Picking up where we left off in the previous post, “Can you Optimize, Part I”, following are the top ways to overcome the challenges of getting to visibility and optimization in channel sales. These points will help organizations start to think about how to get 
more value out of channel management.
1.) Automation – It is financially and technologically unfeasible to effectively track thousands of potential customers, distributors, and resellers, as well as millions of related transactions, manually either internally or through a BPO service. By automating the collection of channel partner POS and inventory data, accurately identifying end customers and products, and delivering audit trails and analytics to ensure compliance and drive Insight, costs can be dramatically lowered and the problems of poor visibility and long cycle times can be eliminated.
2.) Cloud services – Tapping into the power of the cloud. We have talked a lot about the cloud lately in this blog, but utilizing cloud applications that can be deployed 5 times faster and 50% cheaper than legacy software solutions solves resource and time/complexity challenges, not to mention mitigating risk factors. When new functionality can be delivered more rapidly, and integration with other solutions, particularly other cloud solutions, is out of the box, it drives rapid time to value and high channel process ROI.
3.) Align internal groups with the benefits – Sales and finance are focused on solving problems around control and visibility; ensure they have real-time insight into partner performance and revenue recognition. Top among channel operations responsibilities is to make sure that products are in the right place at the right time across the channel; provide visibility into inventory availability, days or weeks on-hand, and gray market leakage. And marketing must have the tools to effectively manage channel programs in a claimless process that encourages partner participation and clearly highlights program ROI. The bottom line is that everyone, regardless of function must rely on a common set of timely, accurate and complete channel data, which allows them to optimize their particular business processes.
4.) Leverage the learnings of other channel organizations - Participate in a shared global network of channel partners. No one company can know and understand all of the information about channel partners and relationships. A common clearinghouse of cleansed partner and end customer data will allow your organization to move to the next level in visibility and insight.
The benefit of trying to drive toward optimization of channel operations is added visibility across channel partners as well as the control and agility to react and make better decisions about channel activities. Ultimately, to have the channel function at its best or most effective – grow revenue, reduce costs and achieve competitive advantage.
