For many high-tech OEM vendors who are in the early stages of collecting POS and Inventory data for matching, program calculations and – ultimately – business decision-making, the initial foray is followed by a “tune-up” to adjust some settings on the machine for better performance. What do I mean? Many of our clients have, for years, been collecting “what they could get” from channel partners. With different types of distributors, multiple regions, different product lines… the result is a collection of reports from different systems, in different formats, containing different data elements.

Collecting, compiling, cleansing, normalizing and performing matching and calculations on this data is a chore – time and resource intensive and more than a little frustrating.

It makes sense to revisit what’s coming from whom, how often, in what format, with what kind of completion and accuracy. A Channelinsight Quarterly Business Review is a great forum for circling up the teams from the client and Channelinsight who envisioned, designed and launched the program, for an inspection of progress and results, and to decide how to “fine-tune the settings” for optimal results.

While the beauty of the SaaS product coupled with facilitated on-boarding of reporting partners does provide a certain “set it and forget it” capability, there is often a need for some preventative maintenance and performance tuning. Keys to both include visibility and communication.

Visibility: during the heavy-lifting phase of on-boarding reporting partners, there is a LOT of information at any given time about who is in what stage of the process, what step comes next, what’s stuck and why, etc. Providing dashboard visibility to progress has proved very helpful to many of our clients. This is especially true in the beginning phases of a project, where the value proposition of an expanded and enhanced channel data collection and processing venture has a high degree of interest and scrutiny.

Communication: the companion to visibility, communication is KEY not only in the beginning but throughout the engagement, and it takes many forms. Progress reports, proactive reminders and post-event notifications are key factors that keep the process operating at peak efficiency.

The bottom line? It is possible to have success designing, launching and performance tuning a robust channel partner data-reporting program! Focus, energy and partnership with experts in the space will enable a solid start, sustained momentum and increased performance over time, enabling rapid, high-confidence decision making.

As an agent on behalf of our clients, we have a portfolio of methods and tailored communications to ease and accelerate the on-boarding of existing and/or new reporting partners. But, nothing can replace the relationship that the OEM vendors have with their own distribution channel. This is why it is essential to partner alongside one another for an efficient and expedient on-boarding phase.

The initial traction gained during the welcome and introduction phase must be sustained for true momentum to build. What does that mean? The flurry of activity and communication that occurs during the program start up, setup and configuration, testing and acceptance typically tapers off when “data is flowing”. Now is not the time to ease off! It is critical to provide feedback and monitor the initial submissions and correct missing, mis-formatted or incorrect information before bad habits form. The more “hands-on” at the beginning, the more “hands-off” later on… good for everyone involved.

Proactive notifications and reminders are key to maintaining the pace and frequency of reporting. At Channelinsight, we employ tools and processes configured and monitored by specialists (let the system do what the system does well!) to customize reminders and notifications.  With multiple types of reporting partners on different schedules submitting varied types of input, keeping our clients programs “between the lines” is key to providing the business intelligence they seek.

With a data reporting program “at speed”, the confidence that a high-tech OEM vendor can have in the representative sample of POS and Inventory data streaming in from the channel enables better and faster decision-making, in-quarter adjustments to incentive programs, increased visibility to product line performance, and more.

Next time, on the topic of Partner Relationship Management: “Tuning for performance – the well-oiled PRM machine”

Best practices are very compelling.  Something at your company is not working well; let’s see what is working well for others.  Sounds simple enough but the challenges are numerous:

1. What exactly is the best practice?
2. How do I implement a best practice when I am not familiar with it?
3. If everyone else is doing this, do I want to follow or try to lead with something new?

Over the years I have read in leading strategy books that it can be dangerous to rely exclusively on best practices.  Michael Porter warns that “few companies have competed successfully on the basis of operational effectiveness over an extended period, and staying ahead of rivals gets harder every day.  The most obvious reason for that is the rapid diffusion of best practices.”

So does that mean that we should not rely on best practices and look to establish our own practices?  Not necessarily.  Michael Porter is saying that Best Practices should be quickly understood and integrated into an organization but differentiated strategies need to be built on top of these best practices.

This is especially true in the high tech channel.  I am always impressed by the number of innovative channel incentive and training programs that are created to build partner loyalty and trust.  And why not?  Our research indicates that for many companies the majority of their revenues, sales growth and profit come from the channel.  What surprises me is that all to often the key building block of this innovation is lousy data.

Channelinsight collects, standardizes and enriches channel point of sale and inventory data.  I am amazed that well run, multi-billion dollar companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on channel incentive, discount, training, and marketing programs and cannot measure the impact of this spending, or even the overall trends in their channel.  One of our customers recently said, “We are paying out over $500 million a year in the channel based on rumor and innuendo!”

High tech companies can differentiate themselves with innovative channel strategies, but these must be built on channel data management best practices.  There are proven, effective, methods to collect and analyze channel data; why utilize substandard practices and base your innovation on missing, bad or very old data.

The key to successful implementation of best practices is to implement proven processes that provide the framework and flexibility to support true innovation.  After all, the real best practice is that which makes you and your customers successful.

As an active participant in the process of engaging with these many and varied partners, we have the opportunity to guide and shape the approach that our clients take to begin or, in some cases, rejuvenate the process of collecting point-of-sale transaction and inventory data.

We’re talking about Partner Relationship Management. Not the familiar acronym for the sibling to CRM systems, but the process and methodology of managing partner relationships specifically for the purpose of collecting data that improves and accelerates business decision-making.

The difference-maker for a successful campaign to collect POS and/or Inventory data is all in the up-front preparation and communication… “Starting the engine”, if you will. Surprised? Probably not. Too often, however, this step is discounted or otherwise neglected, resulting in a slow start or sluggish response from the reporting partner community.

What works: “Incent… or dis-incent, but do something!”
The most successful engagements we have with clients seeking to change the way they collect reporting data from their channel partners (frequency, method, amount of data, etc.) are when there is a clear incentive to participate. An incentive in the form of meeting a deadline for being “on-board” with data flowing may take the form of an extra discount in the next fiscal period, or continued participation in a program at a certain status level. Disincentives also work! Requiring participation by a certain time frame with a “penalty” associated with non-compliance (the “Stick”) generates as much interest and action as does the “Carrot”.

What doesn’t work: “Thou shalt!”
In the absence of a clear incentive or disincentive, the message is “do it… because we say so.” This approach sees grudging compliance at best. Almost always, even with engagements that are successful in the end, they take longer. And time is money.

A bit of effort up front and a commitment from the business to incent compliance or enforce consequences for non-compliance is the key to jump-starting the engine that will have you rolling down the information highway!

Next time, on the topic of Partner Relationship Management: “Gaining traction and picking up speed!”

Specifically the “real value” of SaaS varies from product to product. However, the general concept is very simple. The “real value” is gained when the SaaS platform itself can leverage data from each of its individual tenants to uplift or benefit all of its tenants. Thus most of the time a SaaS product also needs to use a multi-tenant software architecture to achieve maximum benefit. A multi-tenant architecture is one where a single instance of an application is servicing multiple customers.

A fantastic example of an end-user application ( albeit a hybrid SaaS/mobile app ) that exhibits this value is the Waze navigation application. As a user of the application not only do you benefit from the mapping / routing / and road conditions provided by other users of the software, you provide the same for other users as well. The result is a crowd sourced navigation application that grows its mapping database as it goes.

Here at ChannelInsight we build a product to help our customers achieve the transparency of direct sales in their distribution channels. By using a multi-tenant SaaS platform we provide a valuable “crowd sourced” approach to uplifting the quality of the data in the shared ChannelInsight directory of business entities. Our application also leverages the integrations and relationships that we have established with a vast network of channel distribution partners to the benefit of all of our tenants.

When designing your application, or shopping for a software platform to solve your business needs, make sure that its designed such that the more users of the software you have, the better the experience becomes and the more value your customer derives. Typically this will be a SaaS solution using a multi tenant software architecture.