As dependence on indirect sales channels continues to grow, we see a gap between ERP, CRM, PRM and compensation systems that needs to be filled. We talk a lot about Channel Performance Optimization. The reason we do is not to come up with another acronym that will make things more confusing but as a way to describe that gap.

Typically when you look at markets that have been solving a need for a long-time, there often times is a gap – or some white space in between what the solution is providing and what the market or company has evolved into. So when you take a look at an enterprise, particularly a high-tech manufacturer, ERP helps manage the data within a manufacturer; CRM helps manage the customer relationship and PRM helps manage the partner relationship. They all provide methodologies and tools that help improve relationships with either data or people to ultimately gain peak performance. What about a methodology and tools that brings all three constituencies together based on data integrity?

If businesses had the ability to systematically understand every channel business process, relationship and interaction in real-time, the company could implement the optimal mix of channel actions to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.  Similar to the retail markets where supply chain data is automatically fed back into sales, marketing, demand and distribution channel,  technology companies should have access to the same type of visibility and control over their supply chain.

We said it in an earlier post, but we think it’s important enough to say again – providing real-time visibility into every channel relationship for finance, operations, sales, and marketing will achieve a smarter channel.

Last week 19,000 gathered at the Moscone center in downtown San Francisco to participate in salesforce.com’s annual user group conference, Dreamforce.  Dreamforce is much more than a typical user group conference, it has become the premier industry gathering for the new generation of enterprise application delivery … cloud computing.

During the keynote session Marc Benioff, salesforce.com’s CEO, highlighted the compelling case for cloud applications that can be deployed 5 times faster and 50% cheaper than legacy software solutions. New functionality is delivered more rapidly, releases are deployed immediately and integration with other cloud solutions is out of the box. At the conference it was clear that “clouds” will be at the center of software innovation for years to come. The truly innovative cloud services aren’t just enterprise applications ported to a multi-tenant platform, but they are applications that take advantage of their position in the cloud by creating a community effect which leverages shared learnings.

As an exhibitor and participant in this event, InfoNow played host to hundreds of customers, prospective clients, and partners all looking for clear visibility into their customers and channel partners. The market is tired of the legacy and manual approaches to addressing channel management and is validating our unique cloud delivery model. We are “all-in” with cloud computing and our commitment to providing a seamless use experience for our customers within the salesforce.com ecosystem.

We are looking forward to following up with the customers and future customers that we met at the show and we plan to significantly increase our presence at Dreamforce 2010 in San Francisco on December 6-9 next year.

Everyone wants more visibility. Or at least everyone should want better visibility. If you really think about it visibility is the key to making the right decisions across the board. If you had visibility into the fact that your friend is always late you would not have asked him to bring the beer and wine to the party or if you had visibility into the fact that your manufacturing partner was having problems at a specific plant, you may have decided not to ask for an order to be filled at the last minute.

What it really comes down to is having the right data (or facts) and then analyzing the data and adding context to it so that you can use it to benefit ______ (you fill in the blank).

We can apply this thought process to the indirect sales channels of most businesses. There is a clear issue around access to timely or, more importantly, accurate channel sales data which in turn masks the critical visibility into their customers that is necessary to leverage for the overall benefit of the business.

It’s about the information. Not the data but the information. Data are facts. When the facts or data are analyzed, enriched and given context they become useful. It is at this point the facts become information.

Technology vendors simply can’t leverage the existing data they have to provide a complete view of their relationships with their partners and end customers so that they have useful information or strategic intelligence that would make an impact across the entire business including helping increase sales, reducing overall costs and more effectively managing business operations.

We think that visibility is the tipping point for reaching control and ultimately optimization in the channel. After talking with Mike Vizard we agree whole heartedly that transparency is the first step in getting to a smarter channel. What do you think?