Episode Details

For years, Optima Consulting built a successful business implementing OpenText technology for enterprise customers without maintaining a formal partnership with the vendor. Now, under new leadership and with a renewed emphasis on its partner ecosystem, OpenText has brought Optima back into the fold.

In this episode of In The Channel, recorded at OpenText World 2026 in Orlando, Optima CEO and founding partner Shaney Salomon discusses what brought the company back, and why OpenText’s partner transformation remains a work in progress.

Salomon, a former OpenText executive who built Optima around the intersection of SAP and OpenText technologies, says previous OpenText leadership sometimes viewed implementation partners as competitors for professional services revenue rather than as organizations that could expand the vendor’s reach.

That attitude is changing, she says, although aligning field sales teams with the company’s partner-first ambitions remains an important challenge.

The conversation also explores the changing economics of enterprise modernization as customers weigh cloud migrations against rapidly evolving AI capabilities. Salomon argues that vendors need to deliver practical AI value even to customers that haven’t completed their modernization journeys, or risk seeing those customers turn to alternative technologies.

And she shares lessons from building Optima, including why solution providers must continually evolve their expertise, why change management can make or break technology projects, and how helping customers realize more value from existing investments creates opportunities for deeper, longer-lasting relationships.

It’s a candid look at OpenText’s evolving partner strategy from a solution pro