Recently we talked about “Minding the Gap” in enterprise systems when it comes to dealing with the Channel.  Taking that a step further, let’s explore the need to “Close the Loop” in a critical part of that gap.

Within high-technology companies there is no shortage of systems to manage opportunities: CRM, PRM, Deal-registration, Design-win, and special pricing/quoting systems to name a few. These systems do a great job of identifying and tracking opportunities through the sales cycle and even provide a closed-loop to the actual sale when the opportunity is sold through the direct sales channel.

However, this closed loop breaks when the opportunity is fulfilled through the indirect channel. What actually happened with the deal? Did it close? Did it close for the quantity and price that we quoted? Did the forecasted amount ship? Was the opportunity partially shipped and is the remainder going to ship before quarter-end?

The optimized channel brings automated closure to opportunities … no matter which system is used to create and manage them. Sales representatives and/or partners do not spend their time “surfing” for the opportunities that they should be getting incentive credit for. They should not be spending valuable time sifting through shipment records and then manually updating their opportunities. The optimized channel runs on timely sales data that automatically updates the status of opportunities providing real-time visibility into results … sales being shipped and revenue being recognized!