Jeremy Balius: Hi, welcome to the B2B Tech Marketing Talks podcast, where we engage with leading marketing and channel leaders to get fresh perspectives and practical advice on the latest trends, effective strategies, and best practices for B2B tech marketing. I’m your host, Jeremy Balius. Today’s theme is Marketing Development Funds.

I’m very excited because I’m joined by Liliana Grisales. Liliana is the global MDF Business Owner at Schneider Electric, where she spearheads the transformation of MDF across all their global channels.

As a recognized subject matter expert in MDF, Liliana has played a pivotal role in crafting commercial rules in alignment with new global and company policies, and she’s been driving the digitization of processes, education, and fostering the adoption of the MDF program across all their channel programs to ensure compliance, efficient fund utilization and program effectiveness.

She’s got 28 years’ background in global IT companies, working across sales, business development, strategic marketing, channel marketing, where she’s gained a wealth of knowledge and insight. She’s been at Schneider Electric for 21 years.

She’s a native of Columbia and she’s been living in Miami for the past 21 years. This is such a great conversation where Liliana really goes into the breadth of what an MDF program needs to include globally. The decision-making process that goes into it region by region the dynamic flexibility required to collaborate well with partners in a meaningful way, while also ensuring compliance and regulatory policies are met.

She also details how MDF programs and funds can work best for partners and for successful partner marketing and the way that partners can approach their marketing strategy in collaboration with their vendors and the way that Schneider Electric collaborates with their partners.

So, let’s get into the conversation.

Liliana, it’s so great to have you on our show. I would love to start with your background before we get into your role. At Schneider electric, could you tell me a little bit about how you got to where you are today?

Liliana Grisales: Firstly, Jeremy, thanks for having me in your show. I’ve been in the technology industry for over 28 years now. I’ve been working in several, global companies spending the last 21 years with Schneider Electric. Okay. My career began in Columbia. Okay. And I always wanted to move to US.

So I was transferred with another company with a work visa to work in the US and after a while, actually six months at the company, I was laid off.

So I started looking for a new opportunity and luckily Schneider Electric received me with open arms and since there I’ve been working with Schneider Electric.

I held positions from sales, business development, strategic marketing, channel programs, channel marketing, and I was in charge of the operations of Latin America from Miami, for the Caribbean islands, Central America, Mexico, and South America. And then then I wanted to move, looking for new horizons in my career.

Schneider is a big company and they have a lot of divisions. So I wanted to move and get the experience out of the Information Technology sector. So then I moved into the electrical market, right?

So I move on to a global position as a Global Marketing Director for the distribution channel there. My, my role, my main role was actually to develop the channel in charge of campaigns, et cetera.

Also, I started a beat the transformation of the marketing development funds, but it was not until after three years that I was recruited from the Global Pricing organization from Schneider Electric to lead the transformation on MDF for the entire group across the channels.

It is when I started this role that I’m actually in it right now. And the, basically what I’m doing in this position is working from the very beginning with the different organizations to create the commercial or the business rules of what MDF means for Schneider Electric.

So I’ve been working with legal organizations, with the compliance, with finance, accounting, and even with taxes. Okay. With the organization of taxes, because there are many, recently has been a lot of changes globally in the policies that regulates all channel incentives. And we, as a global company needs to be fully aligned to those global.

And so I’ve been working on this and also supporting our digital team to develop the digital solution for MDF for the company. That’s basically my story in a nutshell.

Jeremy Balius: Wow. 21 years at Schneider Electric. That’s amazing. I think what’s really powerful about your story is the amount of experience that you’ve gained across the company in so many different roles.

Do you think that’s given you insight into how you are going about transforming the MDF model and program for Schneider Electric, given your background across strategic marketing and sales and everything else that you’ve done, has that given you a better understanding of helping transform this area?

Liliana Grisales: I’ve been working since I was in Global Distribution, I’ve been working with other divisions. Okay, not only global distribution, but I would have been working with the other divisions of Schneider as digital energy, as industry with the different channels that they have different channel programs for solution partners, for transactional partners.

So that is giving me really the flavor of Schneider, moving into the market through all our partner ecosystem, understanding the rules of engagement, understanding programs, understanding as well how the commercial policy, because all of those channels, all of those divisions have their own rules.

So, obviously, when we were building this new, as we call it MDF Playbook or the business rules for MDF, we needed to validate across all those divisions. So that has given me a lot of insights of what each division or how they are driving the channels.

Yes, definitely. It has helped me a lot to understand, Schneider across all the channel ecosystem.

Jeremy Balius: Yeah, wow. Now you’re subject matter expert for MDF globally. That is such a huge role. What was it looking like prior to you taking on that role? Were different areas of the channel, running at different speeds, are you focused on aligning an approach to MDF, like the MDF playbook that you mentioned, is your main vision here to align such that Schneider has a global view on MDF?

Liliana Grisales: One of the main points for this position, because I’ve been all my life working in marketing and channel, right? So from the business standpoint, I was in operations.

I knew the process. I knew the steps, the business itself, but it’s a different thing to work, to align to the global policies, talking from finance’s standpoint from the global finance regulations, talking about, for instance, competition law, all our rules needs to be aligned to do to those new global policies.

So that changed completely the scenario, right? And all of those rules are related to channel incentives, because as a company, we need to be very careful and managing that risk because we are in a competitive market, right?

And we need to succeed. And in order to succeed, we really need to be aligned to these rules because at the end of the day, those competition laws are designed to establish a fair competition in the markets, right?

To protect the consumers. So they, they don’t pay more than they should, right? And also for Schneider is very important that we behave in a competitive, in a very legal matter, right?

And there are several points, like for instance, a Schneider in some regions, they can have a dominant position for a Schneider.

If we are above 30%, for instance, of market share, we need to be very careful. How we roll out those channel incentives across all the channels. So we really need to be very fair and we we, for instance, cannot exclude. Any of our competitors out of the market. In other words, we can no be abuse of that dominant position.

So this is very important. And also teaching, educating our countries, our sales people on that is very important because at the end of the day. Customers can present compliance or even competitors about any anti-competitive behavior or involvement in illegal business.

And this can represent an important fines for the company. Sue’s, et cetera, and not even that, but I have heard such stories as a personal criminal liabilities to name some of them. So this is super important. And when I was in the business space, I was not aware of that.

I was really focused on and on doing business. But also this part of the organization or any other businesses is really important.

So that’s why all the programs all the channel programs really needs to be aligned with your legal, with your financial departments, with your fiscal or taxes organizations to be fully in compliance, because at the end of the day, you’re going to save time at resources down the line.

That’s basically the point.

Jeremy Balius: I think this is so fascinating to hear the sheer amount of effort that goes into channel strategy. And I believe that there is a view in the market, potentially. Primarily from partners in partner programs in general, that just look at MDF as free money and request it to top up marketing programs or demand generation activities or lead gen offers or to incentivize their sales staff or whatever.

But I think what’s so valuable about what you’re talking about here is that. On the side of the vendor and the MDF program that gets built is so complex and is filled with so much legal parameters and and a requirement for strategic review region by region to ensure that you are allocating your funds appropriately, and that might get missed by partners is that something that you have to educate partners on the complexities of the structure?

Liliana Grisales: Partners are going to see a change.

They are going to see a change in the process that maybe we are going to be more strict than before. And also, I can tell you, there are partners that are large partners of Schneider that they are. Also need to be compliant, right?

Maybe the little ones, they are not fully aware, but those that even has a good a good dominant position in the market, they need to be aware of.

So this is not only from the vendor size. This is something that, it’s part of the entire ecosystem when you are in a competitive market, when you are in the business of selling solutions and products, right?

And I didn’t mention, but one of the other points, talking from the legal and compliance standpoint mitigation of rigs, for maybe fraud this type of practices that.

That can occur in some countries more than others, et cetera. But also another important thing that has impacted MDF is for instance, how you how you register the expenses that, how you register that investment in the financial accounting books. So this is another important thing, because, maybe you may have heard when we talk about MDF, we are talking about contract revenue, right?

Which is deducted from the sales of our partners. But depending on the Activity and this is something that I learned also from this project and from this role is very important, from finances standpoint to do the correct allocations of MDF. This is another important point for vendors to consider.

And also, this goes from region to region. Okay. Some regions maybe may, could be more stricter than others, but. Each region have like their own regulations, right? So this is important to consider as well.

Jeremy Balius: I think what is incredibly interesting here in terms of the accounting side and the concept of contra revenue and, or how one justifies the disposal or acquittal of MDF is.

The organizations that partner with Schneider Can be very large or very small and they are in a wide range of company types. Schneider’s program has consulting firms, distributors, I.T. service providers, Original Equipment Manufacturers, System Integrators, and many other company types.

And so the ecosystem’s complex because each of those organizations sells differently or generates demand at different cycles. And so the way that MDF is then deployed in partnership with them may lead to outcomes at various timeframes.

And one thing that I’ve seen elsewhere that’s being considered is, MDF is allotted at a quarterly pace, but the revenue might not be generated in that same quarter. How do we acquit MDF and justify the ROI? How do we talk about that with partners and how do you justify it?

Liliana Grisales: This is an important topic for any type of channel incentive, right? Because companies have these channel incentives to modify behavior and to drive revenue. And that means return of investment, depending on the channel type companies needs to build programs, customized programs, and part of those programs are, for instance, type of MDF, right?

When you have transactional partners. Like distribution partner, when you have historical sales year over year, so you know exactly what type of MDF you’re going to apply to that type of partner. But when, imagine you are starting with a new service provider, with a new specific partner for a specific segment, etc.

When you have You don’t have those historical sales company has to bet, on developing that channel. And there are also other types of MDF types, as we call it, that we can apply. So that will, and that’s the beauty of channel incentive. That’s the beauty of MDF that you can customize. And that’s why, and I’m part of our strategy behind building the business rules for MDF was that, right?

So funding sources, et cetera, to be able to respond dynamically to the market, because again, we are in a competitive arena and we need to respond. So maybe if we have very important from legal standpoint contracts, that support those MDF from our partners, but imagine remember COVID. All what happened after COVID.

So any of those situations may happen any change or a significant change in the market may happen that we need to steer this strategy. And this is very important. That’s why you need to be flexible as well. While aligning to, of course, the global rules, etc. But there are ways to really.

Frame the program of MDA for those cases specifically that you are mentioning without leaving, out any partner, because if we or Schneider or any other vendor really. Can see the let’s say the potential of that particular partner. Maybe it could be a new partner, but it has a really important opportunity or potential opportunity.

So there is a way to invest for them to start generating funds out of MDF, even though they don’t have historical cells. And then. The idea is to keep or to kick off the, or to do the startup to kick off the business. And then after six months review, and they move into the next program.

But there are ways to talk all these type of scenarios within an MDF program, or even a rebate program as well, a performance bonus program.

Jeremy Balius: I’m really welcoming the way that you worded that and I’m going to quote you on when you said respond dynamically. I think that was really powerful and something that I think many other MDF program providers should consider. When they get too rigid and don’t have the flexibility that you’ve described I think they make it too hard to collaborate with.

What do you think is best practice in terms of. Collaboration. Do you advocate for deep involvement by Schneider in the way that the MDF is deployed?

Do you prefer quarterly business reviews? Do you prefer a steering group committee project team? What’s the best way?

Liliana Grisales: For instance, for our business rules, our commercial rules that we created? Actually, what we are recommending to countries across Schneider channels is it has we have at the end of the year, we need to start preparing planning for next year.

The budget team and planning, the intention is, even though it’s not going to be perfect, create a high level plan with the partner.

The first point, Jeremy, is in reality, you need to segment your partners. Okay. When you talk about channel incentives, some partners, they have marketing capabilities, others have potentially no marketing capabilities or vice versa, or maybe they can have both.

What is important is in the country needs to decide who you’re going to which partners are going part of your MDF, right? Meaning your MDF program needs to have, first of all, of course, some requirements from the partner standpoint.

And and then second, and very important for Schneider, for us, MDF is to jointly develop the market with the partner.

That is our first premise, right? That’s why when you were asking me the most important part at the beginning of the year is to meet with the partner. Look at overall. What are the goals of the partner? What are our strategic goals are? What are the country goals?

All of that combined are going to create that strategy, that high level plan for the year.

Okay. And when we talk about so this is the most important, and then we need to decide the how the how we are going to do it.

And actually one of the things that we are educating the partners, it’s eight steps to create a strategic marketing plan. For the partners following each of those steps, but is very important again, depending on let’s say the partner, if the partner is addressing a healthcare market, if the partner is just in the home business.

Or in the partner is the industry business. They need to accomplish several things. They need to accomplish, of course, a level of expertise. So then certification is important. Education is important for the partner, for the sales teams, for the pre-sales teams, for the technical team, et cetera.

And then we need to create one of the things and also to facilitate the deployment of MDF. We really created some activities, MDF activities. There are standardized activities for Schneider that. Any partner, even if it’s a solution provider, if it’s a transactional partner can use. Okay.

So we are giving these, let’s say this reference, this template of activities for the partners, like a menu of, it is where they can use depending on their goals, depending on their goals they want to achieve, but definitely is something that is neither is heavily involved with our partners. We do it together.

Okay. And also because remember. MDF is a controlled budget, okay? Meaning that the vendor needs to approve the plan that the partner presents. When we meet with the partners yearly, we align on this overall plan, right? But throughout the year, the partners are going to start sending the activities the request of the activities for to be funded.

And then because we already have that plan, so we are going to be able to approve or not. Once the activity is approved, then it’s on the partner side to execute the activity. And here is when it plays a very important role that proof of execution, which is one of the legal requirements that we have and that we are enforcing with these new global rules.

But there is a really a significant involvement from Schneider throughout the process, guiding our partners, et cetera. Because and also as you mentioned, this is just from requesting the activity, executing the activity, providing proof of execution, and then we need to optimize.

And the only way to optimize is very difficult that you do a quarterly, a review every month what we are recommending and even.

With those partners that you want to focus on, maybe you have a Pareto of 80, 80, 20 percent those partners that are heavily invested on MDF, you need to do really quarterly reviews to understand what activities are working, which was are not working and then. Really re-adapt your plan, but this is more or less how we frame the process from requesting that from planning from budgeting requesting the activity executing the activity and then at the end.

Really reviewing because we need to optimize the program and when we talk about return of investment, that will depend a lot because, most of the times and I did this research with several channel companies from the industry, asking them that there are plenty in the out there, right? Asking how they are mentioned.

Measuring return of investment out of MDF activities or any marketing activity, right? So it always depends on the activity. There are activities that are revenue driven that you’re going to see a straightforward results by revenue, sell out activities, right? Every time you do a sell-out activity, you must have an incremental revenue on return.

If you are giving away some prices because partners are invoicing above, let’s say, 3,000 euros, you immediately, they can get an award. They can get a price or something like that. So this is going to be reflected immediately. But there are other activities from demand generation that you’re not going to see it right away.

And that’s why we also recommend some metrics of success for those activities. Okay. In order to measure performance of the activities and in order to optimize the program, Okay.

I don’t know if that answered your question, but it’s very, I love the topic and it’s really very detailed if you go and you are going to educate your channel and that and really the most important is that, companies have this channel incentives because at the end of the day is going to bring more dollars in return.

Jeremy Balius: It does answer the question and so much more and it leads to more questions because I love this topic as well and could spend all day talking about it, what I wanted to pick up on what you just mentioned that I’m really fascinated by and a little bit inspired by as well, this approach of taking a strategic review to develop a plan for the year, and then.

Having those big goals in place so that when the quarterly or campaign by campaign requests come through, as long as they align with the plan, it sounds like there is a more efficient approval process and the assurance of the.

Allocation of those funds seems would have a. Easier compliance process as well as approval process.

Liliana Grisales: That’s correct. And also while you were talking, Jeremy, that took me to one important point. As from the industry, when I was reviewing, there are statistics that on average, 60 percent of all the MDF funds globally go unused.

And you know why this could be happening. Partners have several vendors, right? Sometimes all vendors are, really pushing to the partner to do this program, to do this other, that they are overwhelmed. Okay. In other cases, really, it’s because some partners really don’t pay attention, don’t see the value, et cetera.

I could say there are, at least in Schneider, and in the different divisions and channels, there are partners that really give a great use of the MDF, right? But also out of those statistics, around 50% of partners only are engaging on those programs, meaning on loyalty programs or I don’t know any other campaigns, et cetera, because they are overwhelmed.

Yeah, so for me, one of the most important advice for partners is really they need to analyze, okay, all those programs that are offered by vendors and depending the market they are in, okay they need to select the burner, the vendor they want to partner with and bet with that vendor. Okay, so this is very important.

So they strategically are going to invest together, shoulder to shoulder with that vendor. But again, it’s very important because this is the key for a lasting partnership. At the end of the day, partner needs to realize which is the vendor that are going to give more return, more benefits in the long run, right?

And for them to grow, etc. Because sometimes partners just look at the short term. And you need to analyze the company, what they are, what is the position in the market, the leadership position in the market, what are the trends from the technologies, this vendor really fully aligned with those trends, et cetera, what is the program, because remember when a partner enroll in a channel partner program, MDF or channel incentives is just a part of it.

But it’s more beyond. And then for me, the second advice for the partners really is that they need to assess their marketing capabilities because at the end of the day, Jeremy, this is not the core of the partner business, right?

Maybe having in-house marketing team, it could be efficient, or maybe it will be more efficient to have for instance, partner concierge services that help them to really execute on a specific activities or a strategic activities that are going to give more return, more investment for that partner.

So they need to decide on that. What should be more effective for them? Because I have found all type of partners, right? But I also the market, the industry offers these type of services that we cannot live out of the out of the formula.

And actually, we in Schneider, we incentivize partners that do not have those marketing capabilities to use this type of services.

And then once this is these two steps, who I’m going to invest with, who I’m going to bet with, then second are we going because, If you have, if you’re going to get enrolled as a partner in any channel partner program, you need to generate demand in order to see results and to generate demand.

You need the expertise or the marketing capabilities. The 2nd point that partner really needs to or the 3rd point, right? They need to do like a thought analysis, right? Exactly what is his business universe depending on the segment they are in? What are the strengths? What are the threats, weakness, opportunities?

Who are their competitors, right? Who are their customers, right? So this is very important. And then they can set those clear goals that needs to be fully measurable. That is super important. Okay.

And then, and who they are targeting as the buyer, because in any of the end users, you have the different personas who you are targeting to.

Okay. So this is another important part. What is that? Journey inside the end user or the segment that they are targeting because you need to identify what are the steps of this buying journey, from your end user and then you need to define as a partner. What is going to be the strategy?

Maybe the strategy is going to be adding a new service, adding a new solution, geographical expansion. Maybe it could be an idea, right? Maybe you. to be a unique selling propositions that is going to really set apart the partner from the rest of the market, which is very important.

Uniqueness is very important for a partner, right?

It’s not just selling products and so on. So they need to really Make conscious decision and take actions now after the strategy is done. If they need, as I was saying, maybe the partner, their brand is not, it’s not recognized that a lot and then they need to enhance their own brand.

Okay, some partners, they rather leverage on vendors brands, but also, this is a strategy to follow, a decision to take, and then we continue with the activities, what activities, what metrics are going to follow those activities to execute your strategy, right?

And of course, then it comes the budget, and then the execution, and as we say, the monitor and optimize. So those are like eight steps, very important steps to really follow on a strategic plan.

Okay. And as I was saying at the beginning, and that’s why it is very important from partner standpoint that they need to align all of that, knowing who they are targeting to, who’s the buying persona at what stage. of the budgeting journey from awareness standpoint, consideration, decision, retention, advocacy, and in every stage of that budgeting journey from the end user, the partner and Schneider, and we as Schneider provide partners all the resources and tools for, for those end users to consume, To, to really understand what is the solution from Schneider and the partner.

So it’s really an end-to-end strategic plan, but it’s something that partners need to consider and need to put into action.

Jeremy Balius: I’m so inspired by the way that you’re describing this, because this is so closely aligned with what we advocate for, and it’s really exciting to hear this approach. I would think that It would be very difficult and challenging for partners, in some cases, to start this process, but it would be so valuable for them to go through it with you, because the ancillary benefits would be vast.

So really exciting to hear that this is a process that that you push on to partners and almost force them to go through because everyone will benefit.

Liliana Grisales: That’s correct. And also this really ties up of what we were discussing when we connected, Jeremy. On the go to community approach.

Remember on that, I did I did what is the name? A survey in LinkedIn. And really the answer was, it was obvious. The main point that the partners struggle with is to attract and retain customers. That’s the key one. Okay.

And the other point is about the resources, the talent to also retain talent.

Okay. But looking at this first one, and that’s why. I was talking about the uniqueness is because partners need to see it really and think strategically what set them apart from the rest. Okay.

And I’m sure any partner are going to find that answer. Okay, in their day to day business, and if not, they need to start thinking because this is what is going to bring the attention from the end users out there, right?

And once a partner has found, that uniqueness, they need to exploit. They need to take advantage. They need to leverage as much as possible. That uniqueness, because if they have the level of expertise, competencies, leadership in the market, etc. Nobody has done that.

They really need to take advantage and leverage, for instance, on the experiences taking when we talk and this is part of the article that I wrote in LinkedIn that really that really people come for the content, but they stay for the experience. Okay.

If you as a partner are offering that experience to the end user, and this could be translated maybe in intimate events with your close group of customers, right?

Advocating maybe a training day with your end users on a specific topic that you are really diving in on that topic. If you are solving, issue from your end user, or if you really are. Presenting an opportunity for them to grow the business. That is the uniqueness we are talking about.

That is the formula that the partner needs to really find. Again, when we have solution partners, this, all these unique next can be because you have a lot of experts, even within the partners that they are really specialized on some specific. Topics, sustainability data center, I don’t know, recovery, anything, right?

But when we talk about transactional partners, maybe it’s we are talking here about home we are talking about I don’t know, energy energy savings. Any topic, but this is something that the partner needs to discover.

This is something, as I mentioned in my article, that big companies as Harley Davidson, as Sephora, as Lego have decided to exploit, right?

And and not even this large companies, I have seen it also in the, what is the name in the Oh, coaching industry. I have I have seen it that and I was amazed really how they are really leveraging all those communities that you start with a laser targeted approach of customers. Okay. And, the end users.

And when we talk about these pre-sales engineering teams, when they like to share in this type of open forums, et cetera. So they need to leverage that, gain the trust, of your group of customers, et cetera. And this is really important how the partners can build their loyal customers, can retain those customers and find new ones.

And there are simple steps, maybe to start not to invest in big, et cetera. Maybe later they could do it, but there are simple steps that the partner can follow to really put into. action type of a strategy by leveraging their uniqueness.

Jeremy Balius: Liliana, this is all so fascinating. You’ve given us so much insight into what it takes to build the program, what it takes to run a program, what it takes to do MDF well you’ve given us insight into how MDF can be effective. You’ve gone into partner marketing. This has just been so valuable.

Thank you so much for coming on on the show and giving up your time and your insights. And I’m just so joyful that you’ve shared on all this. It’s just such an amazing, complex topic and very rewarding.

Liliana Grisales: Thank you very much. I really, am very passionate about the topic and then I’m glad that we, this can be out and really, some partners can see the opportunity that they can have in front and take advantage of it.

So we are here as a Schneider to support our partner community. And thank you very much for inviting me today.

Jeremy Balius: Thank you.