Team Spotlight

One-on-one with Hege Jacobsen

 Anumita Bhargava
Anumita Bhargava

Marketing and Communication Consultant

We take it for granted that many web solutions operate together with others. But creating this partner ecosystem is the work of partnership professionals who spend their days developing alliances across organisations – and all of the meetings, strategy, and planning required to align sales and product divisions at two fast-growing digital companies.

This week, we spoke with Hege Jacobsen, Head of Partner Relations, about her work and the Dataloy Partner Program.

Tell us about your career path. How did you become interested in maritime technology?

Hege: I experienced a nice atmosphere, openness, and a professional focus. The willingness to take onboard a non-maritime, non-technical person like myself proves the “thinking outside of the box” attitude I have experienced many times afterwards. This was one of the major reasons why I felt I could add something extra in the organisation.

Head of Partner Relations is a new role at Dataloy. What are some of your key responsibilities?

Hege: My main responsibility is to create a collaborative ecosystem for Dataloy customers and the environment for our Master Partners. The ecosystem being developed welcomes maritime IT systems that can add extra value to Dataloy VMS customers by integrating via the Dataloy API. I believe this, the sum, enables our Dataloy customers to get the utmost out of their Dataloy VMS. And these are very interesting responsibilities. They can add high extra value to Dataloy VMS users

What constitutes a strong partnership program at a maritime technology company like Dataloy?

Hege: Dataloy has strong values, and our partnership program mirrors those beliefs. When collaborating with our Master Partners, openness and collaboration are crucial. Strong partnerships are founded on shared values and objectives, mutual respect and trust, and the experience, sensibilities, and knowledge that each partner brings to the table.  A successful symbiotic relationship is built not only based on what both parties obtain from it but also on how they contribute to each other’s growth.

Since moving into your new role, what are some of your initial impressions?

Hege: I am very happy to experience the positive interest from the maritime IT community and also our VMS customers. There is also a high interest in collaborating across system vendors. I believe one of the positive effects of the pandemic is that, in general, the maritime industry trusts IT more than before and is also seeing clearer the great benefits. This will only increase, so it is very exciting working with partners on one side and customers on the other, who really invest in adapting to and adopting the use of data intelligence in their daily work. 

The Master Partners are saying that they have looked for this kind of partner program for some time. The open Dataloy API makes it so much easier to integrate Dataloy VMS with other systems, and it shaves off the time it takes to experience the value-add of an integration. 

More and more Dataloy VMS customers appreciate that using their systems to the fullest, automating processes and integrating specialist systems is providing them with a fuller picture when making decisions. Our Partner program is providing these opportunities combined with the web-based Dataloy VMS.

How is the partner program structured? Is it commercial?

Hege: Our Partner Program is different from many others. First of all, no, it is not commercial – meaning that we have no financial incentives with our Master Partners. All Master Partners have their Dataloy VMS environment, this means that they have the Dataloy API available at all times when and if needed. Together we announce the collaboration, and when the integration is finalised and ready to be used by Dataloy VMS customers, it is demonstrated in a webinar in the “Gaining Ecosystem Advantage” series”. The Partner Program aims to offer Dataloy VMS customers the choice of best-of-breed systems that provide customers with value-add to make their best business decisions. The Master Partners are an important part of the total delivery we offer to our customers.

How open are you to integrating with other systems, and how open is the system?

Hege: We welcome all credible specialised systems to integrate with the Dataloy VMS as long as the value proposition is sound. The integration needs to add value to the Dataloy VMS customers. Other than that, we are agnostic to systems that want to be part of the Partner Program. This goes hand in hand with the Dataloy value of being open, as with the Dataloy API, which is an Open API.

Can you share your top three goals for 2023?

Hege:

  1. I aim for all our current Master Partners to perform their webinars on their integrations for our Dataloy VMS customers.
  2. To increase the number of integrations with our Master Partners: I aim to collaborate more with current and new Master Partners to provide our customers with even more opportunities to enhance their decision-making and live overview of their business.
  3. I aim for the Dataloy Master Partner Program to be the most preferred in the VMS market.

 

In addition, we need to collaborate more and focus on being better at the things we are already good at. Our (common) customers should always be the winners in this race, and that can only be the result if we work well together.

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