Brendan Binedell anchors his success with that of Liferay partners, and when he witnesses a partner’s success in client acquisition, project implementation with a satisfied customer, he finds it truly rewarding.
Describe your current job role and a summary of the business model of your organisation?
Brendan is currently responsible for Liferay’s Partner Ecosystem in the Middle East. Within this responsibility, he ensures alignment on the company’s strategic Direction, Go To Market plans, as well as Commercial and Operational activities. Liferay’s business model can be summed up in one word – collaborative.
Liferay works closely with partners and their team members to articulate and achieve joint value to meet customer requirements and support successful implementations. Liferay’s partners are an extension of the Liferay family with the focus on longer and more strategic relationships which strengthen this collaborative business model.
What are your strengths and abilities that you bring to the above role?
Brendan is a man of many strengths with adaptability and agility as the most prominent one while liaising with different partners depending on finer nuances and maturity of Liferay’s relationship with them.
Being responsive to differing circumstances, the ability to build trusted relationships with partners and adding value to the relationship are key abilities Brendan brings to table.
Coupled with the strategic awareness and operational prowess to guide the business forward ensuring joint success, are fundamental strengths that are core to his successful management of the channel partner community.
Lastly, understanding how to empower partners, enable them, and impart industry expertise are additional strengths that lend to his role and he continues to develop in order to sustain the formidable channel partnerships that Liferay enjoys.
Please describe the opportunities and challenges that exist for channel partners in your market?
By investing in a robust DXP platform, customers will be equipped to survive through downturns and thrive despite the circumstances. Liferay has experienced numerous real instances during the pandemic when well-equipped customers were able to navigate this uncertainty much better.
Customers were able to develop multiple solutions in a single platform lowering the total cost of ownership with no additional costs for hardware, software or for maintaining the infrastructure. Highlighting the value of building multiple solutions with a single platform to the customers will benefit partners gaining deeper engagement with those customers with potential new projects.
Which technologies and innovations can make a difference to the channel market dynamics in the near future?
Solutions on the cloud is the single most important aspect that is set to revolutionise the way businesses operate and it will aid the entire spectrum of channel business.
With the Google Cloud launch in Qatar, the Liferay Experience Cloud offering together with Mannai Infotech, a Liferay Platinum Partner in Qatar, will further improve the performance and reduce the total cost of ownership for digital solutions on the cloud.
Being on the cloud, the channel will end up spending less time on maintenance and upgrades and can instead focus on newer deployments that transform customer businesses thereby achieving strategic success for the channel partner.
How can a channel partner in your industry disrupt the regional market and gain a leading competitive position?
Liferay covers the entire Middle East and Africa as a single region, which is quite vast and has many opportunities in different industries that are present for all our partners, with new to come. Understanding what customers need, sharing their digital aspirations, and common goals will put any partner in a preference position.
Offering innovative solutions to meet the customer’s customer needs and expectations with a superior solution to existing legacy systems or products currently used, will ensure success for partners with customers. Those companies who are capable of driving significant business growth or savings for their customers are expected to lead the market.
The takeaway here is to keep an open mind and not let a narrow definition limit the way one sees a partner’s value; every partner has the potential to further a customer’s strategic goals.
Which non-competitive business in the region do you admire for innovative usage of technology?
Companies that are leading the innovation of unlocking the value in proprietary and third party data attracts Brendan’s admiration. Not only do they leverage new technologies such as AI, NLP, and Machine Learning, to derive insights, but also ensure the derived insights are understandable and actionable which is a huge responsibility.
Which aspects of your job role do you find rewarding and which challenging?
While it may sound cliché but Brendan anchors his success with that of Liferay partners. When he witnesses a partner’s success in a new client acquisition, or dynamic project implementation, and most importantly highly satisfied customers who return to seek support for newer aspects of their business, he aligns with success and finds this truly rewarding.
In addition, building relationships is extremely rewarding for Brendan along with strategizing new routes to markets, fleshing out Go To Market plans, and developing the overall relationship. Ironically though, these are also the most challenging and trying aspects of his role.
How do you best like to de-stress and re-charge off work?
Brendan is a family man and also has an undeniable love for sports and fitness. For him, there is no better way to recharge. He strives to play tennis at least once a week and workouts a couple of times a week. Fitness is akin to a healthy mind but nothing recharges and resets him like spending time with family and spending quality time with his daughters.
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