Software channel partners

It helps to increase direct bookings, and easily manage booking sites, connect to a lot of different booking channels and more. It displays changes in room availability and pricing, real-time price comparisons with other travel booking websites, and reviews from selected guests, optimizing the booking process for customers.

Its offerings include channel manager, booking engine, property management system, CMS, and yield management. Its channel manager is the perfect tool to manage availability and prices for booking channels. Booking Engine is a booking module for own websites which helps to receive more commission-free direct bookings.

Key features include booking engine, channel manager, social media integration, invoicing, and client management. It also lets teams integrate the booking engine with Facebook and customize the color and layout of the reservation system.

Companies can have a variety of partners in Marketing and Sales functions. Channel partners typically refer to Sales Related Partnerships - commission-based affiliate partners, resellers, and VARs value-added resellers who can provide services component of your offering, or bundle other products needed by the customers.

There are other partnerships such as Alliances — which could be about the bundling of products, co-marketing, etc. This document primarily focuses on channel partnerships related to sales activities as described above. Distributors, who stock the product in bulk and sell it to the next tier of suppliers. System Integrators, who bring together a variety of products and integrate them to build turn-key solutions for the end customer.

Independent Retailers, who could be stores selling on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis. Agents and Consultants, who sell for a Commission on the sale price. Channel Partner Programs, with participation from any combination of the above types of partners, are commonly run by B2B organizations, but such programs can be drawn up and run for B2C businesses too. Computer software and hardware are sold B2B and B2C through various combinations of channel partners, who have markedly different selling strategies depending on whether the sale is to an individual or to a business, besides other factors such as the size of the sale.

Adidas, which sells its merchandise out of its own stores, franchisee stores and multi-brand retail outlets, in addition to selling directly to end-users through its own online store would be a largely B2C example. Singapore Airlines selling tickets through intermediary sites like Kayak or Trivago is an example of online B2C channel partnering. Other online B2C channel types exist too.

Advertising Based channels are where sites like YouTube, which attract large volumes of traffic, make themselves available as channels for advertising and selling. Fee-based channels are sites like Netflix, which charge a small fee so that users can access the content that has been licensed to it by content owners. Most importantly, Channel Partners give you a head-start.

They already have a set of ready customers with whom they can kick-off the sales process. A single Partner Manager can handle multiple Channel Partners and drive the sales process to bring in the same amount of revenue at a lesser cost. Channel Partners help in experimenting with new ideas, products, promotions, exhibitions at a viable cost. With proper training and certification, Channel Partners can help in not just acquiring new customers, but also in extending after-sales support.

They also prove handy at the time of maintenance contract renewal, thereby allowing the Partner Manager to focus on nurturing new partners, sales operations management, and escalation measures related to implementation and support. I do a lot of research into the company to find out what they are trying to achieve. Are their clients matching up with ours?

Are their goals aligned with ours? Do they have the skill set they need for a successful implementation? For organizations looking to expand their horizons to new territories — domestic or international — Channel Marketing can prove to be the ideal platform to operate with. Instead of setting up a complete organization in new geography for customer acquisition, it can be worthwhile to test new waters by engaging with Channel Partners to reach out to prospective Customers and also to gather competitive intelligence.

Channel Partners can maintain stocks and spares too, which makes quicker deliveries possible, leading to faster realization of revenue. A Channel Partner Program is an association between the Product Organization and its 3rd party Affiliates who agree to team up and sell to the marketplace under pre-drawn terms of the agreement.

The whole idea of this program is to maximize reach, harness the existing customer base of sales affiliates, increase and improve touchpoints, conduct sales, and increase revenue in the least possible time to maximize ROI. This whole process is known as Channel Marketing. It facilitates the principal business to manage partners and aligns internal organizations of the enterprise with the aim of satisfying the customer needs consistently in accordance with the brand promise.

The key to making this relationship successful between Companies and their Business Partners is Transparency and Turn-Around Time which can be automated with the help of a Channel Partner Program software. This helps them to track, manage, and measure the value that each Partner contributes to the growth of the organization. It is a software platform made up of various modules driven by technologies depending on the targeted distribution channel in an Industry Vertical.

Some of the key features of a Channel Partner Program software are:. This is a horizontal software platform and can be used by any industry segment that engages Channels to seek and acquire new customers. This can be a very useful tool for International Marketing, where this platform is extended to international channel partners for engagement management. One can do proper campaign management while running marketing campaigns sitting perhaps tens of thousands of miles away from the site of the campaign.

This software begins with the process of enabling partners to onboard, get trained on various products and solutions designed for the marketplace, obtain certifications, have access to marketing collaterals, resource library, pricing charts, know more about incentives, motivational bonus and rewards, create co-branded collaterals and have access to partner dashboards.

We saw building and supporting a partner ecosystem as a massive opportunity. Early on, the agencies kept getting in contact, wanting to engage, and there was no clear way to do that. So we started building out the partner program. On the sales cycle side, it can not only help monitor and manage to generate new leads but also help manage the status of orders and revenue cycles. This can be a very important tool for the Channel Manager for engaging and doing follow-ups with channel partners on lead generation and sales performances on a collaborative platform.

This platform enables a Channel Manager to know all about the sales-leads product-wise, territory-wise, partner performance-wise, and on various other parameters to draw strategy lines for successful sales closures. The Channel Manager gets to do a deep-dive and assesses the amount of relationship management that a Channel Partner or an end-Customer requires for creating success.

This is a handy tool for the Channel Manager for Sales Performance Management of not only the Channel Partners but also the individual Sales Representatives who are the feet on the street and engaging with the end customers. It is the output of this Sales Performance that will help drive a Channel Manager to run an incentive program and a motivation bonus program to enhance sales and see an upward spike in sales efforts.

Many software executives consider the independent channel partners as a readily available, flexible and inexpensive sales resource and nothing could be further from the truth. Channel Partners, based on their performances, projects, and territories, obtain a discount related to the pricing of products to sell to the marketplace. This is a key module for the Partner Manager to keep a tab on the discounting and pricing structure and to manage the profitability of the business.

When an organization has operations across countries and continents, a unified platform with the ability to manage such a heterogeneous environment helps in meeting statutory and regulatory obligations to adhere to the law of the land. Imagine the complexities an organization having operations in, say, USA and India, who follow not only different accounting methods but also have different periods defined as the financial year, would face in the absence of such modules.

Even consent-based marketing guidelines are different in the two countries! The whole objective is to consolidate all the processes related to Channel Partners on to a single platform and bring it under one login thereby making it easier for a Channel Manager to have a consolidated and unified view monitoring from one location, and the Channel Partners to have access to all information that they need while in their respective locations.

The Communication Management module provides a platform for sharing information on leads and clients. Most importantly, the software provides segment-wise reports for better analysis and desired actions.

The prime application of AI and Machine Learning is to enable this program to help convert leads into sales orders by understanding the customer mindshare.

AI helps the Channel Manager strategize for sales performance through predictive analyses by studying the customer behavior patterns to appraise the right quantum of resources to commit to each sales account. AI can also help in fraud detection, and processing applications and claim forms. AI can be used in marketing and branding targeted at individual customer segments to automate the co-branding templates for visibility purposes of Channel Partners.

The integration of AI on this platform is at a very nascent stage, and it is just a matter of time that it will soon penetrate in the coming years to perform complex and critical operations easily and efficiently. Every industry vertical has its own operational process to manage its Channel Partners. The major challenge is to automate the process at both ends and extend it seamlessly into the existing legacy systems.

For example, the needs of manufacturing, retail, and supply chain organizations all have different ways of managing their channel partners and the business processes would vary. For manufacturing organizations, partner order management is critical, for retail order management, price optimization and shipping would be important.

It is important to assess the strength of the business process supported in the software before making the selection. The organization and their partner ecosystem might be in various phases of maturity in terms of the Channel Partner Program. It is important to assess this and also understand the readiness of the organization to adopt the software.

It may be a good idea to implement in a phased manner and choose to implement module by module rather than the whole software at one go. While the Principal Organization may be capable of accepting the whole software, the same may not be true for the Channel Partner. The inability to adapt to such a change by the Channel Partner might lead to a loss in investment and break-down of the complete process. Many CRM systems provide extensive capabilities to cover partner management.

There are specialized Partner Management portal software like Channeltivity , Huddle. The market trend is towards the adoption of SaaS-based software and they provide ease of management. All partners can easily access the system through a web-based interface. Even on-premise software is expected to provide a web-based interface for partners to seamlessly operate. On-premise software will be useful when the organization has a lot of legacy software that needs tighter integration with the backend systems.

While choosing such software one must look at scalability and interoperability with other systems. Also, it is important to assess key functionality like web integration, automated order processing, mobile device support. The software should provide integration and customization capability - specifically to tailor the central partner portal. Employing effective channel relationships and sales managers to support their Distributors, Resellers, Solution Providers, Dealers, or Agents gives the Principal Organization a competitive edge.

Channel partnerships can be a big boost in terms of accelerated growth, higher brand awareness, and increased revenue. In a survey with large IT solutions companies, it is noted that with proper onboarding, training, and incentive parameters for partners, companies can see visible positive results. Some of the key indicators which can help calculate the ROI could be the reduction in the cost of onboarding the partners through an online process instead of traditional means by visiting and signing them up for a Partner engagement program.

This is a direct time and cost-saving exercise. Another direct time and cost-saving exercise could be the online training and certification program.

Our team of highly skilled specialists with cross-domain expertise offers unmatched services with all required care. Our focus is on helping you build long-term relationships by supporting you to achieve the objectives at hand. Under his belt, Saumil has close to 20 years of diversified global experience of incubating and scaling businesses from infancy to drive maximum value for customers.

He pursues a healthy lifestyle outside of work, enjoys playing either tennis or football, and is a real Arsenal fan. A spiritual individual at heart, he prefers to read, attend skill enhancement programs, and even provide training on several interesting topics.

A proactive leader, he empowers his team to take ownership by grooming them into future leaders while building cohesive teams to achieve individual targets and company objectives. When not working, Kandarp is an avid reader, and a passionate chef, he loves to work with budding technology learners.

Bhardwaj Pandya constructs large scalable systems with a passion for open source technologies. His expertise lies in seamlessly translating business needs into cutting-edge technical solutions. He enjoys pursuing research on historical topics, mysteries of Google earth, and likes to stay fit with regular exercise. His deep technology understanding clubbed with piloting innovative techniques has led to several successful project outcomes.

When outside of work, he continues to stay on top of the latest technology trends, enjoys traveling with a balance of sports and yoga. He has been instrumental in developing a CoE for software testing practice and spearheading process implementation at Rishabh Software. A passionate leader, who always motivates and inspires everyone to stay dynamic by inculcating the higher standards of work excellence.

A serial entrepreneur and visionary, Mr. Shah has four decades of impeccable experience in setting the strategic direction for Rishabh. It is with a consuming passion for nurturing a strong leadership team that drives the execution. An active philanthropist and firm believer in supporting the community and promoting education, he is actively involved in helping schools with their infrastructure and financing those in need of higher studies.

Channel Partner programs are so powerful that even multi-billion tech companies including Microsoft , VMWare , Oracle , eBay , Mailchimp , Shopify, Citrix and thousands of others use it.

It takes time, effort, and most importantly, strategic planning. I have tried to make it simpler for you by introducing this step process. Like my other blog posts and presentations, this article is also based on my personal experiences and reviews from industry experts.

If you want to understand the definition in detail read my article by clicking here. Before you start developing your own Channel Partner Program, there are a few important factors you need to keep in mind: business goals, vision, and executive support.

Creating a professional reseller channel partner program is a big investment of time, effort, and resources. This is why it is essential that the partner program you want to create is aligned with the company strategy and business goals. This is also why it is essential to have executive support before you kick-off the process. The creation of a Partner Program and Channel Sales is not a straight line. If the world or your business changes suddenly, you may have to start over.

A solid value proposition automatically gives you an edge. Defining a value proposition is about letting people know clearly what they will get out of using your product or service. You can use some tools to define customer gains, pain points, and rank what is more important for them.

The next step is always to compare your value proposition with that of your competitors, what the market wants, and available alternatives. Once you have this data, you can define a solid base value proposition. It is a great tool to think deeply about customer jobs, gains they want and pains they have. When we understand the customer in detail we can better describe the value we provide in a way that the customer finds interesting.

If you want to learn more about value proposition design, check out my article titled How to Create a Strong Value Proposition for B2B. When you and your prospect customers understand the value proposition clearly, it will be much easier for your channel partners to pitch your product or service to people.

You need to understand the entire buyer journey for the customer and design a sales process. What steps are involved in the sales process? How many steps are there? What needs to be done at each stage of the sales process? All these questions need to be answered in detail. But when you create the sales process, it is important that it is from the customer's perspective. It should be customer-centric.

Read my article How to Design a Sales Process for B2B Sales that explains how you can create a better sales process and improve your sales result. Essentially, you need to understand what your competitors are doing. Try to get a deeper understanding of your competitors' partner programs.

What is their target audience? How have they organized it? What benefits are they offering customers? What kind of relationships are they developing with their channel partners? How well is their channel program turning out? What is their structure for channel sales and channel partners? This data will give you a lot of insights before you even begin offering your partner program and developing your channel sales.

You will know what is working and what is not. I have created a beautiful presentation you can use at meetings and share with colleagues. It is free to download.

The success of a partnership and channel sales lies in the value each party gets out of it. So your channel partnership largely depends on what value you are building for your customers. For that, you need to identify and define the type of partners that may be relevant to your business and choose the best among them. Do remember that a partner is any company or organization that can help you deliver more value to your customers. You now understand the kind of sales process you must design and what type of channel partners will be the most suitable for your business.

It is now important for you to understand what are the critical success factors that will enable your channel partners to close deals. What are these critical factors? Is it a proof of concept? Good support? Pricing structure? Or efficient project management?

Make sure to list all success factors and then rank them in order of importance. Create a plan for each success factor.

For example: If proof of concept is important, you must create a plan for how you will provide this to your channel partners. You will need to create instructions and processes and will also have to educate and train your partners on the subject. In short, you need to create a framework that will ensure your channel partners understand what you have defined as critical success factors and are equipped to achieve them.

Everything looks good. You have the right value proposition, sales process, channel partners and have defined critical success factors. But what will drive your channel partners to act on these success factors?