The world is facing unprecedented challenges. My heart goes out to everyone affected by COVID-19, either directly or indirectly. Along with the rest of the MuleSoft and Salesforce, our top priority is and has always been to keep our partners, customers, employees, families, and communities as healthy and as safe as possible.
Leading MuleSoft’s channels and alliances organization, it has been an honor to work with our flourishing partner ecosystem over the last seven years. At this moment, partner businesses are confronted by a new normal — changing business priorities, economic uncertainty, and remote work. Now more than ever, it is my team’s duty to help our partners ensure business continuity. We have organized to help our partners adapt to meet unpredictable needs and institutionalize new ways of working to keep up with the rapid pace of change.
The impact of this pandemic is not uniform. While some partners have seen pockets of their business surge, most face significant new challenges. There are concerns about their ability to complete existing projects, fears about pipeline gaps, and questions about what to do with their developer bench.
While it’s not an exhaustive list, here are the top questions from our partners with my response. If you have further questions or feedback, do not hesitate to contact the MuleSoft team; MuleSoft is laser-focused on the success of our partners and customers.
How should I communicate with customers during times of crisis?
How we show up, speak to, and engage with our customers and prospects has to adjust to stay relevant and to address the mission-critical and time-sensitive initiatives they are facing. This is a time for deep listening. With every organization undergoing change, it’s important we lead with empathy, humility, and ensure the people we connect with feel understood.
The CIOs and IT leaders we speak to are taking on two roles. The first is ensuring the technology stack is resilient through the crisis. The second is recalibrating the IT strategy, and any corresponding integration needs, to meet new business requirements over the long-term. It’s crucial to be intentional in our communications to these people in their time of need. For MuleSoft, one way we are achieving this is by packaging our IP and sharing it as actionable content. This integration checklist for IT leaders during a time of crisis is one example.
How should I work with MuleSoft to best support our customers?
Right now there are several unknowns that businesses are navigating. The best way for partners and MuleSoft to support our customers is by prioritizing communication with each other, ensuring that we adapt and be responsive to the needs of our customers. We must meet customers where they are and respond accordingly.
Companies embracing the opportunity to lead through this crisis will be balancing both short- and long-term thinking and strategic decision making. Together, our partners’ expertise transforms our customers ‘ IT organizations to be more agile, resilient, and flexible with the help of Anypoint Platform. How we assist our customers now will be crucial for the immediate success of our customers and set the foundation for our post-COVID-19 relationship.
We have a solution that can help COVID-19 responders save lives, how can I share it through MuleSoft?
I have assembled a MuleSoft Partner COVID-19 task force whose mandate is to enable the rapid creation of MuleSoft partner ecosystem solutions, with a priority on patient treatment and prevention. If you are a MuleSoft Partner with an application or solution that can help save lives, please complete this form. My team will respond to submissions, and are in a position to help with technical support and opportunities to amplify your solutions.
It’s humbling to hear from our partners about how they are responding to this crisis and developing solutions to save lives. In one country, with the help of MuleSoft and Deloitte, a clinical provider rapidly deployed an automated, secure solution to share COVID-19 results with patients. The agency reused 10 existing APIs to deliver this solution in just two weeks. Patients now receive results in two days, 5x faster than most countries.
What’s the best way to support our developers?
My team’s core focus is to support our MuleSoft developer community. This applies to partners whose developers are currently deployed in business-critical initiatives for customers, and those who are experiencing a dip in developer utilization due to COVID-19. Our partners have created a bench of skilled MuleSoft developers, and we are removing obstacles related to training and certifications to ensure business continuity.
Effective immediately, all MuleSoft certifications that expired after February 1, 2020 are valid through July 31, 2020. For those wanting to develop new or existing MuleSoft skills, all MuleSoft Training and Certification courses are now available online via virtual learning. The MuleSoft training team is running additional virtual instructor-led classes for architecture, operations, or development that have open spots in April and May, and you can register online. Get the latest on MuleSoft Training and Certification.
We have also matched partners in our community to meet demand. If you need additional MuleSoft resources, speak to your channel manager to see if there is a way MuleSoft can help.
How do I keep my internal team motivated?
As leaders, we must facilitate opportunities for employees to authentically connect with each other and prioritize wellness. Every person in my team has created a ‘personal wellness plan’ and shared it with their teams. This is to ensure our employees can best take care of themselves, their families, and their community. For more advice on this topic, read these best practices for engaging your virtual workforce from our marketing team.
Onward, together
We want to hear how you’re doing. MuleSoft stands committed to helping businesses — both customers and partners — adapt and unlock new ways of working. This is an opportunity to pull together as one, united global community. My team has been proactively reaching out to our partner organizations, listening to our partners’ concerns and questions, and channeling that feedback to me and our executive leadership. I encourage you to connect with your MuleSoft channel manager and tell us what you need to be successful by completing this feedback form which will go directly to the MuleSoft Partner COVID-19 task force.
