The new channel chief of industrial software vendor PTC said she hopes to simplify the company’s partner program, make services more profitable for partners and expand its reach through new engagements with ISVs and OEMs.
Previously senior vice president of strategic partners and alliances at Hitachi Vantara for seven years, Kimberly King became chief partner officer of Boston-based PTC last month—a role that brings her back to the software space and to a company much closer to her in location with a compelling vision for its future, she said in a recent interview with CRN.
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“For me, it was all about where are they going and what’s happening, but the leadership team and the technology was really a big draw for me. And I felt like I did what I can do at Hitachi. Sometimes it’s just time to do something new,” she said late last month.
King was hired roughly a year after PTC appointed Neil Barua—who joined the company in 2023 through its $1.46 billion acquisition of ServiceMax, which he previously led—as its new CEO, taking over from longtime chief executive Jim Heppelmann.
In her interview with CRN, King talked about her plan to push for greater partner engagement with PTC’s foundational product lifecycle management (PLM) and computer-aided design (CAD) products, find the best ways for partners to engage with other products and simplify its partner program without making disruptive changes.
“When you live in the partner program every day, sometimes you don’t realize the complexities that are created that don’t necessarily benefit partners,” she said.
“I’ve already talked to the team about how do we audit the program, how do we simplify it, how do we create more benefits for partners,” King added, “so that they understand how to absorb the program and the technology to be more effective?”
King said she is also looking at expanding PTC’s partner program beyond its traditional channel to include other types of partners, like ISVs and OEMs.
“We have this theme inside around ‘power to create,’ and so we’re really looking around that power to create with partners. And so not just looking at resellers and distribution partners and services partners but technology partners that help us expand the portfolio and really drive that next generation of solution,” she said.
Another focus for King is making sure that PTC partners can increase profit margins on services they provide on top of its products.
“We want to make sure that our partners are highly profitable [selling services], and some of our competitors are not doing that. They have a competitive nature with their partners when it comes to services. So those sorts of things are going to be really important.,” she said.
The chief revenue officer at Lake Mary, Fla.-based PTC partner IQNOX—which focuses on selling the vendor’s IoT and application lifecycle management products along with related services—told CRN that he’s excited about King’s push to reduce complexities within the PTC partner program without making disruptive changes.
“When you make programs that become complex, the problem we’ve experienced is you spend a lot of time managing to the program itself, as opposed to getting out there in front of customers and doing what’s important, which is driving the product sales and solving the customer problems with [those products],” said Michael Ottoman.
Ottoman also applauded King’s move to align partners with PTC’s verticals-focused sales teams, which he said will help IQNOX with the investments it’s making in areas like automotive, medical devices and manufacturing.
“Now with Kim in there talking about breaking down the barriers or incenting sales to work with partners where it makes sense to us, that’s super important, because we do have a value,” he said. “We do work with large global medical device companies and manufacturing companies and stuff like this, where we’re doing PTC but also [adding] our own unique value to that.”
“We have that ability. We have that expertise to play in those bigger accounts, and we need to figure out how best we can put that attack team together and go after that line of business so that it’s mutually beneficial for both organizations,” Ottoman added.
What follows is a lightly edited transcript of CRN’s interview with King, who also discussed how she plans to grow PTC’s partner program, how PTC plans to align its channel partners with its new verticals-focused sales organization and how King plans to build an “on-demand engine” for a variety of partner needs.