As the average level of tech savviness among consumers grows, businesses are finding a need to adjust their strategies to match. But those changes aren’t simply on the sales front; they’re also taking place in the organization and interactions within the companies, as those enterprises look to make themselves the best fit for their customers.

“Customers don’t buy a technology; they buy a solution,” said Colleen Kapase (pictured), vice president of partner go-to-market, incentives and programs at VMware Inc.

Kapase spoke with Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, at the Women Transforming Technology conference in Palo Alto, CA, touching on topics including how VMware is adapting its employee environments, the considerations made for its partners and the role of a channel chief. (*Disclosure below.)

As a channel chief, Kapase works to drive the sales strategy inside the technology vendor through multiple partners who handle worldwide distribution of the products. “Much like the retail industry, where clothes are made by a brand, it’s not necessarily always sold by that brand. It’s sold by [other stores]. Same thing in technology,” she said.

And with those partner interactions, there are issues of determining what VMware wants to establish as its standards in those dealings, such as compensation for the partners, which behaviors to reward and which levels of training to require for the partners’ sellers.

“You’re almost like a mini-CEO within the company,” Kapase said. “You have to be able to understand [different departments] and be able to communicate with them [on sales strategies].”

Internal improvements

Another side of the business, one that concerns not just channel chiefs, but all of VMware’s employees, is the quality of the work environment. “Some of the things that we’re working on within VMware … is the math behind the problem statement: How are we doing as a company?” Kapase noted.

Asking about the presence of women at different levels of the company is one part of this assessment, with determination of how to improve receiving significant attention. One of the approaches VMware is taking is establishing training to improve inter-colleague interactions, such as those in meetings and development groups.

“Holding each other accountable seems to be a big piece of the success at VMware, because you can discuss the problem and have a support group agreeing on what the issue is. … And so those support groups, coming together and saying, ‘Here’s an issue, here’s how I addressed it,’ … we’re all trying to come together to further the cause,” Kapase explained.

And while having a pleasant and supportive work environment may seem like a worthy goal in and of itself, it also has economic incentive.

“Diversity — we’re not necessarily doing it to be nice. We’re doing it for business outcomes,” Kapase noted. “We can see mathematically [that] we have a problem, [and that] we need to improve that.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the Women Transforming Technology 2017 event. (*Disclosure: TheCUBE is a media partner at the conference. Neither VMware Inc. nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE