The Corporate Ecosystem Research Initiative

1. About The Corporate Ecosystem Research Initiative

The Corporate Ecosystem Research Initiative is being conducted by The Customer Success Association. The intent is to assess the current state of what software companies are doing to design, develop and leverage their ecosystems. The Initiative consists of this survey and appropriate follow-up interviews.

All responses are strictly confidential, and no individually identifiable information will ever be released to anyone. While we ask that you identify yourself and your company, that data is only used for validation of responses and for follow-up interviews if you agree to participate further in the research. Your email address will not be added to any mailing list or ever used for marketing. Only aggregate data will be used for reporting.

Followup comments / questions may be sent to Mikael Blaisdell by email: mikael@mblaisdell.com

Question Title

* 1. About you:

Name:

Company:

Title/Role:

Main company Website:

Country:

Email Address: (If you don't want to know about the research results or permit follow-up, enter None.)

Question Title

* 2. What is the size of your company?

Small / Startup (Less than 100 employees)

Medium (101-500 employees)

Large (501-1,000 employees)

Enterprise ( Over 1,000 employees)

Comments and Explanations

Question Title

* 3. How long has your company been in business

less than 1 year

1-2 years

3-5 years

6 years or more

Comments and Explanations

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* 4. At what phase of your company development did you start actively developing your corporate ecosystem in a substantial way?

We began in our startup phase.

We began after we'd built our customer base enough to be stable and profitable as a company.

We began in our growth and scaling phase.

We began when our company was mature.

Comments and Explanations

Question Title

* 5. What components of a corporate ecosystem does your company have in place today? (Please check all that apply.)

Events (In-person conferences, virtual/online events, local meetings)

An online community discussion forum. (e.g. InSided, Slack, Bettermode, Khoros, LinkedIn group, Vanilla, etc.)

Formal relationships with 3rd party service providers. (Consultants, implementation firms, trainers, etc.)

Formal relationships with other software companies. (Mutual integrations, etc.)

Publications and research (blog, video channel, podcasts.)

Relationships with individuals (Influencers, power-users, etc.)

Other. (Please describe)

Comments and Explanations

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* 6. If your company has its own online community forum/discussion resource, which platform are you using?

None. We don't have our own community forum / discussion group resource.

Bettermode (Tribe)

Bloomfire

Circle

Commonroom

Discourse

Habitate

Higher Logic / Vanilla Forums

Hivebrite

InSided

Khoros

Kissflow

LinkedIn Groups

Mighty Networks

Mobilize

Peritus

Slack

We built our own (Homebrew)

Other (Please describe)

Comments

Question Title

* 7. If you have formal relationships with 3rd party service providers, what do these relationships include?

None. We don't have any formal relationships of this kind at present.

Marketing content production (Blog posts, speaking at events, webinars, etc.)

Sub-contracting (They fulfill your company's contracts with your customers)

Referrals (Your company refers customers to these partners,)

Commissioned / Revenue Sharing (Your company pays referral fees to these partners when they bring business to you.)

Other. Please describe.

Comments and Explanations

Question Title

* 8. Which department of your company owns / is responsible for building / maintaining your corporate ecosystem? (If more than one shares responsibility, check all that apply.)

None. Whatever we have as an ecosystem runs itself.

Customer Success

Marketing

Support

Operations

Other (please explain)

Question Title

* 9. How does your company measure the results of your corporate ecosystem?

We don't measure it.

Lead generation

Increased market awareness

Customer/Market Intelligence gathered

Other (please explain)

50% of survey complete.