As vice president of channel sales at DocuWare, Michael Gale plays a key role in shaping how the company supports, expands, and empowers its global partner network. With more than 800 partners worldwide—including 225 in the United States—DocuWare has built its success on more than just best-in-class document management/ECM solutions. In this Q&A, Gale discusses what’s driving new partner growth, how DocuWare differentiates its partner experience, and what channel leaders can expect from innovations like its IDP tool, the Show Me DocuWare platform, and this year’s DocuWorld conference.
What is DocuWare doing to attract new partners?
Gale: At DocuWare, we take a proactive and strategic approach to expanding our Partner Program and ensuring our partners’ success. We invest significantly in building and nurturing a thriving partner ecosystem. This means more than just recruitment. Our commitment starts with our renowned annual global conferences, which are dedicated exclusively to our partner community and provide an unparalleled opportunity for networking, learning, and growth.
Our team maintains a strong presence at industry trade shows and leading channel conferences throughout the year, engaging directly with prospective partners and staying at the forefront of industry trends. DocuWare’s reputation as a leader in content management precedes us, which is why so many high-caliber partners actively seek us out.
But what truly sets us apart is the depth of our investment in partner enablement and support. Our award-winning support team is consistently recognized for its responsiveness and expertise, and our partners frequently tell us how much they value this hands-on assistance. We have recently revamped our entire partner training program, offering brand-new, up-to-date content for both sales and technical tracks to ensure our partners are always equipped with the latest knowledge and tools.
We also go beyond the basics by working side-by-side with our partners’ marketing teams, helping to design and execute campaigns that drive real results. This collaborative approach, combined with our robust resources, ensures that our partners have everything they need to succeed every step of the way.
Were you happy with the growth in the number of partners in 2024?
Gale: We’re constantly evaluating and refining our approach to accelerate the onboarding of high-quality partners, so we’re never fully satisfied. Continuous improvement is core to our strategy. From a performance standpoint, 2024 delivered strong results: approximately 50% of our partners experienced growth in their DocuWare business. That momentum reinforces the value of our Partner Program and the opportunities it creates for mutual success.
Michael Gale is VP of channel sales at DocuWare.
Tell us about some of DocuWare’s partner programs and what advantages they bring to the partner.
Gale: Joining the DocuWare Partner Network is far more than just obtaining a license to resell—it’s the beginning of a strategic, collaborative relationship designed to accelerate your business growth. We’re deeply committed to our partners’ success, starting with aligning our sales organization as a true extension of yours. Together, we co-create tailored go-to-market plans that provide the foundation for long-term profitability.
From day one, partners benefit from direct access to our subject matter experts and dedicated regional sales directors, ensuring you always have hands-on support, industry insights, and expert guidance at every step. In the crucial first 90 days, we deliver customized marketing and business development strategies to build momentum. Our comprehensive onboarding includes hands-on sales and implementation training, with certification tracks that help your team build expertise and credibility.
But our support doesn’t stop after onboarding. Whether it’s joint field selling, co-branded marketing campaigns, or technical consultation, our team is with you every step of the way to maximize your success.
By adding DocuWare to your portfolio, you unlock new opportunities to deliver high-value professional services with strong profit potential. Our flexible platform makes it easy to bundle complementary solutions, allowing you to expand your offerings, differentiate your business, and deepen relationships with clients. In short, DocuWare’s partner programs are designed to empower you to grow faster, compete more effectively, and deliver greater value to your customers.
Without naming partner names, can you share any examples of the difference your partner programs have made after the partner began participating in the program(s)?
Gale: Sure, I can think of one of our partners who built their business selling hardware. When they joined us a few years ago, they wanted to build a larger software portfolio but were running into issues with other software companies, like overpromising and underdelivering, delayed price quotes, and poor customer support. Since working with us and experiencing the success and reliability that comes with a real supportive partnership like DocuWare offers, they’ve achieved their business goal and successfully transitioned into a more software-centric business. Our supportive partnership has unlocked a new way for them to do business!
Innovation is constant at DocuWare. What can you tell us about DocuWare’s new IDP tool for intelligent document processing?
Gale: DocuWare’s new IDP (Intelligent Document Processing) tool is a powerful suite of AI-driven features designed to revolutionize how businesses capture, process, and manage documents. Leveraging advanced artificial intelligence, our IDP tool makes it remarkably easy to extract data from a wide range of documents, including weathered, handwritten, or otherwise challenging records.
With IDP, users can automatically classify documents, separate individual files from batch uploads, and crop images to standardized sizes, streamlining workflows and reducing manual effort. This service delivers advanced, AI-based capture capabilities that significantly improve accuracy and efficiency.
Importantly, DocuWare’s IDP tool is highly flexible: it can be used as a standalone solution or seamlessly integrated with other DocuWare offerings, allowing partners and customers to tailor intelligent document processing to their unique business needs.
What are the most significant benefits to the end user?
Gale: Ultimately, the goal of DocuWare is to make work life better and help businesses run more efficiently. Capturing data from documents, classifying those documents, and getting them into the right workflow are all tedious, manual tasks that take up hours that could be spent on more strategic and value-adding tasks. The real benefit of a secure AI data tool is efficiency. Saving time and expense on tasks that can be automated leaves more time for projects that employees are passionate about.
We understand you are leveraging interactive tools to help partners sell DocuWare. Can you tell us more about Show Me DocuWare?
Gale: Show Me is something we’re really excited about. Buyers are doing more and more of their own research before they ever reach out to a salesperson, so we wanted to give our prospects a hands-on way of easily experiencing what it’s like to work in the tool. For instance, now you can take a guided walk-through of what it’s like to process an invoice with DocuWare. And we’re working on adding new features all the time.
How has Show Me DocuWare been received by your partners?
Gale: Extraordinarily well. Anytime you ask someone to change their processes there’s a little resistance followed by an adjustment period, but we didn’t see that here. Partners very quickly grasped the value. And of course, the fact that Show Me is generating leads makes it a much easier sell.
DocuWorld is right around the corner. It’s always an excellent event and a great way for partners to enhance their knowledge. What can attendees expect at this year’s DocuWorld conference?
Gale: DocuWorld is always a highlight of the year. It’s our partner-only conference, and this year’s theme is “Empowering Automation Together.” Partners can expect to get new insights into the future of the DocuWare tool and hands-on technical and sales workshops to help them guide their customers through digital transformations.
Beyond that, it’s also a place for partners to network with other leaders in the industry and for us to celebrate successes through our Diamond Club and Customer Service Champion Awards. We always get positive feedback from Partners about how useful our conferences are, and I believe this will be the best one yet!
Editor-in-Chief Mark Vruno will be covering the DocuWorld partner conference for The Cannata Report next week from Jacksonville, Florida.
