At a channel management conference last month, partner loyalty was a key topic. As vendors and products proliferate, competition for the time and attention of your channel partners continues to increase. Competitive products, qualified leads and strong service and support are all keys to partner loyalty…but they’re mostly out of the control of the
channel sales and operations team. So if most of the items mentioned are out of your control, what are the key elements that are under the influence of the channel sales and operations team?
A couple of the key items that you control are (1) optimizing your partner’s working capital and (2) being easy to do business with. Are these the top areas that you influence and or control? If so, do you have a plan to address them for your partners and to turn your channel operations team into a competitive differentiator.
Speeding the delivery of incentive payments; eliminating the time partners spend claiming and administrating incentives; providing timely performance scorecards to your partners for visibility into their performance against program targets ─ these are among the many operational elements directly under your control.
What are some of the other areas that you can control and what are you doing to turn your operation into a competitive differentiator?
