After obtaining a master’s degree in international economics at the University of Utrecht, Ivan Vogels travelled and worked for two years in Asia and North America before he became junior product manager at NavTeq (later Nokia). Since then, Ivan has worked for various international IT companies, initially with a strong focus on sales, but as his career progressed, his key responsibilities shifted towards the management of alliances and partnerships.

In his words: ‘I realized after having worked at Marketing, Pre-sales and Sales for say eight years that working with alliances depicted a challenge to combine marketing and sales and it promised to be a great area to work in’. According to his LinkedIn profle, he is result-driven, has an aptitude for international business, is a good communicator, is reliable and independent, a team player and has an ability to bring ‘structure to chaos’. According to Ivan: ‘the latter is exactly what companies need when professionalizing their alliances department’.

In his frst ‘alliance job’, Ivan became Director Alliances and Partnership at eVision. eVision Industry Software, established in 2008, is the global leader in Control of Work software.

Companies in the oil and gas, (petro)chemical and other high-risk and critical infrastructure industries turn to eVision to improve control over their operational processes, resulting in fully auditable, real-time corporate risk management as well as increased operational effciency. eVision’s headquarters are based in The Hague, the Netherlands, with regional offces located in Aberdeen, Stavanger, Houston and Qatar. eVision has a global partner network and clients covering fve continents. Its single purpose is to empower its clients to be ‘in control’ of their operations. eVision strive to make it easier for the users to access information and knowledge that helps them to work safely and effciently. eVision Industry Software is used by some of the largest companies in the world to help them manage risk and achieve operational excellence. eVision’s fagship product Permit Vision is the market-leading Integrated Safe System of Work, which integrates permit to work software, risk assessment, isolations management processes and external work order systems into one user-friendly system.

In general, as an Alliance Director, it is Ivan’s responsibility to establish alliance relationships enabling eVision to increase economies of scope and scale. Specifcally, eVision distinguishes between three types of alliance relationships. Business partnerships enable eVision to boost and scale sales. That is, these relationships accelerate market growth by creating new product/service offers in existing markets and by entering new markets, geographical and customer. In addition, service partnerships are forged to boost and scale implementations trajectories, as they increase fexibility and scalability of offers, and to enhance sales resources and delivery capacity. With regard to the third type, technology partnerships, these are used to innovate the software (e.g. integration and features), for example, by establishing co-development projects and enabling integration with third-party solutions.

Across these different responsibilities, it is also Ivan’s task to leverage eVision’s brand via the partners. With regard to accountability, Ivan provides monthly updates to the board of directors (specifcally the CCO and COO); reports will contain information, for example, on product development progress, lead generation, secured deals and alliance status.

Over time, Ivan’s job has become more complex as a result of eVision’s successful growth strategy. First, a shift occurred from tailor-made client projects to standardized product 334 Alliance professionals offerings, imposing a strong need for partnerships with technology developers and hardware suppliers. That is, eVision collaborates with IT companies, such as SAP, Dasault Systèmes, Intergraph, Oracle and Osisoft, to further improve existing and possibly create new software products. For example, by integrating with graphic software of Intergraph, eVision can bring the correct plans and drawings to the feld workers. In the frst seven years of its existence, eVision primarily grew via a direct sales model. It relied on direct sales to market their products and services and used a team of sales representatives, business consultants, deal makers and bid managers to secure proftable deals. However, to further scale-up looking at geography and new industries, eVision has been contracting business partners to increase its addressable market and generating growth via indirect sales through a portfolio of (international) resellers, among which are business and service partnerships. Business partners, for example, such as L&T Infotech and Neon Infotech, act as resellers and support eVision in the local marketing, sales and delivery of the products. Service partners are mostly Global System Integrators such as Accenture, Infosys and Atos, which operate globally and act as full-service delivery partners and thus generate sales and offer training and on-site support to clients. Three companies encompass all activities—Oracle, Intergraph and Accenture—and are therefore considered strategic alliance relationships. As an alliance director, it is Ivan’s main task to oversee all three partner categories, oversee on-boarding of new partners, work on a daily basis with the alliances and generate good leads with all active partners.

Questions 1 Does the entrepreneurial background and strategy of eVision require unique skills and competences of an alliance director, specifcally when compared to alliance director positions in more established, mature and bureaucratically organized companies, such as SAP?
2 Alliance arrangements are becoming increasingly critical to the execution of eVision and SAP’s corporate strategy. How will this development impact and change the tasks, responsibilities and required competences of Ivan Vogels?