“Productization” is a term that’s popping up in conversations about IT these days. More than ever, elements are being sliced into smaller elements and marketed individually as “solutions.” Customers have significant freedom to love ’em and leave ’em as newer, trendier offerings come available. In this environment, companies have to find creative ways of earning loyalty from customers.

Scott Ehmen, senior VP of the Worldwide Partner Ecosystem at Informatica Corp., said that partnering, bundling and triangulating with partners are ways to retain customers.

“Cloud disrupted a lot with partners in general,” Ehmen told John Furrier (@furrier), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during Informatica World 2016. “I mean the big multi-million-dollar engagements went away. The long projects went away, so partners have to be a lot more nimble.”

Customers have great power to exit when they choose now, he said, so bundling services with partners is a great way to be “sticky.”

Three’s company

Ehmen spoke about the importance of triangulating with partners. “A lot of times, what we’ll see is a conversation with a systems integrator — like a Delloite, for example — working with Tableau on an opportunity that needs to pull us in, so now all of a sudden, we have three different types of partners in a customer scenario,” he said.

As much as the game changes, customers’ main priorities will always be profitably and adding value. So new styles of partnering and bundling services in a profitable way are working for Informatica right now, Ehman said. “Combined, we’re adding more value than any one of us alone.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Informatica World 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE