Technology executives face a dilemma. You need to get vendors’ ideas on how technology can improve business, so you host technology innovation days. But vendors don’t make that tech relevant to your actual business, so you lose credibility with business stakeholders. Blockchain and the metaverse were early failures — all demo; no relevance. AI agents risk falling into the same trap. What should you do?

Inviting your vendors to showcase their latest stuff and inspire your teams with what’s possible sounds great. But inspiration without direction rarely delivers results. These events often end with stakeholders impressed but unclear on next steps. A day of demos will not bridge the gap between cool technology and business impact. You need an approach that shifts the day from passive listening to active collaboration among your partners and teams. It’s time to reimagine the role of partner innovation days.

We call it a partner co-innovation summit. By “partner,” we mean your strategic technology and service partners. Co-innovation entails the partners working together and with you to create something that matters to you. In a co-innovation partner summit, you:

  • Identify relevant topics that partners must focus on. In a typical partner innovation day, you give partners a list of emerging technologies and ask them to build their agenda around that. For a partner co-innovation summit, you direct those technologies toward specific outcomes that are relevant to your business. For example, instead of asking a partner to demonstrate the latest physical AI robot, ask it to detail where in your business the robot would operate and the steps you would have to take to incorporate it into your environment.
  • Ask tech and service partners that already work together to collaborate. Co-innovation is between you and your partners, but it’s also between your partners and their alliance partners. In today’s complex AI computing ecosystem, you could have providers from as many as eight different categories working together to address your needs. The simplest extension of this idea is to ask your tech and service partners that already work together (e.g., your Amazon, Salesforce, and Accenture partners) to coordinate their participation at the event.
  • Turn a small amount of planning into a higher-impact day. Yes, you must put in the effort to identify the topics, ask stakeholders to share their ideas ahead of time, and convince partners to try this new approach. But the good news is that most of the work is on your partners: They will need to try harder to make their innovations directly relevant to your business and bring their alliance partners (including relevant startups) with them.

By taking a proactive stance and telling partners about your key business, you will shape what they show you. You’re also giving them more insight into some of the key initiatives on your agenda. And you trust them, right? If not, don’t invite them to the summit.

Want to hear about the organizations doing this successfully? If you are a Forrester client, reach out, and we can share some best practices.