? Yeah. So, in the partner ecosystem, which I think, I don't know the current numbers, we probably have maybe a hundred people in it, right? So, there's different divisions to that, right? My, my group is the partner management, right? So, we are sort of the, do it all, right? We're the liaison. So, then we have a delivery group. So, we have a partner delivery group, which we work to, my job would be to integrate the partner with the delivery teams, make sure they're trained, enabled, they can deliver. Then we have operations, obviously. So, it's different aspects to the partner ecosystem. And all these roles, we work hard to integrate ourselves, that we have a nice cohesive team. So, you know, and then we have a marketing team as well. So, a partner marketing team works with our partners. Interesting. I'd love to dive into your experience as a team leader here. Curious. So, how do you measure and track your team's productivity and performance over time? What's your process for driving consistent and disciplined execution? Yes. So, there's different aspects to that as well. So, one is the goals are set in terms of, are based on a business plan, is the partner achieving certain KPIs, right? These KPIs could be, how many number of certified people do they have? Have they met the requirements for upgrading to our new versions? So, our people are measured by, has our partner been able to achieve these, right? And then the third goal would be services numbers. Where are they in tracking to that services number? And then finally, licenses. There has been some change in how these KPIs are measured and the responsibility of them for the people in the partner ecosystem. For example, at one point, our partner managers were commissioned, right? So, every time a partner sold a license deal, the partner manager would get a percentage of that on a basic commission. Now, that has changed. The new measurement is more of a bonus based thing, where it's more, have you achieved a certain set of criteria, and then you'll get bonus ended a year. So, that's basically how they operate. And is it the same for your team as well, the folks who work on your different points? Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, it's measured on basic criteria and ultimately is a partner happy, right? We do surveys with our partners. Are they satisfied working with our team? And based on criteria, are they responsive? Have they been able to satisfy your enablement needs, you know, things like that, right? So, that's another measurement that we'll do to measure performance. And I'm curious, how do you sort of implement this process? Is it with meetings? Is it, you know, the director sort of gets together in a room? How do you track like on a spreadsheet or, you know? Yeah, yeah. So, there's various ways, right? Obviously, you know, for my team in a weekly meetings, right? We'll have a weekly meeting, weekly one-on-ones, then we have a group team meeting with everyone to assess. So, what's everyone doing? Share ideas, you know, we like to do a collaborative team environment where everyone, even though I may not have that partner and someone else does, I am interested in hearing the things that they're doing with them, right? Are you doing an event with them? How did you do that? You know, so sharing of ideas I think is key to have a very strong team environment. So, really, it's communication, right? It's all about communication, ensuring, you know, one thing we don't like is micromanagement. It's not a micromanagement kind of thing, but you set the goals, you trust your team that they're going to achieve those goals, and if they need help, we're there to help them, you know? So, that's how we do it. It sounds like you're very intentional about building your team culture, right? You know, micromanagement and trust and a lot of communication with the team members, and also helping each other even if they don't own the partner. I really, you know, appreciate that part. I'm curious, you know, could you tell us the story of when perhaps you learned to build the strategy or sort of, you know, a story of when you were building culture on your team, and maybe some others that you overcame and how you overcame them? Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, I've had a pretty long career, and I've learned it, you know, I've learned the good and bad things, right? You learned that as you go along, you know, what, you know, you've had different managers in your career, you like to good about them, you learned what you didn't motivate you, didn't send you, and you don't want to do that to your own team, you know? And that's how I've taken those learnings throughout my career. You know, great, and one thing I, one advice I would give is that different people need to be managed differently, all right? You may have a seasoned person who might be, you know, in his 50s who really doesn't appreciate someone who might be younger than them to telling them what to do. So you have to understand that, you have to respect their expertise and their experience, because I had the situation actually at one point in my career where I had to manage someone much older, and he didn't want to listen, right? Because he had been doing it for years and years, and he thought his, you know, he knows what he's doing, he knows anything I would tell him what to do, and I respected that. And it took a while to build that relationship, as long as I gave him proper respect, then he eventually would take some advice for me at times, right? But it takes a while to build that, and they have to respect you too, right? Then you have younger people that might need more hand-bolding, right? More guidance, right? And you have to identify that, you have to identify which people need that. But I think the biggest mistake any match can make is treating everyone the same. I think I've seen that just, you know, blow teams up. You can't treat different people in the same manner and think it's going to work. You really have to understand our personalities, understand our experience, and manage that way. It's interesting, because it makes me think of, you know, maybe some leaders who approach it as, hey, you got to be a team player. You know, we're doing this as a process you need to fit into this, but you're seeing something different. You're saying, hey, let's identify everybody's qualities and methods of communication, how they would like to be communicated to, you know, and how they would also like to communicate, and you adapt to that as an manager. Wow, okay, very, very interesting. Yeah, actually, the point you just made about adapting to communication, I also have learned in my career that different people like to be communicated in different ways. There's some people are email people, right? There's some people are phone people or some people are face to face people. So that's the, and you have to be able to understand that as well and respect that, too. Yeah. So you mentioned, you know, a really important part is you have to identify that. How do you identify that? Is it by, like, asking them questions or just over time? Yeah. It's a combination. It's a process. Let's say I hire a new team member. I will ask these questions up front. I'll say, hey, here's how I'd like to manage. Here's my style. Tell me what motivates you. How do you like to, you know, work? How do you like to be communicated to, right? Now, if that information isn't forthcoming, then you'll figure it out as you go along, you know, so. Got it. Okay, interesting. I wanted to ask one last question as we're getting to the end of this podcast here. So, you know, a lot of folks in our community or audience, it's a mix of, you know, sales marketing folks and partnerships folks as well. But there's also engineering, you know, leaders and there's also HR leaders. And for some of the folks in our community, they might not be as familiar as, you know, they might be familiar with sales and marketing those roles, but they might not be familiar with partnerships. I'm curious to hear because I understand that you weren't in healthcare, you know, for your 25 plus year career, but I believe you had some experience in marketing and you have this other experience here and there. And I'm curious, how did you find your way into partnerships? Yeah. And for me, personally, sort of working with folks in partnerships, I feel like it's, there might be a personality trait that, you know, sort of draws folks to this partnership versus sales marketing rather business development roles. And I'm curious, what's the, what's the case with you? Yeah. Yeah, you know, you know, when you're growing up or in your college, there's no course, there's no major for partnerships. So that's nothing I ever had envisioned doing in my career. But over the course of my career, you know, I started off in consulting, right? And then I, I think when I first got my feet wet with working with partners was when I led the banking, the healthcare product divisions for Bank of America. And my role there was, as initially, as a strategist to understand what our clients needed, and then to build a business case and get funding to launch, to develop a new product, right? And then during that process, you always have to make a decision. Do you build it? Do you buy it? Or do you partner? And given it, if it was untested, we would always partner first, right? And that's where I first started getting to know partners. I would, you know, for example, I, I led one to first health team's account products to market when I was with the bank. And at the time, it was very new. No, everyone knows what an HSA is today. But back then, no one knew what it was, right? It was pretty new. So I had to find an administrative technology partner that could have the administrative engine to manage these. And I found one, and it was a technology relationship, right? They were the backend vendor. And that's when I first learned how to work with partners. And I enjoyed working with them because I'll tell you why. They were the experts, right? The bank was not an expert in HSA's. And so how could we really feel comfortable with launching something like that on our own? So I brought in a vendor that was an expert in the area. And it was very successful launch, right? And that's when I enjoyed working with partners. Now, so then, throughout my career, you know, with IBM, when I led marketing, I also had, we had partners that we had to work with as well that I worked with them under partner marketing type of, you know, go-to-market strategies. And so I did that. And then I realized, you know, I really know a lot about strategic partnerships. So let me, you know, apply for these roles that have to do with that, because I have a lot of experience in this area. You know, I never directly was formerly a partner manager in my career. So then that led me to this role, right? And I really enjoy it. So I guess your question is what personality leads to it? The skill sets that I've developed in my career. I've been a consultant, strategic consultant. I've done marketing. I've done sales. All these things roll into this one role. You have to be able to know how to drive, go to market strategies. You have to know how to do sales, marketing. So in this one role, you wear all these hats, which is what I love doing. Now the personality, I guess you're asking also, is you have to be more of a, you know, you have to like to work with people, right? Because you are working closely with these partners. You're working with them every day. And you have to enjoy doing that. And sometimes they may not align with what you're thinking, right? Because they're a different company, right? And their company may have different ideas than your company may. So you have to be able to manage that as well. But I enjoy working with a partner. I want to jump in there real quick, because it feels important. How do you manage that? Let's say you, you and a partner have different ideas. You seem to be able to trail that down to maybe the root of other different businesses, different business goals. I'd love to hear how you break that down. Yeah, the challenge that my company and any company would have is you're competing with the other similar practices at that partner. Okay, so here's the concept, right? Let's say you're a large consulting company. You're selling to one client. Now, the salesperson for that company is not beholden to your company to sell your company software. He's looking at his client and thinking, what's the best software that I should pitch to him? Is it Pega systems, or is it one of their competitors, right? So that's where my role will come in, to be able to really evangelize on what Pega systems can do, why we're different from our competitors, right? And that's where the misaligned can sometimes come in, where you may try to get this business from this one client working with the partner's salesperson, but he may not be totally bought into what you do, right? And you need to really sell that concept to them. So part of the role is also evangelizing on why we're different, and why we'd be the best for that client. All right, caught it. It makes a whole lot of sense. I have some experience in the startup world, and we would build these referral partnerships, or license, you know, partnership, resell partnerships. And then we go, hey, how come, how come nobody's doing anything? How come nobody's asking about it? That's it. That's, that's, that makes so much sense. Now, thank you so much for, for speaking with us today and sharing your wealth of knowledge. I wish we could, you know, dig into each of the treasure troves of wisdom that you have, even more. And, but the last last question here is, who from the community should reach out to you? What's the best way to reach you? Uh, yes, you can certainly find me on LinkedIn. Um, you know, Nav, NAV, last name is Rana, G-R-A-N-A-J-E. I will welcome your connection. Please reach out to me. Um, yeah, I think that'll be the best way. Awesome. And we'll put the link in this, uh, URL in the description. And everybody, thank you so much for coming back for another episode. We'll see y'all next time. Thank you. Thank you.
