Event brings together channel professionals and executives from leading industries worldwide for networking and channel education
Thought provoking sessions will focus on industry trends, best practices and technology from leading industry analysts, channel chiefs and Impartner executives
SALT LAKE CITY – July 12, 2022 Impartner, After two years of hosting virtual events for channel chiefs and the channel industry, Impartner, the world’s most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, today announced the return of ImpartnerCON, the company’s annual customer summit, scheduled for Oct. 19-21, 2022, in Salt Lake City.
More details on ImpartnerCON 2022 are available here.
As one of the world’s largest vendor-led channel industry event, ImpartnerCON welcomes everyone back to beautiful Salt Lake City for four days of strategy, best practices, networking and fun. Channel chiefs and executives from companies of all sizes and industries will learn how to optimize their digital transformation and partner experience from presentations by industry analysts, channel luminaries and Impartner executives.
“While we’ve innovated with virtual events for the past two years, we are ready to bring all the channel chiefs together in-person to learn, collaborate and move partner experience forward,” said Brad Pace, Impartner COO. “The past two years have demonstrated the necessity and power of strong partner networks and the digital footprint needed to help them thrive. ImpartnerCON will help channel chiefs move at light speed toward an improved partner experience.”
Since the last ImpartnerCON, the company has released three new channel partner solutions, Impartner PartnerExperience PX, Advanced MDF and Custom Objects, which includes code-free data customization to incorporate unique business cases out-of-the-box. Executives will showcase these new technologies to attendees. Impartner PX has already won four awards in 2022 alone.
Impartner maintains its leadership in the industry, being named a G2 leader in PRM for the seventh consecutive quarter, selected as No. 1 and global winner on its Vendor Selection Matrix for Partner Management Automation (PMA) from analyst firm Research in Action and chosen as a leader in “The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020.”
To learn more about how Impartner helps corporations from the smallest to the largest enterprises like Honeywell, Qualtrics and Vertiv grow their channel revenue by an average of 32.3% in the first year of use alone, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>The post Five Ways to Make Your Channel Ecosystem Scale Ready appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Customers today expect more personalized experiences that are highly relevant to their needs. It’s no surprise then, that B2B marketers are seeing the channel as the golden path to market in 2022 – to sell their products, companies will have to work with partners who can cater to consumers’ hyperlocal needs.
In 2019, most companies had 75% of their revenues came through indirect sales. This share has only been increasing.
As a channel leader, you probably have goals for how much you want to scale in the coming months – you may even have stretch goals! – and if your growth targets are large enough, achieving them may seem like a huge challenge.
But if you can get your channel ecosystem scale ready, it can be a powerful revenue-generating machine for your company.
The good news is that you can leverage your partner ecosystem. So, how can you ensure your channel is ready to take advantage of the momentum from your partners?
Here are five key things you need to focus on if you want to scale your channel.
1. Set a foundation that prepares your channel for growth
When the business is small, it’s easy to get away with no documentation. Everyone can just talk to each other and get the information they need to go off and sell. But at a certain point, a company needs infrastructure and standard operating procedures in order to grow quickly and smoothly.
Imagine if you had 3,000 partners and only a thousand of them had contracts. What would happen if the person who brought on the contract-less partners left the company? Would the person taking over know that these partners exist? Are those contract-less partners free to do whatever they wanted with your products?
The lack of structure makes it additionally difficult to manage partners. And if you don’t have standard processes in place, handling each new issue that arises becomes extremely inefficient because the people affected wouldn’t know what’s expected of them, or who to seek help from. This can affect your compliance and audit processes at a later stage too.
This is why it’s so important to have documentation. Setting up a process is one thing, putting it down in writing and ensuring your team has access to it is another. It sounds simple – so simple, that this step is often forgotten – but can be difficult to enforce.
Starting with a strong foundation makes it easier for you to progress and make further plans for the channel.
2. Automate through-channel marketing
You may be handling one product or just a few but not your partners. They likely have hundreds of other products to sell – with limited time to do it. If you want them to sell your product, you have to make it simple and easy.
According to Forrester, the next stage in marketing is through-channel marketing automation (TCMA). However, only 50% of tech brands have implemented traditional, organic TCMA and most of them are not fully satisfied with the results.
This isn’t because there’s a problem with TCMA; it’s because the messaging, as well as the processes for developing and distributing this message aren’t simple enough.
Read more: Top 2 Reasons You Aren’t Reaping the Growth from TCMA – Here’s How to Get It Right
Rather than bogging your partners with having to interpret complex product messaging, you can use paid TCMA to create search and advertising campaigns that run for partners automatically. With centralized control, all paid through-channel marketing automation runs with a consistent brand and your partners benefit from hands-free advertising.
3. Plan your routes to market
This can be difficult to do, especially because there are different team members who may oversee different parts of the reselling process. It’s vital that you get everyone on the same page internally.
For example, you may want to OEM one of your products for another company – but as a channel leader, you’ve also got to think about how this might affect your other partners.
How will doing things this way affect your brand? Will this change the pricing model? Will it make it harder for other partners to sell to their customers? You need to ensure that by signing one deal, you’re not potentially undercutting another partner.
There’s a lot to think about and often, what may seem like the fastest route to revenue may not necessarily be the best option in the long run.
Although routes to market can evolve – you don’t have to make every decision immediately and can go back to the drawing board when needed – it’s still something you have to consider to get the most long-term value for your channel.
4. Use automation to manage partner experience
You’re likely selling your product in different markets worldwide, with different types of partners, who may have very different selling behaviors and practices. Consolidating and managing everything manually is time-consuming and ineffective for your channel program.
It can also be hard to stay consistent if everything is manual, because let’s face it, if there are multiple humans handling all the different processes, it’s going to be hard to standardize things.
The danger with too much flexibility is that your partners can become unsure about how things work and what’s expected of them. Process consistency helps create a better experience for your partners.
Find out more: Try Journey Builder to automate and curate each partner’s experience throughout their lifecycle
But what’s even more valuable is that by automating processes, you free up your channel teams so they can spend their time on higher value work like pushing through deals, helping partners find opportunities and more.
5. Set expectations and track accountability
If you want your channel ecosystem to appeal to partners, you need to communicate clearly with everyone involved like your executives, employees, partners, and vendors. Set clear expectations so your team members and partners know what’s expected of them, as well as what you and your executives will bring to the table in return.
Once these expectations are set – and if they have been spelled out clearly – you can hold the relevant parties, including yourself, accountable.
This could mean ensuring that your team is sending out consistent information and messaging, as well as delivering a positive experience to partners. At the same time, it also allows you to ensure that partners are doing what they are supposed to do.
Because you are tracking accountability, you can see when a partner is doing well. This allows you to celebrate their success and in doing so, incentivize them to be a part of your channel program.
Learn more: Use Program Compliance Manager to automatically track partner tiers and ensure accurate payments
Scaling your channel ecosystem should be easy
Starting with these five steps can get your channel ecosystem ready to scale, but it can be difficult to do it all without a platform for partner relationship management (PRM). PRM is the front door to channel ecosystems management and can make your channel program that much easier to scale.
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]]>The post What are Market Development Funds (MDFs) and How Can You Use Them to Strengthen Your Partner Program? appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Partner incentives are one of the key components in any partner program, and these can come in a range of forms. A common incentive that a vendor provides to its partner ecosystem are market development funds (MDFs).
What are market development funds?
These are marketing resources and other support that a channel makes available to its partners so they can increase awareness of and generate demand for their products.
Although MDFs are often used for marketing, that is not all they are good for. These funds can also be used for sales, events, online activation, product development, and more.
Considering its versatility, you might imagine that MDFs would be a useful addition to a channel manager’s arsenal – and they can be. However, a popular quote in the channel marketing space is that “70% of MDFs are never used.”
Top 2 challenges for running effective MDF programs
One of the biggest issues, that is most often cited by articles and research reports, is that MDFs frequently go unused. These funds pile up from year to year and end up being wasted, which leads to MDF programs getting a bad rap.
The other issue is that, even when MDFs are spent, it can be difficult to track return on investment. This is especially tricky when MDFs are used as a “bribe” simply to keep channel partners happy. When partners spend on things like customer entertainment – ball games, golf outings and so on – how would you track ROI on that expenditure?
Channel teams still face these challenges with MDF programs largely because it can be difficult to keep track of the entire process, especially if you are not using software that is able to put it all together. But when executed well, an MDF program can be a powerful addition to your channel.
How MDFs can strengthen your partner program
When fully utilized, MDFs can add considerable benefits to your partner program and help you increase revenue through your channel. Some of the things MDFs can enable include:
- Faster penetration into new markets, which gives you a competitive advantage.
- Better synergy with partners so you can leverage on each other to grow.
- Increased channel marketing capabilities that allows exponential growth.
Any of these benefits on their own is a boost for your channel, but when experienced all at once, the difference is astounding. Here are some MDF marketing strategies you can explore to improve the returns from your partner program.
#1: Use your MDFs to enter new markets faster
To expand sales opportunities, you might want to look into new audiences – in a different geography or business vertical – but this can be time-consuming and costly if it is a completely new market, and you are doing it all on your own.
Rather than build your brand and grow a new audience from scratch, you can leverage on your existing partners who are already servicing customers in those markets. Offering the right incentives to a strategically positioned partner can mean quicker revenue growth, even in an area that might be completely new to you.
It is a win-win for both you and your partner. You are able to gain a foothold into a new marketplace at lower costs and accelerate your channel sales, while your partner reaps additional rewards from their efforts.
#2: Develop an MDF program that improves partner ecosystem
One of the problems that partners often cite for MDF programs is that they lack actionable information. In our experience, one of the primary reasons that MDF programs fail is that they are too complex. Partners do not know what funds are available and how they can apply to use those funds. Or when they do qualify for reimbursements, they do not even know how to claim those funds.
This can make for a less than satisfying partner experience, which results in a missed opportunity for deeper engagement with your partners.
A well-designed MDF program can help you increase partner loyalty and build longer term relationships with your partners, allowing you to keep track of how they are performing and how to build on their strengths.
This, in turn, allows you to identify partners with potential for growth and further incentivize them to sell your products. Doing this helps you increase customer lifetime value and get better ROI on your customer acquisition costs.
#3: Put your MDFs towards increasing channel marketing capabilities
Rather than viewing MDFs as merely transactional or just as an incentive, you can use MDFs to increase marketing support to partners and thus, amplify the marketing capability of your channel.
Some of the reasons your partners may not be doing more marketing is because they lack the knowledge, resources, or time to develop new tactics for selling. Remember that you are likely not their only vendor, and they may also be selling a range of products from other providers. Making it easier for them and providing the funds they need to sell your product, can be a significant incentive.
This is where having a through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) solution can come in handy. As a vendor, you can provide templates, brand materials, and so on for partners to easily use in co-branded campaigns that they can use MDFs to run.
See how Xerox used MDFs and Impartner’s Google Ads for the Channel to increase leads.
Using your MDFs in this manner increases the value of your channel to partners. The more they continue to grow with you, the more likely they are to stay active within your partner program.
Rethinking MDF for marketing and channel sales
Customer needs and behaviors are changing, and your partners are evolving to meet those demands. Traditional uses of MDFs no longer generate the same value as before and in order to maintain a healthy partner ecosystem, how you use MDFs has to change as well.
Although the current perception is that MDFs are a waste, this does not have to be the case. In fact, MDFs can generate significant ROI for your channel when used strategically. Learn more about how you can easily manage your MDFs to increase the effectiveness of your channel.
Request a demo of Impartner PRM.
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]]>The post Partner Onboarding Best Practices for a Successful Channel Program appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Onboarding is one of the most important – but often overlooked – aspect of a partner program. Setting up the right process and tools according to partner onboarding best practices can help you quickly get new partners up to speed and start driving results.
What is partner onboarding?
Partner onboarding involves providing the necessary support and information to new partners so they can integrate smoothly into your partner program. The partner onboarding process can include setting up portal access, giving comprehensive product training, guiding partners through available resources, and more. But beyond allowing them to explore the program, this onboarding phase is also a key opportunity to initiate a relationship with your partner, guiding them towards enablement and profitability.
This is important because it not only allows you to set expectations for how you plan to work together, but also creates a better environment for attracting more partners, as well as retaining existing ones. Thus, taking advantage of this opportunity to engage with partners at the very start of the relationship can help increase channel marketing revenue at a faster rate.
If great partner onboarding can deliver benefits, the adverse is true as well. Having a poor – or no – partner onboarding process can be damaging to your business.
Side effects of a poor partner onboarding process
Depending on your business, signing on a new partner may require significant time and effort. Imagine spending all that resources and then having them stay inactive because there was no onboarding process in place.
What is worse is that this might create a bad first impression, or even lead to misunderstandings down the road, that might result in partners labelling your company as “difficult to work with.” If not managed, your business could come away with a less than stellar reputation among partners, and even potential partners.
All this leads to loss in sales opportunities and potential revenue, which means less growth through your channel. If you are unsure about whether your current partner onboarding is working, here are some best practices that you can use as a guide.
Best practices for onboarding new channel partners
There are a few things to consider when you are developing and implementing your partner onboarding process:
- Tailor the process to your partners’ needs. Not all partners are created equal, and they won’t all require the same level of onboarding. Customize the process to ensure that each partner receives the information and support they need to be successful.
- Keep it simple. Avoid overwhelming your partners with too much information at once. Keep the process streamlined and easy-to-follow, so they can get up to speed as quickly as possible.
- Provide support throughout the process. The onboarding process shouldn’t end when partners are successfully onboarded. Continue to provide support throughout the partnership in order to keep them up to speed, maintain engagement, and achieve success together.
Use these general guidelines to formulate your next steps in setting up your onboarding program. Although the process will be customized, there are three main areas that you can start with and build on accordingly:
1. Welcome package and setting expectations so each partner is clear on their role.
First, you’ll need to put together an onboarding package for your new partners. This should include everything they need to get started, from login information to the company’s Partner Policy Agreement.
It might be helpful at this stage to have partner personas. You can create these based on your specifications – geography, company size, vertical, etc. Ultimately, what you want to do is create an onboarding package that is simple to understand, meets their specific needs, and gets them ready to go as quickly as possible.
2. Provide training on and support for relevant tools and resources.
Next, you will need to set up a training program for your new partners. Again, this should be tailored to their needs and easily accessible so they can learn as they go. This is where having a learning platform – which you can easily update – can help smoothen the process.
Ideally, the first training you provide teaches your partners how to use your partner system to register deals, find the right assets, access co-branded marketing, request market development funds, and so on. Further trainings offered can cover product knowledge, ideal customer targeting, and other topics that will increase enablement.
Besides training, it is also vital that your partners have a support system they can rely on. This could be anything from a help desk to a 24/7 chatbot. The key thing here is to make sure your partners know who to contact when they need help and how to reach them.
3. Identify KPIs and share information on incentives so each partner knows how they will be rewarded when they hit sales goals.
Finally, it is important to communicate the benchmarks and incentives relevant to each partner. You may also want to customize these goals based on partner, so that more of your partners can meet targets and stay engaged within the program.
Delivering a superior partner experience is essential for a successful channel program. So, it is important that you have the ability to control the journey, but also adjust quickly when needed.
A good onboarding process allows you to get new partners up to speed quickly and effectively so they can start selling your products or services and contributing to your bottom line. It is a time-consuming process, but a necessary one.
It sets the tone for the entire partner journey and is a vital component in any channel partner ecosystem. The good news is that with the right partner relationship management (PRM) software, you can automate much of the process.
Find out how the Impartner PRM solution can help you get new partners up and running in no time, so you can focus on what’s really important – growing your business.
Request a demo of Impartner PRM.
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]]>The post Impartner Claims No. 1 Ranking in Mid-Market Partner Management in G2 Summer Reports appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Impartner achieves No. 1 ranking in three G2 categories for Partner Management; it is the 7th consecutive quarter the company has been ranked
Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience also receives Gold Globee® Award in the Technology Software category
SALT LAKE CITY – June 29, 2022 Impartner, the world’s most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, announced today that G2, the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace, awarded Impartner in four categories in its Summer 2022 Report: No.1 on the Mid-Market Partner Management Grid; No. 1 on the Mid-Market Results Index; No. 1 on the Mid-Market Relationship Index; and as a Leader on the TCMA Grid.
Impartner has been ranked as a leader for seven consecutive quarters.
“Our primary goal at Impartner is to drive revenue and significant results for companies and their channels, so when G2 users endorse our software to colleagues, we are extremely honored,” said Gary Sabin, VP of Product at Impartner. “We are proud to be G2 Leaders and are excited to continue delivering customer-favorite, partner-focused solutions.”
Companies achieve leader status by receiving positive reviews from verified business professionals compared to similar products in the category. A product must receive 10 or more reviews and five responses to each category-specific question for inclusion in the report. Impartner received 63 Reviews in Q2 and earned an average star rating of 4.6.
“Rankings on G2 reports are based on data provided to us by real software buyers,” said Sara Rossio, Chief Product Officer at G2. “Potential buyers know they can trust these insights when researching and selecting software because they’re rooted in vetted, verified and authentic reviews.”
The G2 award recognitions follow another prestigious award Impartner has won. In early June, Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience received a Gold Globee® in the Technology Software category in the 14th Annual 2022 Golden Bridge Business and Innovation Awards
The coveted annual Golden Bridge Awards program recognizes and honors the world’s best in products and services, innovations, case studies and successful deployments, customer satisfaction programs and more from every major industry in the world.
More than 100 judges from around the world representing a wide spectrum of industry experts participated in the judging process. The Golden Bridge Awards® are the world’s premier business awards program honoring achievements in every industry around the world.
See the complete list of 2022 winners here: https://globeeawards.com/golden-bridge-awards/winners/.
To learn more about how Impartner helps corporations from the smallest to the largest enterprises like Honeywell, Qualtrics and Vertiv grow their channel revenue by an average of 32.3% in the first year of use alone, click here.
About G2
G2 is the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace. More than 60 million people annually — including employees at all of the FORTUNE 500 — use G2 to make smarter software decisions based on authentic peer reviews. Thousands of software and services companies of all sizes partner with G2 to build their reputation, manage their software spend, and grow their business – including Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoom, and Adobe. To learn more about where you go for software, visit www.g2.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>The post Impartner PX Receives Third Award in 2022—Gold Stevie® Award Winner in 2022 American Business Awards® appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Judges compliment Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience for addressing an underserved market, helping businesses make data-driven decisions
SALT LAKE CITY – May 27, 2022 Impartner, the world’s most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, was named the winner of a Gold Stevie® Award in the Relationship Management Solution category in The 20th Annual American Business Awards®.Impartner is being honored for its Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience—a sleek, revolutionary PRM interface built from the ground up to meet the specialized needs of partners. Impartner PX puts the business enablement data partners need to manage their pipeline and grow their business front and center, eliminating the need to dig through marketing-driven websites to find information.
With Impartner PX, vendors can instantly configure partner experiences using Impartner PXStudio™, a robust suite of “opinionated” drag-and-drop, widget-based tools that capture best practices. The feature was tested in thousands of real-world settings in some of the most demanding industries, including high-tech, cyber security, telecom, manufacturing and more.
This is the third major award Impartner PX has received this year. Judges complimented Impartner PX for addressing an underserved market, helping businesses make data-driven decisions.
“Impartner is committed to creating the perfect experience that provides companies with a wider reach and access to more customers, unlocking dramatic bottom line growth,” said Gary Sabin, VP of Product at Impartner. “PX PartnerExperience, is a part of our exciting innovation strategy focused on driving revenue and significant results for companies and their channels. Winning a Gold Stevie along with other industry awards validates that mission and we couldn’t be more honored to be recognized for our customer-focused efforts.”
This win comes on the heels of the launch of new, soon-to-be-award-winning solutions. Impartner PRO Package expands capabilities focused on automation and scalability for mid-market companies. The PRO package allows companies and their partners to interact and transact with custom data without requiring coding to integrate it into their PRM.
The enhanced PRO solution includes MDF Complete, the first pure-play PRM end-to-end solution to manage Marketing Development Funds (MDF) funds from fund allocation to processing of claim reimbursements.
Impartner customers, who range from SMBs to Fortune 50 across multiple verticals, see tremendous value from Impartner’s platform, including an average of 32% growth in channel revenue and a 29% reduction in administrative costs in the first year of use. 78% of Impartner’s customers say they have a competitive advantage and 77% report ROI payback in less than 18 months.
The American Business Awards are the premier business awards program in the USA. All organizations operating in the U.S.A. are eligible to submit nominations—public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small.
More than 3,700 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted this year for consideration in a wide range of categories. More than 230 professionals worldwide participated in the judging process to select this year’s Stevie Award winners.The awards will be presented to winners at a gala ceremony at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York on Monday, June 13. Details about The American Business Awards and the list of 2022 Stevie winners are available at www.StevieAwards.com/ABA.
To learn more about how Impartner helps corporations from the smallest to the largest enterprises like Honeywell, Qualtrics and Vertiv grow their channel revenue by an average of 32.3% in the first year of use alone, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>The post Impartner Does It Again: Three New Badges for G2 Spring ’22 appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>We’ve done it yet again! Impartner has been awarded in three categories in the G2 spring 2022 report: Leader in Partner Management; Leader in Partner Management for Mid-Market; and Users Most Likely to Recommend for Mid-Market. Not only that, Impartner has been ranked as a leader for the sixth consecutive quarter – AND users love us! Their words, not ours.
Why is this awesome? Great question, we’re glad you asked.
G2 is the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace. More than 60 million techies a year use G2 to make smarter software decisions based on authentic, unbiased peer reviews. They provide quarterly reports to identify top performers in various categories – and we’re truly proud to be one of them.
We’re absolutely elated to receive recognition yet again in the G2 reports and the incredible customer support is what drives everything we do here at Impartner.
The “Users Love Us” badge is awarded to any company that’s received 20 reviews or more with an average star rating of 4.0 or above.
” The biggest compliment a user can give is that they endorse our software to colleagues, and we’re most proud that we are among the products that users are most likely to recommend. “
—Kerry Desberg, Chief Marketing Officer
To recap, G2’s Spring 2022 Report included Imparter as:
- Leader the Mid-Market Grid for Partner Management
- Leader in the Overall Grid Report for Partner Management
- Users Most Likely to Recommend for Mid-Market
“Top Notch PRM,” “True Partners at Impartner,” “Overall amazing platform with the best team in the business!” These are just some of the reviews that made us blush. It’s an honor to achieve these rankings as they reflect the strengths of our incredible team and the powerful tools we’ve built to transform the indirect channel into our clients’ most strategic asset.
The G2 Spring Report mirrors our ongoing focus to be the leading channel management platform worldwide and follows additional notable awards including being named the No. 1 and global winner on the Vendor Selection Matrix for Partner Management Automation (PMA) from analyst firm Research in Action and is already a leader in “The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020.”
We’d like to extend a heartfelt thank you to our Impartner customers – brands, distributors, resellers – you know who you are. We appreciate your trust and support.
Know a way we can improve for you? We’d love to hear it.
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]]>New PRO package lets companies automate channel management to incorporate unique business use cases out-of-the-box
Nearly every company has a ‘special snowflake’ process that is unique to them: Impartner says, “No problem” and incorporates without code
Launch also includes release of groundbreaking, end-to-end MDF Complete – the first pure-play PRM solution with full budgeting and payments functionality
SALT LAKE CITY – March 31, 2022 Impartner, the world’s most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, today announced launch of expanded capabilities focused on automation and scalability for mid-market companies, allowing them and their partners to interact and transact with custom data without requiring coding to integrate it into their PRM. Also launching with Impartner’s enhanced PRO solution with code-free customization is the company’s new MDF Complete, the first pure-play PRM end-to-end solution to manage Marketing Development Funds (MDF) funds from fund allocation to processing of claim reimbursements.
“Without question, everyone wants a turn-key out of the box SaaS solution that can meet the bulk of their needs,” said Impartner VP of Product Gary Sabin. “But the reality is, especially with established mid-sized companies, there is a set of data that is unique to how that company manages their channel, and until now, it can be expensive and slow to code systems to incorporate those custom needs. This regularly delays the digital transformation everyone needs to get through urgently to truly compete in today’s market. We couldn’t be more excited to bring this agility and nimbleness to our solution and give mid-sized companies the automation octane they need to accelerate their channel.”
The new MDF Complete solution is included in the Impartner PRO offering, with payments as an optional feature for those customers without an existing payment solution.
“The ‘70% of MDF is never used’ statistic has been in the market for ages, and it’s driven in part by the difficulty in managing current solutions, most of which require tapping into a yet another payment solution,” says Sabin. “MDF Complete solves for that, allowing channel pros to budget by partner or geography and pay them within the same solution.”
Impartner’s full PRO offering includes.
- Code-free data customization to incorporate unique business cases out-of-the-box
- MDF Complete
- Availability for use with Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience — a sleek, revolutionary PRM interface built from the ground up for partners.
- The perfect mix of Impartner solutions for mid-size companies focused on scaling – Guided Implementation, Segmentation, Click-To-Agree Management, Multiple Language Support, Content Management System, Reporting and Insights, Partner Onboarding Workflows, Pipeline Management, Asset Library, Co-Branded Collateral, Training and Certification Management, Journey Builder and Program Compliance Manager.
Impartner’s new MDF Complete solution includes:
- Region and partner-based budget allocation
- MDF and claim management
- Multistep finance approval
- Reimbursement Processing (Optional, for customers without an existing payment solution)
News of these innovations follow a number of announcements from the company including that it has been named a G2 leader in PRM for the sixth consecutive quarter and has won a Gold Stevie and Big Innovation Award for its new Impartner PX Partner Experience. Impartner is the No. 1 and global winner on its Vendor Selection Matrix for Partner Management Automation (PMA) from analyst firm Research in Action and a leader in “The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020.”
To learn more about how Impartner helps corporations from the smallest to the largest enterprises like Honeywell, Qualtrics and Vertiv grow their channel revenue an average of 32.3% in the first year of use alone, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
The post Impartner Accelerates Digital Transformation for Mid-Size Companies appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Impartner receives G2 badges: Leader in Partner Management; Mid-Market Leader in Partner Management; and Users Most Likely to Recommend for Mid-Market.
SALT LAKE CITY – March 29, 2022
Impartner, the global pure-play leader in SaaS-based channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM), today announced that G2, the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace, has awarded Impartner solutions in three categories in its spring 2022 report: Leader in Partner Management; Leader in Partner Management for Mid-Market; and Users Most Likely to Recommend for Mid-Market. Impartner has been ranked as a leader for six consecutive quarters.
G2 recognitions are based on responses of real uses for each of segment featured in the G2 review form. Companies achieve leader status by receiving positive reviews from verified users compared to similar products in the category. For inclusion in the report, a product must have received 10 or more reviews.
“The biggest compliment a user can give is that they endorse our software to colleagues, and we’re most proud that we are among the products that users are most likely to recommend,” said Impartner CMO Kerry Desberg.
Recently, Impartner was named the No. 1 and global winner on its Vendor Selection Matrix for Partner Management Automation (PMA) from analyst firm Research in Action and is already a leader in “The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020.”
Impartner also recently won a Gold Stevie® Award in the Best Relationship Management Solution in the 16th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service and was named a winner in the 2022 BIG Innovation Awards presented by the Business Intelligence Group.
“Rankings on G2 reports are based on data provided to us by real software buyers,” said Sara Rossio, Chief Product Officer at G2. “Potential buyers know they can trust these insights when researching and selecting software because they’re rooted in vetted, verified, and authentic reviews.”
To learn more about how Impartner helps corporations from the smallest to the largest enterprises like Honeywell, Qualtrics and Vertiv grow their channel revenue an average of 32.3% in the first year of use alone, click here.
About G2
G2 is the world’s largest and most trusted software marketplace. More than 60 million people annually — including employees at all of the FORTUNE 500 — use G2 to make smarter software decisions based on authentic peer reviews. Thousands of software and services companies of all sizes partner with G2 to build their reputation, manage their software spend, and grow their business – including Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoom, and Adobe. To learn more about where you go for software, visit www.g2.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>The post Top 2 Reasons You Aren’t Reaping the Growth from TCMA – Here’s How to Get It Right appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Are you feeling like your through-channel-marketing efforts aren’t delivering the results you want from your investments?
The ability to market through your partners is a remarkable hidden power, and when done well, through-channel-marketing or through-partner-marketing can result in incredible growth. In fact, partner-provided leads are the next best thing to referrals in terms of close rates. Unfortunately, organizations that reap the full benefits of through-partner marketing are few and far between.
According to Forrester, only 50% of tech brands have implemented traditional, organic TCMA. Of that 50%, only 17% are fully satisfied that they are getting the most from the systems. Most end up being held back by two major roadblocks:
- More often than not, partners are reluctant to adopt (and actually use) through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) solutions.
- The role of traditional TCMA is not lead generation, although this is the promise made by many TCMA suppliers. So, often, partners are left dissatisfied with the number of leads generated.
These top challenges are commonly faced by many channel programs and not necessarily solved with traditional TCMA tools. More on these challenges and the way to solve them through the advanced TCMA solutions available today.
Challenge #1: Traditional TCMA = Too much to handle
As we know, traditional TCMA tech is nothing new. It promises the world in driving partner-led brand awareness and demand while accelerating channel lead generation and pipeline through automation. And many have made the claim that they can do it and deliver results.
Think about it, in the TCMA space most know, there’s email, social, branded graphics for ads; it can get complex quickly. And if you provide all those wonderful tools all at once, it becomes overwhelming, even for the most sophisticated marketer. Then think about how many brands your channel partners are working with.
According to Impartner’s director of sales engineering Robb Franks, in one of our Lessons from the Edge sessions, many brands turn on through-channel-marketing automation for their partners and simply wish their partners well. To no surprise, this strategy leads to an always-fail outcome – no matter how good the tech is.
So, what’s the deal? How are leading brands and distributors like Xerox, HP, and TD SYNNEX, among others finding success with TCMA?
Before we answer, we need to lay out what they aren’t doing and why.
Why Salesforce is not the winning solution to a successful TCMA strategy
In evaluating Salesforce Communities to power through-channel marketing efforts at Mojo Networks director of global channels Brian Thomas said, “Thanks, but no thanks,” for very compelling reasons.
” Salesforce Communities wasn’t giving us the visibility that we needed at all; the manageability was a complete mess; it wouldn’t be flexible to our needs at the time from a channel perspective. Although functional with our current CRM, it wasn’t functional long term from a scalability perspective for our partner base. We needed to build a scalable channel, with high visibility, because if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. “
—Brian Thomas, Director of Global Channels, Mojo Networks
Interesting considering Salesforce is so instrumental to many tech stacks. You use Salesforce CRM to track interactions, improve sales processes, and bring sense to the traditional chaos of sales and marketing. The same goes for Salesforce Communities, which you may use as a makeshift PRM. But neither tool is effective for helping you increase marketing in coordination with your channel partners. What’s missing?
- Pure-play TCMA
Salesforce Communities doesn’t offer a pure-play TCMA solution. That means you’d have to do it through your software partnerships and complex, custom-built solutions that aren’t fully handled by Salesforce. - Automation
TCMA through Salesforce Communities is a manual process. 85% of your long tail channel partners won’t use tools manually. Granted, you can host content, and share it with your partners – but you can’t push it out on behalf of your partners, which advanced TCMA enables you to do. - A seamless partner experience
Introducing a third-party solution into your Salesforce experience creates confusion and tech friction for your partners. It’s difficult to adopt, not to mention there’s no guarantee that your partners are getting what they need when they need it. 20% or more of partners are never reached with “push-content-out” automation. Not exactly ideal for the partner experience now, is it?
Robust, flexible, and powerful, Salesforce is a mighty giant that enables many companies to grow and continue to scale at the pace of their business. Undoubtedly, Salesforce CRM and Salesforce Communities are valuable tools to many organizational areas, however, to achieve a leading infrastructure that supports a fast-growing partner ecosystem, customers like Splunk are combining the strengths of Impartner PRM and Salesforce – and seeing phenomenal growth in their partner logins and significant improvement in their scalability, efficiencies, and partner satisfaction.
But the ability to scale while offering a smooth partner experience is just part of the equation, particularly when it comes to dealing with small and mid-sized (SMB) resellers.
Challenge #2: Traditional TCMA ends at organic
Historically, traditional TCMA has been positioned as the solution to increase brand awareness and lead generation. While possible to an extent, the ability to greatly impact the top of the partner funnel with traditional TCMA is limited to organic efforts. In fact, traditional TCMA is more valuable when leads are already in the funnel. It is essentially a powerful tool for lead nurture.
For example, a partner that is using traditional TCMA to push out branded content across social and to their existing email database is hitting mostly known prospects through these efforts. They are essentially nurturing existing soft leads that came in through events, networking, and organic social following growth, among other organic avenues. Without a doubt, these soft leads need to be nurtured with traditional TCMA tactics to move through the funnel to convert. However, traditional TCMA alone doesn’t expand reach to new, unknown prospects looking for exactly what a partner is offering.
Now imagine being able to tap into the potential of unknown new prospects. That’s where paid media TCMA comes in. Paid media TCMA is focused on real, new lead generation and getting those deals in – through precise targeting, to an intent-driven audience. Combining traditional organic TCMA with paid media TCMA opens that avenue. You’ve got paid media TCMA supplying the reach, and traditional organic TCMA supplying the nurture. It’s a win-win.
Impartner Paid Media TCMA success story
SMB resellers make up 90% of the tech channel market, yet they’ve traditionally been underserved by big corporate brands. This is largely driven by the fact that smaller resellers rarely have the marketing resources required to work with one big brand, let alone multiple brands, or juggle multiple marketing programs. Distribution to these resellers, too, is a big challenge, as distributors typically tend to lag a little on the marketing side, especially digitally.
With an average of just 8 to 10 employees, these resellers don’t have the time, bandwidth, or marketing expertise to properly execute campaigns. You’ve also got to consider that many of them don’t even have some of the basic social channels that are crucial to driving demand and sales. Reality bites, but banking on organic partner marketing efforts isn’t going to get your message very far.
To overcome this challenge, our partner AscendX Digital created an innovative multi-vendor model that enables corporate brands, distributors, and resellers to automate their channel activities. By using Impartner’s TCMA solution, AscendX can offer resellers a single centralized location to learn about the program, embed a single set of code on their sites, and a simple opt-in to take part.
Using automation, the model/platform takes the content provided by the big brands, syndicates it not only on the resellers’ websites but through their social channels, delivering a level of brand awareness and engagement in the market they never would have dreamed of achieving without it. And they barely have to lift a finger!
As a result, AscendX created a differentiated channel marketing service with automated, scalable TCMA that helps:
- Distributors bring a suite of corporate brands to the resellers, so they have one place to go for the content and for the marketing programs.
- End the need for resellers to manage multiple marketing and demand gen programs with a set-it and forget-it model.
- Cut the need for in-house marketing resources.
- Big brands expand their marketing reach (through distributors) to thousands of resellers.
- Resellers leverage the marketing investments big brands have made.
- Automate content on resellers’ social channels and increase follower growth (even if they don’t have these channels prior).
- Resellers elevate their own digital presence on their websites and social media while generating thousands of impressions and hundreds of new customer website visits monthly.
Getting TCMA right with advanced marketing automation
Through-channel-marketing automation provided by Impartner meets the needs of channel program leaders looking to get started and those looking to scale rapidly.
Imagine handing over some automation to your partners, and within hours having a syndicated site set up, clicking just a few buttons, launching a social campaign to engage with your existing followers, and working on turning them into sales opportunities that same week. Yes, it’s that and more.
Impartner TCMA enables you to:
- Expand your top of funnel with paid Google Ads for the Channel to push relevant search traffic – hot prospects – directly to your local channel partner.
- Experience clean lead generation that allows you to get leads directly to your partners and not be in the messy middle.
- Scale seamlessly by using built-in automations and “out-of-the-box” campaigns that make it just as easy to serve one partner as it is to serve thousands.
- Ensure brand compliance through centralized management of all through-channel assets to ensure every partner remains in tune with your marketing.
- Own the right message, at the right time, with unique and demand-driven content that’s smart enough to send users to the right place on your partner’s website.
- Optimize efforts with access to lead attribution insights that show the full ROI view, plus top lead generating partners and content.
- Increase efficiencies with critical integrations to necessary business systems, like Salesforce, Zoho, and HubSpot, that matter to provide operational efficiencies and improved visibility between program leaders and partners.
By considering your channel tech stack carefully – like a PRM tool that integrates seamlessly with your CRM tool, and further integrates with an advanced TCMA Demand Generation Platform – you can say goodbye to underutilized TCMA solutions and organic partner marketing efforts that fall short and shut the door on inefficient paid partner marketing with Google Ads.
Impartner’s TCMA makes it easier, more automated, and more scalable for you to do the work for your partners. Not only do you have full, automated control of your brand from a centralized location as you syndicate your dynamic co-branded microsites, but you’re also driving traffic to these sites via email, social, and paid media campaigns that you’re launching through your partners – all they have to do is opt in and see quality leads and deals flow in.
(Possibly the best part?) The advanced capability of adding Google Ads for the Channel to your TCMA package guarantees that the right message, branded as intended, hits the right market, for the right partner, at the right time through automated digital advertising – without any partner effort.
You’ll finally be able to tap into that extra market reach the long tail of your channel provides, with the added benefit of analytics to help you make data-driven decisions that optimize the demand your partners generate.
It’s time you expanded your marketing reach and increased the ROI on your through-channel marketing investments. Our expert team is ready to help you do so at the speed you need. You could be up and running in as little as 14 days! Request a demo to get started.
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]]>The post Impartner Wins Gold Stevie® Award for Innovation in Partner Experience appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>The award recognizes Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience – a sleek, revolutionary PRM interface built from the ground up to meet the specialized needs of partners
Salt Lake City – March 15, 2022
Impartner, the global pure-play leader in SaaS-based channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM), today announced that Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience won a Gold Stevie® Award in the Best Relationship Management Solution category in the 16th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.
Impartner was recognized for developing innovative partner experiences that save partners time while powering sophisticated and scalable channel programs. One judge commended Impartner for providing straightforward, actionable information, “A new product that helps stakeholders to keep abreast with key issues without going in circles is a welcome move. Impartner has done this well with its Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience – a sleek, revolutionary PRM interface built from the ground up to meet the specialized needs of partners.”
Other judges noted how Impartner helps companies improve their tech stack: Impartner PX helps “organizations everywhere improve their competitiveness through tech stack modernization;” And one judge noted how it solves channel partner problems, “Excellent new product that serves companies in the sector of channel technology.”
Impartner PX puts the business enablement data partners need to manage their pipeline and grow their business, eliminating the need to dig through marketing-driven websites to find information. With Impartner PX, vendors can instantly configure partner experiences using Impartner PXStudio™, a robust suite of “opinionated” drag-and-drop, widget-based tools that capture best practices honed in thousands of real-world settings in some of the most demanding industries, including high-tech, cyber security, telecom, manufacturing and more.
“People want to partner with businesses and vendors that are on the leading edge, and Impartner PX, with its modern, fresh look and intuitive design helps vendors prioritize information partners want most so they can avoid digging through layers of website content,” said Impartner Vice President of Product Gary Sabin. “This is wonderful recognition of the value this innovation brings to our customers,” said Sabin, noting that Impartner PX is 100 percent focused on simplifying the creation of partner experiences that are a strategic competitive advantage for vendors wanting to attract, retain and optimize the best parts and do so with the quickest possible time to value.
More than 2,300 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry, in 51 nations, were considered in this year’s competition. Winners were determined by the average scores of more than 150 professionals worldwide on eight specialized judging committees. Winners will be recognized during a virtual awards ceremony on May 11. Details about the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service and the list of Stevie winners in all categories are available at StevieAwards.com/Sales.
“The nominations we received for the 2022 competition illustrate that business development, customer service, and sales professionals worldwide, in all sorts of organizations, have continued to innovate, thrive, and meet customer expectations during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Stevie Awards president Maggie Gallagher Miller. “The judges have recognized and rewarded their achievements, and we join them in applauding this year’s winners for their continued success. We look forward to recognizing them on May 11.”
To learn more about how Impartner helps corporations from the smallest to the largest enterprises like Honeywell, Qualtrics and Vertiv grow their channel revenue an average of 32.3% in the first year of use alone, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>The post Do It Like Xerox: Run Fully Automated, Co-Branded Google Ad Campaigns with Your Channel Partners (at Scale!) appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Get your Google Ads campaign strategy ready to push traffic directly to your local channel partners
The B2B customer journey has shifted – a lot. A whopping 75% of the customer research journey takes place online before reaching out to a supplier. Bearing in mind that 46% of all searches on Google are seeking local information and that 97% of search engine users searched online to find a local business, you’ve got every reason to be digitally present and make sure that the right information is available at the right place, at the right time.
Now, this isn’t new information. The digital revolution has made an enormous impact on how we do business, and we’re seeing lots of brands and vendors investing heavily in digital advertising. They’ve adopted digital marketing; they know how to engage with their customers – but what about the channel partners (like resellers) these organizations often work with?
For leading channel management teams like those at Xerox, next-generation through-channel marketing automation became the beacon in their reseller digital strategy. In teaming up with Impartner, Xerox managed to develop, launch, and manage a global digital channel marketing program that drove record success. Their approach, steps, and insights are all shared here.
Narrow the gap between your channel partner success and digital marketing goals
Channel partners are typically small and midsize businesses (SMBs), but they generate a large percentage of revenue for vendors and brands. Yet most of the time, they’re still struggling to get up to speed with digital. They’re small; with an average of 8 to 10 employees, they don’t have the time or resources to work on digital marketing, and often work with multiple brands.
The numbers don’t lie – research shows that resellers use less than 10% of their market development funds (MDF) and co-op funds on digital (email campaigns, webinars, digital ads). Another 50% is left unspent. It just goes to show that:
- Resellers may not know how to get their digital engine running.
- Resellers don’t have the time and resources to start other tactics.
- They could be helped with tools that enable digital tactics – without the need to invest too much of their time and resources.
Imagine working with 300 partners in one country. Expecting them to set up Google Ad campaigns for you is out of the question. It requires knowledge and skills not all your partners have. It’s complex, it can be expensive, and the results may be disappointing at best. But setting up a landing page, let alone an ad campaign for each of your 300 partners? That’s not feasible.
To solve this problem, Impartner and Google have developed a revolutionary, one-of-a-kind TCMA solution that does just that. Google Ads for the Channel helps channel marketers run fully automated, co-branded Google Ad campaigns with their partners at scale.
There’s a reason why Jay McBain (Principal Analyst, Forrester) called Google Ads for the Channel ‘the crown jewel’ of Impartner’s TCMA solutions. It’s huge on so many levels, and we’ll reveal why here.
How TCMA powers scalable digital marketing for Xerox channel partners
Xerox wanted to enhance new partner prospect engagement via digital avenues. With ‘search’ being the top digital source for new sales, they knew Google Ads was the way to go. The challenge they faced: getting all their channel partners in on this and enabling them to be digitally present where today’s buyer is buying. They wanted to raise awareness of the Xerox brand and offerings with the lucrative SMB market, which is under-penetrated.
On top of that, they wanted to be a lead generation vehicle for their partners, enabling them – with no efforts, at no cost – to receive leads (a critical cornerstone of the Xerox value proposition). By implementing the Google Ads for the Channel solution, Xerox can centrally create and implement local Google Ads campaigns for all their channel partners – and optimize them at scale. This eliminates the need to manually build, manage, and optimize ad campaigns for each partner individually, as the solution automates the process.
Here’s a step-by-step on the process:
Step 1: Channel partners subscribe to the platform
- Partners simply need to provide their logos and contact details once.
Step 2: Configure a landing page
- Xerox provides and controls the content on the landing page. These landing pages are automatically co-branded with the reseller’s logo and contact details.
Step 3: Configure Google Ads
- Xerox creates a campaign and selects the participating partners. The solution automatically creates accounts and co-branded campaigns for each partner via API.
Step 4: Embed landing page
- Partners embed a script for the landing page on their own website.
Step 5: Activate campaign
- Working with radius, postal code, or state targeting, Xerox can choose where their partner’s ads are shown. When a customer clicks on a partner Ad, they will be automatically redirected to the co-branded partner landing page.
Step 6: Analyze and optimize
- With extensive reporting, Xerox can see how their partners are performing, the number of leads, clicks, impressions, etc. They also receive aggregated data that enables them to optimize accounts at scale.
Xerox kicked off the Google Ads adventure in pilot mode, with just 11 EMEA partners, and the goal of engaging the local online audience to create and increase traffic, understanding the behavior of their audience, and seeing how they could make this program successful.
They then decided to engage more countries with the same offerings, with the same amount of budget per partner, focused on finding the best strategy to increase the number of leads and gain the right position to promote the Google Ads for the Channel program so that partners would pay more attention to it. From this, they discovered the importance of putting in place a powerful lead management process to measure the ROI. That’s where Impartner’s Lead Management module plays a critical role in delivering that capability.
Over the course of the program, they identified that more than 60% of leads were phone calls and that being in the position to track these phone calls was critical. Not only did they want to deliver as many leads as possible to their partners, but they also wanted to enable them to convert them.
Today, a selected 100 of Xerox’s partners benefit from the support of Impartner to implement Xerox co-branded assets, as well as Impartner’s expertise to accelerate the results by optimizing campaign settings. In that way, Xerox can make sure campaigns are set up as best as possible to deliver the highest level of results while aligning to the overall corporate campaign. This enables Xerox to be in control of the whole campaign landscape, and not compete against each other, but instead work together as a team to benefit on both the corporate and the local level.
This allows Xerox to create new interactions through impressions and clicks, identify new contacts for partners, generate business opportunities through leads, and measure the number of closed won deals the campaigns have delivered on a local level. They also enable their partners to pursue the conversation with prospects by implementing automated nurture campaigns through the tool, with content that delivers higher results.
To drive the performance of this program very closely, Xerox has implemented monthly reviews with each country involved.
6 ways Google Ads for the Channel has helped Xerox reach its digital goals
- Even though Xerox stuck to the same media budget per partner per month from the get-go, Google Ads has become Xerox’s first source of leads across all geographies and all partners and has seen a huge acceleration in lead generation.
- From 2020 to 2021, the number of leads sent to partners had doubled, thanks to the ability to track phone calls, which also allows their partners to call prospects back.
- 15% of total leads are related to corporate website retargeting efforts.
- Cost per lead has decreased by 75% since the start of the program.
- 25% of Google Ads leads are being converted by channel partners themselves into opportunities.
- The 2021 YTD4 pipeline is growing, having doubled from 2020 to 2021.
” More and more partners want to expand their digital coverage, and they need guidance. The COVID situation has changed a lot of things among our partners, they do pay attention now to digital tactics, and they want to accelerate on Google Ads, so bringing them this unique value is key. For us, for them. “
—Isabelle Pampelune, Global Partner Marketing Optimization Manager, Xerox
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]]>The post How PRM Is Helping Rectangle Health Transform the Competitive Healthcare Payments Industry appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Over the last several years, healthcare has been considered one of the most difficult industries to make payments in. Today, challenges around price transparency and payment options continue to directly affect transactions (and the bottom-line) across medical practices, healthcare organizations, and insurance groups. As a result, there’s a domino effect that equates to fewer appointments, longer receivable cycles, and ultimately an unfortunate inability to provide quality treatment.
To solve these challenges, healthcare systems and practices are on the hunt for fast, data–rich products and services that can:
- Solve their billing and administrative woes
- Make sure doctors get paid on time for services rendered
- Provide a smooth and seamless payment experience for patients
- Improve staff efficiency
- Increase revenue
Tackling the issues of payment processing at scale?
But this is no small task. So, how did one leading healthcare technology company, Rectangle Health, solve these problems? They tackled the issues of payment processing at scale and helped free up more time for providers by creating a program called Practice Management Bridge®. This program uses cutting-edge tech solutions to make the connection between healthcare payments and an improved patient experience easier. It boosts office efficiency, drives revenue for healthcare providers, and offers numerous convenient, contactless payment options for patients.
Now the company just needed a way to get the ‘Bridge’ service into every medical and dental practice across the United States. And they wanted to go big!
Because Rectangle Health works within a wide variety of healthcare fields, including dentistry, medical, and specialty practices, the company recognized that forming partnerships would help them achieve the nationwide reach they were looking for. The challenge? Getting their partners to understand the value ‘Bridge’ brings and enabling them to amplify core messaging efficiently and accurately. At the same time, they wanted to create interest and excitement among their partners – to inspire them to work toward a collective goal.
Rectangle Health needed to accelerate its partner channel – quickly, efficiently, and sustainably. The company had just started bringing in some partner business and accelerating their partner channel. They needed something that would help their partners record lead opportunities, access data that would drive results, and get them excited about entering deals and seeing where those deals go.
Partner Relationship Management answers the call, and overcomes the roadblocks
Rectangle Health quickly realized the value a Partner Relationship Management (PRM) platform could offer in helping to automate partner activities, and that’s why they chose Impartner PRM. But it also needed to fit their approach, goals, and roadmap, and be functional, easy to navigate, flexible, customizable, and seamlessly integrates into other platforms (like Salesforce). And most of all, they needed a tech partner that would take the time to understand their needs and business – and their biggest roadblocks.
Roadblock #1: Executive buy-in and stakeholder alignment
From an internal standpoint, company-wide alignment is critically important, especially for large digital transformation initiatives (like Partner Relationship Management). Without it, strategies are effectively worthless. Impartner delivered immense value for Rectangle Health on this front in two significant ways:
- By helping Rectangle Health’s Vice President of Digital Operations Joe Rocchio position their partner portal in a way that Executives could understand where the company could go with PRM and what the result would be.
- Impartner’s business development team helped align with existing partners/stakeholders to tailor the portal to their specific needs.
Roadblock #2: Partner experience
If there’s one thing healthcare providers lack, it’s time. They don’t have the capacity to keep an eye out for emails, brand and solution updates, or manually upload content. Rectangle Health needed to make it easy for their partners to engage and do business with them; and provide them with the right tools, data, transparency, and incentives to support them in becoming champions for ‘Bridge.’
Impartner’s PRM solution allows Rectangle Health to manage, optimize, accelerate, and automate every aspect of their channel from a single centralized location (enabling great partner performance). That means:
- Accelerating partner onboarding with automated processes for quicker paths to revenue.
- Giving partners easy access to up-to-date marketing and education materials that they can then use to amplify the message.
- Energizing partners with an easy-to-use interface, and a personalized partner experience.
- Giving partners an easy way to record lead opportunities opportunities and enter and manage deals
- Giving partners access to data that incentivizes and drives results.
But Rectangle Health also wanted to extend their automation capabilities beyond just core PRM. For partnerships to work, for them to be engaged enough to want to amplify a solution or product’s message, the partner experience must come first. It’s got to be easy. It’s got to be efficient. And it’s got to be incentivized. What will excite a partner is seeing the growth of the leads and opportunities they’re bringing into the business. And showing that information in a creative and consumable way, particularly to leadership.
As a result, Rectangle Health also deployed Impartner’s Intel Plus tool and customized it to their partners’ needs to offer a visual representation of where growth is happening and the challenges.
What results have Rectangle Health achieved with Impartner PRM?
The company now has the most advanced PRM technology available. They have organizational alignment, and clear objectives and strategies. And through collaboration and a deep understanding of Rectangle Health’s business and their needs, Impartner has delivered a partner automation solution that enabled Rectangle Health to drive growth, improve operational efficiencies, and scale more quickly. They said it best:
” I’m proud to say that Impartner has been a true partner to us, continues to check in to make sure we’re meeting the needs of our partners and growing and gaining efficiencies, and I look forward to seeing what comes next. “
—Joe Rocchio, Vice President of Digital Operations, Rectangle Health
With the help of Impartner, Rectangle Health is poised now more than ever to expand its footprint as a market leader in patient healthcare payments.
Interested in hearing the entire discussion with Rectangle Health? Check out the Lessons from the Edge podinar here. Or learn more about Impartner PRM here.
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]]>The post Cybersecurity and the Partner Experience: What You Need to Know appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Collaboration is key in the cybersecurity space. It’s critical that organizations work in concert with vendors and the channel to deliver the most unified and fortified response possible to adversarial threats. To give this some context, a recent ESG survey showed that cloud and cybersecurity were leading the corporate spending charge in 2021. Specifically related to cybersecurity, ESG found that the top two spending areas were around cloud infrastructure security and cloud application security, but these organizations also face massive readiness gaps in these two areas. Essentially organizations are spending a ton of money on cybersecurity but struggling to find the talent needed to deploy and manage it.
As a result, services are playing an increasingly important role in helping to closing the skills gap associated with cybersecurity readiness (and the cloud). Customers either need native services from vendors or they need to leverage managed service providers. This is creating significant opportunities for vendors to invest in partner ecosystems that can offer managed services for customers. And as this shift to fill the skills gap continues, the services value needs to be conveyed at every step of the sales cycle. A vendor may have a qualified prospect for a product, but because of the skills gap, that customer may not be able to consume it. This is where partners and managed services become critical to sales success.
What should vendors be doing to create more sales opportunities with partners?
- ESG’s research points out that one areas of focus should be around education. It’s crucial that vendors engage with the market through thought leadership to help them better understand some of the megatrends happening and how to create a roadmap that can win them more business.
- The cybersecurity market is fragmented and confusing, and according to ESG, these educational topic areas of interest include vendor consolidation, the role of cybersecurity platforms in remote work (like SASE and XRD), retooling of cybersecurity programs for zero trust, and the central role of services.
Vendors that can convey an understanding of these topic areas, show customer success associated with them, and note the innovation investments in these areas, can drive more demand for their solutions through partner services. And it’s worth noting that because there is so much churn in the cybersecurity industry, those vendors and service providers that are hyper focused on customer success throughout this process (through sales engineers and solution architects in the field) have much better retention and renewal rates than organizations that take the hit-and-run approach in their sales cycle.
Beyond some of the high-level shifts in the cybersecurity market, there are also some additional key factors that are driving vendors to embrace managed services.
- First is business viability. For example, the desire to remain a trusted advisor to the end customer; the desire to shift the company business model to recurring revenue projects; and the business risk of not providing these services at all.
- Second, is the shifting customer demand. For example, the shift away from applications to SaaS and from technology acquisition to IaaS.
- Furthermore, partners are placing strategic bets on these services, especially cloud and security. In fact, according to ESG, partners are aggressively adding new security offerings, specifically around network security, endpoint protection, data protection, cloud security, and authentication.
As partners and providers continue to take advantage of the skills gap problem, they’re looking to vendors to help facilitate that transition. They want to deliver more managed services via the cloud, and they want to offer more high-margin managed services. This requires better support, training, and education from the vendor. This brings up the question, “how do these managed services providers make their vendor selections?”
What we do know is that a vendor’s ability to enable efficient selling and servicing equates to an MSPs success. ESG’s research found that key “sales asks” from partners include elements such as:
- More technical training for pre-sales teams
- Improved lead-gen volume
- Support for clear customer on-ramping and off-ramping of a vendor technology or services
External challenges from partners included:
- Difficulty getting the right training
- Getting sufficient marketing support
- A lack of support to execute lead generation campaigns
ESG also asked partners what were the top elements that drive operation efficiency (which equals profitability). They found that an easy-to-use partner portal for admin, pricing, consumption, and billing were top of the list, followed by technical training, and a variety of other elements such as marketing support, real-time sales support, and more.
For vendors in the cybersecurity space, the partner ecosystem is no longer a nice to have, it’s a critical mechanism for driving growth, demand, and revenue. As the security skills gap continues to put pressure on customers, service providers will continue to play an increasingly powerful role with consultancy and services. Vendors that leverage the right channel and partner tools can help accelerate those journeys for partners, who in turn can build exceptional customer journeys for end buys.
To learn more about how cybersecurity customers use Impartner’s PRM platform for channel success, check out this case study podcast with SentinelOne or this Lessons from the Edge podcast with FireMon.
To listen to a more detailed webinar on this topic, click here.
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]]>The post Impartner Wins BIG Innovation Award for Transformative Partner Experience Solution appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Judges recognize Impartner’s PX PartnerExperience, a revolutionary new PRM interface with a lightening-fast, modern, consumerized experience designed from the ground up to delight partners and accelerate channel revenue.
Salt Lake City – February 11, 2022
Impartner, the global pure-play leader in SaaS-based channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM), today announced it has been named a winner in the 2022 BIG Innovation Awards presented by the Business Intelligence Group. The company was recognized for its recently released Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience – a revolutionary PRM interface with a lightning-fast, modern, consumerized interface designed from the ground up to delight partners and accelerate channel revenue. Impartner PX puts the business enablement data partners need to manage their pipeline and grow their business front and center, eliminating the need to dig through marketing-driven websites to find information.
With Impartner PX, vendors can instantly configure partner experiences using Impartner PXStudio™, a robust suite of “opinionated” drag-and-drop, widget-based tools that capture best practices honed in thousands of real-world settings in some of the most demanding industries, including high-tech, cyber security, telecom, manufacturing and more. Impartner’s new PX interface is available in the company’s Emerge and Ignite packages for SMBs and emerging companies, and will extend to the company’s complete set of packages for corporations of all sizes later mid-year – from the smallest to the largest of enterprises.
“Today, with the accelerating digital transformation, you’re competing for eyeballs, mindshare and revenue, and great partner experiences deliver more prospects and customers,” said Impartner VP of Product Gary Sabin. “Impartner provides a ‘single pane of glass’ view of leads, training, program status, MDF allocations, and more, leveraging decades of experience and best practices – everything you need to provide a better customer and partner experience. Customers work with those that make it easy to do business with; Impartner PX makes it easy.”
Organizations from across the globe submitted their recent innovations for consideration in the BIG Innovation Awards. Nominations were then judged by a select group of business leaders and executives who volunteer their time and expertise to score submissions. The full list of winners can be found here.
“Innovation is driving growth in the global economy,” said Maria Jimenez, chief operating officer of the Business Intelligence Group. “We are thrilled to be honoring Impartner as they are one of the organizations leading this charge and helping humanity progress.”
To learn more about Impartner PX and how Impartner helps corporations from the smallest to the largest enterprises like Honeywell, Qualtrics and Vertiv grow their channel revenue an average of 32.3% in the first year of use alone, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>The post Mark Rogers of Impartner Named CRN Channel Chief for Second Year in a Row appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Salt Lake City – February 9, 2022
Impartner, the global pure-play leader in SaaS-based channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM), today announced that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Mark Rogers, SVP of Alliances and Strategic Relationships, to its 2022 Channel Chiefs list. CRN’s annual Channel Chiefs project identifies top IT channel vendor executives who continually demonstrate expertise, influence and innovation in channel leadership.
A panel of CRN editors selected the honorees for their channel dedication, industry stature and accomplishments as channel advocates. The 2022 Channel Chiefs are influential leaders who continue to shape the IT channel with innovative strategies, programs and partnerships. Rogers has received this designation for the second year in a row.
“We’ve focused on providing a world-class experience for our own partner channel as well as award-winning solutions to help companies build an industry-leading partner experience,” said Rogers. “Without exception, our customers tell us they want ease of ‘everything,’ and in 2021, we focused on simplifying and optimizing the experience of every partner interaction.”
In 2021, Rogers and his team grew the Impartner channel program exponentially, signing on a wide range of global and regional systems integrators, ISVs, and top channel advisory and consulting firms worldwide such as JS Group, Model N, Partner Perspectives, Phoenix Consulting Group, Sherpa Marketing, Tata Consultancy Services and OneGTM. Rogers also continued to deepen Impartner’s relationship with Microsoft to serve D365 customers who sell through indirect channels, building on the company’s co-operative agreement to co-market and co-sell Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics 365. Rogers also built out a supporting ecosystem of Microsoft Systems Integration and ISV partners, including JourneyTEAM, Catapult Systems and Experlogix.
“CRN’s 2022 Channel Chiefs recognition is given exclusively to the foremost channel executives who consistently design, promote, and execute effective partner programs and strategies,” said Blaine Raddon, CEO of The Channel Company. “We’re thrilled to recognize the tireless work and unwavering commitment these honorees put into fostering outstanding business innovation and building strong partner programs to drive channel engagement and success.”
CRN’s 2022 Channel Chiefs list will be featured in the February 2022 issue of CRN Magazine and online at CRN.com/ChannelChiefs.
To learn more about Impartner helps corporations from the smallest to the largest enterprises like Honeywell, Qualtrics and Vertiv grow their channel revenue an average of 32.3% in the first year of use alone, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>The post 5 Key Questions About Throwaway Partnerships appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>As the business community continues to struggle with global product shortages and disrupted supply chains, one thing is clear: without alliance, business, and channel partners, these organizations would likely be out of business today. It’s no secret that CEOs are looking to drive innovation, and over the last 10 years, that innovation has been tied to strategic partnerships. With the pandemic, this has never been more important as organizations work to increase partnership numbers. Despite that, the best practices and approaches to accomplishing this are often times still rudimentary and basic.
Impartner recently spoke with Mike Leonetti, President of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP) and asked him five key questions around these challenges. For context, ASAP’s core mission is to provide organizations with a community, a series of best practices, and professional development tools that can help them engage and drive more strategic partnerships. More information can be found here.
Question 1: How can organizations close this gap between what the C-suite knows and understands today in regard to strategic partnerships and what they need to do moving forward?
Mike: The bottom line is that strategic partnership growth takes dedicated professionals and a practitioner that can help drive that professional. In many cases, that requires education and best practices. When you have a community supporting those activities, it increases the positive outcomes. In fact, research shows that 60% of strategic partnerships fail when they don’t follow best practices. Our research shows that 80% of organizations can be successful with strategic partnerships when involved with ASAP. That means being part of our community and using our educational and best-practice tools. This sense of community is critical to success today.
Question 2: We’ve seen good best practice and some poor ones, like throwaway partners. Can you talk more about this?
Mike: When we see the development of the ecosystem today, many think they can fill it with hundreds of partners and maybe not pay close attention to all of them. If partners don’t perform, the idea is you can simply discard them and move on. This is the idea of throwaway partnerships. But in reality, does this make sense? How much time and effort goes into finding these partners, to developing these relationships? How long before that return on investment begins to come? Then the question is, do you really want to start that over again? This approach can do extensive damage through a partner community. You can become known as having a lot of friction and churn, and as a brand that burns partner bridges. ASAP tries to identify these companies so that we can reach out to help them better understand this negative image perception. In many cases, they’re totally unaware of this reputation. Once they find out, they usually want to quickly correct it.
Question 3: Your organization speaks across all industries. Is there one industry that’s getting it right and who’s innovating?
Mike: I think if you look, tech has been the leader for a long time. For example, I learned initially at Cisco. I was amazed at how they managed and ran their partnership programs. But today, it’s expanded across the board. For example, back in 2005 the patent cliff drove pharma to get better at partnerships – and they did. Over the last 5 years, one area that has really grown in this space is Fintech – they’ll be one to keep an eye on. They’re looking to learn and do better.
Question 4: Innovation is happening at partner companies with new business models and partner experiences. How is the role of the vendor changing, given this evolution?
Mike: You have a total re-creation of the channel model over the last couple years. With everything moving to the cloud and software as a service (SaaS), the days of throwing money at partners to solve problems is over. As a result of these new technologies and models, resellers are working to reinvent themselves. Partnerships today can’t be run on spreadsheets, so the science of partnerships is changing. When you look at other functions like finance, HR, sales and more, these are all automated and have been for years. Partnerships have automated around the edge, but need more automation that helps drive information, data and reporting up to the C-suite. This allows them to make quick decisions and understand their top 5 partners, their weaknesses and strengths, who else they can add to the ecosystem, and more. The piece that’s critical is the information to make decisions and report on them. And, there’s a lot of innovation in this space, with tools like Impartner.
Question: How do you see strategic partnerships developing over the next 5 years?
Mike: I think as digital transformation takes hold on all parts of the organization, we’re going to see rapid acceleration in this space. People are increasingly partnering both inside and outside their company. As a result, all of the savvy organizations are going to become technology companies, so to speak. We’re also going to see this shifting burden and knowledge from long time industry veterans like myself to the new generation of channel leaders, which is really exciting – and vital. Organizations have learned that if they don’t get these up-and-comers involved in strategic partnerships, their future is uncertain.
Interested in hearing the entire discussion with ASAP? Check out the Lessons from the Edge podinar.
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]]>The post Impartner Promotes Pace to Chief Operating Officer appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Salt Lake City – February 7, 2022
Impartner, the world’s most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, today announced the promotion of Brad Pace, currently the VP of Operations, to Chief Operating Officer. In his role, Pace will oversee general operations including customer success, customer support, implementation and project management, IT and training and documentation.
“In his six years with Impartner, Brad has done an outstanding job of improving customer satisfaction, streamlining implementation processes, continually elevating our NPS scores and playing an invaluable role as part of my executive team,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “Brad is a great fit for the newly created COO position to help continue to accelerate the growth of our larger and naturally more complex operation.”
Pace joined Impartner in 2016 and has been accountable for ensuring that Impartner customers benefit from Impartner’s channel management solutions, sales operations and acquisition integration. Before joining Impartner, Pace held a number of executive sales, customer service and analytics roles at EMC, most recently serving as VP of Sales Operations and VP of Support Operations for one of EMC’s global operating units. Pace has also held leadership positions in the management consulting industry for A.T. Kearney.
“I love helping our customers transform their channel business with Impartner’s award-winning PRM,” Pace said. “More than 75% of the world’s business transactions happen through the channel and Impartner PRM enables more of them every day than any other pure-play PRM company. I am excited to accept this role and look forward to helping our customers achieve their channel potential.”
Pace holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah and a master’s in business administration from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>The post How AscendX is Driving Demand for Thousands of SMB Reseller with New Channel Marketing Services appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Demand continues to be the primary challenge distributors and their partners face. How can you drive demand and generate demand while protecting brand identity? Doing this across large numbers of partners can be really, really hard. As the ecosystem for the channel continues to change, for example with programs like Amazon Business, big multinational companies have created huge distributor networks that work across massive reseller networks. But with this scale comes challenges, especially for the small and mid-sized reseller. As a result, big brands are trying to find new ways to deliver value and drive success.
In this post we’d like to explore how one of our partners, AscendX Digital, is helping to overcome this problem and provide a unique channel model for channel marketing services to B2B brands like HP and TD Synnex.
In the tech space, small and medium sized (SMB) resellers make up 90% of the tech channel market, and they’ve traditionally been underserved by big corporate brands. This has been driven by the fact that smaller resellers don’t often have the marketing resources required to work with one big brand, let alone multiple brands or with multiple marketing programs. To solve this problem, AscendX created a multi-vendor model that enables corporate brands, distributors, and resellers to automate their channel activities. This drives demand and protects the brand.
How does this work and what’s the process for AscendX Digital and its customers?
Through AscendX’s discussions with big brands, it was apparent that these companies struggle to reach the SMB market because of the sheer volume of resellers across the country. The question: how could they add value and differentiate when distribution to these SMB resellers was a big challenge? Distributors aggregate inventory, provide financing, logistics and more, but they tend to lag on the marketing side. This has been disrupted even more with things like Amazon Business. As a result, AscendX created a differentiated service model that helps big brands expand their marketing reach through distributors to thousands of resellers. They help SMB resellers to leverage the marketing investments those big brands have made, and to elevate their own digital presence on their websites and through social media – without the need for any in-house marketing resources.
SMB resellers have on average 8-10 employees (and can go up to 200). They’re small. By connecting the brands and distributors to the resellers through an improved model, the distributor can bring a suite of corporate brands to the resellers, so they have one place to go for the content and for the marketing programs. This eliminates the need to manage multiple marketing programs and demand gen programs. Essentially offering a set-it and forget-it model.
Impartner’s TCMA solution plays a critical role in delivering this service. Many SMBs don’t even have some of the basic social channels that are important to drive demand and sales. Some may only have a website. There’s no e-commerce store, there’s no Twitter feed, and they may or may not be on LinkedIn. By using Impartner, AscendX can offer customers a single centralized location to learn about the program, to embed a single set of code on their sites, and to opt in to participate – and they never have to come back again. The model and platform takes the content from the big corporate brands, syndicates it not only on the reseller websites, but through social channels, which delivers a level of demand they never would have achieved without it.
This results in the SMB resellers getting thousands of impressions and hundreds of new customers onto their websites monthly. And allows for the automation of content on social channels and follower growth (even if they didn’t have these channels previously). In 2020, 80% of the digital customer journey was online and half of Google searches were for local businesses. In the B2B tech space, customers are looking for brand information online and are looking for local resellers to fulfill those needs. This new approach helps the big brands, the distributors and the smaller resellers capitalize on that need. But the journey must be seamless for the reseller. That’s where Impartner delivers immense value.
Resellers don’t have the time or bandwidth to watch for emails or upload content. Impartner helps to automate that entire process, so it’s all done in the background. It’s refreshed, it’s current, and it’s compliant (which is a concern for big brands today). Resellers can finally be part of the digital customer journey without requiring major resources.
How are distributors and resellers reacting to this model?
Distributors are really at the center of this approach. It allows them to offer something new to the resellers. A lot of resellers buy from more than one distributor, and these distributors have teams of people that are champions for a lot of the brands and the resellers. This connective tissue helps drive that process and identify different trends or regions that might be worth targeting. Furthermore, the ability to take corporate brand content (like case studies for example) and push those out to thousands of resellers amplifies the entire demand process and drives credibility for the reseller. Resellers want this marketing support, but they don’t want it siloed through 10 different programs. They want an automated and centralized approach. Distribution can serve as the aggregator for all of that, making sure it resonates with resellers and that it’s efficient.
Interested in hearing the entire discussion with AscendX? Check out the Lessons from the Edge podinar here. Or learn more about Impartner TCMA here.
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]]>Whether companies sell B2B or B2C, the best digital experience for partners, distributors and resellers is now table stakes for driving indirect sales success.
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]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
At the company’s Impartner Candy Bar, top corporations in every vertical can learn how the “most delicious” partner programs accelerate indirect sales an average of 32% in first year alone.
Whether companies sell B2B or B2C, the best digital experience for partners, distributors and resellers is now table stakes for driving indirect sales success.
Salt Lake City – January 3, 2022
Impartner, the world’s most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, today announced it will feature its award-winning suite of channel management technologies at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2022 from January 5 to 8 in Booth 15982 in the Center Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. At the company’s Impartner Candy Bar, which is exclusive for exhibitors/vendor staff who are typically purchase decision makers for Impartner solutions, top corporations in every vertical can learn how the “most delicious” partner programs make them irresistible to partners, distributors and resellers, help increase indirect revenue an average of 32.3% in the first year of use alone – and load up on their favorite confections.
“It’s clear that the pandemic has accelerated companies’ digital transformation from two years to two months,” said Impartner Chief Marketing Officer Kerry Desberg. “Whether you’re B2B or B2C, if you sell through indirect channels, a rapid transformation to a delicious, market-leading, contemporary digital experience that delights your partners, distributors and resellers is table stakes for accelerating your indirect revenue. We could not be more excited to be at the most influential tech event in the world to showcase technologies so key to accelerating the 75% of revenue that flows through the channel.”
In the booth, Impartner will feature its award-winning channel management solutions which include its core Impartner PRM technology, which helps companies manage the entire journey for their partners, distributors and resellers, Impartner Through Channel Marketing Automation platform (TCMA), the industry’s most adoptable platform to help drive demand to and through indirect partners, and Impartner News on Demand, which delivers 100% personalized news and targeted newsletters directly to partners, employees and customers based on their preferences. Customer stories featuring top corporations worldwide can be found on the company’s resources page and include Dell Boomi, Honeywell, Poly, and Vertiv.
The announcement of the company’s presence at the show continues an ongoing stream of news from the fast-growing channel management technology provider, including recently raising $50 million in funding, led by growth equity investment firm Brighton Park Capital (“Brighton Park”). The company also recently launched Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience — a sleek, revolutionary PRM interface built from the ground up for partners. Impartner PX positions the business enablement data partners need to manage their pipeline and grow their business front and center, eliminating the need to dig through marketing-driven websites to find information. In addition, Impartner was just named the No. 1 and global winner on its Vendor Selection Matrix for Partner Management Automation (PMA) from analyst firm Research in Action and is already a leader in “The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020.”
Those not able to attend this year’s CES can still learn what top corporations everywhere know about how Impartner helps accelerate the performance of their indirect sales by visiting https://impartner.com/ces2021/ to schedule a demo.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>The post Impartner Announces 6th Annual Global Awards appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Illumina, Mambu, Nintex, Proofpoint and Zebra honored with Impartner Catalyst Award for channel program excellence
Salt Lake City – December 16, 2021
Impartner, the world’s most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, today announced its 6th Annual Impartner Catalyst Awards recognizing channel program excellence. The yearly global awards, which are typically presented at the company’s annual customer and channel management summit (pre-Covid) ImpartnerCON, honor those companies and teams that have powerfully ignited the performance of their channel. This year’s Impartner Catalyst Award winners include:
- Illumina: Enabling Doctors and Nurses Real-Time Data and Testing Using “Partner Tech”
For making Illumina’s genetic testing, oncology and medical testing accessible to doctors and nurses, to help them detect health issues and susceptibilities based on genetic makeup. By making medical professionals “the partners,” Illumina ensures the marketing and educational materials are understood and gives them the path to improve the media experience for the end consumer. - Mambu: Disrupting Partner Experience for Fintech
For creating multiple automation journeys that not only ensure partners the platform but also have access to APIs and the technology ecosystem necessary to deliver global economic scale in the fintech industry. - Nintex: Advancing Partner Automation for the Automation Industry
For excellence in workflow automation of the partner experience that sets a new industry bar in making things easy, fast and powerful for the partner. - Proofpoint: Revolutionizing Partner Demand Generation
For creating the most automated, adoptable ecosystem to engage partners fully in demand generation and driving revenue growth for both the company and partners. - Zebra: Redefining Partner Communications
For ensuring every partner, across the globe, receives a constant steady drumbeat of communications, tailored specifically for them in the language of their choice.
“We simply could not be prouder of and more honored to serve our customer base of world-leading corporations,” said Curtis Brinkerhoff, Impartner’s VP of Customer Success. “There are so many great examples of how companies have taken their channel performance to the next level using our technology, which continues to be ever more critical in an environment where it continues to be challenging to be on the ground. The indirect channel is more important now than ever before. The selection process is always difficult, but this year’s winners truly stand out for their bar-raising efforts in a crowd of very talented channel professionals.”
To learn best practices from this year’s winners, click here. For a demo on how Impartner can help you deliver these kinds of results and accelerate the performance of your channel by an average of 32.3 percent, click here.
The news of this integration continues an ongoing stream of news from the fast-growing channel management technology provider, including recently raising $50 million in funding, led by growth equity investment firm Brighton Park Capital (“Brighton Park”). The company also recently launched Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience — a sleek, revolutionary PRM interface built from the ground up for partners. Impartner PX positions the business enablement data partners need to manage their pipeline and grow their business front and center, eliminating the need to dig through marketing-driven websites to find information. In addition, Impartner was just named the No. 1 and global winner on its Vendor Selection Matrix for Partner Management Automation (PMA) and is already a leader in “The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020.”
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>The post Three New Channel Stars Bolster Impartner’s 2022 Channel Chief Advisory Board appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>The head of an alliance trade group, a well-regarded industry consultant and the founder of a global channel agency join Impartner’s roster of industry luminaries.
As we head into 2022, Impartner is excited to announce the addition of three new members to its Channel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB), which is comprised of renowned industry authorities and SMEs well-versed in partnering trends, go-to-market best practices and forward-looking research. The new CCAB members include the head of a trade group devoted to partnerships and alliances, a well-regarded industry consultant and the founder of a global channel agency. The new CCAB members are:
- Michael Leonetti, president, the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP)
- Meredith Caram, Chief Revenue Officer, The JS Group
- Tom Perry, founder and CEO, Sherpa Marketing UK
Here’s a little more on each and why they are key channel thought leaders:
Meredith Caram, Chief Revenue Officer, The JS Group
Caram is a business expansion leader with experience leading diverse sales and marketing teams. She joined the JS Group, which provides guidance on strategy and execution to industry organizations that do business with partners, in February 2021. As chief revenue officer at the JS Group, Caram helps attract new business and expand the organization’s engagement with existing customers. A longtime veteran of AT&T, Caram brings both visionary sales experience and partnering best practices to each customer engagement. She’s especially keen on helping industry professionals find their inner “positive disruptor” that can help them dramatically improve success with partners.
Michael Leonetti, president, the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP)
A longtime pharmaceutical industry executive, Leonetti today oversees the ASAP, whose mission is to help organizations bring discipline and best practices to alliance building and partnerships. Leonetti joined the ASAP after a long career with Boehringer Ingelheim. Today, Leonetti devotes his time helping organizations and individuals alike better understand the value and demands of professional partnership management worldwide. In particular, his association offers practitioners professional development, trend analysis and peer-to-peer networking. He’s particularly motivated to help organizations adapt partnering best practices throughout their organizations, especially after leaning on partners during global pandemic.
Tom Perry, founder and CEO, Sherpa Marketing UK
Perry oversees an award-winning, high-growth channel agency that supports global companies in channel their transformation. Among other things, his company helps companies develop competitively structured and aligned strategies, management programs and measurement guidelines. Specifically, Sherpa UK provides services that help companies plan, recruit, engage, enable, grow and measure successful partnerships. In addition, Sherpa UK also offers managed PRM services to vendor organizations based on leading industry platforms including Impartner PRM. Sherpa UK has helped the likes of Lenovo, Sage, Verizon and others implement partner programs that have delivered sustained growth and improved partner satisfaction. As for Perry, he has worked in technology and channels for the bulk of his career, and is particularly knowledgeable in partner best practices, channel economics and AI technology.
New Era, New Thinking
Impartner is excited to work with these industry thought leaders, who will participate in a variety of activities with the company including podcasts, video interviews and related editorial blogs, columns and eBooks.
“As we navigate the fast-changing world of partner automation to develop new innovations for the emerging go-to-market tech stack, it’s invaluable to be able to consult and tap into the best thinking the industry has to offer,” says Kerry Desberg, Impartner CMO. “We look forward to sharing new content with input from these three industry leaders this year, in 2022 and beyond.”
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Fail-safe data sync that can “self heal” and ability to ensure only partner pipeline data syncs, reduces risk of exposing data to non-channel audiences
Salt Lake City – November 22, 2021
Impartner, the global pure-play leader in SaaS-based channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM), today announced an industry game-changing integration with HubSpot, the customer relationship management (CRM) platform for scaling companies, and the solution has been accepted to the HubSpot App Marketplace. The Impartner/HubSpot integration breaks new ground with a robust, fail-safe data sync that escrows everything and can “self heal” if there is an issue in data transmission and is one of the only integrations of its kind that allows companies to have the precise control they need to ensure only partner pipeline data is shared, reducing the risk of exposing non-channel data to audiences who have nothing to do with partners.
With the integration, customers of HubSpot and Impartner can leverage the application’s award-winning tools to attract, engage and delight customers through the partner journey. Users can combine Impartner’s “single-pane-of-glass” view of the partner channel regarding leads, program status, MDF allocations, training requirements and more with HubSpot’s customer-centric CRM platform that helps businesses scale with data on potential leads, contacts, pipeline and more.
“When we set out to create this integration, we listened closely to our customers and prospects, who were adamant that from a data security standpoint, they wanted precise control to ensure that ONLY partner data, not their entire data base, was synced – and we’re excited we’ve made that possible with this integration,” said Impartner VP of Product Gary Sabin, noting that the integration leverages Impartner’s decades of experience with CRM integrations with top corporations of all sizes worldwide. “As HubSpot continues to grow in every segment of the market, we love the collaboration we’ve had with HubSpot in bringing this capability to the expanding list of companies worldwide who are looking for a world class CRM/PRM integration to help accelerate the performance of their channels.”
In addition to the fail-safe data transfer and the ability to share only partner pipeline data, other key features of the new Impartner/HubSpot integration include:
- Support for HubSpot’s latest capabilities, including custom objects.
- Bi-directional data flow that allows control over what is the system of record and the source of the truth on a granular level.
- The ability to leverage Impartner’s enterprise workflow system for deal alerts and other unique Impartner experience management tools such as Journey Builder and Program Compliance Manager – ensuring that the data can be integrated into the PRM engine and is not just syncing the data.
The integration emphasizes a trend accelerating since the pandemic started – tech stack modernization across the entire organization. Companies that achieve a competitive advantage through their tech stack discover new capabilities among the talent pool, unique metrics and objectives to measure and stimulate growth, fresh strategies to compete more effectively and better organizational alignment around common goals and outcomes.
“We welcome channel technology leader Impartner to the App Partner Program,” said Scott Brinker, VP of platform ecosystem at HubSpot. “We appreciate Impartner’s innovation in continually raising the bar in how PRM and CRM can help companies optimize the management of the direct and indirect channels, and we look forward to their collaboration and contributions to HubSpot customers who can leverage both platforms to enhance the partner experience and to scale their businesses.”
HubSpot’s App Partner Program is an ecosystem of valuable third-party integrations. App Partners comply with a set of requirements. Learn more about the integration here.
The news of this integration continues an ongoing stream of news from the fast-growing channel management technology provider. The company recently launched Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience – a sleek, revolutionary PRM interface built from the ground up for partners. Impartner PX positions the business enablement data partners need to manage their pipeline and grow their business front and center, eliminating the need to dig through marketing-driven websites to find information. Impartner was also just named the No. 1 and global winner on its Vendor Selection Matrix for Partner Management Automation (PMA) and is already in “The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020.”
To see a demo of Impartner and the Impartner and HubSpot integration, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>Business experts have long debated whether the future will belong to those with the brightest management team, the best culture or the most adaptable strategy. Increasingly, it looks like the future will belong to those with the most capable digital implementations.
By T.C. Doyle
Summary/TLDR
The pandemic has radically changed business and what it takes to be competitive
In response, leading organizations have fast tracked digital transformation and tech stack modernization efforts so they can better respond to unexpected changes and provide unrivaled experiences
Impartner enthusiastically supports tech stack modernization, especially when it comes to it’s go-to-market PRM platform, and recognizes that leading the trend is the key to higher revenue growth, improved customer and partner satisfaction, greater evaluations and more
To that end, Impartner is proud to announce a new round of funding totaling $50 million from world-class investors
For the first time in history, global spending on information and communications technology (ICT) is expected to top $5 trillion this year. That’s nearly as much as the entire GDP of Japan, the world’s third-largest economy. It’s also more than twice the size of the global market for agriculture.
It’s a huge sum, in other words.
Of that massive outlay, a larger amount with each passing year is going to digital transformation initiatives. In 2020, spending on digital transformation totaled $1.31 trillion. In 2022, the figure is expected to increase to $1.78 trillion.
The global pandemic, of course, accelerated spending on digital transformation. In a survey, IBM found that 59% of customers were accelerating digital transformation projects as a result of Covid-19. McKinsey & Co. similarly found that Covid-19, “pushed companies over the technology tipping point” in 2020 and 2021, transforming business forever.
Companies are not only spending more in digital innovation, they are also doubling down on how they use, depend and leverage it, too. As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella put it in a 2020 earnings report to Wall Street, “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.”
Which brings us to where we are today.
Were now entering a post-pandemic world in which one central truth is emerging when it comes to business: While many thought leaders have debated whether the future will belong to those with the brightest executive management team, the best culture or the most adaptable strategy, it increasingly looks as though the future will belong to those with the most capable digital implementations. To quote McKinsey Digital from May 2021, “The Covid-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the pace of business, and the companies with superior technology capabilities are winning the race.”
The Superior Capabilities That Matter Most
So what are those capabilities and how are organizations putting them to use? We at Impartner have some answers — and not just about our part of the market. Consider what one of our customers, a global manufacturer of high-tech testing gear and software, said recently: “When it comes to automation, we’ve entered a time when there can be no tolerance for sub-optimization. To prevail today, you need a world-class tech stack that optimizes every aspect of your business.”
We couldn’t agree more.
While Impartner offers a tech stack devoted to partner automation, we are passionate advocates for tech stack modernization across all aspects of an organization — from finance to product development, from human resources to go-to-market activities, and everything in between. We simply believe organizations that automate their operations to the fullest extent possible will find themselves in the best position possible to provide employees, customers, partners and other constituents unrivaled experiences.
What do we mean by, “automate to the fullest extent possible?” In short, we mean modernization without gaps, lapses or frailties. More specifically, we mean embracing technology and implementing it in such a way that your organization can leverage the following:
- Integrated platforms that support multiple applications and tools
- Intelligently designed interfaces that surface relevant data and information in a “single-pane-of-glass”
- “Opinionated software” developed around proven best practices
- Common data sets that can move information simply and securely between platforms and without compromise
Here’s a closer look at what we mean.
Integrated platforms that support multiple applications and tools
Since tech companies began bundling their technologies together, there has been widespread disagreement as to whether it is better to invest in best-of-breed tools or instead go with integrated platforms that may not excel in any one area but whose sum is greater than what you would expect from individual parts. In a world where only a handful of capabilities were automated, that was a worthy debate. It’s not in the world of today in which everything is automated and connected. Things must work together, in other words. But this reality creates complexity for many organizations that have literally bought one of everything over the years.
A better way? Invest in integrated platforms that accommodate many capabilities and create a way — think APIs, marketplaces, etc. — to embrace even more digital innovation.
Intelligently designed interfaces that surface relevant data and information in a “single-pane-of-glass”
Given the speed of business today, customers and partners do not have time nor inclination to endure friction when it comes to gathering information, ordering products, providing feedback and more. They want single single-on, device and operating platform independence, and simple authentication. They have also had their fill with software upgrades, incompatibilities and digital-rights issues that impede work. When it comes to the tasks they must complete and the objectives they must achieve, workers want their technology to aid them, not thwart them. They also want screens personalized to their work cycles and workflows. This means intelligently designed interfaces that surface relevant data and information in a “single-pane-of-glass.”
“Opinionated software” developed around proven best practices
While it might sound paradoxical, today’s workforce wants innovation that is both tailored to their individual needs and standardized so it can leverage best practices defined and honed by others who have gone before. This is the promise of mass customization, which is finally arriving to the world of enterprise software. In Impartner’s case, we develop our software based on input gleaned from thousands of implementations with hundreds of customers. The “opinions” we get from these engagements go a long way in helping us provide customers software that not only leverages the best in software design but also the best in business best practices.
Common data sets that can move simply and securely between platforms without compromise
Given that there are more than 21.5 billion things connected to the Internet, the world has never been awash in so much data. Google alone processes 3.5 billion search requests every day. Today, every interaction, transaction and communication results in data. But like saltwater to a thirsty traveler, data is no good unless it can be captured, stored and shared in a reasonable manner. Many organizations believe they can leverage their data and even participate in the “big data” revolution. But they are kidding themselves if their data must be exported, scrubbed and reformatted every time it is moved between tools, applications and platforms. In the future, data will be available to everyone who needs it and to no one who does not. It will also be available in formats that are readily accessible and easy to put to use.
The Spoils for “Winning the Race”
What, you may wonder, does an organization get for its efforts to “automate to the fullest extent possible?” It’s a fair question. The rewards for modernizing your tech stack are many and can be measured in everything from market share gains to increased revenue to improved customer satisfaction and more. Take Impartner, for example.
In exchange for our commitment to support this revolution and embrace its principles across our entire organization, we have seen our sales grow and our valuation increase. In October 2021, for example,Impartner announced new funding from investors totaling $50 million. The money will help fuel additional growth initiatives and help advance our mission to help organizations everywhere improve their competitiveness through tech stack modernization.
In addition to higher valuations, McKinsey & Co. says “digital leaders” can expect plenty of other benefits, too.
“While top economic performers are already significantly ahead of their peers in specific digital capabilities (automation, for example), they are also moving much more quickly than their peers in key business areas. Top tech companies, for example, share test-and-learn findings across the business, reallocate digital talent, and use multiple sources of insight about customers weekly, while average performers do those tasks monthly,” McKinsey & Co. says.
For business practitioners, the practical implications of digital transformation and tech stack modernization are many. You may require one or more of the following to keep pace:
- New capabilities among your talent pool
- New metrics and objectives to measure and stimulate growth
- New strategies to compete more effectively
- Organizational realignment around common goals and outcomes
For some, the journey to digital modernization is just beginning. For others, it’s a work in progress. Regardless of where you are today, we are committed to helping you make progress in your journey, especially when it comes to you go-to-market tech stack that may include a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, a marketing automation platform (MAP) and a partner relationship management platform (PRM), which is our specialty.
We at Impartner are committed to providing you the most integrated, flexible and intelligently designed technology possible. It’s why 78% of our customers believe our technology provides them with a competitive edge in their market.
We welcome the opportunity to provide them same to you.
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Impartner earns highest market position among top 13 global vendors based on over 100,000 data points from 1,500 manager surveys, analyst opinions and vendor evaluations
Salt Lake City – October 21, 2021
Impartner, the global pure-play leader in SaaS-based channel management technology, was named the No. 1 global winner on Research In Action’s Vendor Selection Matrix for Partner Management Automation (PMA), which brings together Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA). In the new report, Impartner scores highest for the breadth and depth of its solution offering, price/value ratio and customer satisfaction. Additionally, Impartner is recognized for its “single-pane-of-glass” vision for managing the entire partner journey, and for its developer team, which is larger than most vendors’ entire headcount, ensuring that the pace of new solutions development to the market is unmatched.
The Research in Action Vendor Selection Matrix™ is primarily a survey-based methodology for vendor evaluation, in which 63 percent of the evaluation is based on a survey of enterprise IT or business decision makers. The remaining 37 percent is based on the analyst’s judgement, which is informed by a combination of intensive interviews with software or services vendors and their clients, plus their informed, independent point of view as an analyst. This approach is one of the key differentiators of Research In Action in market research. For this report, RIA interviewed 1,500 marketing and business managers with budget responsibility in enterprises globally. RIA selected those vendors who achieved the best evaluations scores from the buyers but disregarded those with fewer than 15 evaluations or that did not fit the market profile.
“What’s clear in this year’s report is that the pandemic has both accelerated digital transformation and created a new dimension of partners requiring a much more sensitive and dynamic digital platform,” said Peter O’Neill, author of the report and Research Director, Research In Action GmbH. “The PMA vendor landscape will leave pure-play PRM or TCMA behind. Impartner is the overall global leader for Partner Management Automation tools and automates the total partner journey — for every type of partner.”
It’s humbling and exciting to come out on top as the solution our market knows and trusts to manage their entire partner journey,” said Impartner VP Product Gary Sabin. “And certainly, to be recognized for customer satisfaction, our price/value ratio, and as the company that can best meet contemporary partner management demands through a single streamlined platform is incredibly rewarding. Those things are at the core of what the Impartner team is focused on delivering to our customers everyday worldwide.”
Join Sabin and O’Neill on November 11th, 2021, at 8 a.m. MST/4 p.m. CEST for a webinar, where they will discuss this research and partner management automation trends for 2022 and beyond. Register here: (link)
This news comes on the heels of the company’s recent announcement of a $50 million round of funding, led by Brighton Park Capital with participation from existing investors Savant Growth, Emergence and Golub Capital. Recent groundbreaking product releases from Impartner include Impartner PX™ Partner Experience, a lightning-fast, modern, consumerized interface designed from the ground up to delight partners and accelerate indirect sales; Journey Builder, which helps companies choreograph the perfect partner journey; and Program Compliance Manager, which helps solve the No. 2 problem facing channel chiefs, managing program compliance.
About Research In Action
Research In Action GmbH is a leading independent information and communications technology research and consulting company. The company provides both forward-looking as well as practical advice to enterprise as well as vendor clients.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Funding to extend Impartner’s leadership in channel technology which enables companies to scale, grow and optimize indirect sales
Salt Lake City – October 13, 2021 Impartner, the global pure-play leader in SaaS-based channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM), today announced it has raised $50 million in funding. Brighton Park Capital (“Brighton Park”), a growth equity investment firm that specializes in partnering with growth-stage software, healthcare and tech-enabled services businesses, led the round with participation from existing investors Savant Growth, Emergence and Golub Capital. The investment, which brings Impartner’s total funding to date to over $113 million, will capitalize on Impartner’s growth initiatives by accelerating the company’s aggressive roadmap, bolstering sales and marketing resources, and expanding customer success initiatives to support the company’s growing global customer base.
This latest round of investment follows Impartner’s rapid year-over-year revenue growth as the pure-play channel management technology market leader. Impartner has recently been named a leader in the “The Forrester WaveTM: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020,” a G2 Crowd PRM leader for four consecutive quarters, the global winner in Research In Action’s Vendor Selection Matrix for Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and for Channel Marketing and Enablement (CME), and won numerous national and international awards. Impartner customers, who range from SMBs to Fortune 50 across multiple verticals, see tremendous value from the use of Impartner’s platform, including an average of 32 percent growth in channel revenue and a 29 percent reduction in administrative costs in the first year of use alone.
“Technologies that enable companies to optimize the partner experience, automate the operational basics of their channel and accelerate indirect revenue, are table stakes for running a channel effectively,” said Jeff Machlin, Partner at Brighton Park. “Impartner is a proven leader in the space, delivering a unique turnkey solution that enhances revenue, decreases costs, and most importantly provides the visibility and analytics that companies need to maximize their channel investment. We are thrilled to partner with Joe and his growing team, and excited to support the company as it continues on its impressive growth trajectory.”
“We are proud of our success in leading the channel management technology market and honored by the confidence that Brighton Park and our existing investors have in Impartner – and we’re only just getting started,” said Joe Wang, Impartner CEO. “As companies worldwide shift from resiliency to scalability, the channel has never been more important. We are confident we have the technology, team and investment partners to continue to transform how companies worldwide manage their distributors, resellers, OEM partners and other indirect sales channels.”
The funding round follows several exciting announcements from Impartner. Recent groundbreaking product releases include Impartner PXTM Partner Experience, a lightning-fast, modern, consumerized interface designed from ground up to delight partners and accelerate indirect sales; Journey Builder, which helps companies choreograph the perfect partner journey; and Program Compliance Manager, which helps solve the No. 2 problem facing channel chiefs — managing program compliance.
“We’re doubling down on our original investment because we’ve seen firsthand the results the Impartner platform has on accelerating indirect revenue for a broad array of enterprise customers,” said Savant Growth Founder & Managing Partner Eric Filipek, who led the original acquisition of Treehouse, now Impartner. “Building and scaling a direct sales organization is expensive and increasingly difficult. The channel software market is hitting a major inflection point, partially driven by the pandemic, as companies look to optimize customer acquisition costs with more leveraged go-to-market models.”
To learn more about how Impartner helps corporations from the smallest to the largest enterprises like Honeywell, Qualtrics and Vertiv grow their channel revenue, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
Impartner Contact:
Kerry Desberg
Impartner
[email protected]
About Brighton Park Capital
Brighton Park is a Greenwich, CT-based investment firm that specializes in software, healthcare, and technology-enabled services. The firm invests in companies that provide highly innovative solutions in partnership with great management teams. Brighton Park brings purpose-built value-add capabilities that match the unique requirements of each of its companies. For more information about Brighton Park, please visit www.bpc.com.
Brighton Park Capital Contact:
Jenny Gore/Julie Rudnick
Sard Verbinnen & Co
[email protected]
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]]>By T.C. Doyle
Research findings reveal that information communications and technologies (ICT) services companies are overhauling their businesses like few times in their history. This provides cybersecurity vendors a unique moment to cement ties with new partners and redefine their go-to-market strategies.
But tech companies better hurry — and be prepared — otherwise they could miss out on a once-in-generation opportunity. Here’s why.
Today’s technology channel, which includes VARs, integrators, managed service providers (MSPs) and telecom agents, is experiencing unprecedented change. Take findings from CompTIA’s 2021 State of the Channel Study, which found that 44% of channel firms believe their world is “changing rapidly.” Channel companies are making changes, business owners say, to meet new demands from customers and to adjust to the new business realities of a post pandemic world.
To make their companies more competitive, for example, many channel companies are developing business practices around new technologies, embracing new business models that emphasize subscription sales, and implementing industry best practices that help their organizations run as efficiently and flexibly as possible. The same CompTIA study found, for example, that 27% of channel companies have accelerated and/or expanded their work with “emerging technologies” in the past two years.
Now consider cybersecurity. CompTIA found that better than eight in 10 channel companies are just beginning to develop a cybersecurity practice (36%) or selling very basic products and services (53%). Given that cybersecurity is expected to grow into $193 billion market opportunity by 2028, according to Grand View Research, and that cybersecurity is now an IT priority among SMBs (small-to-medium-sized businesses), according to Techaisle, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher as to why more channel companies haven’t developed more momentum in this field.
A lack of talent and complexity have hindered many channel companies from making the most of the opportunity, but things are changing rapidly. CompTIA and others expect more channel companies to double down on cybersecurity in 2022 and beyond to win deals and instill confidence among nervous customers, who report being targets of attack more than ever.
Good news for cybersecurity vendors, right? No question. Current market dynamics provide cybersecurity vendors a unique opportunity to establish ties to new partners. But there’s a caveat that innovators should be aware of. Today’s business partners want different things from vendors than in past years. If you’re optimized around the wrong priorities, you could miss a unique opportunity to cement ties to channel companies.
What Partners Want Now
As mentioned, partner business models are rapidly changing. As ICT services companies move from the sale of products sold as one-time transactions to the sale of services sold as recurring subscriptions, they require new skills and knowledge. Not surprisingly, these channel companies prioritize different things from vendor partner programs than in the past. Instead of product specs and sales incentives, they now prioritize more business support. Think professional sales training, financial acumen, business know-how, vertical market knowledge and more. “This is forcing vendors to re-evaluate traditional partner program resources and incentives to meet new expectations,” says CompTIA.
In addition to these specific demands, partners are also expressing dismay with overall vendor complexity. Put bluntly, channel companies have had it with program friction. In fact, studies show a full one-quarter of all partners will walk away from an otherwise profitable relationship if they deem a vendor too difficult to work with.
For cybersecurity vendors looking to make inroads in the channel now, this puts a premium on your business processes. World-class partner programs do not run on spreadsheets anymore, say channel experts including Forrester Research analyst Jay McBain. Instead, modern vendor programs rely on world-class software technology, the kind that automates partner onboarding and enablement, marketing, rewards, tiering and more.
If you’re looking to enlist channel partners to help you take your cybersecurity innovations to market, you must appreciate that your ideas are only part of what will make partners drawn to your business. The rest? It comes down to the quality of experiences you provide partners. Often, that quality is determined by the level of automation that you have.
Which brings us back to you. Are you using world-class technology to automate every facet of partner engagement — from partner journeys to marketing and beyond? Or are you hoping to get by with a home-grown tech stack or single point-solutions that do not integrate well or scale as needed?
Before you answer, consider another reason to invest in a world-class partner relationship management (PRM) platform: data, which McBain says is critical to “winning the channel.”
“Brands that provide an enhanced partner experience grow faster than their peers, are more profitable, and drive higher customer satisfaction and retention downstream,” McBain writes in a new blog from September 2021. “Smart channel professionals are looking at data across the partner journey as a way to differentiate themselves from the competition and accelerate faster in the market.”
That’s you, right? You’re the smart channel leader with the right automation that can produce the proper level of data you need to differentiate your company and accelerate ahead of your competition?
If you’re unsure, then let Impartner show you the way. Request a demo for yourself and see why 78% of customers who invest with Impartner say it gives them a competitive edge in their market. You’ll be glad you did — and so will those new partners you recruit.
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]]>Companies no longer have to choose between their priorities and those of their channel partners
Want to provide partners the best automation experiences possible but not at the expense of automating the workflows and functions that matter most to you? Now you can do both — seamlessly and simultaneously. Here’s how.
This month, Impartner is introducing Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience, a revolutionary new PRM interface designed with partners foremost in mind. Impartner PX gives vendors of any from — from startup to enterprise — the capability to customize partner interfaces so they can serve up the relevant data that partners need most on their portal homepages. Think information on program status, lead sharing, MDF approvals and more. Better yet, Impartner PX makes this possible via a new set of PXStudio widgets, which are extensible, drag-and-droppable tools that can easily be added to customized dashboards for different partners no matter their company type, geography, business model, technological specialty or level of engagement.
Now for the best part: Impartner PX adds this capability to the Impartner Ignite and Emerge PRM packages that offer some of the world’s most advanced backend PRM capabilities that scores of vendors have come to rely on. Later this year, Impartner PX will be added to Impartner’s complete set of PRM automation platforms, providing customers of any size the flexible and scalable backend that hundreds of organizations have come to depend on, and the partner-centric front-end that channel partners demand more and more.
This is big news on several levels. Allow us to unpack why here. First, let’s focus on who this announcement is initially targeted at, which is small businesses and emerging organizations. Then, we’ll turn our focus to your partners and share some insights as to why PX is so important to them.
The Automation Imperative Among SMBs and Emerging Companies
With so much business shifting online due to the pandemic and other factors, technology has become the great leveler for small businesses and emerging organizations. In fact, SMBs now spend more on technology as a percent of revenue than their big-business counterparts. SMBs do so because information and communications technology (ICT) enables them to stand out among rivals in their field and avoid becoming overrun by organizations that enjoy greater economies of scale.
The pandemic of 2020 and 2021 has exacerbated this trend. In fact, one study found that 75% of SMBs have increased their technology budgets by an average of 34% as a key part of their strategy to survive COVID-19.
No doubt your business is automating key parts of your organization, including finances, marketing, customer support and more. If your business sells through partners, automating those processes and workflows is an absolute must. There’s simply no way to manage a partner program that oversees onboarding, enablement, rewards, tiering, lead dissemination, marketing and journeys without an automation platform that can elegantly and capably integrate, monitor and measure these activities at scale.
While SMBs and emerging vendors may be tempted to try this using home-grown tools or an amalgamation of unconnected point-solutions, they run the risk of falling behind more sure-footed rivals if they do. What is more, they also risk getting flattened by bigger outfits that already automate partner functions and thus command significant partner loyalty.
One key benefit of Impartner PRM technology is that it is developed using “opinionated” software design principles. If you’re not familiar, opinionated software is automation developed around proven best practices. (In Impartner’s case, our opinionated software has been built with knowledge gleaned over hundreds of engagements with customers representing nearly every major industry, high-technology especially.)
Because of this, Impartner takes the guesswork — and much of the risk — out of automation rollout. This is especially important to SMBs and emerging companies that cannot afford to burn work cycles or waste money. Which brings us to your partners.
Why PX Has Become a Business Priority
In a recent global study of tech industry channel partners, partner organizations were asked to identify capabilities that would help make them relevant in 2022 and beyond. Their No. 1 response? Using customer experience as a “competitive differentiator.”
Funny thing about that: the more partners develop their own CX capabilities, the more attuned to PX provided by vendors they have become. Put bluntly, partners will no longer put up with bad experiences, especially when it comes to partner automation management technology. Partners don’t want your marketing materials or end-customer data sheets. Instead, they want — make that demand —the information they need to run their businesses as efficiently as possible. Again, this includes but is hardly limited to data on program status, lead sharing and MDF approvals.
In fact, studies reveal that partners will walk away from an otherwise profitable business relationship if they deem a vendor too difficult to work with. In today’s world, few things create more antagonism between a partner and a vendor that bad automation experiences. When there’s friction in your partner automation, you can be sure there is tension in your channel relationships.
Thanks to Impartner PRM Ignite and Emerge, and the new Impartner PX, you no longer have to worry about such deficiencies. Nor do you have to choose between automating the processes and workflows that are important to you and the experiences prioritized by your partners.
With Impartner Ignite and Emerge, you get unrivaled flexibility and agility to create programs for just a few partners or hundreds of thousands of partners worldwide. You also get a platform that can be customized by your channel teams without turning to a vendor or taxing your internal IT departments.
And with Impartner PX, your partners will enjoy the industry’s freshest and most intuitive partner interface that features clean, simplified views of the data that matters most to them. What is more, they will also enjoy Pipeline Manager, a new CRM-like experience that acts as a customer database to help them manage and track leads, build a sustainable sales pipeline and more.
Impartner PRM and Impartner PX. Better for you, better for your partners.
For more on the new technology, be sure to schedule a demo and see it in action.
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]]>SMBs and emerging companies to benefit first from transformative Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience, a lightning-fast, modern, consumerized interface designed from ground up to delight partners and accelerate channel revenue
Seventy-eight percent of Impartner customers say the company’s PRM solutions give them a strategic competitive advantage; Impartner PX takes it to the next level
Long the PRM choice of top enterprise and mid-sized companies, Impartner’s increasing focus on SMB ensures the company has solutions focused on helping companies grow and scale their channel, regardless of company size
SALT LAKE CITY – September 17, 2021 – Impartner, the global pure-play leader in SaaS-based channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology, today announced Impartner PX™ PartnerExperience — a sleek, revolutionary PRM interface built from the ground up for partners. Impartner PX puts the business enablement data partners need to manage their pipeline and grow their business front and center, eliminating the need for them to dig through marketing-driven websites to find information.
With Impartner PX, vendors can instantly configure partner experiences using Impartner PXStudio™, a robust suite of “opinionated” drag-and-drop, widget-based tools that capture best practices honed in thousands of real-world settings in some of the most demanding industries, including high-tech, cyber security, telecom, manufacturing and more. Impartner’s new PX interface is available immediately in the company’s Emerge and Ignite packages for SMBs and emerging companies, and will extend to the company’s complete set of packages for corporations of all sizes later in the year — from the smallest to the largest of enterprises.
“People want to partner with businesses and vendors that are on the leading edge, and Impartner PX, with its modern, fresh look and intuitive design helps vendors prioritize information partners want most so they can avoid digging through layers of website content,” said Impartner Vice President of Product Gary Sabin. “This innovation is 100 percent focused on simplifying the creation of partner experiences that are a strategic competitive advantage for vendors wanting to attract, retain and optimize best partners and time to value.”
Emerging companies and SMBs the first focus
Impartner PX is available immediately for both its Emerge and Ignite packages focused on SMBs and emerging companies, which is timely given that 75 percent have increased their technology budgets by an average of 34 percent as a key part of their strategy to survive COVID.
Specifically, Impartner PX features the following benefits:
- For partners:
- Industry’s freshest, most modern and intuitive partner interface
- Clean, simplified views of the data that matters most without having to sort through non-relevant information for leads, program status, MDF allocations, training requirements and more.
- Pipeline management with Pipeline Manager, a new CRM-like experience that acts as a customer database to manage and track leads, build a sustainable sales pipeline and more. Those using Impartner’s Through Channel Marketing Solutions can automatically import data into their Impartner TCMA solution to generate and manage automated marketing campaigns.
- For vendors
- Unrivaled flexibility and agility to speed time to market, scale and embrace best practices with PXStudio. PXStudio leverages “opinionated” engineering design principles that capture best practices and offer up customized configurations field tested in thousands of real-world settings for programs with just a few partners or hundreds of thousands of partners worldwide.
- Customizable partner experiences using Impartner’s new PXStudio Widgets. These extensible, drag-and-droppable functions make it easy to customize dashboards for different partners no matter their company type, geography, business model, technological specialty or level of engagement.
- Easily adjustable partner experiences that are 100 percent configurable by channel teams without turning to their vendor or taxing internal IT departments
A continuing stream of market-leading innovation
The introduction of Impartner PX is one of a continuing stream of innovations from Impartner’s Channel Innovation Labs, which employs product managers, plus UI and UX experts and engineers worldwide. The Channel Innovation Labs has helped Impartner become the fastest growing, most award-winning channel management technology provider worldwide. Among other honors, Impartner is recognized as a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020, and as a global leader for both PRM and Channel Marketing and Enablement by analyst firm Research in Action. Recent groundbreaking solutions include Journey Builder, which helps companies choreograph the perfect partner journey, and Program Compliance Manager, which helps solve the No. 2 problem facing channel chiefs — managing program compliance.
To learn more about Impartner PX and how Impartner helps corporations from the smallest to the largest enterprises like Honeywell, Qualtrics and Vertiv grow their channel revenue an average of 32.3% in the first year of use alone, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>An elegant, intuitive interface. Up-to-date information. And information at your fingertips.
These are but a few of the telltale signs of a good partner automation technology implementation.
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]]>Impartner’s Olivier Choron shares insights from 25 years of working with partner portals
An elegant, intuitive interface. Up-to-date information. And information at your fingertips.
These are but a few of the telltale signs of a good partner automation technology implementation. But an even better may be what you few people ever see — the technological underpinnings that provide for automated workflows and more. So says Olivier Choron, managing director of EMEA at Impartner.
“If I see complexity in the back end, I’m very happy because it means simplicity at the front end,” says Choron.
Over the last two decades, Choron, who first implemented a PRM solution in 1996, has reviewed hundreds of vendor partner automation solutions. These days Choron sees everything, including the good, bad and, yes, the ugly, too, in partner portals. One thing he is keen to point out is that a portal is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to a partner automation technology.
While the user interface (UI) is vitally important to partners who see it every day, the underpinnings behind the scenes are where the real action is, he says. (For more on Choron’s impressions, be sure to check out this Impartner Lessons from the Edge video.)
In the past few years, the behind-the-scenes integration in partner automation technology implementations has improved dramatically, he says. While no one offers partners a “single pane of glass” to manage their entire vendor relationship, Impartner comes closer than anyone else. Impartner has paid particularly close attention to how different capabilities work together both in front of a screen and behind it, says Choron. This includes core capabilities such as deal registration, lead management, training, Salesforce CRM integration and more.
When reviewing a partner portal, Choron looks for several things, logins especially. While he is encouraged by frequent logins there, Choron says vendors can do better. Once partners log into your portal, try to get them to explore other parts of the platform that will make them stronger partners. After a partner registers a deal, for example, guide them to additional training and education, or marketing resources and incentives. Help break partners from the habit of logging in to register a deal and then logging off, in other words.
Some portals Choron reviews reveal telltale signs of an overworked partner management organization. When he cannot easily find the materials and information partners need to work effectively, for example, Choron says the culprit is usually not a bad interface but a lack of internal resources, instead.
When advising customers, Choron is keen to have them focus on relevancy and timeliness. Consider your corporate website, for example. If it is out of date, then chances are your partner portal is, too. Two-year old information? That won’t cut it in today’s world of partnering.
What’s true for portals also goes for communications. Take news-on-demand. When companies tell him proudly that they send out quarterly newsletters, Choron growns in disapproval.
“We are in 2021. A quarterly newsletter means news included therein can be 90 days old by the time it gets to the partners,” says Choron. In the era of CRM automation, social media and other forms of communication, news should be fluid and constant, he says.
Organizations also fall down when they take consumer-oriented information and post it to their partner portal. Not only is the content old, it’s also ill-suited to a partner community, in many instances.
As for the future of partner automaton technology, it will likely mean more automated steps, more technology-assisted journeys and more customizable back-end solutions, just to name a few things. But the channel will still turn to portals for help with many of the staples that it relies on today. This includes demo requests, MDF management and more.
Will customers ever get the “single pane of glass” to manage partners that many dream of? Someday, Choron says, but this will always be a work in progress due to the number of new capabilities that organizations will want to add to their partner automation platforms.
Given the possibilities when it comes to automation and partnering, Impartner should be busy for years to come.
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]]>Program Compliance Manager is industry’s only solution that automates partner tiering to ensure greater compliance while reducing administrative time and overpayments.
The post Impartner Wins Best New SaaS Product in 2021 Globee Annual Awards appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Recognition continues streak of recognition Impartner’s Program Compliance Manager, which solves a top issue for channel managers: Program compliance
Program Compliance Manager is industry’s only solution that automates partner tiering to ensure greater compliance while reducing administrative time and overpayments
Salt Lake City – August 4, 2021 Impartner, the global pure-play leader in SaaS-based channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology, today announced that Impartner Program Compliance Manager (PCM) has been awarded Gold for New Product or Service of the Year for Cloud Computing/SaaS/Internet in the 2021 Globee Awards. The award is one in a continuing streak of recognition for PCM, which automates tier requirements to calculate and correctly assign tiers to every qualifying partner based on the evaluation cycle specified, solving the No. 2 issue for channel managers.
Resolving one of the biggest issues
A global study of channel pros revealed that program compliance is plagued by heavy, complicated and manual administrative burdens, which makes it difficult for vendors to communicate tier status to partners and leads to regular overpayments to them. In this study, 60% of vendors said they lack confidence partners are tiered correctly. What is more, 78% of those that lack confidence in tier accuracy said they may be mistakenly overpaying their partners by up to 20%.
Now in its sixth year, the Globee Annul Awards is one of the world’s premier business awards. Open to all organizations with at least one or more offices in the United States, the American Best in Business Awards recognize outstanding achievement among large-to-small organizations and startups in business, government and the non-profit sector. Organizations are eligible to submit nominations to the American Best in Business Awards in a wide range of categories that honor achievement in every aspect of business and work life.
The 2021 awards were selected from a panel comprised of more than 35 judges and included a wide spectrum of industry experts. This year’s winners include IBM, Makers Nutrition, Medifast, NewAge and others, in addition to Impartner. (See the complete list of 2021 winners here: https://globeeawards.com/american-business-awards/winners/)
“We’re always proud of the solutions developed in our global Channel Innovation Labs, but it’s hard not to be particularly proud of Program Compliance Manager, which has continued to delight customers and win ongoing recognition from an increasingly long list of award programs worldwide,” said Gary Sabin, Impartner VP of Product. “PCM automates the difficult task of partner tiering, embodies everything you expect in modern cloud and SaaS innovation, and simplifies a common business chore, ensuring increased partner transparency, a superior partner experience and reduced administrative overhead.”
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
About the Globee Awards
Globee Awards are conferred in eleven programs and competition: the American Best in Business Awards, Business Excellence Awards (Best Employers), CEO World Awards®, Communications Excellence Awards, Customer Sales & Service World Awards®, Cyber Security Global Excellence Awards®, Disruptor Company Awards, Golden Bridge Awards®, International Best in Business Awards, IT World Awards®, and Women World Awards®. Learn more about the Globee Awards at https://globeeawards.com
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]]>Yes, say enterprise software experts including Bryce Maughan, director of sales enablement and business development at Impartner. “The benefits of taking a demo are many regardless of whether that demo leads to a sale or not,” Maughan says. “Any opportunity to advance a learning journey is generally worth it.”
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]]>By T.C. Doyle
Let’s be honest: a lot of partner content is awful. By awful, we mean it lacks originality, appropriateness and, far too often, thoroughness.
This, of course, assumes partners can even find content developed for them. There may be no greater irony in business than the only reason more people do not know how bad partner content can be is because so few people can find it.
If this sounds in any way like your situation, don’t panic. We make it our mission at Impartner to help PRM customers improve the communications they share with partners. We have several tools including Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) and News on Demand solutions that are designed for this very purpose. But this isn’t about us. Instead, this blog is for you. We want to help you better understand why your existing partner content may be missing the mark.
When thinking in terms of partner content, keep three qualities foremost in mind:
- Applicability
- Frequency
- Timeliness
If you think about it, your partner content should be designed like a lot of the materials you share with end customer prospects in your drip marketing campaigns. In your drip campaigns, you painstakingly make an effort to not overwhelm or interrupt learning cycles and customer journeys. The same principle applies to your partner content.
Here’s a closer look at each of the three variables and why thinking of them in terms of drip marketing can help improve your partner content communications.
Applicability
Studies reveal that our attention spans are under pressure like never before. A typical knowledge worker sends and receives more than 100 emails per day. This same person also spends more time in meetings. In fact, one study shows that 15% of an organization’s time today is spent in meetings — a figure that has increased every year since 2008.
You know where this is going: you know you have a short window to grab partners’ attention. But do you know how best to use that window? To achieve this objective, think in terms of audience, form and tone.
Is your content developed for specific partners types, for example? Is it focused on individual business models, professional roles, business maturity levels, geographies and more? Consider: new partners have vastly different needs than longtime loyalists. Likewise, sales professionals are generally not interested in engineering updates unless they translate into new business opportunities.
Before you create another piece of partner content, ask yourself who is intended for and if it packaged appropriately. Few people, for example, have time to read lengthy whitepapers or pore over detailed financial reports. If your information can be conveyed in an information graphic, then don’t deliver it in a lengthy text-heavy document. Also note that more professionals consume information on mobile devices than a decade ago, so consider video, podcasts and other mediums to convey information.
Lastly, don’t forget tone: keep legal out of your partner communications because nothing says, “we don’t trust you” like something written in “legalese.” A better way? Clear, concise and honest communication. That’s what partners want, every time.
Frequency
Young communicators are taught in journalism school that when news is delivered is every bit as important as how it is presented. When it comes to newspapers, delivery consistency is as important as content reliability. Partner content isn’t so different.
Which brings us to you: are you communicating in a consistent and predictable manner? Or do you overwhelm partners at times important to you only to disappear for weeks if not months afterwards? Again, think of your drift campaigns.
You understand that prospects cannot go from “just browsing” to “checkout now” without going through a journey. The same is true of partners, which typically expose themselves to new material, then immerse themselves in it before finally developing proficiency in a new concept, program or business model.
As someone tasked with helping advance your organization’s agenda within partner constituents, don’t underestimate how important communications cadence is. When a new partner demonstrates interest in your organization, keep them engaged with regular and frequent communications. And after they become a productive member of your partner ecosystem, never assume that your previous communications have hit the mark 100% of the time.
You know from your drip campaigns that you must connect with a customer prospect between seven and a dozen times before they will ask for a demo or request a quote. Similarly, partners need multiple exposure to your ideas and innovations before they fully understand them. The same goes for your programs, policies and promotions, too.
This is why your emails campaigns, newsletters and other communications vehicles must be timed appropriately. Nothing helps coordinate your frequency better than automation.
Timeliness
Some timing miscues are a result of bad luck. In 2017, for example, Airbnb launched an ad campaign that promoted “aquatic adventures” that tantalized travelers with a chance to spend a week on a houseboat that never touched dry land. The campaigned dropped just as Hurricane Harvey pounded the Gulf Coast of Texas.
Woops.
Other mistakes are entirely avoidable. Take your asset library for example. Time and again, organizations make it impossible to search. Worse, they don’t build-in “begin” and “end” dates to things they produce on behalf of partners, which can create chaos afterwards.
The best message in the world will fall flat on its face if it’s delivered at the wrong moment. Consider a sales incentive you announced for the third quarter a year ago. If that somehow resurfaces three quarters later in your partner content stream, partners will think the promotion is still valid.
If you haven’t lived through having to tell a partner that they are not getting an incentive because it lapsed, then pray you never have to. This is doubly-true if they counted on a backend rebate to offset any margin loss on overly aggressive customer pricing.
Now consider the whole of your asset library. It may contain outdated product spec sheets, price lists, competitive analyses and more. Certainly, it has dated videos, case studies and product roadmaps. If so, that’s problematic. Like food in the fridge, information is no good once it’s past its expiration date.
Relevancy and Automation
When you successfully add applicability, frequency and timeliness to your partner content, you achieve greater relevancy with your community. That’s critical for building mindshare, loyalty and financial success with your partners.
But achieving relevancy requires more than commitment. It also requires automation — the kind that Impartner provides the world over in many industries and to customers large and small.
To understand how automation can elevate the relevance of your partner content, request an Imparter demo. Spend just 30 minutes with one of our partner content specialists and you will see a new world of possibilities. Ask for your Impartner demo today.
Your partners will thank you.
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]]>Yes, say enterprise software experts including Bryce Maughan, director of sales enablement and business development at Impartner. “The benefits of taking a demo are many regardless of whether that demo leads to a sale or not,” Maughan says. “Any opportunity to advance a learning journey is generally worth it.”
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]]>- Stay Abreast of Trends
- Gain Insights into Other Professionals’ Best Practices
- Test Strategic Hypotheses
- Provide Feedback to Frontline Influencers
- Challenge Perceptions and Overcome Biases
Stay Abreast of Trends
Some books you cannot put down. Others you just cannot get into. The same is true of news stories, research topics and business trends. Be honest: could you explain blockchain to a fellow professional if you had to? If you know or even suspect there are lapses or gaps in your knowledge on key trends, then taking a demo with a trained professional will help you understand key concepts in a private, controlled environment. In the right demo setting, you can ask anything you like without the risk of embarrassment or career setback. And you can dive deep into areas that are of particular to you and your organization. This includes subjects where your familiarity may be lacking. Considering that studies show that working professionals have stopped learning because they have no time for ongoing education, you might find that a sales demo is a terrific way to outsmart your competition. A good demo will help you quickly catch up on innovations, trends and market dynamics, just to name a few things.Gain Insights into Other Professionals’ Best Practices
When demonstrating their ideas and innovations, organizations try to put their best foot forward. They will deliver their demo on their best equipment, for example, and with their best personnel. They do so they can present themselves in the best light possible. As part of their planning, they will structure their presentations to include best practices gleaned from other customer engagements and relative industry research. This offers your organization genuine insights that you’d ordinarily pay for. When taking a demo, be sure to ask loads of questions on different approaches, strategies and individual best practices. Where possible, ask for refences. Peer practitioners can provide an abundance of insights that would otherwise take months if not years to gather on your own. The possibilities are endless. In the right setting, you can learn everything from optimum configurations, talent allocation, costs and return on investment expectations. If you’re mulling whether you need an outside consultant, do yourself a favor and take some product demos first. So long as your honest about your priorities and intensions, you’ll be amazed what people will be willing to share. Test Your Hypotheses Every good vendor with their salt has done competitive research on what works in their field or market, and what does not. This research typically goes well beyond what competitors’ offer. Think tech stacks, support networks and market evolutions. If your company, thus, has an idea about something but nowhere else to put it to a test, take a vendor product demo. In most instances, vendors will welcome the opportunity to consider your ideas and strategies and offer some honest feedback. If you’re wondering why, then remember that it is in their best interest to do so. The last thing a reputable vendor wants to do is sell someone an idea or innovation that is ill-suited to their strategy, infrastructure, market setting or competitive landscape. Nor do they want to provide something that is either too complicated for a customer, or worse, too expensive. That’s why as part of their due diligence they ask a ton of questions. So long as you trust their intensions, give them as much data as they need so they may offer you their best thinking on your unique needs.Provide Your Feedback to Influencers
In addition to providing you education and market insights, sales demos also provide you an opportunity to provide feedback to frontline influencers who will absolutely share your concerns and comments with key stakeholders, be they sales professionals, product developers or executive overseers. The reason is simple: demo providers, in many instances, are some of the most highly trained and experienced professionals an organization puts in front of prospective customers. More than order takers or marketing enthusiasts, demo providers are trained to listen very carefully to what customers need and will pay for. Better than most, they take comments and observations very seriously. Again consider Maughan. “Whatever nugget a customer shares, be it a comparison to a competitor, an observation about market conditions or something seemingly mundane about how product functions or is packaged, you can bet that a demo professional will take notice. Their livelihoods literally depend on all things big and small,” says Maughan.Challenge Your Perceptions/Overcome Biases
Finally, let’s address one of the most important reasons for taking a demo: it’s to prove you wrong. That’s right, we said, “wrong.” While some people will take offense to such a notion, a seasoned professional knows there’s nothing more valuable than to have someone thoroughly — and, more importantly — convincingly challenge if not disprove your biases, perceptions and understandings. This includes everything from how your market operates to how your company functions to even how your technology works. Few business forums allow for such honest and open discourse as a simple product demo. But like that test drive that Millennials and a growing number of other car shoppers forego, the product demo is a place — make that an opportunity — where you can learn anew. Business leaders great and small will tell you that an hour spent learning is one of the best ways to spend part of your day. To see how you can benefit from a new insights from trained professionals, ask for your Impartner demo today.The post Five Reasons to Say “Yes” to That Demo appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>With an eye toward 2022 and beyond, the business world is looking at new priorities. Is your partner portal up for the task?
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]]>Proven ideas that yield greater returns every time
By T.C. Doyle
Congratulations on your latest round of funding! Now that you have an influx of capital, do you a solid plan for putting the money to use? You’re going to need one given the expectations that likely came with the new investment.
While you may have some ideas for spending the money, there are better ways to invest it than buying Herman-Miller chairs or leasing new office space. Experts agree that the best way to spend your new funding is to invest in things and activities that will help your organization address its top priorities, which typically fit into one of three categories:
- Growth
- Operational excellence
- Product development
Some business experts and management consultants break these categories down into subgroups or elevate one or more items such as “workforce productivity” into the main group. Regardless, most business priorities fall into one of these basic categories. What’s interesting is how digital innovation can help organizations achieve their aims in each of these areas.
If your organization does business with partners or plans to in the future, then you will want to understand how partner automation technology can help your organization overcome challenges and achieve objectives against your list of priorities. Having this information at the ready will help you, your go-to-market leaders and even your executive leadership team make more informed decisions when it comes to spending your new capital wisely.
Growth Priorities
Improve business growth. Attract and retain new customers. Improve speed to new markets. If these growth priorities sound familiar, then you’re like most organizations, according to market researcher Techaisle, which produces an annual list of business and technology priorities and challenges for various organizational segments including SMBs. (Techaisle considers SMBs as organizations with between 1 and 999 employees.)
While some companies go it alone, the majority of SMBs and mid-size enterprises work with partners when it comes to executing their go-to-market strategies. Consider: more than 75% of global trade flows through business partners, according to Forrester. This is despite the growth of vendor marketplaces and other direct-to-consumer sales efforts.
Partners can help you expand your influence in new geographies, customer segments, vertical niches and targeted accounts where you believe growth lies. They can bolster your technical aptitude and amplify your marketing efforts, too. Furthermore, partners can introduce you to customers with whom they have existing relationships with.
But to achieve these benefits, you have to put in sufficient infrastructure to support your partners. This includes an investment into a partner relationship management (PRM) platform that can scale with you as you grow. Our research has found that organizations that invest in a PRM grow 32.3%, on average, after deploying partner automation technology. What is more, 77% report a return on their investment in less than 18 months.
If business acceleration is what you seek, then you need new growth mechanisms. Without them, you will never live up to your investors’ expectations.
Partners can provide you with new lift. But their contributions require new investments, commitment and expertise.
Operational Excellence
When it comes to operational excellence, companies have a long list of priorities. Chief among them is reducing costs and improving products and processes.
After deploying a PRM, Impartner customers report reducing their operational costs by 29%, on average. Another 78% claim that their PRM has provided them a competitive advantage in their respective market. Here’s insight as to why.
Unless your company has a truly differentiated innovation or idea, your partners have choices when it comes to with whom they align. While maximizing profitability is always top of mind, it isn’t always a determining factor when it comes to joining a partner program. In fact, CompTIA research finds that having “an established partner program with solid resources” rates higher among channel partners than “compensation plans in place that maximize the profitability of partners.”
Industry research also finds that one-quarter of channel partners will not work with a vendor that does not fully prioritize a seamless, workable partner experience.
For business practitioners, “a seamless, workable partner experience” translates into automation technology that reduces if not eliminates friction when it comes to partner onboarding, deal registration and market development funds (MDF) management just to name a few things.
If your company doesn’t provide friction-free experiences, it will struggle to attract the best partners in any given market. It will also wrestle trying to meet the expectations of those that it does enlist.
There’s more when it comes to automation and operational excellence: In addition to serving as a system of record (SoR) for all things partner-related, a PRM is a key component in a modern go-to-market technology architecture that also includes a customer relationship management (CRM) platform and a marketing automation platform (MAP). With a PRM and complementary adjuncts, you can efficiently extend your marketing through partners, track end customer leads in a closed-loop system and reward key constituents appropriately based on their contributions and engagement.
Product development
While it might sound like a stretch to think that a PRM platform can actually inform your product development agenda, it isn’t. Here’s why.
Partners not only give you sales leverage in a given market, they also provide invaluable feedback and insight. Consider: partners work with dozens if not hundreds of customers on average. They have tremendous insight on customer buying habits, business priorities and best practices. They understand better than most the positive impact that new ideas and innovations have on a market, and why some ideas fall flat.
Engaged partners will gladly share these insights with trusted allies who promise confidentiality and complementary insights for helping mutual customers. Partners will also serve as more than sounding boards; in many instances they will participate in beta test programs and help develop new use cases for your ideas and innovations.
If that sounds appealing to you, then remember that extracting these invaluable benefits requires partner intimacy and loyalty — the kind that a world-class partner automation platform promotes.
Which brings us back to you and your latest investment. Did you know that it comes at a time when investment in U.S. companies is setting all-time records? It has. Take startups, which enjoyed an inflow of $150 billion for the first half of 2021, according to a report from PitchBook. That sum is more than what startups have received in every full year before 2020.
This means that in addition to you, your rivals may have received some funding of late. So, the race is on, in other words, to see who can scale the fastest.
No doubt you are considering a wealth (no pun intended) of options for spending your new money. But before you commit to one thing or another, do yourself a favor and investigate how partner automation can help put that money to wise use.
Ask for an Impartner demo today.
While an investment in partner automation technology won’t provide the immediate comfort that a new Aeron chair will, it will put your organization in a better position.
Now that’s what we call sitting pretty.
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]]>With an eye toward 2022 and beyond, the business world is looking at new priorities. Is your partner portal up for the task?
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]]>Partner needs are evolving. So are their priorities. Are you optimized accordingly? Compare yourself to this handy checklist.
With an eye toward 2022 and beyond, the business world is looking at new priorities. Is your partner portal up for the task?
In this article, we highlight several priorities that have emerged from our conversations with customers, business partners and industry thought leaders alike. From our interactions and research, it’s clear that a change in market conditions is leading to change in thinking. Whereas global events in 2020 put an emphasis on “resiliency” and “adaptability,” new market realties have pushed “growth” and “experiences” to the top of corporate agendas.
Consider a May report from Gartner. In Gartner’s 2021 CEO Survey, 60% of CEOs said they expect their organization’s revenue to return to 2019 levels by the end of 2021. Another 30% of CEOs said they expect a resurgence by 2022. An increase in Covid-19 infections could render expectations moot, much as they did at the beginning of 2020. But if current indications are correct, then your channel strategy will need to be updated accordingly. This includes your partner portal.
Here are five areas to consider as you begin planning for 2022 and beyond.
Partner Experience
In all but a few product and service categories and regardless of industry, business partners have choices when it comes to who they work with. With velocity foremost in many partners’ minds, ease-of-doing business has emerged as a top priority. How important? Consider what the tech trade association CompTIA reported: “For a vast majority of partners, the ease of doing business ranks highest in the why-should-we-work-with-this-vendor department. It ranks higher than even the profit-making opportunity in many cases.”
Is your partner portal designed appropriately? Can partners quickly find the information they need, or do they encounter friction at every turn? How many times do you ask them to log in as they navigate through your pages and applications? Does your homepage surface the information that matters most to them? Or do you make them dig? Do you bombard them with customer-oriented information, or provide a more tailored, personalized experience?
If you don’t like your answers, then your company may be competing at disadvantage.
Partner Performance, Reporting and Analytics
Every channel chief knows the key to competing today is actionable information. This requires real-time data that you can access at a glance and can put into a report that can be easily scrutinized. There’s simply no way to do proper business planning without this kind of intelligence. But not every portal tool gives up this kind of information easily. With some tools, it can feel as though the portal were working against you to conceal the data you need. Not Impartner’s Business Intelligence (BI) engine and Channel Intel+ technology, which have been designed to seamlessly provide channel business leaders with data that drives revenue and increases partner profitability.
With Impartner PRM, everything from partner segmentation to deal registration to onboarding and more has been optimized around two vectors: making things frictionless for partners and providing you the actionable data you need to grow at scale.
Integration with Key Business Platforms
Study after study reveals the degree that customers fast-tracked digital transformation projects in 2020 as a result of the global pandemic. But experts note that “most C-suites are frustrated and disappointed” with outcomes. Projects take too long, cost too much and deliver too little.
Why? Integration challenges are a big issue. Customers no longer want to mash together software components that do not mesh easily. This goes for your partner automation platform.
Impartner gets this. We know that business runs on Microsoft Office, Salesforce CRM and other tech standbys. That’s why our PRM integrates in real-time with Salesforce CRM (we were the first to do so) and Microsoft Dynamics. We also integrate easily with other key platforms.
We understand what being a system of record is all about and how it relates to velocity. Let’s face it: having to wait hours or even minutes for your batched data to “sync” can mean winning or losing a competitive bid.
That won’t cut it 2022. Integrate or fall behind, we say.
Expandability
Once you embrace a modern PRM, you’re going to love how a modern, integrated automation platform can transform your business and increase partner satisfaction. But you’re likely to want more.
For example, you’re likely to want to better coordinate marketing activities with partners to ensure that your messages are delivered consistently and appropriately. This means better technology, the kind that through channel marketing automation (TCMA) provides for.
In addition to communicating through partners, you’ll also want to communicate to them more effectively. For that, you’ll need a purpose-built tool such as Impartner’s News on Demand. There’s more, including Impartner’s Social on Demand, Google Ads for the Channel and Point of Sale Management.
As you grow your channel, you’ll want to increase the capability of your partner portal. You’ll want a platform that expands and grows with you, in other words. Impartner does this seamlessly no matter your size or industry.
Best Practices
If you’re not familiar with the term, you’ll likely hear more about “opinionated software” as you consider your automation plans and priorities. While “opinionated” conjures up bad connotations in most instances, it means “informed” and “experienced” when it comes to digital automation. Take Impartner PRM, for example.
In addition to being integrated, customizable and secure, Impartner PRM is also informed. We built our software to leverage best practices we’ve gleaned from hundreds of implementations with world-leaders in business from multiple industries over two decades. This includes how we help customers onboard partners, train and certify them, share leads and even reward partners. When you invest in Impartner partner automation, in other words, you’re getting business best practices baked into every module you leverage.
With that, you can be assured that you are investing with an organization that is as focused on your success as you are.
Automation for a Changing World
In the post-pandemic era, speed and experiences will loom large in the hearts and minds of business partners everywhere. Your partner portal, thus, must optimize accordingly.
If that sounds daunting to you, rest easy; it isn’t if you have the right partner committed to your channel success.
See for yourself how partner automation can help increase velocity and improve experiences for your channel partners. Click here for your Impartner demo today.
And for more on prioritization, don’t miss “Priorities for Channel Partners in 2021 and Beyond.”
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]]>If you work with channel partners, there’s a strong chance that your world has seen more upheaval in the past two years than in the previous five. Everything from business economics to technological innovation to customer buying habits is undergoing change. Navigating this post-pandemic period will be a significant challenge, unless you have some help to guide you.
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]]>Trends, opportunities and challenges that are driving the need for greater automation
If you work with channel partners, there’s a strong chance that your world has seen more upheaval in the past two years than in the previous five. Everything from business economics to technological innovation to customer buying habits is undergoing change. Navigating this post-pandemic period will be a significant challenge, unless you have some help to guide you.
That’s why we are here.
Here’s an overview of the top business priorities that channel partners have heading into 2022 and beyond. We present them now so you can factor these realities into your future partner plans and programs. Note: most trends examined below formed before the pandemic set in. They will likely have significant influence long after Covid-19 and its variants subside.
Let’s start with a big one, the future of work, careers and organizations.
Step into the Future of Work
Channel partners face a number of challenges and opportunities, none more pressing the aligning their organizations and capabilities to the broad concept known as “the future of work.” Thanks to the pandemic, technological advances and shifting social norms, we can safely say that the future of work will be more mobile, virtual and automated than before. It will also be more measured, decentralized and specialized.
“Companies are now looking at a permanent shift in how they work — reassessing workflows, processes, business logic, and even real estate investments,” writes Forrester Research analyst Jay McBain.
The implications for channel partners couldn’t be greater. Regardless of industry, they will have to rethink their own workplace realities not to mention retool to better serve customers. Consider McKinsey & Co., whose research finds that between 20-25% of workforces in advanced economies could work from home between three and five days a week. “This represents four to five times more remote work than before the pandemic and could prompt a large change in the geography of work, as individuals and companies shift out of large cities into suburbs and small cities,” according to McKinsey research.
In addition to new workplace norms, channel partners are working to better understand how occupations are changing. By 2030, virtually every occupation, for example, will be influenced or directly involved with digital technology, making every worker a knowledge worker in some fashion. What is more, as much of a quarter of the workforce will seek new occupations — not just new jobs — as a result of all the change. While estimates vary, one study predicts that nearly two-thirds of children today will eventually work in new jobs that don’t yet exist.
In addition to individuals, organizations themselves are changing. According to Gartner Research, “Companies will focus on expanding their geographic diversification and investment in secondary markets to mitigate and manage risk in times of disruption. This rise in complexity of size and organizational management will create challenges for leaders as operating models evolve.”
Thanks to these and other changes, channel partners of all stripes are working hard to plan and prepare for the future of work for 2022 and beyond.
Embrace disruptive innovation
In the tech world, thousands upon thousands of managed service providers (MSPs) have desks dedicated to tech specialists whose job it is to respond to customer trouble tickets all day long. Initially, many MSPs were cool to the idea of handing some of that work to artificial intelligence (AI) bots that could respond to low-level customer requests such as resetting a password. Many MSPs owners worried about the level of service the bots would provide to customers, and the toll such bots would have on workers who feared for their jobs.
Fast-forward to today. More MSP owners are comfortable with the increased sophistication of bots and more MSPs engineers are, too. The bots provide good, base-level service and free engineers up for more advanced duties. It’s a case of disruptive innovation that works for everyone.
Not all disruptive ideas, of course, do. (Taxi drivers and homeowners’ associations aren’t fans of Uber and Airbnb for a reason.) But where possible, channel partners have put disruptive innovations at the top of their lists of priorities both for themselves and their own customers. A third of tech industry channel partners who have added new vendors to their line cards of late say they have done so to “enter new markets like emerging tech,” according to tech industry trade association CompTIA.
In pharmaceuticals, channel partners are embracing new pharmacovigilance technologies that help prevent the adverse effects of incompatible drug prescriptions in care environments. A few years ago, such technology threatened Big Pharma middlemen but no longer. Channel partners are availing themselves of the latest innovations so they can offer unparalleled levels of services to their customers.
Then there are software marketplaces, which many tech partners are trying to figure out. Once thought to be a disruptive threat to their worlds, technology resellers now recognize that software marketplaces serve as a complement to their efforts to sell software. Many have embraced them to address specific customer needs, freeing them up to focus on higher-level deals and integrations.
Leverage new business models
What do HPE, Dell, Cisco, Nutanix and other tech giants have in common? They all have committed to offer most if not all of their tech portfolios as-a-service within a mere few years.
The reason is straightforward, according to research from The Alexander Group, a market consultancy that caters to enterprise vendors and buyers of technology. A late 2020 study by The Alexander Group found that everything-as-a-service (XaaS) market leaders are growing revenue from existing customers by more than 20% annually and improving their net revenue retention by 11%.
Overall, sales of infrastructure-as-service, which includes AWS, Google and Azure, are growing 40% year-over-year whiles sales of software-as-s-service are growing 30% annually. This compares to modest growth rates for products such as servers, routers and more.
This is a massive business model transformation for vendors and channel partners, alike. In fact, experts believe it is the single largest transformation in technology in two decades. “New XaaS revenue models require post-land investments across the entire customer life-cycle and are critical for continued growth and scale,” says The Alexander Group.
For channel partners in tech, this means a reduced emphasis on product reselling and more focus subscription sales, which is good because the latter provide a more predictable revenue stream and a more durable economic model than a big-ticket, transaction-oriented business.
More than semantics, the transformation to XaaS has wide-ranging implications for how channel partners staff, fund, grow and manage their organizations. Rather than product margins, more channel partners look to make money by monetizing their influence, says Wayne Monk, senior vice president of global alliances and channel sales at tech integrator and consultant ASG Technologies. Writing for VARinsights in January 2021, Monk says “some partners are shifting their business to provide more advisory and architecture-oriented services, while others are electing to innovate and sell their solutions.”
In addition to what they offer, channel partners are rethinking how they offer their value. Consider the insurance industry, which is greatly dependent on independent agents known as “intermediaries.” At the beginning of the pandemic, roughly 90% of life insurance agents’ sales conversations and nearly 70% of ongoing client interactions were done in person, according to McKinsey findings. By May 2020, that figured dropped to just 5%.
In a report on the industry, McKinsey addressed the broader and longer-term impacts that external forces are having on the business models and best practices of insurance channel partners: “Agents accustomed to in-person interactions are rapidly recalibrating to provide uninterrupted service to clients who may be facing severe health or economic challenges. These agents are also rethinking how they build relationships with prospective clients as most rely on in-person meetings.”
Deliver superior customer experiences
For decades, study after study revealed that consumers loathe shopping for cars. But year after year, car dealerships clung to the No. 1 thing car buyers hated most: price negotiation.
Then the pandemic set it. When it did, consumers turned en masse to online buying sites such as TrueCar, Carvana and Vroom, which offer a haggle-free sales experience and at-home delivery. To promote its emphasis on superior customer experiences, Vroom ran a TV ad during the 2021 Super Bowl that parodied traditional car dealer experiences.
While some saw the move as an afront to their businesses, some dealers changes policies to provide better customer experiences. This includes Bill Camastro, a dealer and partner in Gold Coast Cadillac in New Jersey. Camastro told Automotive News, “I hope every car dealer in the country saw that commercial, to be honest with you. All it’s going to do is improve them.”
Turns out he is right. Since the pandemic, more car dealers have embraced “no-haggle” selling and beefed-up other services including free-loaner cars, free customer pickup and online appointment scheduling.
Intermediaries in other collaborative industries are similarly pulling out all stops to elevate the customer experiences (CX) they provide. To better respond to customer tech support inquiries, tech channel partners are investing in professional services automation (PSA) platforms to a greater extent. PSA technology has been shown to translate into a 48% reduction in customer dissatisfaction and a 28% improvement in channel partner response time, according to a Forrester/Datto study
As their business models shift and the need to provide superior customer experiences increases, more tech channel partners are embracing what tech publication VARStreet professes: “Customer experience is the impression customers have of your brand through all interactions across the entire customer lifecycle.” Ditto for their enterprises. Today, more channel partners believe customer experience is the responsibility of every person in their organization, according to the publication. More than a third say it’s the single most important competitive differentiator that they have, according to CompTIA.
Not surprisingly, more tech industry channel partners are retraining their sales staffs and support personnel to embrace this new reality. Salespeople, for example, are being retrained to be more empathetic to customers because their duties have grown beyond simply selling; they now include retaining customers, in many instances.
Develop more sophisticated marketing and branding capabilities
For decades, intermediaries in many industries relied on the brands of others to attract customers’ attention.
Watch dealers, for example, counted on Rolex and Omega to bring people into their stores. Tech channel partners counted on Microsoft, Cisco and HP to essentially do the same.
But times have changed. The idea that channel partners aren’t really interested in marketing is a maxim that is an outdated as a business without a website. While it bucks conventional thinking, marketing spending as percent of revenue has actually increased among tech channel partners in recent years. Traditionally less than 5% of revenue in a given year, some partners now spend upwards of 7% or more of revenue promoting their brands. Smaller channel partners, in particular, spend a greater percent of revenue on marketing than their larger channel counterparts, on average.
Interestingly, building their own brand doesn’t necessarily come at the expense of building a vendor’s brand. Just the opposite. Research from the tech trade association CompTIA found in 2021 that nearly one-third of channel partners want to tap into digital the marketing expertise and social media know-how of vendor partners. In addition, channel partners want to “appear bigger and more sophisticated to the customer” thanks to new digital capabilities.
To burnish their images, channel partners in various industries are hiring more branding and marketing specialists. They are investing in new tools. And they are rethinking everything from the language they use to attract customers to the way they measure engagement and the journeys they create for customers.
These journeys have led them to affiliate with a variety of new influencers and thought leaders. In the tech industry alone, they are nearly 150 different social media groups for VARs, MSPs and other channel partners, according to Forrester Research.
Ultimately, what channel partners want is a way to attract new business that doesn’t detract from their ability to serve existing customers. Scaling, thus, has become a priority in everything they do.
Which brings us to our last 2022 channel partners priority: rationalizing an internal tech stack. That, of course, is the single most important lever a channel partner can pull to facilitate their ability to operate at scale.
Rationalize an internal technology stack
The adage that you cannot run a channel on spreadsheets is taking hold among channel partners in several industries. In tech, for example, some channel partners have gorged on tech automation — so much so that they are now trying to rationalize and standardize on a tech stack that’s optimized to help advance them in key areas including service automation, marketing, vendor relationship management, sales and more. Others — the bulk of channel partners — are just getting started.
Regardless of where they are in their journey, channel partners are eager to establish some norms and standards. Again, take a typical tech channel partner today such as an MSP.
In today’s market, an MSP typically runs its services division with a PSA and/or a remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform. It will also leverage a customer relationship management (CRM) platform such as Salesforce to help its sales team. And it will leverage marketplaces and dashboards provided to it by key distributors.
In addition to these tools, MSPs typically rely on one or more dashboards to monitor their cybersecurity operations and others for marketing. The most important tools for executive leadership are partner relationship management (PRM) platforms that provide business leaders a window into their sales pipelines, employee certifications, through channel marketing activities and more.
All of these compete for the time and energy of partners who have no time to slow down or patience for poorly designed interfaces. Nor can they afford to invest in redundant tools that confuse rather than simplify. Consider, for example, questions raised by tech consultant BCG: “Does the fourth collaboration software help, or does it just confuse us…? Finding the right balance is essential to making Smart Work productive.”
Not surprisingly, Monk from ASG Technologies believes the tech industry is entering an era in which channel partners are leveraging “hyper-automation.”
“To service these new demands from end customers, many channel partners are transitioning to hyper-automation, which is imperative to delivering a digital service because it builds resilience and improves the experience. Automation is top of mind because people aren’t in offices or data centers anymore. They’re confronted with manual tasks and human dependencies and need to stitch them together in an automated way,” Monk writes in VARinsights. “In the race to a digital-first, virtual-first world, partners that can keep pace will pull ahead.”
Which brings us to your company.
When it comes to your tech stack, are you helping or hurting yourself when it comes supporting your channel partners? To be sure you’re aligned with their priorities for 2022 and beyond, do yourself a favor and sign up for a demo from Impartner today. Let the market leader in PRM show you what hyper automation should look like and what it can do for your business.
For more on channel and programs, be sure to read, “Seven Signs Your Partner Program Is Too Complicated.”
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]]>A new global study reveals that one-quarter of channel partners will not work with a vendor that does not “fully prioritize a seamless, workable partner experience.”
Does that sound like you?
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]]>Rigid requirements, underutilized assets and unused market development funds. If your company suffers from even one of these, then your partner program may be too complicated.
By T.C. Doyle
A new global study reveals that one-quarter of channel partners will not work with a vendor that does not “fully prioritize a seamless, workable partner experience.”
Does that sound like you?
If the question makes you even the least bit uncomfortable, then your channel program may be too complicated. If partners have to hire additional staff just to navigate your program, that’s not a sign of enthusiasm; it’s an indication of a problem in the making.
When partner programs are overly complex, satisfaction suffers and utilization declines. A better way? Simplify to improve partner experiences and focus your own thinking. “Complexity reduction helps companies simplify their strategy, organization, products, processes and information technology,” says management consultant Bain & Co.
Still not certain where you stand? Ask yourself if any of the following seven signs apply to your organization. If your program suffers from even one or two of these conditions, it may be time to streamline your program.
1. Partners sign up but then don’t engage
Ever tried to check out of a retail store only to be bombarded with requests for detailed personal information before you leave? If so, let that lingering experience guide you as you devise your onboarding process. Consider the amount of information you request at the moment of signup. A detailed business plan from a partner that has never completed a single transaction with your organization, not to mention other bits of information, is simply too much. Overwhelming partners with unnecessary questions or setting unrealistic expectations will leave new partners with a bad taste.
Also, onboarding should not take days or weeks. If you cannot capture the excitement of a new partner in the same day they demonstrate it, then you risk losing their enthusiasm.
Finally, match your demands to the value your ideas and innovations offer partners. If your company develops a simple widget that solves a specific problem, don’t expect partners to comply with rigid demands for training and certification.
2. Partners don’t dig any deeper than your portal’s homepage
When partners do not navigate past your homepage, that’s a signal that something is amiss. Likely, the problem is navigation — i.e., channel partners cannot find the materials they need to complete a task or monitor their progress with your channel program. Modern partner portals simplify navigation and make it possible for vendors to customize views for partners. With the right tools, you can create custom dashboards that surface the most relevant information that partners seek, be it information on program compliance, training updates, deal status and more. Partners love it.
Not everything can be surfaced on a homepage, obviously, so navigation to specific assets or landing pages should be unambiguously clear. What is more, resist the temptation to sell partners from within your partner portal. A partner portal is not the place for ads or marketing materials, especially information that is readily available from your public website. Unless materials are specifically devoted to partner needs and interests, do not clog your partner portal with “filler” material.
3. Leads linger in a queue or lapse from inattention
Leads are one of the most frequently requested items from partners when it comes to your partner program. But lead dissemination is not generally a best practice among vendors. To be frank, most vendors are terrible when it comes to sharing leads. Email is a big reason why.
In many instances, email is the common way vendors share leads with channel partners. When an account manager is ready, they send an email to a chosen partner. But email leaves a lot to be desired. Some emails wind up in SPAM folders. Others do not stand out and get lost in partners’ daily deluge. Even emails that get opened and read leave a lot to be desired. With an email system, there’s little way to track activity and receptivity.
In contrast, automated lead systems ask partners to accept or deny leads. Accepted leads are then tracked in an automated fashion. The bottom line is you spend an enormous amount on lead generation. Don’t let that money go to waste because you skimped on a closed-loop tracking system.
4. Partners don’t migrate to higher tiers
A recent study in the U.S. revealed that only 10% of taxpayers could correctly answer, “how many different tax brackets are there in the U.S.?” (The answer is seven.)
With some channel programs, channel partners are similarly unaware. They find tiers confusing, partner classifications inconsistent with conventional wisdom and benefits and requirements baffling. When any of these conditions occur, partners sit tight in a comfortable groove unaware that additional benefits may only be a few deals from their grasp.
If you have stagnation in your program — i.e., partners remain at one level the entire time they are affiliated with your organization — they you may have a communications problem that is bigger than any motivational challenge you face. Engaged partners will pull deals from one vendor and give it to another if there’s a reasonable advantage to be gained. Incentives that cause them to do such things could be a bigger discount, a higher after-sale rebate or better technical and marketing support.
Where possible, provide a visual reminder of where partners are in terms of program advancement. If your airline can show you where you stand within its frequent flyer program, then your partner portal should be able to do so as well.
5. MDF money goes unspent
We could write a book on the amount of money that is wasted on market development funds (MDF) — and probably pay for it its publication with unspent MDF that piles up year-after-year.
MDF programs fail for two primary reasons: complexity and rigidity. Take 2020, for example. When the pandemic disrupted work life as we know it, it was abundantly clear that MDF plans devised six months earlier were not going to help anyone. Money for golf outings in the spring? On-site customer demos with dinner and a ball game afterwards? These ideas and more had to be scrapped. In response, many vendors simply extended time horizons on certain marketing activities. But they did so without considering what the “new normal” in marketing events, campaigns and materials should look like.
If you ask partners, most will tell you that the problem they have with MDF programs is a lack of actionable information. They do not know what funds are available or what they can do with them. Worse, even when they qualify for money, they do not know how they can claim their funds or apply for reimbursements.
6. Your tech support team is inundated with portal questions
How do I reset my password? How do I update my company’s information in your partner locator? Who can help me with a certification question?
You implement a partner portal, in part, to address questions on partner programs. Alas, far too many partner program portals wind up raising more questions than they answer. While many concerns can be addressed with a basic design change or better planning, improving the overall satisfaction with your partner program and reducing complexity requires more. It requires a change in philosophy.
Think about it: your partners are highly capable, independent businesses who tend to take care of themselves. When they encounter partner programs that do not encourage or, worse, allow for self-service, antibodies deep within them surface. So change your philosophy.
Give partners the ability to update information on their own. Doing so spares your team from data entry and gives your partners a sense of control. Also, share information with partners liberally. This includes product roadmaps, competitive analyses and more. Treat them as true partners, in other words.
7. Attrition rates are too high
Lastly, do you monitor the number of partners that drift away from your program each year? Do you even know why once high-performing players ghost you? Chances are it’s not due to a lack of innovation or brand competitiveness. More often than not, it’s because your company is difficult to work with. In fact, studies show that partners will stay with vendors with competitive shortcomings so long as they are easy to deal with.
If you’re wondering where you stand with your partners, ask yourself if you could pass their “Rule of 10” test. To be relevant with a partner, you should aim to either be in a partner’s list of top 10 vendors or account for 10% of their revenue.
Lastly, clean up any messes. If it takes two weeks for a partner to get a price quote, all the benefits in the world will not make your program successful, not at the current velocity of business today. If you have a chronic and/or outsized problem, then pull out all stops to address it immediately.
In conclusion
The German food retailer Aldi is doing what few possible in the U.S.: find a niche that exists between big box stores such as Walmart and Costco, online purveyors including Amazon, and traditional grocers such as Kroger’s and Safeway. Aldi established a foothold in the U.S. with a simple formula: basic staples at fair prices in convenient locations. If you’re looking for 40 varieties of toothpaste, Aldi is not your place. But if you suffer from decision fatigue and want superior experiences, then Aldi might just have what you’re looking for.
Which brings us to your partner program. Everything should as simple as possible, but no simpler, as Albert Einstein used to say. Simplicity for the sake of simplicity isn’t your goal, in other words. Satisfaction is — the kind that is bast achieved with world-class automation that not only addresses the challenges you have today, but already anticipates the ones you will face next.
See for yourself how partner automation can help reduce complexity and elevate satisfaction among your channel partners. Click here for your Impartner demo today.
Your partners will be glad you did.
For more ideas to help improve your channel program, be sure to check out, “Growth Hacks for Pumping Up Indirect Sales.”
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]]>Below are five proven ideas that will help you grow your channel no matter your industry or definition of growth.
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]]>The answer to, “How to grow my channel?” is here
By T.C. Doyle
Whether you are new to partnering or a seasoned veteran, chances are you or one of your peers has Googled, “How to grow my channel?” If so, Impartner has answers for you.
Below are five proven ideas that will help you grow your channel no matter your industry or definition of growth. Whether you seek to grow the amount of revenue partners generate with your ideas and innovations, increase the number of partners that affiliate with your organization or even elevate the awareness of your partner program, then “Growth Hacks for Pumping Up Indirect Sales” is for you. The following includes a mix of tips on best practices that cut across several aspects of your business — from economics to program development to partner engagement.
Let’s start with a short summary and then dive into each hack more thoroughly:
- Hone your value proposition
- Define your partners’ journeys
- Wage war on complexity
- Upend your status quo
- Automate every aspect of your channel
Hone Your Value Proposition
If you were asked by a prospective partner how they will make money with your ideas and/or innovations, could you answer succinctly? Could you also respond in significant detail? If not, then chances are you haven’t properly defined your partner value proposition, which is the sum total of why partners will want to work with you.
Your value proposition includes the economics of your partner program, the benefits it offers and even the competitive advantages it provides. While this blog will address several programmatic aspects below, your primary duty is to figure out how partners will make money with you. If you cannot see a clear path to enhanced profitability for partners, then they won’t either.
As you develop your economic model, consider two things above all others: the market landscape you compete in and the total addressable market (TAM) your products and/or services serve. If your ideas compete in a price-sensitive market with small or even negative margins, then you may have to budget for significant financial incentives for partners to get them interested. Likewise, it helps to be able to show partners any additional economic opportunity they will enjoy above and beyond selling your products and/or services. In the tech world, for example, many vendors attract partners because they can demonstrate that for every $1 worth of technology that partners sell, they enjoy an additional $4-$9s worth of additional opportunities around services and consulting.
For more on developing your partner value proposition, don’t miss, “Why Would a Partner Want to Do Business with You?”
Define Your Partners’ Journeys
Partners come in many different types and sizes. They have different business models, customer priorities and capabilities, too. Because of this, it doesn’t make sense to treat them in a monolithic way. To connect more deeply with partners, which is the key to growing your business with them, you must understand the journeys they are on and how those journeys intersect with your objectives.
Again, consider the tech community, which counts hundreds of thousands of partners in North America alone. In the tech market, tech partners look to vendors to help solve a variety of problems. Some partners need an economic powerhouse to help drive their businesses. Others need a new vendor to help ween them from unprofitable lines of business and/or outdated business models. And still others need a quick fix to address a particular customer need.
Because of these differences, your partner program should be sufficiently flexible to accommodate different partner types, but not so untamed that it offers no structure. To achieve this objective, it helps to define your potential partner types and map out what they offer both to you and require from you — their journeys, in other words.
Experts including Achieve Unite, a member of the Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB), agree that enablement matters as much as remuneration when it comes to partner journeys. Partners, after all, sell what they know. If you can help partners get to know you well, they will recommend your offerings more often than your competitors’.
Wage War on Complexity
No matter the researcher, study after study on partnering reveals that partners want many things from vendors, “ease of doing business” high among them.
In industry after industry, partners complain about vendor complexity and intransigence. Given how long complexity and rigidity have plagued partnering in various industries, it’s a wonder more progress hasn’t been made. That’s not to say forward-leaning leaders aren’t trying.
Consider software vendor GreyCastle. When GreyCastle decided to draw up a list of things it wanted to achieve with a reconfigured partner program, reducing complexity and unnecessary customization rose to the top of its list based on partner requests. Before it relaunched its program, GreyCastle recognized eight different partner types and allowed many variances to its standard contracts. After analysis, GreyCastle decided that this flexibility was coming at the cost of efficiency. So, it cut partner types to three. Doing so saved the company money and rewarded it with more time and energy to engage with partners in the field.
Then there’s Vertiv, a global provider of data center and communications services to global companies. When Vertiv launched a new deal registration program with Impartner automation, the company made a conscious decision to ask for less information than before. Dispensing with “nice-to-knows” and going with only “need-to-knows” helped increase the number of registered deals by several hundred million dollars.
In addition to complexity, intransigence also hampers channel growth. Consider your own list of requirements. If your ideas and innovations are complex and require special knowledge or skills to sell, then you’re likely to impose limits on who can resell your offerings and in which circumstances. In a post-pandemic world when everything from business models to staffing realities are in flux, rigid restrictions may no longer make sense outside of regulated industries.
Lastly, for a program to work properly, it must recognize that partners often belong to many programs in addition to your own. Taking this reality into consideration when devising your growth plans will pay dividends down the road.
Upend Your Status Quo
There’s an old joke about advertising that goes like this: everyone who has ever paid for advertising knows half of their investment is wasted, they just don’t know which half.
Sound familiar? It might if your organization has allocated a heap of money for market development funds (MDF) that either goes unspent or is lavished upon activities that bear no fruit.
There’s no reason to stand for this status quo today. With modern tools available to every channel program professional, you can measure the efficacy of marketing campaigns, monitor partner activities and better manage your partner investments. If you believe market your MDF is being squandered, then chances are it is.
So make changes, not based on whims and intuition, but facts and data from your PRM and other automation tools, instead. The same goes for other parts of your channel that you want to grow.
Instead of hoping that under-performing partners will suddenly one-day turn into valued contributors, consider eliminating them form your partner program altogether. Doing so will free up time and resources to lavish upon companies that make active commitments to your company, and reduce your stress levels, too.
Making these types of changes requires more than a change in policy; it may require a change in thinking. Consider: Instead of measuring success by the number of partners your organization recruits, prioritize partner sales output, instead. Far too many companies focus on the wrong metric, resulting in miscues later.
If you’re still struggling with upending the status quo, then take smaller steps before you leap. Try working with underperforming partners for two solid quarters. During this time, ply them with extra guidance and handholding. If they still don’t generate your sales, then rest assured you have done what you could and cut them loose.
Automate Every Aspect of Your Channel
The idea that you can run an ecosystem with a spreadsheet or home-grown tech stack is antiquated; you cannot at scale. It’s like trying to apply for a job today through the mail.
Today, world-class partner programs depend on world class automation. The reasons are many if not obvious. Consider findings from a study commissioned by Impartner. It found that nearly one-third of companies that automate their channel programs saw an increase in revenue. What is more, 29% enjoyed a decrease in partner-related administrative costs. The study also found that more than three-quarters of companies that automate their partner programs report a ROI in less than 18 months, while even more say they gain a competitive advantage in their respective market.
In addition to these benefits, automating your partner program provides your organization with something that spreadsheets can never faithfully offer: actionable insight that is based on real-time partner data. With these insights, vendors can make more informed decisions about resource allocation, pricing changes, marketing activities, sales rewards and more.
Then there are the partner benefits, which number many. Take onboarding.
When one Impartner global customer ditched its outdated tech stack, partner onboarding was reduced from three days to just 90 seconds. Imagine the increase in partner satisfaction this company enjoyed a result?
Today’s partner automation tools offer partners consumer-like experiences that are similar to Amazon.com or Netflix. And they do so for more than just onboarding. Today, modern partner automation platforms simplify everything from training and certification to deal registration, through channel marketing and more.
Before you launch your next program, find out what your partners’ expectations are when it comes to these disciplines. If your competitors rely on partner resource management, then you will have to, too. You cannot pump up your indirect sales with one arm tied behind your back, in other words.
Parting Thoughts
No matter how you define “grow my channel” — be it expand into new geographies, enter new vertical markets, increase sales volume through existing partners, recruit new allies, etc. — the above tips will help you in your cause. While we might be impartial, we firmly believe that automating your channel is the most important tip we can offer. We built our entire business around the idea that this is the single best way to grow a channel. We believe it now as much as we did since the day we opened our doors for business.
See for yourself how partner automation can help you answer the No. 1 question you ask yourself daily, “How to grow my channel?” Sign-up for your Impartner demo today.
You’ll be glad you did.
If you’re looking for more ideas on how to improve your channel, don’t miss this article on marketing collateral: “To Improve Partner Content, Borrow a Page from Your Drip Marketing Handbook.”
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]]>A home-grown partner automation stack thwarted Vertiv, an enterprise tech giant with more than $4 billion in annual sales and 21,000 employees, from achieving its objectives with partners. But after evaluating different tech options, Vertiv turned to PRM-leader Impartner. Now, Vertiv is poised to scale to new heights. Here’s its story.
With a decades-long legacy in enterprise infrastructure, Vertiv launched anew in 2016 with a mission to serve enterprise organizations that need help modernizing their digital connectivity, data use and infrastructure. While most of the company’s sales efforts have been direct, Vertiv was keen on building a healthy indirect business with the help of business partners. Alas, a home-grown tech stack that Vertiv relied upon to onboard, manage and reward partners wasn’t up to the task. With the company’s old technology, for example, the simple task of onboarding a new partner took three workdays — an eternity in today’s world of digital transformation.
Recognizing that it needed to make a change, Vertiv turned to Impartner. Together, the two companies embarked on a mission to launch a new partner automation platform in 30 weeks across five regions and in 17 languages. The challenge galvanized Vertiv leaders.
“Once [our executive team] saw that we were delivering on the promises of rapid deployment, then they got very excited,” says Martin Coulthard, senior global director of digital customer experience. “Their support just bred the continued success of the project.”
Coulthard credits the teamwork Vertiv established with Impartner for greatly accelerating the automation deployment. The speed, scale and attention to detail was superb, Coulthard says. And the results show.
The three days that it once took to onboard a new partner? That’s been reduced to just 90 seconds. Moreover, Impartner technology has provided Vertiv a way to extend consumer-like experiences to thousands of partners scattered across the globe. Since launching the program, Vertiv has scaled its partner program massively. In mere months, the program has grown to 12,000 partners — several times what Vertiv had before. Without Impartner PRM, there is simply no way that Vertiv could have onboarded as many partners so quickly and efficiently, Coulthard says.
In addition to onboarding, Vertiv paid particularly close attention to things that mattered most to partners. Take deal registration, for example.
“The principal reason why a reseller goes to a manufacturer’s portal is to register a deal. With that clear understanding, we prioritized the deal registration journey in our portal design. Anyone logging into the portal can find a nice, clear and simple user interface with which they can use to get a deal registered quickly and efficiently,” says Coulthard.
With Impartner’s input, gleaned over hundreds of engagements with customers, Vertiv concluded that a simpler deal registration experience was better than an overly complex one. The 15, 20 and in some case 25 different data fields Vertiv once requested were significantly reduced to a relative meaningful few. Little wonder that milestones and objectives were quickly reached. Within a few months of becoming fully operational, the value of deals registered on Vertiv’s automation platform climbed to $500 million. Months later, the figure topped the $800 million threshold.
Today, Vertiv has a complete window into the most detailed operations of its entire channel operations. And for the first time, its partners have a single pane of glass with which they can access any Vertiv tool, support process or sales materials they need to help grow their relationship with Vertiv and better support their customers.
This, Coulthard says, is just the beginning.
For the remainder of 2021 and beyond, Vertiv has a number of developments planned or already underway. This includes embracing Impartner Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA), Impartner’s Google Ads tool and Impartner’s partner locator, too. The latter, Vertiv believes, “will be a game changer” that gives Vertiv a much better way of maintaining a database of 12,000 partner records. Very soon, partners themselves will be able to go into the partner portal to update their company profiles and view for themselves how they will be represented on vertiv.com.
Upon reflection, Coulthard says he couldn’t be more pleased at what he and his team have accomplished.
“We were a challenger in the channel, so we had to do something different in order to attract new partners from established competitors to our partner program,” he says. “We have achieved our expectations and are eager to put even more milestones behind us.”
For a demo of how Impartner can help you accelerate the performance of your channel, click here.
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]]>Tighten a screw. Open a can of paint. Pound a nail in a pinch. These are just some of the clever things you can do with a screwdriver, in addition to the obvious. Try as you might, however, you cannot use a screwdriver to inflate a tire.
What goes for your toolbox applies to your tech stack. Take your Salesforce CRM. It’s supremely helpful for tracking interactions, improving sales processes and otherwise bringing sense to the traditional chaos of sales and marketing. Same with Salesforce Communities, which you may use as a makeshift PRM. But neither are effective tools for helping you increase marketing in coordination with channel partners. To help ramp sales and marketing partners make on your behalf, you need a purpose-built tool known as Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA).
TCMA technology is not new but it’s not widespread. Blame bad design or poor implementations.
Until now.
Finally, one company has fixed both shortcomings. The company is Impartner, whose TCMA works with almost any PRM and provides customers an unrivaled tool for accelerating your indirect sales and elevating end-customer engagements.
The timing couldn’t be better. If 2020 taught industry anything, it’s that capable partners who can sell on your behalf, represent your brand faithfully and bring you new customers is priceless.
Which brings us to your company. Does your digital toolbox have a purpose-built tool for helping partners ramp up marketing on your behalf? Can they automatically launch and manage effective campaigns? Do you fully understand all the things that TCMA can do, or why it is specifically superior to other tools for igniting your channel marketing?
If not, then spend a few minutes with Impartner’s Robb Franks, director of sales engineering. In this new Lessons from the Edge (LFTE) video, Franks walks channel professionals through the foundation of TCMA, its unique capabilities and use cases for companies just like you.
“Partner-provided leads are the next best thing to referrals in terms of close rates,” says Franks. “But if you don’t have a proper TCMA tool, it’s very difficult for your partners to effectively and consistently provide those leads to you.”
Partner marketing has never been more important than now. Help your partners help you with TCMA. For more on what TCMA can do for your business, be sure to check out the Impartner TCMA Demand Generation Center.
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]]>Key insights when thinking about partner agreements and negotiations
By T.C. Doyle
When building a channel program, prepare yourself for an inevitable question from one or more partners: “Are you willing to sign an exclusive deal?”
The question often pops up when you enter a new market and/or when a partner senses a unique sales opportunity that revolves around your product or service. It’s a conversation you should prepare for as you build your partner program, says channel program expert and Tenego Academy president and founder Donagh Kiernan.
Kiernan, a member of the Impartner Channel Chiefs Advisory Board (CCAB), advises clients on how to build partner programs and enable their channel personnel. He advises having conversations about exclusive deals when you begin developing agreements and negotiations for partner contracts*.
Why is pretty straightforward: “Exclusive agreements protect vendors and their partners from either party working with competition for a set period of time,” explains Kiernan. “Exclusivity affords partners the freedom to develop a market without having to worry about a competing reseller, and vendors the assurance that they have a dedicated sales ally who can provide access to a market, build a sales pipeline and speed their time to success.”
Exclusive deals offer both promises and challenges. No matter where you are in your partner-building journey, you’re going to have to consider them at some point. In this article, we examine the pros and cons of exclusive deals, a little business history for perspective, and questions you will want to ask before you move forward with any decisions.
Before we dive in deeper, please note: exclusive agreements don’t have to last forever or be to all or nothing propositions. Also, exclusive arrangement should always be vetted by veteran legal experts as exclusive deals are subject to different if not confusing local and national laws, in many instances.
Understanding Exclusivity
Understanding exclusivity starts with definitions. You can, for example, define “exclusive” in any way you wish. In general, exclusive deals involve granting a partner sole access to a market as defined by geography, product specialty, company type, customer segment, vertical niche, use case or more. You can also make your “exclusive” more specific, such as a list of named accounts. Again, laws vary from region-to-region, but you get the idea.
When carving up a market, specificity is the key. “Exclusive” can be as simple as a registered deal in a PRM, or as broad as a vertical market such as “government” or geography such as “the UK.” Regardless of what you choose, you will want any definition of “exclusive” to pass the McKinsey & Co. “MECE test.” A territory, sector or niche, for example, should be “mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive.”
The pros exclusivity? There are many. An exclusive deal can provide you a knowledgeable partner who is dedicated to the success of your products or services. It can also provide instant access to a desired set of customers, plus a local presence and trusted ally in a region or vertical market that you alone don’t have great familiarity with.
On the downside, there are as several cons that may or may not influence your decision making. When you grant a partner an exclusive deal, for example, your sales priorities become subject to the agenda of another company. That may or not work for your organization or strategy. Similarly, your exclusive deal may mean that your sales opportunities are limited to a partner’s existing customer base or tied to its sales savvy. If you sell sophisticated goods and/or services, you become defined by your exclusive partner’s technical acumen or dedication to customer service.
There are also other considerations. Ask yourself: are you willing to grant exclusivity to a partner that represents one of your rivals? How would you respond if a high-performing exclusive partner wants to expand into another market where you already have existing partners? Would you extend its exclusivity? If so, how?
Given the pros and the cons of exclusivity, it’s not surprising that business history includes examples of success and failures of exclusive deals. Apple, for example, signed a deal that made communications giant AT&T the sole carrier for the then-new Apple iPhone. (The deal worked spectacularly.) But a previous exclusive deal involving Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs failed miserably. That deal, struck in the late 1980s, gave computer reseller Businessland exclusive rights to sell the NeXT computer to educators and students. It was just one of several missteps that doomed the device and, ultimately, the company.
Questions to Consider
If asked for exclusivity, you need to consider several questions before deciding. They include:
- Is the partner sufficiently staffed from both a sales and engineering perspective to handle the demand we expect in a given market?
- Will this partner devote sufficient personnel to our product line?
- Does our technology complement an existing practice of the partner, or will it help launch the partner into a new market adjacency?
- What is the partner’s history in our field of expertise?
- What is the partner’s existing customer base and what percent of our total addressable market (TAM) does this partner comprise?
- Will this partner offer us exclusivity in return for our commitment?
- What is our plan if target objectives or metrics are not met?
- Can we easily exit a deal if it’s not working as hoped?
What to do when things go wrong is an especially important consideration. The problems you encounter with an exclusive deal could run the gamut from very firm (you partner gave business to a competitor) to more squishy (your partner took sides with an end-customer over a contract dispute). At any one time, the calculus of your deal could change when one or more of the following occurs:
- A disruptive innovation is introduced
- Another product or service makes better sense in a particular customer setting
- Another partner comes to fore and offers more promise and/or commitment
- Economic conditions change
If any of these developments occur, change is inevitable.
One last thing: don’t confuse fidelity with loyalty. You might be tempted to grant a partner exclusive rights to a market because of its pledge of fidelity to you. What might make better sense is to enlist the support of loyal partners that are equally capable and dedicated to customers’ success but may represent other brands.
For more thoughts on how best to build your partner program, but sure to check out our series on program building blocks, Channel 101*. In addition, see for yourself how partner automation can help increase your sales by a full third. Sign-up for your Impartner demo today.
Coming next in Part Seven: Partner Program Tiers and Supports Matrix
*The Channel 101 series was produced with insight and information provided by Tenego Academy. Tenego Academy is a Cork, Ireland-based company that provides support to companies wanting to grow their organizations with third-party “channel partners” be they dealers, agents, referral partners, distributors, consultants and more.
Tenego Academy’s 12-part “Build Your Partner Program Like a Global Leader” education program helps companies looking to create, grow and/or optimize a partner program regardless of their size or market focus. No matter where your company is in its channel partner program journey, you will benefit from Tenego Academy’s 12-part program, which covers everything from channel strategy to partner recruitment to automation and more.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>You rely on marketing automation for your own salespeople, so why leave your partners to fend for themselves when your brand is on the line?
More than three-quarters of marketers use some form of marketing automation technology today, according to Social Media Today. By the end of 2021, the number will be nearly 90% among enterprise organizations.
When it comes to investing in through channel partner automation (TCMA) — the kind that vendors use to enable channel partners to run effective marketing campaigns on their behalf — the numbers tell a very different story. Less than half of vendor organizations provide TCMA technology to partners, according to Forrester Research. While the number is growing, it’s not close to what it should be for organizations to fulfill their marketing ambitions, according to Forrester Research analyst Jay McBain.
For years, McBain has predicted that a “third-wave” of digital selling will take root in the corporate world, one that is propelled, in part, by business partners that historically haven’t played much of a role in vendor brand enhancement.
“Enabling partners of all types to leverage vendor content, messaging, branding, and demand generation initiatives in their local markets is critical to driving a winning customer experience,” McBain has written. “Those brands that can balance their direct and indirect execution while ensuring consistent customer expectations through distributed and localized marketing will have outsized success in the market.”
Despite its promise, however, a lack of widespread adoption of TCMA is holding back this promising wave of business transformation. This begs a question that you should consider if your investments into TCMA are underwhelming:
You don’t compete without marketing automation for your company, so why leave your partners to fend for themselves when your brand is on the line?
We at Impartner, which provides one of the world’s most advanced TCMA platforms, have heard all the excuses before. The three we hear most are:
- Our existing CRM and marketing automation platform (MAP) does just fine on its own
- TCMA is an under-utilized investment
- Channel partners aren’t really interested in marketing
Here’s why you’re kidding yourself if you believe these falsehoods.
Our existing CRM and marketing automation platform does just fine on its own
No doubt MAPs have revolutionized go-to-market strategies the world over. But MAPs aren’t designed to help you effectively market your products and services through partners. For that, you’ll need a TCMA, which is purpose built for the task.
Here are three reasons why your MAP is no substitute for TCMA:
- You cannot localize business partner campaigns with MAP technology
- You cannot customize through-channel initiatives with a MAP
- You cannot prioritize the timing of channel marketing activities with a MAP
Consider some specific things you cannot do in a MAP that you can easily do with a TCMA. With a robust TCMA solution, you can customize campaigns around products, services, price points, geographies, reseller authorizations and much more. You cannot do that with a MAP. Nor can you give partners the flexibility to run your campaigns on their time schedule with a MAP.
Also, you can easily attach a partner’s logo to your mailings and landing pages with a TCMA, but not in a MAP. You can also append a partner’s social media feed or its URL to its homepage with your TCMA, but not with your typical MAP.
We could go on — and on — but you get the picture. Like a screwdriver, you can do a lot with your existing MAP. But try as you might, you cannot use it to inflate a tire.
TCMA is an under-utilized investment
While accurate, this sentiment if also woefully incomplete. Impartner has done extensive research on the topic and identified why TCMA systems are chronically underutilized. Among other things, business partners complain that ease of use leaves them wanting and that key steps are not automated. To combat this, Impartner has launched a new TCMA platform offers partners a simple, four-step adoption process can be completed in minutes — literally. After enrolling, partners quickly realize that vendor campaigns will run automatically afterwards, resulting in a steady stream of leads that can flow indefinitely. What is more, all co-branding is automated. No additional partner input is required in order to participate in campaigns once a partner provides its logo and contact information.
Channel partners aren’t really interested in marketing; they focus on technology instead
While once true, this maxim is an outdated as a DVD player. Contrary to popular belief, marketing spending as percent of revenue has actually increased among partners as they have tried to promote their brands along with those of their vendors. Small companies, in particular, have hiked their spending. In fact, they spend a greater percent of revenue on marketing than their larger channel counterparts, on average.
But don’t just take our word. Consider CompTIA’s “State of the Channel” study. Researchers have probed historically probed thousands upon thousands of partners worldwide on their view of go-to-market strategies and more. In particular, researchers asked, “Which of the following facets of joint selling/marketing [with vendors] are most relevant to your firm and/or most likely to contribute value?”
At the top of list, naturally, are the usual suspects: more quality leads and better negotiating leverage. But also high on the list is something that underscores a growing desire among partners to step up their marketing with vendor allies: the opportunity to tap into digital the marketing expertise and social media know-how of vendor partners. Today, nearly one-third of partners today say these capabilities are highly relevant to their organizations. So, too, is the ability to “appear bigger and more sophisticated to the customer” thanks to new digital capabilities.
Which brings us back to you. You have a powerful sales engine today. But without a TCMA, there’s no way you can fire it on all cylinders. How do you expect to get your destination on time?
For insights on how you can use a TCMA to drive your indirect marketing, start by clicking here.
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]]>From resellers to consultants, you have plenty of options when it comes to partners
If you’re a fan of the Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, you know that dogs come in all shapes and sizes.
The same is true for business partners, though even partners themselves would joke that some of the dogs are better groomed.
Looks notwithstanding, your channel partners can be your best friends in the market. They will steady your company in good times and bad, and provide your customers with satisfaction that you alone simply cannot provide at scale.
In part one of Honing Your Partner Proposition, we zeroed in on the basic components of building a channel. In this installment of the “Channel 101” series, we will focus on the different types of partners you will likely encounter, especially in the high tech, cybersecurity and fin-tech markets.
Once you identify and create the components of your basic partner program, you will want to consider creating specific requirements and rewards for different partner types. To do so, it helps to understand their businesses to a greater degree.*
Partners differentiate or categorize themselves in a variety of ways, including:
- Business model
- Technological capability
- Geography
- Services specialty
- Vertical market focus
- Customer segments
When you consider your total addressable market (TAM), you might be surprised to learn that there is a wide array of third-party organizations that may be suited to help you achieve your objectives. Here’s a sampling of different partner types, complete with an overview of what they do and why it makes sense for you to consider working with them.
Partner Types
Volume Resellers
High-volume partners are skilled in delivering innovation at scale. They often trade in multiple geographies and are very responsive to changing market dynamics buffeted by disruptive innovations, economic upheaval and changing customer buying habits.
For vendors, they offer existing relationships, sales competency, local influence if not presence and strong logistical capabilities.
On the downside, volume resellers are not always brand loyal or technically astute. Because they work in highly competitive environments, they often demand financial uplifts and marketing development funds.
Your best bet to connect with them: demonstrate your proactive sales and marketing prowess (so they don’t have to do that heavy lifting) and show them a way to achieve higher margins with the sale of your products and services.
VARs/Systems Integrators
For tech and other vendors, VARs and SIs are credible and influential sales and delivery partners.
They boast subject matter expertise (SME), vertical market knowledge and market reach. They are tight with mid-market customers and thrive in complex, multi-vendor environments.
What makes them difficult partners? It’s hard to secure their mind share. They have high employee turnover, long sales cycles and meager marketing resources if not capabilities. In many industries, they are experiencing significant financial upheaval as a result of digital transformation among their customers. They are looking for help transitioning to a new business model in many instances and are looking for organizations that can lead the way.
Your best appeal to these organizations, thus, is to showcase the additional service opportunities your innovation creates for them and your commitment to them regardless of what business model they latch onto.
Service Providers
Service providers thrive on repeatable business, long-term contracts and project-based fees.
Their strengths: longstanding ties to customers, and/or legal regulatory incumbency. Though they may be lumbering, they have scale and outsized influence in many markets. They also have honed businesses and can thrive in low-margin conditions.
Their weaknesses are they are challenged by stiff competitors including outsourcers. They are sometimes slow to react to disruptive innovation and have limited partnering experience in many instances.
What they want is upsell opportunities, new service offerings and scalable pricing.
In some instances, they also want to be treated as customers, not partners, which can muddle your contractual relationships with these companies.
The key to working with these organizations is understanding their business models and intersecting with their existing workstreams.
Sales Agents
In many industries, such as insurance, Real Estate and telecommunications, sales agents are ubiquitous. They are sales and transaction-oriented, and motivated by commissions and fees. More and more, they are very eager to embrace recurring revenue sales models that reward them over time.
Sales agents boast close ties to customers and an ability to close transactions. Because of their ubiquity, they often give vendors unrivaled geographical reach.
On the downside, they are often short-term focused and brand agnostic. In some fields, they are technical wizards while in others they are outmatched by specialty resellers.
Sales agents want clearly defined programs, leads and proven compensation models that pay out over time. And they expect and prefer that a vendor handle billing, support and more.
Consultants
Consultants are driven by business relationships and service projects. Historically, they have lived off billable hours and project-based fees though their business models are changing. Many now prefer service level agreements (SLAs) or contracts that reward them for improving business outcomes.
On the plus side, they have influence with decision makers and subject matter expertise. On the downside, they typically have their own agenda, do not make the bulk of their money on the sale of goods and services, and may prefer a level of independence you might find uncomfortable.
What they want most is anything that they can turn into a service opportunity. They also want referral revenue.
Managing these relationships requires significant effort. And your return on investment (ROI) can be difficult to quantify. But their access to key decision makers can be very appealing.
Distributors
Think of distributors as the middleman’s middleman. They are responsible for providing the products and services that vendors develop. Everything they do they do it at scale. They are known for the breadth and depth of their relationships.
Their strengths include existing reseller networks, support sophistication, proactive marketing and sales support.
Their weaknesses include challenging finances, outmoded business models and a lack of sales sophistication for more advanced ideas and innovations.
Your best option for winning them over is showing them sales momentum, complementary relationships and/or helping them launch into market adjacencies.
One thing to note: they require significant attention (think cash) to get their internal salespeople interested in your offerings. Once you sign up a distributor, in other words, your journey just beginning, not ending.
ISVs
In many industries, these are specialized developers of digital products and services sold commercially or embedded into other products.
ISVs are driven by the sale of their products and the retention of users. They are also keen on aligning with those who can pair up to create new combinations of value.
For third-party vendors, ISVs offer their own marketing and sales mechanisms, and additional lift for your products and services. On the downside, they can be slow to decide on anything and they get territorial if your “complementary” products and services compete with anything they offer now or plan to do so in the future.
What they seek is anything that can help make their own product more useful or “sticky” with a customer.
Trade Associations
Professional associations may not be the first partner type or organization that comes to your mind when thinking about partners, but they should be considered, nonetheless.
Trade and professional associations range in size from the American Medical Association (AMA) to the local Kiwanis Club. Organizations like these live to provide value to members and to raise awareness of their industry, market and/or cause.
They generate revenue from member dues, event attendance fees and more.
Why are they a possible partner? Well, consider their strengths. They are in regular contact with decision makers, provide invaluable insights and networking opportunities, and attract a consistent following.
Weaknesses? As a rule, they generally do not sell on behalf of vendors, and they often lack a formal mechanism for translating influence into action.
What motivates them? They want research, new members and sponsorships for ongoing activities.
Working with them takes some effort. But the returns can be enormous in terms of awareness and influence building.
Final Thoughts
Finally, it’s worth spending a moment on what Tenego Academy* calls model alignment.
After gaining traction with partners, you might learn that you could do more business through partners if you change or alter your deliverable in some fashion. The change could be in how you sell your technology, to whom and for how much.
You might learn, for example, that your ideas or innovations are too expensive compared to your competition. You might discover that there is insufficient add-on revenue opportunity associated with the sale of your product or service. You might also learn that third parties consider you difficult to work with.
All of this is perfectly natural and to be expected. Relax, in other words: you got this.
After thinking through your partner value proposition, make sure you don’t let that good work go to waste by under-investing in partner automation. It is worth repeating: The products and services you provide the market are only a portion of what partners evaluate when considering your value proposition. They also take into account your onboarding, marketing support, training and more — the kind made possible by world-class automation. For more insight, sign up for an Impartner demo today.
Coming next in Part Six: Partner Agreements and Negotiations
*The Channel 101 series was produced with insight and information provided by Tenego Academy. Tenego Academy is a Cork, Ireland-based company that provides support to companies wanting to grow their organizations with third-party “channel partners” be they dealers, agents, referral partners, distributors, consultants and more.
Tenego Academy’s 12-part “Build Your Partner Program Like a Global Leader” education program helps companies looking to create, grow and/or optimize a partner program regardless of their size or market focus. No matter where your company is in its channel partner program journey, you will benefit from Tenego Academy’s 12-part program, which covers everything from channel strategy to partner recruitment to automation and more.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>The fourth installment in the Channel 101 series offers insights on basic program components*
Question: Why would anyone want to partner with you?
If you think that’s impertinent, then chances are you haven’t thought through everything that is required to build a successful partner program. Whether you’re new to channels or struggling to make them work, you’re going to have to hone your partner value proposition. It’s nothing less than the raison d’etre of your entire program.
Put bluntly, you partner value proposition is the sum total of all the reasons why partners will want to align with your company. It includes the economics of partnership (as in how partners will make money with your company and what it will cost them to align with you), what kind of support you provide (both technical and marketing), how you stack up against the competition, how you fit with other vendors partners represent in the market and much, much more.
In this, our fourth installment of the “Channel 101” series, we zero in on the basic components of your partner value proposition. As a quick recap, we previously provided an overview of different partners, program requirements and more. Now it’s time to focus inwardly on the basic program components.
(Note: A complete partner value proposition includes more than an analysis of program components; in our next installment we will examine another aspect, different partner types and their needs.)
Your Partner Value Proposition: Basic Program Components
Let’s come back to the central question: why would anyone want to do business with your company? If you break it down, your answer will likely include a mix of the following elements:
- The innovativeness of your solution
- The economic opportunity your product or service provides
- Your distinct customer acquisition process
- The level and type of marketing and sales support you provide
- Your commitment to customer success
Below, we break each of these down a bit more. One thing to note: partners of different maturity demand and/or need different things from your organization. New companies that come into your world will likely need more technical and sales support whereas partners more versed in your products and services will likely want more marketing support and/or opportunities to build on top of your innovations.
The Innovativeness of Your Solution
Chances are your solution solves one or more end-customer challenges. It might enable them to generate new revenue or better serve their own customers. In all likelihood, you have developed a sound customer value proposition. You’ll need the same for partners. Why is fairly obvious.
Suppose your product solves a challenge that undermines a revenue stream that would-be partners rely on? Good luck trying to get them to partner with you. What you must do is concisely tease out what business problem or market opportunity your idea addresses for partners. You must also look at how your idea is “packaged.” Some ideas, for example, cannot be packaged in way that they can be sold or supported by a third party. If that’s true with you, then partner recruitment is going to be a challenge.
Once you have a defined understanding of what problem your idea addresses, then you’re halfway there. Now you must think in terms of more mature partners who will likely want more detailed information about niche use cases and/or vertical market applicability.
The Economic Opportunity Your Product or Service Provides
Sell a widget, make a buck. That’s the basic reward model for many ideas sold though partners today. But it’s only a fraction of the economic reason why a third party would align with you.
In addition to immediate financial rewards, partners are looking to align with companies that help them create new business practices and/or revenue streams. They are also looking for those that create opportunities for them to sell additional services.
What attracts potential partners most is the total economic value that surrounds your offerings. In the tech world, many software vendors invite third parties to join their partner programs because they can demonstrate that for every $1 worth of their technology sold, there are an additional $4-$9s worth of additional services generated for partners. That’s a compelling proposition.
While that economic opportunity doesn’t exist for every industry, you’ll benefit from doing the math on what economic opportunity your ideas generate.
One additional thought: As your partner program matures, your financial incentives and rewards will have to be better thought out. You’ll want to keep things simple but must figure out how to reward different activities and behaviors. You’ll also have to figure out how to reward different levels of contribution, which will likely stimulate you to consider adding tiers and other adjuncts to your program.
Your Distinct Customer Acquisition Process
In addition to knowing how your ideas solve buyer problems, partners want to understand how your organization targets customers. The steps you take to educate the market, to position your ideas and even whom you target are key considerations for potential partners.
Critically, it is important to understand how your buyer’s journey meshes with your go-to-market activities with partners. In days of old, third-party dealers, consultants and more played a significant role in helping steer customers to your brand. Now Google and other influencers play a role. Today, most of a buyer’s journey is nearly done before end customers ever connect with one of your partners. This has significant ramifications in terms of how you educate, motivate, support and reward partners.
When thinking about the distinct customer journeys you create, you must factor in where partners fit into the mix. What stage do partners naturally fall in? And are your policies and programs aligned accordingly to yield the maximum from their input and support?
When your program is more advanced you will likely need to consider additional tools and means for generating demand. At some stage, you might turn to partner events. At the very least, you will need to think in terms of community and ecosystem building.
The Level and Type of Marketing and Sales Support You Provide
Ever been excited to attend an event because of the guest list only to arrive and find the food is lousy? If so, chances are the experience was less than what you hoped for.
That’s not unlike what happens in the partner world when a vendor comes to fore with a creative innovation and a lot of brand awareness but will no support for partners. The net result is the same: dissatisfaction all around.
To be successful with partners, you must provide them with comprehensive marketing and technical support. Don’t skimp.
When it comes to sales, early-stage partners will need help with basic questions so budget appropriately (read: disproportionately) for pre-sales support. And pony up for post-sales support, too. Remember: partners don’t have access to your engineering department the way that your direct sales team does, so make sure they are supported adequately.
When it comes to marketing, make sure they have everything they need to faithfully position, price, configure and sell your idea. They will need Powerpoints, sales scripts and more.
One final thought: share liberally. Some companies prefer not to share competitive information with partners because they fear it will fall into the wrong hands. Bad idea. Give partners the same access to tools and information that you provide your internal sales teams.
After getting established, you will need to think in terms of PR, success stories and, most importantly, leads. (We will address lead generation in another installment but just note that it requires an investment in automation.)
Your Commitment to Customer Success
This bucket covers a lot so we will focus on one aspect that matters regardless of what product, service or idea you provide. This is how committed you are to your partners’ customers’ success. In far too many instances, this is an afterthought. But it shouldn’t be.
Prepare yourself to work cooperatively to measure end customer satisfaction, not as a way to identify under-performing partners, which is something you should absolutely do, but more as a method to ensure that the people or entities actually using your ideas are as satisfied as they could be. Doing so sets you up for continued success, be it subscription renewals, upsell and cross-sell opportunities or more.
If your ideas are complex, then you must commit to seeing delivery through partners to the very end. Not all organizations do this. Some expect partners to handle everything once they step into a buyer’s sales cycle. This is a mistake for several reasons. It cuts your company off from important feedback and insights that customers will share based on their experiences, and it abstracts actionable steps that you could take to make things better.
One final thought: Whatever you to do with regards to customer success, make sure you do it in coordination with your partners. Do not let the final step in a long process unravel everything because a policy or bad practice ruins an otherwise solid relationship.
What do we mean? Think warranty claims, returns and more. Oftentimes, unrealistic demands on the part of idea originators spoil an otherwise healthy relationship. Be fair to the bitter end: your partners will appreciate it.
Final Thoughts
After thinking through basic program components, it’s worth spending a moment on what Tenego Academy* calls model alignment.
After gaining traction in your market, you might learn that you could do more business through partners if you change your approach in some fashion. The change could be how you sell your technology, to whom and for how much.
You might learn, for example, that your ideas or innovations are too expensive compared to your competition. You might discover that there is insufficient add-on revenue opportunity associated with the sale of your product or service. You might also learn that third parties consider you difficult to work with.
All of this is perfectly natural and to be expected. Relax, in other words: you got this.
After thinking through basic components, make sure you don’t let that good work go to waste by under-investing in partner automation. It is worth repeating: The products and services you provide the market are only a portion of what partners evaluate when considering your value proposition. They also take into account your onboarding, marketing support, training and more — the kind made possible by world-class automation. For more insight, sign up for an Impartner demo today.
Coming next in Part Five: How to Hone a Value Proposition That Appeals to Different Partner Types
*The Channel 101 series was produced with insight and information provided by Tenego Academy. Tenego Academy is a Cork, Ireland-based company that provides support to companies wanting to grow their organizations with third-party “channel partners” be they dealers, agents, referral partners, distributors, consultants and more.
Tenego Academy’s 12-part “Build Your Partner Program Like a Global Leader” education program helps companies looking to create, grow and/or optimize a partner program regardless of their size or market focus. No matter where your company is in its channel partner program journey, you will benefit from Tenego Academy’s 12-part program, which covers everything from channel strategy to partner recruitment to automation and more.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>Irish company and Impartner are working to produce a new series designed to help business practitioners, Channel 101
By T.C. Doyle
Question: Is channel management an art or a science?
Donagh Kiernan, founder and CEO of Tenego Academy, knows the answer: “Best practices exist because every business is the same,” says Kiernan. “But expertise [also] exists because every business is different.”
Translation: Channel management, planning and sales is a mix of both art and science— but you better get the answers to the “science” questions right.
Which brings us to a new series recently launched at Impartner, “Channel 101.”
Channel 101 is a new editorial project that covers the basics of channel planning, program creation, partner recruitment and more. Working with Tenego Academy, an Irish company that works with channel practitioners to help them design, build and then manage world-class channel programs, Impartner has created a series of blogs that provide companies of any size or maturity with answers to key questions.
In this new “Lessons from the Edge” video, Kiernan offers advice and support on how to develop practical skills in sales channel development and management for software companies.
The key basics of any partner program, according to Tenego, is partner proposition, fit and enablement. Put another way, it boils down to this:
- Do you have a compelling proposition that will attract partners?
- Are you able to identify and then cultivate ties with partners that are capable of helping you achieve your objectives?
- Can you enable partners once you have attracted them?
Partner fit is a particularly difficult challenge for many companies. “Vendors spend too much effort on relationships with the wrong people,” Kiernan says. The reason? Vendors keep trying to get all of the capabilities they need in a marketplace from a select set of partners. In doing so, vendors overlook the fact that expertise is typically spread out over an entire ecosystem. Vendors, thus, need more partners than they realize, and generally a mix of partner types to satisfy their ambitions.
Another thing Kiernan discusses in this video: honing your partner value proposition. It’s vitally important to attract the right type and number of partners.
“Revenue sharing is not the main thing that attracts partners,” Kiernan says, “value proposition is.”
He presses vendors to ask themselves the following: “What’s the motivation for a partner to work every day to sell our products?” If your company doesn’t have a well-defined answer, you are destined to struggle in the channel until you do.
When thinking about your partner proposition, consider your business model, technological innovation and the way in which your product or service helps partners achieve their goals.
Finally, take note of the last question I ask Kiernan: “Which is the area in which vendors stumble most?” His answer: enablement.
If you’re building a program for the first time and are not sure what world-class enablement is, then be sure to get an understanding of what automation can do for you. Among other things it can turn your art into a science when it comes to onboarding, recruitment, through-channel marketing, tiering, program administration and more. Be sure to sign up for an Impartner demo today.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>The third installment in the Channel 101 series provides answers to get you moving
By T.C. Doyle
Congratulations on your decision to grow your business with partners. Choosing a leveraged sales model will almost certainly give your business some additional strength. But it requires significant effort to make the most of the leverage that partners can provide.
In the first two installments of the “Channel 101” series, we introduced the concepts of basic channel building in the tech industry. This includes the types of programs you can build, and the best ways to leverage current partners that may have come into your world. Now it’s time to get more serious and start thinking about the ideal partners for you.
In this installment, we examine ways to help you better understand the types of business partners that exist today, the ones that are best suited to your business, and the best ways to attract their interest.
“Determining the right type of partners that make the most sense for your business is a core step in building the ideal partner program,” says Donagh Kiernan, founder and CEO of Tenego Academy, a training and channel team support company that helps tech vendors build effective channel programs.
Understanding Company Types Before You Begin Your Evaluation
If you have a product or service to sell, you’re probably thinking first and foremost about recruiting reselling partners who can introduce you to new business. Building a successful partner program, however, requires more than signing up as many of these types of partners as possible. A better plan is to think in terms of your partner community as an ecosystem that thrives in the right conditions and survives in the most challenging ones.
Where to start? Begin by thinking in terms of the roles that you need third-parties to help with as you go to market. This includes:
- Lead generation
- Qualification
- Sales and deal closing
- Delivery
- Support
While many partners provide all of these capabilities, very few are good in all areas. Rather than exhaust significant energy trying to cultivate ties to the ones in your market that excel in each area, you are better off recruiting partners that are best in class in one area or more. This way, you can ensure that you are covering all your end customers’ needs in given market.
There are many pluses to this approach. But it does require that you take the time to identify the company types that participate in your market, and the specific skills your product requires. There may be more that you think, including all the company types from your target customers’ point-of-view:
- Sales partners (resellers, agents, etc.)
- Influencers (researchers, media and market consultants)
- Service providers (training, outsourced services etc.)
- IT Service providers (systems integrators, managed service providers, etc.)
- Advisory firms (specialist consultants, accounting firms, business consultants, etc.)
- Software solution providers (you, your competitors and all the solution areas most relevant to your space and technology platform providers)
Even if you do not choose to work with all of these company types directly, you should at least understand the role and significance they play in your chosen field. Some, for example, generate their own sales leads, while others prefer not to get entangled in the implementation of services, just the closing of transactions. Other partner types are just the opposite.
Key to understanding how each partner works is how value flows in your ecosystem. If you understand how each partner makes money, then it becomes much easier to determine if they might be a fit for your business.
Another consideration: nomenclature. Not every vendor — or partner for that matter — agrees on basic terms and monikers for various partner companies. An integrator in one part of the world or tech market, for example, can be a system house or service provider in another part. For a better understanding, learn what each partner does. This is a better indicator of who they are and what they might be able to do for you.
Also: within each partner category, there may be more than one partner type. In the broad area of “sales partners,” for example, there are referral partners, resellers, affiliates, agents and distributors. This sounds more complicated than it is. Keep an eye on what partners do and how they make their money and you’ll better understand the market dynamics that will likely take shape within your ecosystem.
Selecting Company Types for Evaluation
Once you’ve taken the time to understand your options, then it’s time to make some partner selections. There a dizzying number of ways to go about this. But the best efforts are based in some basic data. Remember: partnering can be personal, but it shouldn’t be emotional. Data and facts will point you toward partners that are best positioned to help you achieve your objectives, not sentiment and gut feelings.
To that end, build a scoresheet for each partner type and match it against your objectives. Your scoresheet should start with a high-level list of criteria for completing a sale — everything from lead generation to implementation to valued-added post-sale services. It should also include a section for scoring additional capabilities that you might need including specialized knowledge and focus, customer influence, ease of doing business, time-to-engagement and deal velocity.
After you have completed with this exercise, you should arrive at the point where you determine who or what fits you “target partner profile.” Having one or more target partner profile galvanizes your sales team, your channel managers and more. It helps everyone connected to partnering within your company understand your mission and objectives. It just makes life easier, Kiernan says.
One tip: don’t create overly short target partner profiles. If your product or service complements Microsoft’s Dynamics software platform, then do not assume that all existing Microsoft Dynamics partners are ideal for your company. There are 10,000 of them, after all! Evaluating whether each one is suited to your company could take months if not years.
A better approach? Develop a target partner profile with specifics based on your sales objectives and technological needs. This way you will quickly be able to exclude those that do not align with your target customer segment, market specialty or even business model.
Armed with more information about which types of partners to choose, it’s now time to focus on one more internal task. This is honing you partner value proposition. While it might feel more intuitive to devise this before your consider any other aspect of building your partner program, experience has shown you cannot do it in a vacuum. Going through the exercise above, as well as the others examined in the Channel 101 series, sets your company up for better success.
Lastly, don’t forget to start thinking about automation. The products and services you provide the market are only a portion of what partners evaluate when considering your value proposition. They also take into account your onboarding, marketing support, training and more. World class experiences demand world-class automation, the kind that Impartner provides. For more insight, sign up for an Impartner demo today.
Coming next in Part Four: Honing Your Partner Proposition
*The Channel 101 series was produced with insight and information provided by Tenego Academy. Tenego Academy is a Cork, Ireland-based company that provides support to companies wanting to grow their organizations with third-party “channel partners” be they dealers, agents, referral partners, distributors, consultants and more.
Tenego Academy’s 12-part “Build Your Partner Program Like a Global Leader” education program helps companies looking to create, grow and/or optimize a partner program regardless of their size or market focus. No matter where your company is in its channel partner program journey, you will benefit from Tenego Academy’s 12-part program, which covers everything from channel strategy to partner recruitment to automation and more.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>The second installment in the Channel 101 series provides answers to get you moving
How do you work with partners?
It sounds like a simple question but it isn’t. Successful partnering today demands exacting answers. This is especially true of partner enablement, management and prioritization.
Here are some questions and answers that will help you get up to speed and rack up wins quickly to help build momentum.
Partner Enablement Basics
What kind of onboarding do you provide partners? Does your organization, for example, insist on training for everything right away?
If you’re new to partnering, prep for this question early in your “partner program-building journey.” Here’s why.
Traditionally, vendors, especially tech vendors, demanded that channel partners complete exhaustive training before representing their products and/or services to customers. But this “bootcamp” training is falling out of favor as vendors embrace new thinking that is based on recent research and more evolved tech solutions.
Studies show that learners absorb more when they have an opportunity to apply early learnings and then get feedback on their initial efforts. Hands-on or active learning, thus, is becoming more common in business, including tech channels.
To get started with new partners, think in terms of basic tech training, solutions selling and customer experiences. You need to show new partners how to evaluate whether their existing customers are good fits for your products or services, for example. Partners will also need to know the basics of how to position your innovations, qualify leads, present and demos products, provide competitive bids and, finally, close new business.
Afterwards, it is time for partners to put these lessons to the test by engaging with customers in real-world settings. This is the time for you to monitor, support and assess early results. If engagements go smoothly, then partners are likely ready for additional “layers” of training and support that exposes them to more sophisticated sales techniques, marketing concepts and technological concepts. If not, you will need to reassess where your programs, training or products are coming up short.
Remember: the fault could lie with you, your partners or both. If multiple partners are stumbling for the same reason, for example, the problem likely lies within your own four walls. Don’t ignore informative results, in other words — even if the truth hurts.
Partner Management Basics
Once I get partners selling on my behalf, how can I manage them?
Once you get partners moving, it’s then time to guide them where you want them to go. Managing their journey with your company requires some foresight — not to mention automation (more on that below). For example, you will need to map out the following for your partners:
- Coverage models (think geographies, vertical markets, segments and more)
- Goals and metrics
- Commitments and obligations
- Activity targets
- Rewards
For larger or more sophisticated partners, you will want to develop partner business plans that are developed jointly and managed regularly. In addition to basic enablement, vendors and service providers must take pains to not overlook the tactical things that help make engagements successful. This includes developing marketing materials including:
- Product guides
- email content
- Blog articles
- Videos
- Case studies, white papers
- Downloads, tools and calculators
- Social media plans, events and more
Then, there are sales materials that cover everything from slide decks to sales pitches, call scripts, objection handling tips and even references.
One thing that has become increasingly important in software markets is modern contracts. These must be thoroughly conceived and road-tested to ensure fairness, repeatability and scalability.
Before unleashing these items on your entire partner ecosystem, road test them with a select few organizations. Think of this period as your “pre-mortem” during which you can identify roadblocks. If you treat this step seriously, you will eliminate a number of issues that could frustrate partners in the future. This includes helping partners understand your technology’s shortcomings or competitive weaknesses.
In most instances, you should address your shortcomings with select partners so they are prepared to best represent you in the market. Companies struggle with this decision, but experience has shown that partners appreciate candor. When treated professionally, partners respond in kind and work collaboratively with a vendor to overcome issues.
Prioritizing Partners
How should I prioritize partners?
Most companies invest in partners based on hope and intuition. But there are better ways to assess potential. This includes the level of enthusiasm a partner demonstrates as measured by the number of people they send to your training, the level of activity they have with your brand and the number of accounts they introduce to your organization. Other factors to consider include their skill level, competitive position in the market and ability to complement what your organization does to promote itself. This is especially true when it comes to generating leads on your behalf.
When assessing a partner, consider: Do your marketing activities mesh with their own? Do they conflict or, worse, compete? Finally, consider your partners’ soft skills and even their ethics. Do they offer award-winning service? Do employees like working there? And do customers rate their services highly?
These things and more must be considered.
You should also take note of the competitive products partners represent in the market and whether individual partners have the wherewithal and commitment required to represent more than one brand in each category.
Finally, you should identify bottlenecks that individual partners might have when it comes to building a practice around your technology. Some partners, after all, excel at sales but are weak at implementation. Most have just the opposite problem. By taking the time to understand the strengths and weaknesses of as many partners as possible, you can better assess which ones you will be successful with.
Even in the best of circumstances, however, expect problems to arise. Partners may present your products or services poorly. They may seem too busy with other vendors. And they may fumble with leads provided to them by your team.
These and other problems could be symptomatic of a broader problem: you are simply not a priority to some partners. That you will have to address when developing your partner value proposition, which we will cover in an upcoming Channel 101 article.
Consider the above steps for now. And don’t forget to start thinking about automation (we said we’d come back to it). The products and services you provide to partners are only a portion of what they expect from you. They also expect work class experiences when it comes to onboarding, marketing support, training and more. World class experiences demand world-class automation. For more insight, sign up for an Impartner demo today.
Coming next in Part Three: Partnering Strategy and Partner-Type Selection.
*The Channel 101 series was produced with insight and information provided by Tenego Academy. Tenego Academy is a Cork, Ireland-based company that provides support to companies wanting to grow their organizations with third-party “channel partners” be they dealers, agents, referral partners, distributors, consultants and more.
Tenego Academy’s 12-part “Build Your Partner Program Like a Global Leader” education program helps companies looking to create, grow and/or optimize a partner program regardless of their size or market focus. No matter where your company is in its channel partner program journey, you will benefit from Tenego Academy’s 12-part program, which covers everything from channel strategy to partner recruitment to automation and more.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>Channel chiefs and thought leaders debate wisdom of radical thinking in latest Channel Growth Hack
By T.C. Doyle
You can never have too many partners, right?
Well hold on: Technology industry channel chief and thought leaders debunk the idea in the latest Channel Growth Hacking, a bi-monthly discussion hosted by hosted by Kerry Desberg, CMO of Impartner, and Michelle Ragusa-McBain, vice president of global channel and digital strategy with JS Group. Channel Growth Hacking takes place on the second and fourth Thursday every month on Clubhouse, the drop-in social media platform.
“My growth hack idea? Fire [underperforming] partners faster,” says Steve Stewart, the head of channels at Smartsheet.
After years of managing high-tech channels, Stewart is convinced that too many partners weigh a company down, not give it lift. Instead of measuring success by the number of partners you recruit, why not prioritize partner sales output?
“A lot of us in channels management accept the 80-20 rule that says 80% of your sales will be achieved by 20% of your best partners. But most channel leaders fail to do anything about it,” he says.
A better way? Reduce your costs and administrative overhead by eliminating partners that do not perform. You will save money for doing so, and win back time to spend with more promising and higher-performing partners.
This has never been more important than now, Stewart adds, due to the pandemic, which has left some channel companies in shambles. Try as it might, Smartsheet cannot transform a struggling partner company alone with its technology or programs. That’s not to say it doesn’t try. It works with underperforming companies for two solid quarters, providing extra guidance and handholding along the way. If partners don’t generate sales after the extra help, Smartsheet trims them from its ranks.
It might sound controversial or harsh, but the idea is embraced by others, including another recent Chanel Growth Hack speaker, Steven Kellam, senior vice president of marketing and with 360insights.com. 360insights.com is a channel incentives and program strategy and execution company that works with a variety of vendor companies. Like Stewart, Kellam believes vendors waste money on partner companies that do not have the wherewithal to make the most of the investments vendors make into them. This is especially true of marketing investments including MDF.
“You really have to figure out what partners capabilities are,” says Kellam. Those that are struggling as a result of the pandemic stumbled in many instances because they could not market themselves appropriately at a time when demand for partner services was on the rise.
“Vendors give too much marketing support to those who cannot use it,” Kellam adds. “They’d be better off investing that money elsewhere.”
In some instances, that money could be better spent looking inward and addressing internal shortcomings, says Sean Phillips, director of partnerships and alliances for GreyCastle Security. While Phillips generally agrees that vendors invest too much in underperforming partners, he’s a big believer that vendors could get better traction with partners if they made themselves easier to work with.
This is what GreyCastle did when it reformed its own partner program. GreyCastle, for example, trimmed the number of categories that it divided partners into from eight to three after analysis. The company recognized that it was making its life and the lives of its partners overly complicated by counting so many different partner types and allowing for variances in standard contracts. Now it divides partners into three types: influencers, paid referrals and alliances. Doing so saves the company money and rewards it with more time and energy to engage with partners in the field.
“If I have any growth hack for fellow channel leaders it is this: wage a war on complexity within your own organization. You and your partners will be better for it.”
Neil Darling, president of RingLeader, a VoIP company, agrees. Darling’s company believes in the importance of taking time to properly align products with a focus toward frictionless demand generation to benefit both partners and their customers.
“If providers generate market demand, then channel partners will fulfill demand — and not the other way around,” says Darling.
Finally, Donagh Kiernan, CEO of Tenego Academy of Cork, Ireland, weighs in on culling excess partners from programs. While not opposed to the provocative idea, Kiernan agrees vendors must look inward to determine if they might be the reason why partners underperform.
His company, which provides guidance to vendors and helps support their efforts to share partnering best practices, advises clients to hone their value proposition. Many, he notes, have done so with exquisite detail when it comes to customers. But some fumble with the basics when it comes to the channel. Many vendors, Kiernan notes, don’t take the time to understand how partners will make money with their products or services, or why they would embrace the company over a competitor. (For more on Kiernan’s thoughts on this topic, don’t miss Impartner’s new Channel 101 blog series for early stage practitioners.)
Manage your channel ranks as efficiently as possible, Kiernan agrees, but take an honest assessment of your own business. If your value proposition is wanting, your processes lacking or your automation full of friction, then take steps to fix what’s wrong with you.
Be sure to join us next time on Channel Growth Hacking. If you’re wondering how you can take complexity out of your channel partner program, sign up for an Impartner demo a today.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>From spreadsheets to platform automation, there is a better way to handle data
By T.C. Doyle
We can put a drone on Mars but we cannot automate data sharing to help grow our businesses?
For many tech vendors, this is sadly true. If you’re still passing customer information in spreadsheets shared via email, you’re woefully behind the curve, says Cassandra Gholston, co-founder and CEO at Partnertap.
A veteran of the enterprise software industry and member of the Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB), Gholston looks forward to the day when every vendor adopts channel management automation technology. But even those that leverage Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology have questions when it comes to responsible and effective data sharing. Partnertap, a Seattle-area tech consultancy that specializes is helping software companies better coordinate sales activities with partners, knows why.
Vendors struggle to implement best practices because they don’t understand the full scope of data they collect from customers, partners and more, Gholston explains in a new “Lessons from the Edge” video. But best practices are exactly what they need. This is more true than ever given increased scrutiny around regulatory concerns including GDPR, and the increased interest in doing business through partners as a result of the global pandemic.
Data management has never been more important, Gholston says, but it remains an underdeveloped skill at many companies. One reason: many channel professionals are unsure how to conceptualize working with their data.
“When I think about data sharing, I think about it in three buckets,” says Gholston. These include pre-pipeline data, pipeline data and closed or won business data.
If you can identify who needs what data, when, for how long and for what purpose, you can put it to use more effectively and responsibly, Gholston says. Miss any one of those important steps and you could end up with disgruntled customers, partners or both.
Another tip: develop a realistic expectation of what partners will share with your company and when.
“If you build your program around certain expectations about partners and their data sharing, you will be sorely disappointed until you build a level of trust with individual partners,” says Gholston. Close partners will share information and insights willingly because they have trust in your organization. But newcomers with no track record with your team, technology or processes? Good luck with that, she adds.
For more on data sharing and channels management, don’t miss this latest, “Lessons from the Edge” video Q&A with Gholston, which can be found here.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>By T.C. Doyle
“Grow” may be a goal but it is no strategy.
Differentiating between the two is just one of the many things you need to understand as you begin to build your channel. In addition, you will need to learn the basics of compelling partner propositions, channel economics and partner program building blocks. Before you get to these, however, it helps to look inward at your existing organization, specifically to your company’s culture. Believe it or not, culture will play a significant role in determining whether your organization can succeed with partners. Here’s why.
Know Thyself
If your culture is hyper-competitive, controlling and/or embraces a winner-take-all ideal, for example, then it is unlikely that you will win many fans in the channel. You will need to share the fruits of your efforts more when you rely on partners, after all. You will also have to share your best insights and your expertise to those whom you barely know.
As unsettling as that may be, it’s true just the same. Likewise, you cannot expect to thrive in the channel if your company is punitive or uncollaborative. Channel partners often represent several brands and may recommend one of your rivals over your products or services in certain situations. If you retaliate unfairly, you’ll likely develop a reputation for being hostile.
Similarly, if you’re overly rigid or difficult to work with, some partners will call you out for it quickly. Others will simply walk away. If customers today find your company difficult to engage, don’t expect partners to find it an easier unless you adjust.
When you begin on your channel journey, it helps to do so with a proper attitude and commitment.
Hone Your Partner Proposition
The No. 1 reason channel companies will work with you is the quality of your partner proposition. If the quality of your proposition is high, partners will take your certification courses, represent your brand faithfully and treat leads with great respect. They will also share information, competitive insights and profits willingly.
If your proposition is weak, partners won’t respond. If you cannot fathom why they would sacrifice time and energy to do business with you, in other words, don’t expect them to do so.
To better understand how compelling your partner proposition is, consider your current sales process. It typically starts with your product or service, then passes through several stages including lead generation, opportunity, sales, delivery, client success and, finally, after-sale services.
As you build your partner program, you need to understand where partners can help reduce your bottlenecks in your go-to-market strategy. Performing this exercise will help you craft a differentiated partner value proposition. It will also help you understand the different types and numbers of partners you need.
Finally, persuade your executive management team to ask itself one difficult question: does it view partnering as a cost or an investment? The answer will help you, a channel practitioner, better understand your organization’s commitment, expectation and understanding of doing business with partners.
Understanding Partner Economics
If you sell directly, chances are you understand your business economics. You know, for example, your costs when it comes to generating and qualifying leads, making presentations and demonstrations, and crafting evaluations and proposals. You know key metrics as well, including the number of leads you need to close a new customer.
But for partners? The math can get fuzzy. Understanding partnering economics, thus, is vitally important.
In a direct model, of course, a vendor or innovator incurs upfront sales costs (personnel, automation, campaigns, etc.) and risk. As a result, every new piece of business takes money from a vendor’s bottom line.
With partners, who already enjoy ongoing relationships with customers, a portion of sales costs are reduced. This is because partners leverage existing relationships and other sunk investments such as sales training, marketing know-how and more.
That said, partnering comes with its own set of costs. This includes the cost to train, manage and recruit partners. Then there’s the cost of commissions and other forms of rewards.
In general, doing business through partners can be more cost effective. But as the saying goes, your mileage may vary.
Creating Your Partner Roadmap
Start by listing your priorities, be they growth, market expansion, customer satisfaction or even company valuation. Next, map your total addressable market (TAM) to the number and type of partners you believe you need to achieve your objectives. After, assess your readiness, including the strength of your partner proposition and your competitive positing. Finally, take a look at your messaging: would it appeal to you if you were a partner, or would it miss the mark?
Taking these steps will help you determine if you have the right type of partners, whether you need more and whether your expectations are in line with reality.
Finally, start thinking about the automation your company will need to manage, enable and reward your partners. Capable programs do not run on spreadsheets in 2021.
Additional Steps
In the blogs that follow, you will learn more channel basics, including assessing partner readiness, developing effective policies and processes, and addressing specific challenges that arise in early stage program development.
Up next in Blog Two: Supporting Current Partners.
*The Channel 101 series was produced with insight and information provided by Tenego Academy. Tenego Academy is a Cork, Ireland-based company that provides support to companies wanting to grow their organizations with third-party “channel partners” be they dealers, agents, referral partners, distributors, consultants and more.
Tenego Academy’s 12-part “Build Your Partner Program Like a Global Leader” education program helps companies looking to create, grow and/or optimize a partner program regardless of their size or market focus. No matter where your company is in its channel partner program journey, you will benefit from Tenego Academy’s 12-part program, which covers everything from channel strategy to partner recruitment to automation and more.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>Channel impresario Rod Baptie shares observations in new video
By T.C. Doyle
Changes that were working their way through the information and communications tech channel have accelerated as a result of Covid-19, new business models and powerful automation platforms.
So says Rod Baptie, founder and managing director of Baptie & Co., one of the tech industry’s most influential events and networking businesses. Baptie & Co., which consistently attracts top industry channel executives and influencers to is in-person and on-line gatherings, recently wrapped its company’s largest annual event, Channel Focus. As usual, the event showcased key thought leaders who analyzed and debated key industry trends including marketplaces, program tiering and more.
In this Impartner “Lessons from the Edge” video, Baptie, who is a member of the Impartner Channel Chiefs Advisory Board (CCAB), discusses three trends rippling through the high-tech channel in 2021, including:
- Building momentum for software services and recurring revenue-based business models
- Progressive partner programs that rethink some of the basic tenants of partners that have been around for decades
- Advanced partner management automation technology
Here’s a snapshot of Baptie’s thinking on each. For more, be sure to check out the “Lesson’s from the Edge” video featuring Baptie.
The Rise of Recurring Revenue Business Models
For years, channel advocates and thought leaders including Craig Schlagbaum, vice president of indirect business at Comcast Business, have tried to persuade more tech industry partners including value added resellers (VARs), systems integrators and other influencers to embrace business models built around recurring revenue, much like their agent counterparts who sell telecommunications services. It’s been a tough sell — until recently.
Like other thought leaders, Schlagbaum and Baptie see more partners embracing sales of subscription-based services. In many cases, customers are forcing their hands with select purchases of software sold as-a-service. This is having a significant ripple throughout the channel. In February 2022, for example, Exclusive Networks, a fast-growing tech products distributor based in Europe, reported that subscription sales are growing five times faster than traditional sales.
“The rapidly changing business model of both the vendor community and partner community, at the moment, is the biggest transition [in the technology channel],” says Baptie.
Progressive Partner Programs That Address New Business Realities
As part of the push by Riverbed, Nutanix, Datto and others to make their products more virtualized and thus available to be consumed as a monthly service, vendors are also making significant changes to their partner programs. The changes take into account the different rewards, incentives and behaviors that vendors must create in order to satisfy customers and partners alike.
“A key goal in a recurring revenue model is renewal. And that renewal will only happen if consumption is happening and there is satisfaction at the client level. So you are seeing a shift in terms of what partners are focused on,” says Baptie.
Vendors are doing the same thing. “All this means that things like behavior modeling with partners is changing,” says Baptie. “You’re moving from transaction-based incentives to behavior-based incentives.”
These changes put enormous pressure on vendors to rethink everything from onboarding, training and certification, rewards, market development funds (MDF) and more. The only way vendors can manage this complexity today is with better data, tools and processes — automation, in other words.
Advanced Automation Technology
Given the changes of late — think Covid, cloud technology and line-of-business buying — partners face new challenges and opportunities. With few customers to see in person, they have new interest in remote selling, which is fueling their interest in digital marketing such as TMCA, among other things.
All of these trends have put a premium on partner automation technology.
“If you’re in a substantial organization today and you cannot automate most of the processes and you’re still running around with Excel spreadsheets, you have a problem,” says Baptie. “Automation is the key but you’ve got to partner that with providing a really valuable experience for your partners.
In addition to these trends, this “Lessons from the Edge” video also sees Baptie share his thoughts on new vertical market specialties, channel economics and channel chief careers. If you work in or around channels and/or partner, you’ll definitely want to check it out.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>The post Three Reasons Why Your Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) Is No Substitute for a TCMA Solution appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>To communicate through partners, you simply need purpose-built tools
By T.C. Doyle
You can do a multitude of things with a sturdy screwdriver, but you cannot use it to inflate a tire.
Similarly, you can do many things with your Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) — generate leads, coordinate campaigns and measure marketing efficacy, among other things — but you cannot use it to effectively market your products and services through partners. For that, you’ll need another, purpose-built tool: Through Chanel Marketing Automation (TCMA).
Here are three reasons why your MAP is no substitute for TCMA. Actually, let’s make it four reasons (see below), starting with these three:
- You cannot localize business partner campaigns with MAP technology
- You cannot customize through-channel initiatives with a MAP
- You cannot prioritize the timing of channel marketing activities with a MAP
Here’s a closer examination of why not, followed by a bonus, fourth reason why you cannot expect your MAP to do the job of TCMA.
Localization
Suppose you create a compelling marketing campaign geared to a specific end-user audience. You’ve done your homework and know your audience’s needs and interests, spending budgets and even their buying journeys.
Thanks to this, you can create a campaign that includes links to web sites they might enjoy, a social media conversation that will help them complete their journey and branding iconography that reinforces their attraction to your brand.
Now try and do the same with a partner in the middle of your campaign. Can you easily attach a partner’s logo to your mailings and landing pages? How about a partner’s social media feed or the URL to its homepage?
Chances are these and other things will be a struggle. And that’s just for one partner.
Now imagine trying to do this for dozens, hundreds if not thousands of partners. Consider the number of images, hyperlinks and contact fields you will need to coordinate. Mix these up and every partner you work with will raise a stink while every customer you hope to attract will be left scratching their heads.
The reason for the issues outlined above have to do with the design and limitations of MAP tools. Simply put, they are not designed to help you automatically localize marketing campaigns through partners. But TCMA technology is.
TCMA can effectively perform “a mail merge” of digital assets for campaigns that include partner assets and digital information.
Customization
If your organization offers goods and services in different sizes, configurations, product categories and geographies, then there’s little chance that you can fully automate marketing campaigns and other activities with your partners using a MAP. This is especially true if your company has tiers of reseller partners with different levels of access or interest to your catalogue. Here’s why.
Imagine you’re a maker of healthcare products ranging from very sophisticated surgical-quality hip replacements to basic commodities such as personal protective equipment (PPE). Chances are that not all of your partners are authorized or inclined to sell your complete catalogue. If you launch a campaign that sends end customers to partner home pages, your partners are going to want their customers to see only the products from your company that they actively sell. Partners do not want to overwhelm potential customers with your complete catalogue, in other words. And whatever you offer for partners to show to customers on their websites, they are going to expect it to be in their preferred language.
While this might sound simple, it isn’t if you’re trying to use a tool that wasn’t designed to allow for individual partner customization. With a robust TCMA solution, you can customize campaigns around products, services, price points, geographies, reseller authorizations and much more.
By doing so, you will make both you and your partner more relevant to end customers.
Prioritization
Timing is everything in business, so the old adage goes. With marketing, the maxim is often true. Again, take partners.
As a vendor or services provider, you take great pride in the efforts you put forth on behalf of partners. This includes the quality of materials you provide them, the level of sophistication in the messages you craft and even the exactitude of the offers you create. But sometimes your timing may be out of synch with a partner you hope to help.
Some of your partners may be new to your company, for example, and not ready to introduce their customers to your goods and services. Other partners may be concerned that some of your efforts dilute or overwhelm marketing efforts of their own. And still more may be dismayed that your campaign conflicts with that of another supplier or provider they represent to the market.
To partners with these concerns, timing is everything. But they are out of luck if your marketing tools lack effective prioritization capabilities that help partners and vendors alike get the timing of their marketing activities aligned and in-synch.
TCMA technology can help you automate and coordinate this for partners with ease. But MAP tools? In most cases they struggle with this essential functionality.
Finally, here’s one additional reason why you shouldn’t think of a MAP as a substitute for TCMA: Google Ads. Without a TCMA, you will struggle with harmonization of your marketing initiatives. Again, here’s why.
Harmonization
When it comes to Google search, only a relative handful of partners can match the brand recognition of a product vendor or service provider. If your organization relies on channel partners to satisfy end customers, this presents a challenge for those that search the web for your goods and services. Your challenge is how to easily and effectively connect customers who find you through a Google search to individual partners best positioned to satisfy their needs.
If you try to achieve this with most MAP tools, you run the risk of missing an elegant handoff from you to your partners. Not so with sophisticated TCMA technology. Take Impartner’s TCMA toolset, which features “Smart Linking” technology that allows vendors to harmonize their content with that of their partners so that end customers who perform a Google search not only get the right product or service information they seek, but the right channel partner as well.
With Smart Linking, Impartner customers can easily blend partner information such as a home page, physical address and contact info with their own marketing content that surfaces in a typical Google search. And they can do this with a thousand partners as easily as they can for a few dozen.
For more on how TCMA can help you provide partners the localization, customization and prioritization they need to make the most of your marketing efforts, ask for an Impartner TCMA demo today.
You won’t be able to inflate a tire with Impartner TCMA, but you sure can harmonize your through channel marketing activities with it. That will get your rolling to wherever you want to go.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>Insights and understanding why your partner investments go underutilized if not wasted
By T.C. Doyle
IKEA customers that don’t read directions. Chefs who don’t follow recipes. Workers that do not take advantage of employer-provided benefits. What do these groups have in common?
They are all examples of people that fail to take advantage of knowledge, tools and advantages created expressly for them. The complete list is long and includes doctors who fail to follow carefully developed medical guidelines. (Their patients aren’t much better, according to the CDC, which finds 20-30% of consumers never fill their prescriptions for chronic conditions.)
Why is adherence or utilization of important benefits so poor is so many instances? Complexity, inapplicability and ineffectiveness are some reasons. Human frailties including lack of imagination and even laziness are others. In some instances, the waste is trivial. Not so for tech vendors, manufacturers, insurers and others who squander a staggering sum of time, energy and money on benefits for business partners.
If only there were a better way, right? There is in marketing. Make that partner marketing, specifically. This April, Impartner, the world leader in partner automation technology, is unveiling updated Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) technology that removes the obstacles that have historically kept partners from utilizing vendor provided tools and benefits.
Here’s what you need to know.
A TCMAosaurus Is Reborn
After extensive research and work with vendor customers, Impartner identified why TCMA systems are chronically underutilized. Among other things, business partners complain that ease of use leaves them wanting and that key steps are not automated. In industry after industry, partners either ignore vendor provided tools altogether or struggle mightily to put them to use.
Vendor brands suffer as a result. Take the tech industry, where partner spending on marketing as a percent of revenue is historically low. (For all but the top echelon of channel partners in technology, spending amounts to less than 3% of revenue per partner, according to various studies.) Little wonder that tech brands suffer from brand compliances issues, poor lead attribution and follow-up, muddled marketing campaigns and dismal reporting on key performance metrics.
To be sure, the positive results vendors do enjoy are typically achieved by a finite set of very marketing savvy partners that often represent multiple brands at once. (If they are good at marketing your brand, they are likely adept at marketing the goods and services of your rivals, too.)
This is why so many vendors put their faith in the “long-tail” of business partners . These are the smaller, mid-sized companies that work with SMBs the world over. Historically, this tier of partners is populated with scores of technically astute companies that do not prioritize marketing. Most, in fact, do not employ a full-time marketing professional let alone a marketing team. Because of this, your long-tail never gets unfurled and put to use. Until now.
Impartner’s new TCMA platform offers partners a simple, four-step adoption process can be completed in minutes — literally. After enrolling, partners quickly realize that vendor campaigns will run automatically afterwards, resulting in a steady stream of leads that can flow indefinitely. What is more, all co-branding is automated. No additional partner input is required in order to participate in campaigns once a partner provides its logo and contact information.
Thanks to advances in Impartner’s TCMA platform, vendors can confidently expect their long tail to unfurl to a length never before seen. (Think Brontosaurus-sized.)
The timing could not be better. Again, consider the tech industry. A new study from CompTIA finds that 38% of channel partners are looking to make significant changes to their marketing this year as a result of the pandemic that limited customer engagements throughout 2020. What’s thwarting them, experts believe, is the limited number of professionals available to them and their past experiences with vendor and distributor-provided tools. A robust TCMA tool or service that overcomes their challenges, thus, would be a godsend.
Another reason to take a closer look at TCMA technology, which some joke has been around since the age of dinosaurs, is partners’ desire for help in the post-pandemic era. When asked, “Which of the following facets of joint selling/marketing are most relevant to your firm and/or most likely to contribute value?,” partners ranked “easier and better access to customers and leads” as their No. 1 request, again according to CompTIA research.
In addition to helping addressing partners’ top request, vendors that invest in Impartner TCMA also enjoy other benefits, including:
- Full brand control and compliance automation
- Simple partner opt-in
- Simplified and automatic lead sharing
- Clear vision into lead attribution
As with other Impartner PRM solutions, Impartner TCMA includes a set of features unmatched by any vendor in the industry. This includes Journey Orchestration, Training & Certification, Showcase Syndication, Email Campaigns and more. Be sure to check out the latest on Impartner’s new TCMA technology. Better yet, ask for a demo today.
If you worry you investments into partner marketing technology are under-utilized or worse, you know they are, then stop wrestling with your TCMAosaurus. A new one from Impartner has been reborn and is likely to make other TCMA products extinct.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>Covid, enhanced teck stacks and new business models are driving new thinking around partner success
By T.C. Doyle
Partnercentricity is back in a big way. This time around, it’s not a platitude but a corporate priority for many instead.
If you are not familiar with the concept, “partnercentricity” is a business theory that took hold among tech vendors several years ago. It’s the idea that everything a company does must have a partner-centric component baked in from the start. While a popular buzzword, the idea caught on among some tech leaders and upstarts who leaned heavily on partners, but not all. Several trends have brought partnercentricity back to the fore. Reasons include the spread of Covid-19, the advance of new tech stacks and the maturity of new business models. Here’s why.
Covid, of course, disrupted the go-to-market strategies of organizations the world over. Seemingly overnight, selling through a broad and diverse network of business partners never seemed more important. Similarly, the rise of new tech stacks such as partner relationship management (PRM) and through channel marketing automation (TCMA) software have provided vendor organizations with tools and confidence they need to more effectively sell through partners. Then there is the maturity of once fledgling business models. Today, thousands upon thousands of new companies have found ways to make money by affiliating with vendors in any number of ways, not just product reselling.
As a result of these and other trends, “partnercentricity” is back on the minds of business leaders. To work this time around, the concept must be woven into the fabric of a company, not affixed to the side as an afterthought, says Kristine Stewart, vice president of client success and marketing at Channel Impact, a San Francisco Bay Area-based channel firm that advises companies on their go-to-market partner strategies and services. Stewart helps organizations extend efforts to elevate customer success and experiences to business partners that engage customers daily. By doing so, Stewart helps vendors and partners alike deliver superior outcomes to customers of all sizes regardless of their market, geography, maturity, etc.
A member of the Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB), Stewart has studied partnercentricity in depth as part of her work on partner success and transformation. Her assessment? Improving partner success and experiences hinges on a number of key factors that organizations with high-levels of partnercentricity get right. They include alignment, decision-making, business economics, product development, support and more. (For a complete list of factors, be sure to download Stewart’s thoughts on partner success and partner transformation.)
Here’s a look at three things that successful vendors must get right in order to be a truly partner-centric company.
Alignment
Here’s a quick test of partnercentricity: how close is your organization’s top channel manager to your company’s chief executive? By that I mean does he or she have a direct line of site to the C-suite? If not, that’s a potential problem. This is because channel success depends on corporate alignment — the kind that is best achieved when an organization’s channel chief has a seat at the executive table.
In many organizations that have a longstanding commitment to doing business with partners, this is a non-issue. Think Cisco in technology, GM in auto manufacturing or AmerisourceBergen in pharmaceuticals. Little wonder that these companies have organizational alignment when it comes to go-to-market business models, partner investment and product development. In such companies, everything from how products and services are developed to partner enablement to compensation is aligned to promote partner success. Channels thrive as a result.
In other instances, however, infighting, siloed-thinking and morale problems are commonplace.
From the C-suite to the warehouse to the call center and beyond, partner success depends on organizational alignment. If partner success and experiences are not among an organization’s top 10 priorities, then channels are an afterthought and will struggle to achieve success.
Economics
When asked one time if he was concerned about his partners’ inability to make money from their engagement with his company, the CEO of one of technology’s largest companies shrugged. “We have different business models,” he sniffed.
Translation: that’s their problem.
For the better of a decade thereafter, this company struggled with partner satisfaction. That is until a new management team recommitted to partnering. Among its top priorities? Leave more on the table for partners.
Which brings me to your company: do you fully understand how your partners make money with your company? And how much? Also, do you know if partners earn more with your rivals than they do with you? If not, you should.
Getting the economics of partnering right is a by-product of proper alignment (see above). But there’s more. Partner economics requires a deep commitment to strategic thinking and financial management. It also requires sophisticated analysis of business models, macro-economics and intangibles. Take ecosystem monetization.
Companies including Salesforce measure how much additional revenue partners generate for doing business with them. At many companies, the additional revenue is anywhere between $4-to-$7 for every $1 of vendor revenue partners generate. That extra amount translates into cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, consulting, training, support and more. It’s enough to thrive on, in other words.
Does your company’s products and services create such an opportunity? If not, then the amount of direct remuneration you provide must be significant to keep partners engaged.
Commitment
This last bucket includes a number of things that Stewart studies in depth in her work. Commitment translates into a number of items both large and small. Take enablement.
At companies with a mix of go-to-market strategies, competitive information shared with direct or inside sales is often not shared with partners. It’s because corporate executives fear that “secret ingredients” may ultimately fall into the wrong hands if shared with less than scrupulous partners.
On the surface the concept seems reasonable. But in practice, it puts every partner you work with at a disadvantage when it comes to your competition. Worse, it pits your partners against your own sales team.
A better way? Demonstrate your commitment by graciously sharing your best thinking, data and tools with partners. Yes, your secret sauce could fall into the hands of your competition. But by the time it does, you’ll have moved well beyond your rivals’ ability to use internal information against you.
Now consider tool sharing. Today, world class partnering requires world-class automation. So why not provide that to your partners? Put it this way: If you give your direct salespeople the best tools in the world, doesn’t it make sense to do the same for your partners? (We at Impartner certainly believe so and can show you why 78% of your peers believe PRM provides them a competitive advantage.)
Commitment comes in other forms. It includes a pledge to keep confidential information shared between you and a partner, a promise to share the customer support burdens and the spoils of a good year or quarter. It depends on thoroughly understanding partnercentricity through and through.
Can you hack that?
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]]>The post Make Partner Marketing FREE appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Accomplish more by following this powerful partner marketing strategy
By T.C. Doyle
Here’s a bold thought: make your partner marketing FREE.
That’s right, FREE as in Frequent, Relevant, Empathetic and Empowered. Here’s what I mean.
Vendors struggle with partner marketing basics every day. They grapple with what to say, how often to say something and in what format. They need not, according to experts. There is a cadence, tone and significance to proper partner communications that can be easily achieved if you follow the simple FREE concepts recently discussed by experts in Channel Growth Hacking, a new, bi-monthly discussion hosted by Impartner and the JS Group. Channel Growth Hacking takes place on the second and fourth Thursday every month on Clubhouse, the drop-in social media platform.
To better understand the FREE concept, which is a modern update on the venerable marketing adage that says good marketing should be recent, frequent and monetizable, let’s break each element down into simple bites starting with frequent.
Frequent
Just like good journalism, good marketing depends on consistency. In addition to being objective, timely and accurate, a good newspaper, in other words, must hit a reader’s driveway or inbox at a predictable time. When it comes to channel marketing, experts including Heather K. Margolis, the founder and CEO of two well-known advisories, Spark Your Channel and Channel Maven, advises vendors to think in terms of weekly touch points. Communicating via LinkedIn, she suggests, should be done three-to-four times per week. “Go nuts on Twitter,” Margolis says, but post judiciously on Facebook due to the mix of business and personal audiences.
While every vendor’s needs differ, establishing a cadence and then sticking to it are musts in order for your messaging to connect with your intended audience. While it sounds counter-intuitive, sometimes being predictable is the right thing to do with communications, at least as far as frequency is concerned.
Relevant
After you determine when to say something, you must determine what to say. This is perhaps the most difficult step to master. Why is simple: what you want to say is often at odds with what resonates with your audience. The reason is relevancy.
Typically, vendors want to promote their solutions and services at every turn. But communications anchored in product messaging often fall short in terms of relevancy because they fail to factor in what partners are attuned to. Consider channel partners in the tech industry. Their customers no longer prioritize faster and cheaper products. Instead, end customers want answers to business problems. If your messaging to partners is rooted in solutions, great, then partners will respond positively to your message. But if your messages are little more than spec sheets about innovations and not about answers to their customers’ problems, partners will ignore you. That’s a major problem, says Dan Tomaszewski, president of Everything MSP, a tech advisory for channel partners. “If partners don’t know you, they won’t feel comfortable with you.”
Empathetic
Good partner marketing must be “stinking empathetic,” says Janet Schijns, founder and CEO of the JS Group, a Florida-based consultancy that helps organization refine their go-to-market strategies. By “stinking,” Schijns means messaging must be so obviously empathetic that it reeks of compassion and inspiration. This differs from relevancy, which appeals to a potential customer’s brain. In contrast, empathetic messaging connects with audiences in a much deeper way.
If you appeal to an audience’s desires and ambitions, for example, you establish a much deeper level of credibility and authenticity. This helps your audience escape the confines of traditional thinking so they may see problems and opportunities in a new light, Schijns says. When this occurs, intangibles such as quicker, better and more long-lasting seem very attainable.
“You have to remember that you are selling a dream,” says Schijns. “Your messaging, thus, shouldn’t be all about ‘look at me,’ but instead ‘look at you.’”
Empowered
One of the challenges marketers face today is scaling successful messaging. This is due to the sheer volume of messaging that your content must compete with. Good content not only resonates, it also scales.
Today, scale depends on automation more than ever. Without proper tools, marketers cannot reach broad audiences, measure messaging effectiveness or follow up on responses in a timely manner.
In a bid to overcome these limitations, many organizations have developed or invested in various tools. But their scattershot approach leaves them saddled with gaps in functionality that more nimble and/or automated rivals can exploit.
For context, Channel Growth Hacking co-founder Michelle Ragusa-McBain notes the overwhelming majority of decision makers look to five different pieces of content about a service or product before they ever talk to a salesperson. Following a person on their journey and then offering influential content at the appropriate moment requires a level of automation that basic tools simply do not provide.
As a marketer, you must be more than a voyeur or “lazy liker” on LinkedIn, says McBain. You must be a thought and technology leader.
Making partner marketing FREE might not be the first thing that pops into your head when you think of ways to improve your messaging and communications, but it might be the best idea for your improving business.
For more on how technology can help you embrace FREE marketing concepts, be sure to check out what the world leader in partner automation technology, Impartner, has to offer. Ask for a free demo today.
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]]>Managing partners and channel sales is a wonderful job, but there are some misunderstandings about the role
By T.C. Doyle
If you’re new to channel sales or management, or even a seasoned veteran of partnering, you likely have many questions on key aspects of your job. You may even wonder how other channel chiefs at companies like yours operate.
No sense operating in the dark or assuming anything. Here are seven myths or falsehoods that we can dispel to help you better understand the challenges you face. In this video, which is part of Impartner’s “Lessons from the Edge” insights series, Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB) member Theresa Caragol unpacks commonly held misperceptions. And she would know.
Caragol is a former channel chief herself (Ciena, Extreme Networks) and, as head of the vendor advisory Achieve Unite, helps educate current channel chiefs in the tech industry on best practices, go-to-market strategies and partner education. Caragol founded Achieve Unite five years ago and has helped channel practitioners, tech vendors and other companies both large and small.
In this video, Caragol explains how to interact with executive management, what to expect in terms of turf battles and how best to set expectations. She also shares some inside secrets that even seasoned channel veterans do not know.
“Revenue is not a leading indicator,” Caragol says. Instead, channel chiefs would be well advised to invest in partner automation so they can track other key performance indicators (KPIs) that are more forward-looking, including partner logins, deal registrations and training engagement.
For more on ways partner automation can help you better understand metrics inside your channels, be sure to check out an Impartner demo today.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>Here are three questions that will help you determine whether you can retire your number
By T.C. Doyle
Ever feel like retiring your channel sales quota is akin to taking down Goliath?
If you do, then take heart: you can overcome your quota Goliath just like David overcame the Philistine who stared him down. Some new thinking may help your cause.
To stimulate new ideas, here are three questions that every channel sales manager and channel salesperson should consider at the start of every month, quarter and year:
- Do I have the right talent?
- Do I have the right processes?
- Do I have the right technology?
Let’s examine each.
Do I Have the Right Talent?
Chances are you have a mix of high-performing channel salespeople, underachievers and sales jockeys that run somewhere in the middle.
You know how to measure their output, but have you measured their suitability? It’s an important question to ask because of how often deliverables, target markets and objectives change. In the tech industry, for example, many salespeople who joined the industry in the client-server era dominated by one-time transactions involving physical goods find themselves struggling in the new era of cloud computing that revolves around digital services sold as monthly subscriptions. To them, everything from compensation to sales cycles to deal financing is completely new and different.
Similarly, channel sales managers find themselves working in a very different market than just a few years ago. The rise of marketplaces, non-transacting partners and new sales motions are but a few of the new ripples that channel sales managers must contend with. Because of these, partner journeys are very different than they were just a decade ago.
Navigating new relationships, expectations and technologies often requires skillsets and dispositions that your existing team simply may not have. To find out if it does, you may need to test the suitability of you channel sales team. Some team members are no doubt ideally suited for these times. But others? Maybe not.
This includes many who enjoyed early success in the field after completing their education brimming with confidence and charm. While glibness and positivity often help in transactional sales, they do not necessarily translate well into a world of more collaborative and consultative channel selling. (If they did, there would be even more improv comedians in sales than there are today.)
Do I Have the Right Processes?
Compensation determines behavior. How many times have you heard that sales maxim? It’s probably more than you can count. But is it true? It’s a question worth pondering whenever you tweak or update your channel sales compensation plans.
In most instances, a channel sales manager or director will adjust reward policies to reward achievement based on key organizational objectives. Most comp plans are devised on the principle that individual salespeople are motivated first and foremost by money. But research and experience suggests this to be incomplete at best. According to the Harvard Business Review, “…stars, laggards, and core performers are motivated by different facets of comp plans.”
Other motivators include:
Peer or industry recognition: At one Silicon Valley tech giant, different global sales teams competed for “Viking Awards” that came with a cash prizes and a cheap, store-bought Viking helmet. One year, the company decided to eliminate the competition. “Cut the money if you must,” salespeople said, “but don’t eliminate the helmet.”
Organizational cohesion: Some people just love sales. They love the competition, comradery, customer engagement — all of it. Some naturally get very distraught when their jobs turn sour. This can happen when individual superstars and mid-range performers clash. Policies that pit team members against each other unnecessarily or unfairly demotivate sales teams as a whole.
Stress reduction: Retiring a quota for some isn’t all about the money; it’s sometimes about “lifting a burden from their shoulders.” To an untrained observer, it might appear that a high-performers love turning over new busines. But it could be they just want to reduce stress. In such instances, process changes might make their workplaces more productive.
Do I Have the Right Technology?
You wouldn’t line up for a single play in competitive football without a helmet, so why have your sales team take the field without proper equipment? It doesn’t make business sense.
Today, “proper equipment” can take on many forms, including world-class marketing tools, customer experience software and relationship management automation.
Relation management technology comes in two forms, customer relationship management (CRM) software and partner relationship management (PRM) software. Today, nearly three-quarters of all businesses and more than 90% of companies with more than 11 employees use CRM software. However, the percent that use PRM software is less, which is surprisingly given the amount of commerce the flows though middlemen or business partners. (Estimates vary but the figure is in excess of 70% in many sectors globally.)
Of those companies that do use PRM technology to help business partners grow, manage and support their sales, a surprisingly number rely on homegrown PRM tech stacks that have been cobbled together using different software components or built from the ground up internally. Homegrown tech stacks don’t typically scale, anticipate future needs or integrate easily with broader organizational objectives such as migrating to the cloud or standardizing around a core set of software providers.
All of this can thwart even the best of salespeople, including partner sales specialists, from trying to achieve their objectives. Without the proper equipment, in other words, your salespeople may as well be banging their heads around with little to show for it but bruises.
A better way? Invest in the tools your salespeople need to achieve their objectives. Better yet, let Impartner show you why nearly eight of every 10 customers who invest in PRM say they have gained a competitive advantage.
And don’t forget to ask the right questions that will help you take down your quota Goliath.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>By T.C. Doyle
Let’s be honest: some of your business partners just don’t get it. They don’t understand or fully embrace your business proposition, strategic vision or go-to-market strategy.
Some days you wonder whether they have their own agenda, right?
Well here’s a newsflash: they do. And it isn’t to sell your software or recite your sales messages as though they were performing on stage.
If you expect channel partners and business allies see the world through your lens given how much time, money and energy you invest in them, then here’s another news bulletin: your expectations are unrealistic. Chances your priorities are, too.
So says Glenn Robertson, CEO of Purechannels, a global marketing and sales advisory based in the UK that helps vendors, distributors and channel partners upgrade their go-to-market programs and activities.
Robertson was among several channel experts who shared strategic insights in Channel Growth Hacking, a new, bi-monthly discussion hosted by Impartner and the JS Group. Channel Growth Hacking takes place on the second and fourth Thursday every month on Clubhouse, the drop-in social media platform.
In the inaugural Channel Growth Hacking event, Robertson challenged conventional thinking that says partners will respond positively to your message and agenda if you simply offer the right incentive. That’s nonsense, he says. In the Clubhouse session moderated by Kerry Desberg, CMO at Impartner, and Michelle Ragusa-McBain, vice president of global channel strategy with the JS Group, Robertson challenged channel practitioners to upgrade their thinking.
“If you can assume anything about your partners it’s that the majority are either unhappy with you or unmoved by pleas to sell more of your stuff,” said Robertson.
If you want to better resonate with partners, “switch your pitch” to them, he says. Instead of pushing innovation, offer business value.
“So many vendors pitch partners to sell their solutions. But the messaging and programs they lead with is all about them,” said Robertson. “Partners don’t wake up every day thinking or even caring about your marketing or lead generation program. They get up every day and ask themselves ‘who gives me best experience so I can go out and do what’s best for my customers?’”
Like other channel experts and members of the Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB), Robertson works closely with vendors and partners every day. Time and again he is dismayed by myopic thinking. Doing business through partners successfully requires a level of selflessness if not empathy that is lacking in the tech industry. Take partner programs.
Many vendor programs fall short due to the following:
- Unrealistic sales expectations
- Overly rigid program requirements
- Feeble automation and tools
- Poorly thought-out economics
Here’s a closer look at each, and a suggested growth hack worth considering.
Unrealistic sales expectations
Vendors with hot-selling innovations often assume partners will line up to sell their technology. They also believe that partners will agree to minimum requirements from the very start. Vendors may even believe that partners will agree to sign long-term commitments and invest in training and certification without ever closing a single piece of business. If your program has minimums, comes with one-sided contracts or includes expectations that channel partners pull their people out of the field to train on your technologies, then prepare to explain to your chief revenue officer why you failed to hit your revenue goals.
Channel Growth Hack: Every partner that joins your program did so for a reason. Chances are it was to help customers solve a business problem, not to grow their business. If you understand this first and foremost, you will understand that getting to that first sales is wholly dependent on solving those customer problems. Instead of goal setting, optimize problem solving.
Overly Rigid Program Requirements
One sales engineer, two salespeople and an organizational certification that must be updated every six months. Oh, and an agreement to perform a certain number of marketing initiatives every year, plus a promise to participate in quarterly business reviews and a pledge to hand over customer lists. If this sounds like just some of the things you expect from partners, then don’t expect to make many friends in the channel. Ditto if you lavish your best rewards on a small set of Gold or Diamond partners. For a program to work properly, it must be fair and equitable. Your program must recognize that partners have high-turnover, long sales cycles and different business needs. Inflexibility is inexcusable.
Channel Growth Hack: Offer a solution when a partner loses a top certified engineer, not a penalty. Let’s face it, tech jobs are hard to fill because top tech talent is in high demand. As a result, certified tech professionals move around a lot. That can wreak havoc on an organization that must maintain a certified professional on staff at all times. Rather than cut a partner loose when a certified professional leaves, why not offer a solution to the problem such as a program to backfill certified engineers on a temporary basis?
Feeble Automation Tools
The idea that you can run an ecosystem on a spreadsheet is woefully outdated. It’s like trying to pay a month’s worth of bills with hand-written checks. World-class partner programs run on world class tools — the kind that provide consumer-like experiences when it comes to onboarding, training and certification, enablement and through-channel marketing. With world-class tools, vendors also have access to data so they can properly plan, manage and reward partners. If partners struggle with any aspect of your program, you will earn a reputation for being difficult to work with. That’s a kiss of death in the channel no matter how innovative your solutions are.
Channel Growth Hack: You didn’t hear this from us but it pays to understand where you stand in terms of best-in-class in your market category. Before you launch your next program, take the time to research who prospective partners think is best-in-class when it comes to partner automation technology. Then find out which of your competitors are using partner automation software. If you think you can compete without proper tools, you’ll be sorry later.
Poorly though-out out economics
Chances are you have calculated the ROI you get on every deal you close. But have you done the same for your partners? Moreover, have you asked yourself whether the amount of money you earn from the efforts partners on your behalf is commensurate or at least fair with the return they enjoy? These are serious questions that beg for honest answers. Even top tech companies struggle in this area. There were times that Microsoft and Cisco did, for example. Other vendors are today. Whenever financial returns are imbalanced, partner satisfaction falls precipitously.
Channel Growth Hack: Before launching any initiative, program or promotion with partners, ask yourself where the money is in it for them. If you cannot see it, they surely will not find it. Partners are too busy to follow breadcrumbs and too wise to believe in promises. Show them the money.
In business, that’s akin to showing them you care.
You can start by putting empathy into your expectations, your policies and guidelines, your tools and technology, and your economic plans, too. As Ragusa-McBain says, “your partner program is a reflection of how you see the world. Show partners your best.”
For more Channel Growth Hacks, be sure to tune into Clubhouse every second and fourth Thursday of the Month. Each week, you’ll hear from channel experts like Robertson, including:
- Latane Conant, CMO, 6Sense
- Andrew McCraith, vice president of business development, Conversica
- Scott Boyd, global director of Partner Experience and Platforms, Dell Boomi
- Cassandra Gholston, CEO, PartnerTap
- Gina Batali Brooks, president, Is Inspired
One hour for a years’ worth of wisdom from leading business experts? That’s a fair exchange any day.
Now do yourself a favor and see what world-class automation tools can do for your business. Sign up for an Impartner demo and gauge how well your partner experiences compare to your competition.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>The post Three Steps to Winning Your First 30 Days on the Job appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>New in town? Welcome to your new role in channels.
No doubt you want to make a great first impression. But what if we told you there were steps you can take to achieve more? Better still, what if we said you can begin taking these steps today? You can with this three-step primer.
Follow the steps below and you will absolutely win your first 30 days on the job.
Before you begin, keep in mind that everything that follows is designed to help you and your organization develop something called a Vision, Strategy and Execution (VSE) framework for channels.
If you’re not familiar, a VSE is essentially a plan for helping professionals like you identify where you want to go, how you can get there, and what specific steps you can take along the way.
If you were planning a vacation, you might think of your Vision as your destination, your Strategy as your budget and travel plans, and your Execution steps as your dates of travel, transportation details and daily agenda.
Your vacation VSE, in other words, could be the following:
- Vision: One week in Rome
- Strategy: Book flights on Delta for $750 each, stay at the Hotel Hassler Roma for $650 per night
- Execution steps: Depart New York-JFK on the 5th, arrive Rome-FCO on the 6th; take Tiber Limousine to Hotel Hassler Rome where early check-in is available; venture out to tour the Coliseum and the Pantheon
Before jetting off to Rome or anywhere else, let’s get you started on your new channels job. (For a complete roadmap, don’t miss our “Definitive Guide for New Channel Chiefs.” It’s designed to help you define a VSE for understanding, planning, and executing steps that will increase your probability of achieving success in your first 180 days.)
To help you defy expectations in your first 30, we recommend the following:
Step One: Familiarize yourself with the surroundings
While the preceding might sound obvious, you’d be surprised how many executives fail to prioritize this important step. Eager to get started quickly, headstrong leaders do not take the time to thoroughly understand their company’s products or services, it’s go-to-market strategies and competitive challenges. A good place for you to start is with your own executive management team. Get on the calendar of your leaders quickly. This includes everyone who has influence if not responsibility over sales, finances, product delivery, marketing and customer service. In between meetings with your organization’s leaders, pore over your company’s website. Study your company’s language and learn its taxonomy. Also take note of how often it communicates with the outside world and how.
If you don’t take these steps within your first two weeks, you could have trouble later getting buy-in for any programmatic changes that may be required. What is more, taking the time to familiarize yourself with your company’s history, deliverables and culture will go a long way to helping you understand the types of partners it engages, the programs it offers and the receptivity they enjoy in the market.
Bonus tip: Take note of little things. Do employees lock their doors or office desks? If so, that could be a sign that your company has trust issues. Do people leave food containers in conference rooms? That could be a sign of arrogance. Even little things convey insights. Monitors with Post-it Notes filled with passwords can indicate a lackadaisical attitude about security. Unused videoconferencing equipment collecting dust in a corner could suggest a lack of follow-though on initiatives.
Step Two: Gauge the strength of your team and its expectations
After you fill out HR forms and introduce yourself to your new team, you’re going to want to get a sense of its strengths and weaknesses. A review of past performance appraisals will offer some insights, but you’re likely to get a better understanding of team member capabilities by reviewing their recent performance. Find out what their individual goals are, and how they are compensated.
Also, ask them about their levels of satisfaction, stress and motivation. Make sure to ask if any team member applied for your job and whether any team member is currently looking for another position elsewhere. If you get the sense that there is widespread job dissatisfaction among your new team, recognize that team members may not see you as an agent of change but a supporter of the status quo, instead. In such cases, it’s best to set realistic expectations and not over-promise.
Another management must: determine the level of truthfulness and candor of your team. From the start, you’re going to want to know what’s working and what isn’t. If your team has been conditioned by punishment to avoid the truth, then overcoming your challenges will be doubly difficult. You must foster a safe environment where the good, the bad and ugly are treated with equal respect.
Bonus tip: With Covid-related lockdowns coming to an end, workplace norms are once again likely to change. Set workplace guidelines quickly but take into account that some personnel disruptions are likely to outlive the pandemic by quite some time.
Step Three: Learn the tools you have and what your industry’s best relies on
If you believe that this three-step plan is another take on people, process and technology assessment, then congratulations; it is — albeit localized to channels and channels management. So let’s turn to technology and automation used to help manage, enable and reward partners.
Not long ago, partner management was more art than science. But those days are gone, say leading market experts including Jay McBain, a technology industry analyst who studies channels at Forrester Research. Among other things, McBain tracks investments world-class organizations make in partner automation platforms. His assessment: “Ecosystems don’t run on spreadsheets.”
Instead, they run on world-class partner platforms that automate everything from onboarding to training and certification to through channel marketing. More than three-quarters of those who have invested in world-class partner automation platforms say their organizations enjoy a competitive advantage as a result. And nearly a third say that have enjoyed revenue growth since adopting a partner relationship management (PRM) platform.
Which brings us to your company: In your first 30 days, immerse yourself into the tools your team uses. This includes the portal your company expects partners to use. Take a tour for yourself and pay close attention to the signup, onboarding, accreditation and marketing experience. Nothing you do to familiarize yourself with your organization will help you understand your partners’ journeys better than using the very tools you provide to them.
Bonus tip: In a lobby display case or executive suite somewhere is a piece of crystal glass or wood plaque that your company gave to its “Partner of the Year.” Make an appointment with that company and ask its top executive if you are their best partner. If not, ask why. Pay particular attention to what they say about automation and ease of doing business.
Follow these three steps and we believe you will be closer to developing your channels VSE. When you’re done, don’t forget to check out our complete 180-day guide.
We don’t promise that this three-step plan will lead to a suite at the Hotel Hassler Rome. But if it does, we promise to send you a bottle of bubbly on us.
In the meantime, good luck in your first 30 days. Be sure to check out the free insights and thought leadership on channels and automation that Impartner provides. You’ll be glad you did.
T.C. Doyle is the Channel Growth Evangelist at Impartner, the leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology. A journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle has worked in media for three decades. As channel evangelist, Doyle produces podcasts, case studies, e-books and more for Impartner. Doyle can be reached at [email protected].
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]]>Don’t miss go-to-market strategist Theresa Caragol highlight new channel dynamics transforming partnering today. Theresa is a member of the Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB). The CCAB is a group comprised of top channel thought leaders, analysts and consultants who each have decades of channel experience and insights to contribute to channel best practice discussions.
Thank heavens for partners.
That’s what a lot of business leaders must be thinking today, more than a year after the global pandemic shut-down workplaces everywhere. When Covid-19 upended our world, millions of business leaders scrambled to adjust. Many fast-tracked digital transformation projects. Others tossed five-year plans or recalibrated policies to support work-from-home (WFH) initiatives.
Those that doubled-down on go-to-market strategies centered on third-party business partners found they had a leg up on rivals that over-emphasized direct sales. Like never before, partners were literally the eyes, ears and feet on the street that many vendors depended on. Thanks in part to partners, vendors mitigated business disruption and enjoyed surprisingly strong customer engagement.
The results speak for themselves. Take the IT industry.
Though the technology industry as a whole shrunk in 2020, partner-centric companies including Microsoft, Cisco and Datto fared well during the pandemic. Microsoft, which relies on partners for more than 90% of its sales, posted record sales and earnings in 2020. Datto, meanwhile, saw full-year sales jump 10% over 2019 and subscription sales increase 16% year-over-year.
Even sales through distributors, a more mature segment of the tech channel, demonstrated resiliency in 2020. In Europe, sales of IT products and services through distribution grew 7.3% in 2020 compared to 2019, according to CONTEXT. In the U.S., sales through distribution matched 2019 results, despite pandemic-related product shortages, business interruptions and economic challenges, according to NPD Group.
Which brings us to your company: If you oversee or work in channels and partnering, then be sure to tune into our friend Theresa Caragol’s April 8 online presentation, “The Ultimate Guide to Building a Channel in 2021.” Caragol is the founder and principal analyst with Achieve Unite, a Washington D.C.-area consultancy that helps vendors optimize their channel programs and strategies. She is also a member of the Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB).
In her exclusive presentation for Impartner, Caragol will share her insights on key channel trends Impartner believes are transforming partnering. This includes industry economics, technology and management strategies. Again, take the tech industry.
Today, nearly half of channel partners are undergoing a digital transformation themselves as they rebalance their technology portfolios and overhaul their business models. The latter has significant implications for vendor companies. Just a decade ago, for example, channel partners in tech looked to vendor commissions and rebates for much of their profits. Today, this is no longer the case, according to CompTIA, as partners embrace new business models that prioritize the sale of digital services and consulting.
That’s not to say partners don’t want financial help from vendors; they do, obviously, but one that comes in a predictable and manageable fashion. Which brings us professional automation.
Channel building today depends on world class automation that can help vendors with the management and disbursement of marketing development funds (MDF), partner onboarding and enablement, and so much more. With advanced automation, vendors have the following at their fingertips:
- Financial performance by partner per quarter
- Up-to-the-minute data on registered deals and pipeline activity
- A closeup of MDF spending and marketing activity
If your company does not have this information readily available, you’re likely competing with one arm tied behind your back.
Finally, there’s partner management, which is also evolving — from an art to a science. Thanks to automation, partner management is more metric driven, more scientific and more equitable than ever. As a result, it’s more human, too.
So how can a partner program manager or channel chief keep abreast of all the changes happening simultaneously? Caragol suggests thinking in terms of what Achieve Unite calls the five “Ps” of channel development. Each one triggers a distinct question to ponder:
- Policy: Why are we doing what we are doing?
- Process: How are we going to do it?
- Program: What are we going to do?
- Platform: Where are we going to do it?
- People: Who will own this?
One you’ve thought through these issues, you’ll be on your way to start building your channel. If you’re wondering where to begin, don’t miss Achieve Unite’s “The Ultimate Field Guide to Starting a Channel.”
The channel can be a tricky thing to navigate. But we’ll always be here to help guide you.
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]]>The author of this piece is Peter O’Neill, Research Director at Research in Action which is an internationally recognized powerhouse for their core strength in Marketing and IT Automation.. He is also a member of the Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB). The CCAB is a group comprised of top channel thought leaders, analysts and consultants who each have decades of channel experience and insights to contribute to channel best practice discussions.
In my activities as an industry analyst, I talk to many B2B companies about partner automation systems and the discussions are always focused on how to recruit, categorize and generally manage their partners.
Basically, the focus is on partner relationship management. This is because most organizations continue to think of various channel partners – be they agents, distributors, influencers, resellers or eCommerce aggregators – as serving a pure distribution function for their organization. While they do often share product marketing content with these partners, it’s merely because they want to ensure that their own brand is well represented, as well as trying to govern how products are presented to customers.
But that’s only half of the partner automation story…
More-savvy B2B marketing professionals are waking up to the fact that channel partners can be leveraged for local marketing reach as well. They’re learning to open up marketing automation systems that can be accessed by channel partners. This concept of through-channel marketing automation (TCMA), sometimes called local or distributed marketing, is the practice of engaging channel partners to extend and amplify a firm’s marketing campaigns and activities. And for those willing to invest, it can be incredibly powerful.
But why set up a TCMA program? Here are two key considerations:
- Risk management – Most channel partners now invest in digital marketing programs, but don’t always have the resources and skills to be effective at it. As a result, organizations run the risk of ‘bad marketing at scale’ when channel partners (left to their own devices) launch programs into the market without the firm’s brand, or dilute, confuse or even damage the brand image.
- MDF investment management – The rise in channel partner marketing has made MDF applications more diverse and difficult to manage. The best way for an organization to control MDF spend is to align it to their own distributed marketing program.
TCMA is slowly being adopted across the technology industry where marketing automation investments have started to become the norm (I’m seeing it first-hand). But I also notice interest in other B2B industry sectors as well. All companies want to onboard new partners more quickly. They also want to scale partner marketing efforts and build partner loyalty, leverage partner’s promotional efforts to amplify their own marketing efforts and maintain corporate brand integrity. TCMA gives them new levels of visibility into channel marketing performance.What functions does a modern TCMA system support?
Syndicated content with agile control over messaging – Content syndication in TCMA is the ability to create a content feed for the channel partner’s website keeping authorized content in synch, effortlessly, with the manufacturer. In fast changing industries (like technology) or regulated industries (like financial services or health care) the ability to implement change quickly, but with complete control, is a key imperative.
- Syndicated campaigns to increase customer outreach – TCMA platforms enable syndication of co-branded marketing campaigns. From simple, single-step campaigns to multi-stage, omnichannel campaigns, organizations can set a template while still allowing partners to customize some limited elements of the campaign artifacts.
- Enablement of your most reclusive partners – Many organizations have treasured partners for their sales capacity, local presence or technical competency, but not for their marketing prowess. TCMA platforms let you deal with that reality by offering subscription marketing that allows your less sophisticated partners to ‘set it and forget it.’
- Local-presence marketing to ensures “preferred solution” partners are found – Some TCMA vendors offer directory listing services with standardized business citations that include the name, address, phone number and URL for local partners to be deployed across hundreds of sites like Google+, Yelp and Bing. For organizations with strong brand identity and market pull, these are important features to maximize the revenue results of the investment in brand.
- Paid search marketing connects channel partners to active local buyers – Some TCMA vendors also include managed execution of the campaign. This ensures that partner campaigns do not conflict with the vendor’ search engine marketing (SEM) programs, and that local partners do not compete against one another in the bidding for keywords.
- DAM functions for robust content marketing efforts – Most TCMA solutions support a digital asset library that delivers storage and secure retrieval of all sorts of digital content. The assets are typically configured with metadata to enable categorical, keyword or “quick” search options that make it easy for users to find and access materials.
- Physical asset management supporting print marketing – ‘Print’ is far from dead in local marketing, so TCMA vendors support ordering processes for printed/co-branded collateral, brochures, flyers, posters and direct mail pieces (even high-resolution files that are downloadable for the partner to print on their own).
If the benefits are so clear, why is there not more investment in TCMA?
My observation is that the main hurdle to realizing these benefits is based on organizational challenges. The word ‘channel’ is unfortunately used in marketing departments to mean communication channels and so the business partner channel is often neglected or overlooked by marketing. It’s often the case that many CMOs don’t even think of business partners in the context of a marketing channel. And many organizations still manage their business partners from within the sales organization, so marketing doesn’t feel responsible or empowered.
Once you’re ready to start your TCMA journey, how can you help ensure that the initiative will be successful? Here are some quick tips based on the projects I have seen:
- Understand your customers’ journeys – Research and analyze the role that channel partners play when buyers are researching and ultimately deciding. Use this to define your through-channel marketing mix strategy.
- Score channel partners by their marketing prowess – You will need to offer a range of marketing collaboration capabilities, from DIY (do it yourself) to DIFM (do it for me) to the channel partners, depending on their capabilities.
- Work on an adoption strategy – Do not assume that all partner marketers become enchanted with the TCMA tool you have chosen. They may even have other alternatives to work with from other vendors. You need to include assistance resources and incentives in the project. You also should plan to introduce the extensive features included within most TCMA solutions in a phased manner to avoid overpowering the partners.
Peter O’Neill is a research director at Research in Action, a leading independent technology research and consulting company. He is also a member of the Impartner Channel Chief Advisor Board. Read more about Peter here or contact him at [email protected] or [email protected]
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]]>SALT LAKE CITY – March 17, 2021 – Impartner, the global pure-play leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology, today announced the appointment of T.C. Doyle to the newly created position of Channel Growth Evangelist. A popular and respected journalist, book author and analyst, Doyle brings three-decades worth of channels experience to Impartner, where he will apply his content creation skills and thought leadership to help accelerate organizational momentum.
“Few professionals have covered, analyzed and advanced channel economics and dynamics quite like T.C. Doyle,” said Kerry Desberg, Chief Marketing Officer at Impartner. “T.C. brings authority, insight and appreciation to the newly created Channel Growth Evangelist position that our customers, partners and management team are eager to leverage globally.”
As a brand ambassador for Impartner, Doyle will create demand for Impartner’s technology platforms via podcasts, webinars, case studies, e-books, blogs, infographics, in-person presentations and more. He will also serve as a liaison to worlds of academia, book publishing and executive thought leadership, providing Impartner customers and partners unique insights on new business models, routes to market and disruptive innovations.
In addition, Doyle will also oversee Impartner’s Channel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB). Launched in 2020, the CCAB boasts a number of the industry’s most knowledgeable and dynamic channel influencers, who collaborate on developing best practices and thought leadership for channel executives spanning multiple industries and different geographies.
“I’m thrilled to join the premier leader in PRM innovation at the exact moment when product and service vendors are investing more money and energy into managing their partners with the finest tools available,” said Doyle. “I’m equally excited about working for a company with deep roots in the emerging tech hub that Utah’s Silicon Slopes has become.”
For the past three decades, Utah has served as Doyle’s base of operations while he has applied his talents at tier one media companies, technology vendors and market research companies, among others.
While working for Cisco, Doyle chronicled the company’s push into the developing world, creating blogs, podcasts, ebooks and more for consumption in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and South America. While at Cisco, Doyle also ghost-wrote two thought leadership books for the Financial Times Press, including “Doing Both,” which made the best sellers lists of both Amazon and The New York Times.
Doyle has also held editorial leadership positions at industry publications produced by Informa plc, UBM and IDG. Most recently, Doyle has developed research reports and executive messaging platforms for the likes of SAP and the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC) on behalf of CommCentric Solutions, Tampa, Florida.
“Through executive forums, virtual and in-person events, and content marketing in any format, Impartner is uniquely positioned to provide research, insights and thought leadership that channel leaders need to accomplish their objectives,” said Doyle. “As the post-pandemic economy begins to take shape, we’re uniquely positioned like no one else.”
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>SALT LAKE CITY – Feb. 9, 2021 – Impartner, the global pure-play leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology, today announced the first 3D Virtual Conference Center specifically designed to help channel professionals around the world better connect, converse and learn. The Impartner Partner Experience Conference Center (PXCC) is a fully immersive 3D conference center that is open to the channel community and meant to help fill the void from a lack of in-person events like ImpartnerCON – one of the top channel thought leadership events worldwide.
“We’re all adjusting to meeting in 3-by-3 digital squares – we’ve made it work – but what we’re missing are those moments of serendipity and impromptu human connection that drive the most valuable outcomes from live events,” said Impartner CMO, Kerry Desberg. “Who you sit next to during a presentation, see in a hallway or meet at a cocktail party-those are the catalyst moments that allow you to make valuable business connections at live events. The PXCC venue preserves those serendipitous personal interactions and offers a unique experience our community can rally behind.”
Using the 3D virtual platform MootUp Impartner’s PXCC, is a fully functional conference center with auditoriums, meeting rooms, breakout rooms, and lounge and social gathering areas. Already in use by Impartner for employee and customer gatherings, there is a complete schedule of educational channel sessions available to participants. It is also open to Impartner customers that want to host partner meetings, to all members of Impartner’s Channel Chief Advisory Board, and to other member of the broader channel community upon request.
When visiting the PXCC or attending events, participants simply choose an avatar and enter the environment. Users can easily “IM” others in the center and hop into audio zones for voice-to-voice conversations – in avatar form. Throughout the venue there are meeting areas where presenters can quickly share presentations and live video, or users can jump into the pre-scheduled educational sessions.
PXCC has an exciting lineup of upcoming events. This includes a Channel Marketing Best Practices Forum led monthly by Glenn Robertson, CEO of Purechannels; a live presentation from Gina Batali-Brooks, President of Is Inspired, titled Lessons from the Queen’s Gambit About Channel Management; a Channel Acceleration Bootcamp from channel partner performance consultants AchieveUnite; and ongoing Channel Chief and Chill drop-in session, Channel Digital Transformation Workshops, Impartner University and BrainLab sessions, a Partner Communications Leadership Forum and much more. Users can check back regularly for updates and new sessions on the PXCC home page.
“For years with ImpartnerCON, Impartner has enabled channel industry thought leaders and practitioners to learn through informative presentations and, most importantly, ad hoc networking opportunities,” said Gina Batali-Brooks, President of Is Inspired. “Impartner quickly pivoted and held an initial 3D event in December using an early version of what is now the PXCC. The people I talked to and met digitally during that initial event had a lot of fun with the innovative virtual event approach. The company’s ingenuity in finding new ways to continue to bring the channel together shows their commitment to facilitating the exchange of best practices in the industry.”
Companies wishing to use the PXCC for their channel gatherings can register here.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit impartner.com.
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]]>SALT LAKE CITY – Feb. 8, 2021 – Impartner, the global pure-play leader in channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology, today announced that CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Mark Rogers, SVP of Alliances and Strategic Relationships, to its 2021 list of Channel Chiefs. The prestigious annual list recognizes leading IT channel vendor executives who continually demonstrate outstanding leadership, influence, innovation and growth.
Rogers leads the company’s ongoing efforts to build and grow Impartner’s world-class partner ecosystem including establishing and growing strategic relationships with the industry’s leading CRM and CPQ solutions, channel-related software (LMS, Rewards/Incentives, CDM, etc.) and service providers.
“At no other time in history have channel partners been more important in helping vendors close the last mile – Impartner is no exception,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “Our partners have been critical to our success, and without question will be the catalyst to our next stage of rapid growth. We are excited to have Mark recognized by CRN and under his leadership, are committed to living up to the expectations associated with this recognition.”
“I am humbled and honored to be a named among this prestigious group,” said Rogers. “Our company and strategy revolve around the success of the channel. I am grateful to our exceptional partners who are the core of that strategy and so critical to our success. We are deeply committed to leveraging our own technology and the best practices from our world-class customers to augment the success of our outstanding partner ecosystem and launch our channel to the next level in 2021.”
The 2021 Channel Chiefs are prominent leaders who have influenced the IT channel with cutting-edge strategies, programs and partnerships. All honorees are selected by CRN’s editorial staff based on their dedication, industry prestige, and exceptional accomplishments as channel advocates. CRN’s 2021 Channel Chiefs list will be featured in the February 2021 issue of CRN® Magazine and online at www.CRN.com/ChannelChiefs.
“CRN’s 2021 Channel Chiefs list includes the industry’s biggest channel evangelists, a group of individuals who work tirelessly on behalf of their partners and drive growth through the development of strong partner programs and innovative business strategies that help bring business-critical solutions to market,” said Blaine Raddon, CEO of The Channel Company. “The Channel Company is proud to recognize these channel influencers and looks forward to following their continued success.”
About The Channel Company
The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequalled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelcompany.com
Follow The Channel Company: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
About Impartner
Impartner is the fastest-growing, most award-winning provider of channel management technologies, including its flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) solutions, which help companies worldwide manage their partner relationships, drive demand through partners and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com.
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]]>The post New Year, New Job? Guide for New Channel Chiefs appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>If 2021 started off for you with a new role in the channel and have officially taken on your first gig as a channel chief, this quick guide will help you make a significant contribution to your channel goals, objectives and performance – and defy expectations in the first 180 days. Whether you have been hired on to build, rebuild or accelerate your new channel program, at the end of the day, your objective is to generate revenue, contribute to your channel program and create an amazing partner experience within your channel ecosystem. Take time to understand channel-culture, use your resources and stay focused on your goals in your new role as channel chief. You got this!
Approaching the Start Line
Just like any new role you find yourself in, define the start line, figure out where you are on the channel journey and think about your initial road map. To start off:
- Do some research to learn more about your company, how the company is viewed from the outside, the relevance of its products in the marketplace and its place in the competitive landscape. Blogs, podcasts, press releases and case studies on your company’s website will be full of valuable information and will provide a greater understanding of the company’s vision and mission.
- Once you feel you’ve understood the company’s goals and channel culture, establish a list of executives to work with to build alliances, connect and to better understand the company’s customs. Have an informal meeting with the other channel chiefs, they might become a valuable ally in your new role and it’s a great way to build credibility with your new peers.
- When you feel comfortable at your company, reach out to others outside of your organization. Engaging with external contacts, whether that’s partners, executives or operational roles, allows you to gain a fuller understanding of the organization you’re joining and is helpful during this discovery process.
Observe and Learn
It doesn’t matter if you’re new to the channel or a channel veteran, the onboarding process can be challenging for everyone, whether it is navigating through processes, IT systems setup or training. Don’t rush, try to understand everything before moving on and identify any major challenges that surface. To make the most out of your new role:
- Set expectations with your new boss and make sure to mutually define success in your role, embrace corporate priorities with your peers, socialize and establish your personal perspectives.
- Examine the product portfolio with product managers to better understand solution positioning and value proposition, as it is crucial to identifying channel performance gaps.
- Build strong relationships with the product team to help ensure the channel-friendliness of future product releases. Spend time with support teams to gain a clear grasp of solutions implementation and support, and to gather data on partner interactions.
- Gain perspective from key partners to add important data to your planning process, document the state of the channel with data from internal and external sources, create a preliminary action plan to show how you’re leading your channel organization and last but not least, schedule formal 30- and 60-day check-ins with your boss, that way you can solicit feedback and share findings or make edits to your plans.
Review, Plan and Socialize
Once you’ve gathered data, communicated with many members in your channel program and have a better understanding of your new role and responsibilities as channel chief, you are ready to focus on setting organizational direction, refining your goals and developing a plan. Start by:
- Reviewing your vision and mission, it is a great opportunity to see your organizational strengths and potential areas for improvement.
- Developing an 18-month plan to include new remedial and incremental strategies, the strategies detailed in this plan should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. This plan should include quick wins that prioritize several short-term opportunities that tie directly to the 18-month plan.
- Review the partner relationship management solutions you might be using and make sure partners are having a positive partner experience.
- Review your channel organizational structure, do your best to optimize your channel and/or consolidate your channel program.
- Gain a better understanding of the partner journey, review a partner’s journey from start to finish to understand the entire process.
- Develop positive relationships with key stakeholders in your channel ecosystem to help with channel strategy and the direction for your channel. Just as a reminder to make this a priority, schedule a formal 90- and 120-day check-ins with your boss to ensure you’re meeting expectations.
Plan and Execute
Once you’ve done your research, socialized, reviewed and you have a set game plan for your channel program, it is time to shift your focus on tactical execution. Remember to be flexible, make adjustments if you need to and don’t forget the strategy when it’s go-time. Start the execution process by:
- Setting a milestone framework that consists of three related tasks: establishing a timeline and highlight quick wins to foster momentum, cement key performance indicators and success factors for measuring impact, and identify, track and document project milestones.
- Collaborate and communicate with the marketing team, they are integral players in the channel, and it is critical for you to align with the marketing and communications team.
- With the help of the marketing team, create a timeline for communicating changes to your channel and let partners know about any changes to create a positive experience.
- Focus on the positive impact of any changes you make and how it benefits your partners.
- Once you start the communication process, train any internal teams and your partners on your program and operational changes. Establish a phased cadence of training, with topics focused on process, program changes, timeline, benefits, requirements and any new product training. To go along with the training, developing and sharing any updated deliverables, visuals or FAQs will help bolster acceptance of new changes to the channel.
- Once all activities surrounding enablement and promotion of the new program and vision are completed, launch the program and don’t forget to schedule a 120- and 150-day review with your boss to maintain a regular communications cadence.
Change can always bring a lot of uncertainty, remember to always listen, communicate and plan ahead to make this easier for yourself and for everyone that is part of your channel program. Your partners want consistency, transparency and want clear communication, make sure to become an effective channel-steward for your channel program and adopt all the new changes that create a meaningful contribution to your channel. This is a great starting point for your channel journey, and we hope this guide helps you make a lasting impact for your program.
This blog is a summary of the eBook, The definitive Guide for New Channel Chiefs, How to Defy Expectations in the First 180 Days by Channelnomics (formerly the 2112 Group). To read the full eBook, click here: https://impartner.com/portfolio-item/ebook-the-definitive-guide-for-new-channel-chiefs/
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]]>Reid joins Impartner as company delivers a record-breaking quarter as corporations worldwide turn to the channel to power sales in challenging market conditions
Salt Lake City – Jan. 18, 2021 – Impartner, a global leader in channel management technologies helping businesses accelerate the performance of their indirect sales channel, today announced it has appointed Robert Reid to the company’s board of directors. Reid is chairman of Mid-Market Solutions for Sage, the market leader in cloud business management solutions. Prior to Sage, Reid was CEO of Intaact (which was acquired by Sage), LucidEra, UpShot and Seeker Software. A respected thought leader in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry, Reid has won multiple CEO leadership awards, including Best CEO in the Financials Industry, CEO of the year for Small- and Medium-sized companies on Glassdoor and Best CEO for Women.
“We are thrilled to have Rob’s wealth of experience help us in our continued evolution into a world-class SaaS company,” said Impartner Chairman & CEO Joe Wang. “He joins at a time when more and more companies rely on channel management technologies to help them grow and scale.”
“I could not be more excited to join the Impartner board and help champion the company’s long-term success as a global channel management technology leader,” said Reid. “Having led so many companies that sell through the channel, I believe Impartner is in a unique position to revolutionize how corporations optimize what is generally 75 percent or more of revenue that flows through their indirect channels.”
The news of Reid’s appointment continues the latest in a string of milestones for Impartner, which delivered record-breaking performance in Q4, including the company’s steady stream of new solutions from its Global Channel Innovations Labs:
- Journey Builder, which automates the partner journey from onboarding to generating sales and helps ensure consistent performance and revenue from every partner.
- Channel Intel+, the company’s new business intelligence engine, which provides data analysis and intelligence to help companies refine the recipe for their perfect partner and the set of actions that best accelerate mutual revenue.
- Program Compliance Manager, which automates partner tiering, compliance tracking and partner status, reducing program administration and avoiding overpayment, which averages 20 percent in the majority of channel programs.
- TCMA Demand Generation Center, the industry’s smartest, most automated, most scalable through partner marketing demand solution uniquely sends demand directly to partners.
Impartner was also recently named a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020 report, which is available for download here. For a demo or to request a POC of Impartner’s award-winning technology, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner is a global leading provider of channel management platform and the fastest-growing pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. The company’s flagship PRM solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20 and for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465. Follow Impartner on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
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]]>Exclusive, invite-only event for Impartner customers and prospects tackles top channel lessons learned in 2020, what else to look out for, and what to do about them in 2021 and beyond
The summit, “How to Universe-Proof Your Channel, No Matter What It Throws at You,” will be held in a fully immersive 3D environment with participants attending as avatars
SALT LAKE CITY – Nov. 24, 2020 – Impartner, a global leading provider of channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology, today announced a live, 3D virtual summit featuring Forrester’s Principal Analyst, Channels Partnerships and Ecosystems Jay McBain, and VP, Research Director Maria Chien. The summit, “How to Universe-Proof Your Channel, No Matter What it Throws at You,” will be held in a fully immersive, 3D environment with participants attending as avatars, and focus on top channel lessons learned in 2020, what else to look out for and what to do about them in 2021 and beyond to ensure next year is the best year ever for their channel operations.
“The events of 2020 have caused every one of us to examine every aspect of our personal and professional lives to redefine success and how we get there,” said Impartner CMO Kerry Desberg. “Clearly the universe has more challenges in store for 2021 and this deeply insightful two-hour virtual channel power session with arguably the channel’s most prestigious analysts is 100 percent focused on helping attendees not only survive, but thrive and prosper in what is certain to be another turbulent year of transition and change.”
On the 3D venue, Desberg says the goal is to break attendees out of the 3 by 3 squares most everyone has spent the last 10 months in on one communications platform or another. “Every dimension of our lives has been challenged, so why not explore what we’ve learned and get recommendations on what we do next in a fun, immersive experience?” Desberg said.
Once registered, attendees will be able to design their avatars, order schwag, and learn about and schedule a demo of Impartner technology – all in Impartner’s 3D virtual environment. Attendees will attend the summit and interact with others in avatar form – including during the break, where they can choose to visit a variety of breakout rooms and spend time with Impartner’s executive team, members of its Channel Chief Advisory Board, top customers and engineers and product managers in a virtual BrainLab.
“No one would choose the seemingly uncontrollable series of events of 2020, but what we can control is our reaction to it,” said Desberg. “Our customers look to Impartner to help them propel their channels forward regardless of market conditions with innovation in our technology and adaptability in our approach to how we do business together – including respectful humor and creativity to bring energy and possibility into a challenging period of history. We love that Jay and Maria embrace that spirit, and we could not be more excited to bring this informative, ‘can’t miss’ channel event to life.”
Impartner was recently named a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020 report, which is available for a download here. To request an invitation to this exclusive, invite-only event, click here. For a demo or to request a POC of Impartner’s award-winning technology, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner is a global leading provider of channel management platform and the fastest-growing pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. The company’s flagship PRM solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20 and for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465. Follow Impartner on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
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]]>Award continues a continuous stream of national and international recognition for Impartner, including recently being named a leader in the industry’s top analyst report
SALT LAKE CITY, Nov 23, 2020 – Impartner, the world’s most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, today announced that for the third year in a row, it has been named a 2020 Red Herring Top 100 North America winner. The winners have been chosen from thousands of entrants, whittled down to hundreds presenting their companies at the virtual conference on November 17th and 18th. The event, led by Red Herring Chairman Alex Vieux, included two days of keynote speeches, discussions and finalist presentations.
Industry experts, insiders and journalists judged companies on a wide variety of criteria including financial performance, innovation, business strategy and market penetration. Winners ran the gamut of verticals, from FinTech and artificial intelligence to security, IoT, and many more industries.
Red Herring’s editors have been evaluating the world’s tech companies for over two decades. It gives them the ability to see through the industry’s hype to pick firms that will continue on a trajectory to success. Brands such as Alibaba, Kakao, Skype, Spotify, Twitter and YouTube have all been singled out in Red Herring’s storied history.
“2020’s crop of Top 100 winners has been among our most intriguing yet,” said Vieux. “North America has led the way in tech for so many years, and to see such unique, pioneering entrepreneurs and companies here, which is in many ways the heartland of the industry, has been a thrilling experience.
“What has excited me most is to see so many people forging niches in high-tech and cutting-edge sectors,” added Vieux. “We believe Impartner embodies the drive, skill and passion on which tech thrives. Impartner should be proud of its achievement – the competition was incredibly strong. Red Herring is dedicated to support Impartner’s continued path to success and innovation.”
“As we move from this tumultuous year and into 2021, the channel has never been more important to helping companies have feet on the ground when they can no longer be there in person,” said Impartner CMO Kerry Desberg. “We are proud to be recognized as a Red Herring Top 100 company for the third time as a channel management technology leader, which is the choice of corporations worldwide that turn to us to help them accelerate the performance of their channel.”
This award continues a steady stream of national and international recognition for Impartner including recently being named a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020 report, which is available for a download here. For a demo or to request a POC of Impartner’s award-winning technology, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner is a global leading provider of channel management platform and the fastest-growing pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. The company’s flagship PRM solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20 and for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465. Follow Impartner on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
*Impartner bi-annual global customer study, 2019, Qualtrics Platform
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]]>The post Universe Proofing Your Channel appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>A message from Impartner CMO, Kerry Desberg
If 2020 were a movie genre—what would it be? Impossible to categorize, I think. Maybe part thriller, part horror, part drama—even some comedy here and there.
As a marketer, on many levels it’s felt like the marketing Hunger Games—constantly twisting, ducking and turning to find ways to move forward in this unscriptable period of history that has challenged and changed every aspect of business in some way—sometimes bad, occasionally good, and always different.
The irony of it, while no one would ever wish for what has happened in the universe in 2020, in some strange way, and like many others, our team and our company have emerged more powerfully because of it. There’s a saying, “calm seas don’t make good sailors,” and for countless reasons, large and small, I can see that’s true.
Our marketing and biz dev teams are is tighter, smarter, and more refined in every move they make—having had to pivot to markets with pandemic-driven demand, go into overdrive to compensate for normally hot leads that slowed due to COVID-induced spending caution, find ways to drive opportunities without a steady stream of events which had regularly generated bursts of demand—all of it. Our product and engineering teams have kept their roadmaps on track, collaborating and moving things ahead despite no longer working together and being able to easily hang over each other’s desks to work through a problem.
But we’re doing it! Who knows what the universe is going to continue to throw at us, but in action after action, powerful things have happened this year:
- Marketing initiatives that meet customers’ challenges in this environment head-on: Our Channel Economic Stimulus Packages pulled together our solutions into the Channel Ignite bundles. Channel Ignite and Channel Ignite Pro give companies who are panicked at not yet having gone through their channel digital transformation a way to get through the eye of the transformation needle and not only survive but thrive, scale and prosper as the market ultimately begins to recover. Channel Ignite became an instant hit by giving companies everything they need to kickstart their channel and we can grow with them as they grow.
- Continued innovation to amplify how our customers can optimize the performance of their channel: Our global Channel Innovation Labs made up of product managers, UI and UX experts and engineers kept things moving with the introduction of a new business intelligence solution, Channel Intel Plus, Journey Builder, which helps companies choreograph the perfect partner journey, and Program Compliance Manager, helping solve the No. 2 problem facing channel chiefs—managing program compliance. Each solution breaking ground for our customers and their ability to optimize the performance of their channel.
- Thought leadership that harnesses the powerful voices of the channel glitterati to help channel pros move ahead: The Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board came out of the gate during the pandemic and has quickly become a synthesized think tank. This group is organically working together to generate a steady stream of content the market is hungry for to help steer their channel programs through this difficult period in history. I’ve rarely been as proud of what a group has been able to accomplish so quickly through incredible collaboration and collegial spirit.
- Continued growth and expansion of our channel management technology portfolio. Just before the pandemic sent everyone to work from home indefinitely and for some, already permanently, we were moving forward with the acquisition of the Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) brand protection and demand generation center from TIE Kinetics. After a long, “pandemic-induced” pause of uncertainty on every front, we were able to move ahead and are excited to be bringing to market the best of both of our TCMA technologies to give the industry a smarter, more scalable, more automated demand generation engine.
- Continued recognition for our company’s leadership in the PRM space. Today is a great culmination of all that to add value to our customers with the announcement that we’re a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020. We continually win a lot of awards, and we’re extremely proud of the recognition of the value we deliver to our customers—but in our space, the Forrester Wave is the key report channel pros turn to when deciding on channel management technology like ours. The every-other-year report is led by respected Forrester Principal Analyst Jay McBain—the de facto voice of the channel—and we are thrilled to see the endless work by our employees to engineer our products, implement them for our customers, and then ensure their success—resulting in our recognition as a leader. Just as important, we could not be more excited to stand so far ahead in our strategy and vision, for the assurance it provides that we help future proof companies’ business as we move into 2021 and what we anticipate to be continued, unprecedented shifts in the market. Well done team!
Without question, I squint a bit as I look at 2021, wondering what other unscriptable thing is headed our collective way. What I do know for sure, is the Impartner team is committed, stronger and ready to help make 2021 the best year ever for our customers’ channel—no matter what the universe throws at us. So, stay safe everyone. We look forward to working with you channel pros and tackling the challenges of the business universe together.
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]]>Impartner receives the report’s highest scores possible for Partner Coselling and Comarketing, Product Innovation Roadmap and Supporting Products, Services and Ecosystem criteria
SALT LAKE CITY – Nov. 4, 2020 – Impartner, a global leading provider of channel management and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology, announced today that Forrester has named Impartner a leader in PRM in “The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020.” The Forrester Wave™ evaluated the 14 most significant PRM providers, and Impartner received the highest possible scores in the Partner Coselling and Comarketing; Product Innovation Roadmap; and Supporting Products, Services and Ecosystem categories.
“In 2020 and moving into 2021, the channel has never been more important to helping companies have feet on the ground when they can no longer be there in person,” said Impartner VP of Product Gary Sabin. “We are proud to be recognized as a leader for our PRM platform, which is the choice of corporations worldwide that turn to us to help them accelerate the performance of their channel an average of 32.3 percent* in the first year of use alone. We’re also particularly excited to receive the highest score possible in the product innovation roadmap criterion for the assurance it provides that we help future proof companies’ business as we move into 2021 and what we anticipate to be continued, unprecedented shifts in the market.”
In addition to the company’s expanding channel technology portfolio, the report also recognized Impartner’s proven integration with top CRMs and the company’s advancements in adaptability and flexibility: “Most references shared feedback about very tight integration with Salesforce CRM and the support received from a very large community of buyers, partners and consultants. Deep integration with Microsoft Dynamics was announced in 2019 and has resulted in customer wins and broader market appeal. Impartner has scaled up its global functionality and support considerably and is an adaptable and flexible enterprise-class platform that can integrate into the largest and most complex environments.”
The news from Impartner comes on the heels of a string of announcements for the company, including the continued expansion of its channel management technology platform. As noted in the report, “Impartner continues an aggressive acquisition strategy, improving breadth and depth. With a flurry of acquisitions since our last report including Tremolo, Amplifinity and recently TIE Kinetix, Impartner is building out a broader platform to support both transacting and non-transacting channel types.”
“As a leader, we’re humbled by the responsibility to help shape the future of PRM and the channel management technology industry,” continued Sabin. “It’s an exciting period for both Impartner and channel management, and we look forward to innovating, collaborating with partners, and growing to meet new demands as we continue to drive the evolution of the indirect sales landscape.”
To read more of the findings from The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2020 report, download a copy of the report, here. For a demo or to request a POC of Impartner’s award-winning technology, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner is a global leading provider of channel management platform and the fastest-growing pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. The company’s flagship PRM solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20 and for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465. Follow Impartner on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
*Impartner bi-annual global customer study, 2019, Qualtrics Platform
The post Impartner Named a Leader in Partner Relationship Management by Independent Research Firm appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>The post Your Channel Role is Changing—Here are the Benefits appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>For years, channel sales, account management, and marketing roles have remained, largely the same. Namely, sales teams have endlessly been on the road, meeting partners on a case-by-case basis to go over agreed discounts, supported deals, and marketing plans. In parallel, marketing teams have tried, often retroactively, to support what their sales counterparts have requested, and put plans and programs in place to meet these needs.
It’s taken COVID-19 to allow channel teams to break for the norm. We are not talking about the fact that these meetings are now happening all online. We’re not even talking about the surge of enabling activities surrounding Partner Relationship Management (PRM) platforms. We are talking about radical changes to the way these channel teams work together and collaborate.
Channel account managers now have more time to meet more partners. This is enabling them to be less reactive and allowing them to do more analysis, planning, and spend more time with those partners who have more potential; as opposed to those who shout the loudest. They can now look at enabling ‘second-tier’ partners who not only show potential but want, and maybe need, to do more.
Because all of our meetings are online and take less time to organize and travel to, we see channel account managers involving their marketing counterparts more often. This collaborative change has resulted in joint meetings where not only do all parties (channel partners and vendors) discuss current and new deals, but also future activities and plans around these future activities.
In the past, this rarely happened but it is now the new normal. More joint discussions, more joint business planning, and more strategic activities being driven by sales and organized by marketing. So, are we at a juncture where we need to continue on this path and ensure tighter and consistent collaboration between channel sales and marketing? Our obvious answer is a resounding ‘yes!’ Include marketing, sales, or others on any calls where you see an opportunity for innovation and growth, and watch the collaboration take place.
So, let’s chat and discuss other changes your channel organizations and teams are facing and experiencing. We’d like to invite you to join our Channel Chief & Chill series. It is an informal but highly engaging drop-in interactive meeting happening every Friday. Find out more about this new series from Impartner by registering for the North America discussion or the EMEA discussion.
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]]>The post How to “Marie Kondo” Your Partner Experience appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>If we opened your shirt drawer and found perfectly folded shirts row after tidy row, chances are you’re one of the millions of people that tuned in to Netflix’s hit show Tidying Up with Marie Kondo and suddenly felt the urge to organize your closet. We might not be a celebrity tidying consultant, but we want to share a few tricks on how to declutter and spark joy in your channel program. Gina Batali-Brooks, President and Founder of IsInspired and Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board member, joined Impartner CMO, Kerry Desberg, on our latest podcast discussion from the Build a Better Channel series and she explains how the principles of a popular house-organization television series can be applied to giving your channel partners a better experience. Several of the concepts that Marie Kondo uses really make sense, even for your channel partners. Below are the five tips on how to Marie Kondo your partner experience:
Commit to Being Tidy
If you think about tidying up and committing to tidying up, people are really starting to look at how you optimize your partner experience. It’s not a short-term fix, it has to start being built in the fabric of how you’re working with your partners. And so, committing to tidying up really means, putting in place the supportive infrastructure that you need over time. Similar to a publishing governance body, trying to move the publishing date of content closer to where it’s from or where it’s being developed, but then being able to say how do you make sure that it’s going to be relevant to the readers? How do you make sure that you’re getting rid of stale content or stale data over time? You really need to make sure you’re committing to being tidy and as well as tidying up for the long haul.
What do you want your Partners’ Experience to Look Like?
Imagine your ideal partner experience and truly put yourself in your partners’ shoes. Think about simple tasks like occasional onboarding as a new partner, you need to have an understanding of what that experience looks like and remember to talk to your partners about what their experience was like for them. Talk to your partners about the vendors they’re working with, think about all of their systems and then you think about all of the vendor systems that they have to know, all the logins, and all of the steps. Take the time to evaluate and think about a partner’s journey; for example, utilizing single sign-on solutions or integrating any tools that might create a better experience. Thinking about it from the partners’ perspective will really help you understand what your partners deal with on a day-to-day basis and will help you create a better partner experience for them within your partner ecosystem.
Focus on Discarding Before you do Anything Else
Marie Kondo says, “Just envision what you’re trying to move to and then finish discarding first.” She advises viewers to discard by category and not by location. So, if you think about discarding data, what is the data that you really need, and what is the data you’re going to get rid of? Looking at it holistically across what you need from a partner and not just what you’re going to need for the portal for instance. If you look at it more holistically, spending time discarding before you decide where it’s going to go and making sure everything has a place to go into. When you’re combining what you’ve learned about your partners and what you’ve envisioned for the partner experience with what you’ve done from discarding, you’re going to put those two things together to make them all work in your channel program.
Does it “Spark Joy” in your Channel?
What you hear most often from partners is that they don’t like doing something because they know it is going to be a hard process and they want a simple process that is consistent. You need to give partners what they want, provide easy solutions, and create simple partner journeys. So, to take a lesson from Marie Kondo, just ask yourself, “Does it spark joy?” For example, if you’re going to a partner portal and you’re going through an onboarding process, and if it’s an email coming into your inbox, you want your partners to respond with excitement or joy and not drudgery. Implement partner personas, implement new processes based on partners’ experiences and partner satisfaction, and improve and remodel your channel. Create a meaningful experience for your partners in your channel and optimize your partner experience so that every process and every piece of content shared sparks joy for your partners.
Practice Gratitude
It’s hard not to fall in love with Marie Kondo because she is incredibly grateful, she thanks the house for what you have over your head, and she thanks the people she works with. Practicing gratitude can be challenging when you think of all the problems that are sometimes present in your channel, but when you take a step back, you might realize that you actually have a lot of good things going on as well. Don’t forget to be grateful and practice gratitude for what you have. Often, we talk to partners on behalf of our customers and you talk to the partners and they think they have all of these major issues or they’re doing things wrong. Encourage your partners, express all the great things they do well, and take the time to show your gratitude for their hard work.
It’s time to reimagine your processes and think about how you can declutter your partner experience and simplify it. Create bite-sized plans along the way that allows you to reach your goals, measure your success throughout the journey, and know where you’re going. If this blog post sparks joy, listen to the full podcast with Gina Batali-Brooks, President and Founder of IsInspired and Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board member. Tune in to the Build a Better Channel series and don’t miss an episode!
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]]>Fujitsu, Honeywell, Qualtrics, Siemens, Yamaha and Zscaler honored with Impartner Catalyst Award for channel program excellence
SALT LAKE CITY – Oct. 23, 2020 – Impartner, the world’s most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, today announced its 5th Annual Impartner Catalyst Awards recognizing channel program excellence. The global awards, which are typically presented at the company’s annual customer and channel management summit (pre-Covid) ImpartnerCON, honor those companies and teams who have powerfully ignited the performance of their channel. This year’s Impartner Catalyst Award winners include:
- Fujitsu (PFU) – Most Effective Partner Program Reinvention: For completely reinventing the company’s partner program to transform the way Fujitsu manages their services businesses through partners.
- Honeywell – Consistent Worldwide Partner Experience: For giving every partner, in every business across the globe, the same effective experience, enhancing partner engagement and loyalty.
- Siemens Digital Industries Software – Partner Communications Revolution: For consolidating multiple newsletters on multiple systems in multiple languages into one, automated solution to streamline communications and get the right info to the right partner at the right time in the right language.
- Qualtrics – Partner Ecosystem Growth Explosion: For a razor-sharp focus on onboarding and education and partner engagement, which allowed the company to step into the direct sales channel and rapidly turn it into a scale pedal for the business.
- Yamaha – Rapid Digital Transformation: For an accelerated effort to push the company through a channel technology digital transformation in record time – accelerating value for partners and time to value for the solution.
- Zscaler – Lodestar for the Security as a Service Channel: For innovation in creating a digital experience for a Security as a Service business that rocketed their channel ahead and enabled a full-scale cloud transformation for the partner system.
“We’re extremely proud of our customer base and the world-leading customers we serve,” said Curtis Brinkerhoff, Impartner’s VP of Customer Success. “There are so many great examples of how companies have taken their channel performance to the next level using our technology, which is ever more critical in an environment where it’s nearly impossible to be on the ground and the indirect channel is more important now than ever before. The selection process is difficult but this year’s winners truly stand out for their innovation in a crowd of very talented pros.”
To learn best practices from this year’s winners, click here. For a demo on how Impartner can help you deliver these kinds of results and accelerate the performance of your channel by an average of 32.3 percent, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20 and for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465. Follow Impartner on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
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]]>The post Integration Partnerships for a Better Partner Experience appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Let’s talk about integration. With everyone working from home and many offices switching to fully remote positions, we are relying heavily on tools and solutions that help keep our teams connected and our customers happy. If you’re using online communication tools like Slack to chat with your partners or if you’ve invested in management solutions and business planning tools, it is so important that these solutions integrate seamlessly with your channel. Integration partnerships are the key to building better partner relationships, and now more than ever, we need to create a one-stop-shop experience for our partners.
Multi-channel Communication Integration
Whether your program has 25 or 2,500 partners, you need a quick and easy way to communicate with your partners. With a huge increase in remote workers, we have been seeing a rise in multi-channel communication tools like Slack and Teams. Companies are steering away from email and instead of leaning on messaging tools to get real-time conversations started and interact on a quick basis. Working closely with your IT and development team to integrate these communication tools with your current channel will help you manage your team, stay connected, and help send out important notifications to your partners. Whether you are sending a quick message to congratulate partners on finishing their certification, sending reminders to finish training, or simply doing wellness checks on your team, we find there is real value in integrating multi-channel communication tools.
Business Planning Integration
Working with a lot of data can feel challenging and integrating tools into your current channel might sound overwhelming. We find that starting the conversation with your IT and development teams to get the ball rolling is always the hardest part of this integration journey. You might think that integration means building and creating a new portal or user interface for your channel, but a lot of solution providers will license their business planning tools so that you can easily and seamlessly integrate it with your channel. Your IT and development teams will draw from the actual business planning dashboards with a parameter that pivots the data within the dashboard for the partner who’s logged in, while still keeping in mind the partner experience they’re used to with these tools. You will be able to see portal traffic going up, updates on sales and be able to track leads with real-time data right in your channel by integrating your business planning tools.
CRM Integration
We have a handful of customers that have CRM integrations with their top partners, yes, it is an IT-heavy integration, but the benefits and high revenue truly outweigh the work involved. Applying a CRM integration in your channel eliminates that swivel chair that so many partners have complained about. How many sales reps are your partners dealing with, how many customers do they have, how many portals are they logging into and how many products do they sell? It’s almost impossible sometimes to get them to go in and register a deal, and in some cases, if you’re dealing with a large partner, they won’t allow their sales team to access another portal. Having some of that back and forth eliminated with CRM integration has proved to be very successful for our customers and has resulted in automated actions that expand the functionality of their portal, eliminating the need to jump back and forth between systems.
You may be surprised at how many channel chiefs are experiencing the same challenges you are. If you would like to meet with and talk to other channel chiefs and find out how they are working through their obstacles, join our Channel Chief and Chill discussions every Wednesday morning at 9 am MST for North America and every Friday morning at 9 am GTM for Europe. You can sign up for your respective region’s discussion here.
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]]>Latest in a string of recognition for the company includes honors from IT World Awards, One Planet Awards and Golden Bridge Awards
Award sweep includes recognition for Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics and newly launched Impartner Program Compliance Manager, which solves No. 2 Channel Management Problem: Program Compliance Administration
SALT LAKE CITY – Oct. 22, 2020 – Impartner, the world’s most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, today announced that it has been awarded four gold awards and one bronze from three top award programs:
- IT World:
- Gold: New Product/Service of the Year, Security Cloud/SaaS: Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics 365
- One Planet:
- Gold: Company of the Year, Cloud Computing/SaaS/Internet: Impartner Program Compliance Manager, for Solving Top Problem in Channel Management Space
- Gold: New Product or Service of the Year, Information Technology Cloud/SaaS: Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics
- Golden Bridge:
- Gold: Sales and Marketing Intelligence Solution: Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics
- Bronze: Technology Software: Impartner Program Compliance Manager
“When we signed a cooperative agreement with Microsoft to co-market and co-sell Impartner PRM with Microsoft Dynamics 365, we were excited about bringing an integrated technology solution to help customers accelerate both direct and indirect sales from within a single console,” said Impartner CMO Kerry Desberg. “It could not be more rewarding to see that promise recognized by a winning streak of gold across three major award programs — adding to an already long list of honors for the transformative product. It’s clear the market values the solution’s ability to bring together lead distribution, deal registration, cooperative marketing, partner onboarding, business analytics and other tools required to successfully scale channel revenue.”
“It’s also exciting to see one of our newest products, Program Compliance Manager (PCM), come out of the gate with a Gold and a Bronze,” Desberg added. “PCM is the first out-of-the-box solution to automate partner tiering, compliance tracking and tier status and benefit communication to partners, solving the No. 2 problem facing channel managers. Given a staggering 60 percent of channel leaders lack confidence that partners are segmented into correct tiers, with nearly 72 percent saying that compliance administration requires at least three people, this solution solves a huge problem, and to have it recognized so quickly is a testament to the value it delivers.”
To learn more about how the collaboration between Microsoft and Impartner makes it easy for indirect sales teams to more effectively engage with partners, visit Impartner.com/Dynamics365. To take a demo of this solution, PCM or Impartner’s full suite of channel management technologies, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20 and for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465. Follow Impartner on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
The post Impartner Racks up the Award Medals: Bringing Home Four Golds and One Bronze for New Product of the Year, Company of the Year and Sales and Marketing Intelligence Solution appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>SALT LAKE CITY, Oct. 21, 2020 – Impartner, the world’s most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, announced today that CMO Kerry Desberg was honored with the Global CMO of the Year 2020 award at the Global CMO Summit and Awards 2020. The Global CMO Leadership Award by Enterprise IT World is pegged as the world’s most prestigious award for marketeers, and recognizes the contribution of CMOs and marketing leaders who played a key role in aligning marketing strategies with business goals and contributing to the growth of the organization through sustainable competitive advantage. The 500 marketing leaders who walked away with the awards will inspire the next generation of leaders through their vision, leadership, passion, commitment, and excellence in achievement. This is the first and only global award of this nature, where CMOs and marketing leaders from 25 countries were recognized.
The jury comprising of industry veterans, academia and thought leaders went through a rigorous and independent process combined with detailed analysis including the contenders’ contribution to growth, financial performance of the organization, product, service and innovation among others. The research team evaluated around 2,500 Global CMOs through primary and secondary research, post which the jury process was initiated to arrive at the final list of 500 winners. The awardees were comprised of CMOs, marketing directors, VPs and marketing heads from companies in IT, ITES, telecom, data center, cloud and managed services.
Congratulating the winners, Sanjay Mohapatra, Managing Editor of Enterprise IT World, said, “As remote work and WFH is the new order of the world, making information available and communicating seamlessly with target customers the right way is a great challenge for the brands. It is the experience and skill of the marketeers that help their brands stand out distinctly and gain a competitive advantage in the VUCA world. The role of the CMOs and marketing leaders is very critical as we are facing uncertain times. We have therefore recognized and awarded the CMOs and marketing leaders for their success in steering their organization towards growth in this COVID-19 Pandemic as well through the COVID-19 Super Hero CMO Awards. I congratulate Impartner CMO Kerry Desberg for winning the Global CMO Leadership Award having qualified under the rigorous jury process and criteria for her skills and innovation successfully enhancing the Impartner brand through strategic marketing planning and execution.”
“It’s an absolute honor to be recognized by Enterprise IT World and included among such an impressive list of CMOs from so many great companies,” said Desberg. “And for sure, if there is a year that this recognition is particularly rewarding – it’s 2020 given the challenges its caused for everyone. This is 100 percent because of our marketing and BDR team. It’s amazing and heartwarming how hard everyone has rowed together through this unscriptable period in history to make a difference, keep us moving forward, and make sure companies worldwide understand the transformative value of PRM to help them not only survive, but also thrive scale and prosper in the face of the pandemic.”
About Global CMO Leadership Award
The Global CMO Leadership Award is the world’s most prestigious award for marketeers. This unique award recognizes the contribution of CMOs and marketing leaders who have played a key role in aligning marketing strategies with business goals and succeeded in contributing to the growth of the organization through a sustainable competitive advantage.
About Enterprise IT World
Enterprise IT World is a leading publication of Accent Info Media, a leading tech media house in South Asia and MEA. The objective of the company is to support the industry across the world and empower by collating right and updated tech information and trends.
Enterprise IT World focuses on technologies that influence the growth of the enterprises and feature in the agenda of consideration by CXOs. Some of the technologies which feature Enterprise IT World editorial output include Virtualization, Cloud Computing, Data Centre, Enterprise Security, Surveillance, Enterprise Applications, Collaboration, Mobility, RPA, IOT, AI, Analytics, Blockchain, etc.
Besides print and events, the publication carries a strong website www.enterpriseitworld.com which gets refreshed every day with new news and analysis. The website is visited by millions of viewers across the globe. The daily newsletter – Enterprise IT World News service hits the mailbox of 30, 000 CXOs every day with updated news.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20 and for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465. Follow Impartner on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
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]]>Awards mark third consecutive year of recognition from ACQ5
SALT LAKESALT LAKE CITY, Oct. 12, 2020 — Impartner, the world’s most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, today announced it has been recognized with three 2020 ACQ5 Awards for International Technology Company of the Year, SaaS-Based PRM Solution Provider of the Year and Gamechanger of the Year for CEO Joe Wang. This is the third consecutive year Impartner has received multiple ACQ5 awards, which are chosen from nearly 100,000 submissions from the corporate news site’s global readership. The awards recognize organizations and individuals that demonstrate an ability to deliver services and skills to meet clients’ needs and adapt to market and regulatory conditions — and are truly world class in the way they are run and in the services they deliver to clients.
“Experts whose intimate knowledge and expertise in the corporate, cultural, financial and legal arenas are redefining our industry,” says Jake Robson, Group Editor of The ACQ5. “The 2020 ACQ5 Award winners represent the best of breed in all industry sectors and have earned these honors by standing out in a group of very impressive finalists. Relying on reader insight and experience to provide nominations to the panel remains the cornerstone of our program and to identify industry leaders, individuals, teams and organizations that represent the benchmark of achievement and best practice in the business world.”
“In a year when the channel needs to deliver like never before given that resources and travel are limited, it is especially rewarding to have our solutions recognized for their power in accelerating indirect sales,” said Impartner CMO Kerry Desberg. “We couldn’t be prouder of the recognition this gives to our employees and the value we drive for our customers worldwide.”
To learn more about how Impartner can accelerate indirect revenue, click here for a demo.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20 and for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465. Follow Impartner on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
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]]>The post 5 Key Fundamentals to Fortifying Your Channel Foundation appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>With so many variables that have surfaced in 2020, everyone is talking about what is going to change and how they need to adjust. Whether or not you’ve adapted and pivoted to the new normal, often times the fundamentals that need to remain the same regardless of market conditions are overlooked. Patricia Rush, President of Rush To Channel and Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board member, joined Impartner CMO, Kerry Desberg, on our latest podcast discussion from the Build a Better Channel series on how to fortify your channel program for any obstacles that may come in the future.
- It All Starts and Ends with Partner Experience
It all starts and ends with partner experience and making sure that you’re really delivering what partners need to be successful. To be able to build and deliver the partner experience that your partners need, you have to know who they are. You need to understand their business, what types of customers they sell to and how they deliver their services. Your partners are solution providers for their customers, and your product is just one of many that fit into that solution. You need to understand how they’re delivering those solutions, what their skill sets are, are they doing their own custom development, and are they selling into specific vertical markets? To deliver the best partner experience, always start with the customer environment and move upward through the partner solution into your technology or product that you’re delivering and understand where your product fits into that partner’s overall business. - Make the Promise and then be able to Deliver
As you build your partner program, you’re going off of your own experiences, seeing what’s going on in the industry and looking at what you think is the best approach to a program framework. Regardless of how you’ve structured your program, you need to be able to execute and manage the program elements. In addition to following best practices from industry analysts and reports, take into consideration what your own culture is within your organization and what you’re able to execute and manage successfully. You have to be able to make realistic promises to your partners and then be able to deliver them. If you over-promise and under-deliver, you’re constantly trying to catch up. If you structure your program to make it manageable from the beginning, and then you increase and improve, you’ll build a better base and provide a better partner experience as you grow. - Show Partners Where You Fit in the Solution
Lots of partners is a great goal to have; you always have a baseline and a goal, but you have to look at what you can realistically manage. Getting tons of partners to sign up is not a success factor when looking at your success metrics. If you can’t manage a thousand partners, you’re unable to deliver that quality or deliver the program and experience that you’ve promised. You need to really define what you can manage based on your infrastructure and what resources you have to support your partners. You want partners that you work with to be engaged and your teams to be engaged with those partners, really hold them through the process to deliver that partner experience and get the rewards. Work side-by-side and teach them how to fish by bringing them in to learn about your company. They’re learning how you work, as well as the product that you’re selling. Show partners how to implement, how to deliver the support and how to go out and start fishing to bring in new opportunities. - Execute Based on Understanding what your Partners Could do Without you
Partners are the trusted advisors; their skills, their relationships with the customers and the services that they’re delivering to those customers help build the strong relationships within your program. The partners that you work with have multiple touchpoints across multiple technologies, vendors and solutions. They are the managed services that are not only delivering the technology, but they’re also keeping it running and they’re there to support when the product doesn’t work or when the business needs them to support the solution. Don’t place stringent requirements and rigid structure around a partner program, remember that you’re courting them probably much more earnestly than they would be when courting you. It’s important to keep in mind where you fit in the scheme of things and how important your product or technology is to their overall business. Know your partners, structure your partner program in a realistic way and just like any relationship in life, put your partners’ needs first. - Establish, Develop and Deliver a Partner Satisfaction Program
Whether you’re just starting out or have an established partner program, without understanding how partners feel about you and the services that you’re delivering, how do you know where you need to focus and improve? Oftentimes, companies push out what they want to say, what they want the partners to do and the experience they want partners to have. Whether that is pushing their messages, content, events or sales training, they spend a lot of funding on their needs. But is it delivered in a way that is beneficial to your partners? Start by having a baseline of what is important to the partner, what’s important to their business and figure out what do they need from you? Then find out how you’re performing against those needs that are most important and measure it over time. Thinking of your partners’ satisfaction, listening to partners and asking them to help structure and improve the program that you’ve designed for them will help you get a higher level of loyalty, and they will be more involved with you as a business partner.
Now more than ever, it is important to keep up with trends and continue to adjust, adapt and connect. So much of the conversation in the marketplace today is about what’s changing because of the pandemic, however, the foundations that really make a channel organization run well are things that don’t change, shouldn’t change and won’t change. Listen to the full podcast with Patricia Rush, President of Rush To Channel and Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board member. Tune in to the Build a Better Channel series and don’t miss an episode!
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]]>Strategic financing to further accelerate Impartner’s position as a channel management technology platform leader
SALT LAKE CITY, Sept 16, 2020 — Impartner, the fastest-growing and most award-winning pure-play channel management platform, announced today that it has received $30 million in growth financing from Golub Capital, a market-leading, award-winning direct lender and credit asset manager with over $30 billion of capital under management. Impartner will focus the financing on further capturing momentum in the fast-growing channel management technology market, which analysts estimate could be as large as $5 Billion, including advancing customer success systems and resources, investing in additional R&D to extend the company’s lead in technology both in terms of breadth and depth and acquiring complementary technologies. The funding has already resulted in Impartner’s recent acquisition of the Brand Control and Demand Generation (TCMA) business from TIE Kinetix.
The funding and acquisition announcements continue a steady stream of recent innovation news from Impartner’s global Channel Innovation Labs including:
- Journey Builder, which goes beyond just automating transactions to automating the partner journey and curating the behaviors that determine success
- Channel Intel+, the company’s new BI engine, which elevates companies’ ability to answer the two most important questions about partners: which actions drive revenue and what makes a partner profitable
- Program Compliance Manager, which automates partner tiering and tracking of partners’ progress in complying with tier and program requirements
“This period of history has caused nothing short of a revolution in digital transformation as companies accelerate the transition to technologies that will help them not only survive, but ultimately thrive, scale and prosper,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “We are thrilled to be working with Golub on this funding to amplify our customer success resources and ensure we set the pace for innovations that help companies navigate this challenging market.”
“Impartner has a proven track record of growth and innovation, securing their position as industry leaders in channel management technology,” said Peter Fair, Managing Director at Golub Capital. “We are pleased to work with Impartner and to support their quickly expanding growth strategy.”
To learn more about how Impartner can accelerate indirect revenue, click here for a demo.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20 and for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465. Follow Impartner on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
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]]>The post Why Right Now Is The Perfect Time for a Channel Digital Transformation appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Lessons from the Edge Podcast Series Episode #1
Kicking off our first episode in our new podcast series, Lessons from the Edge, Jennifer Judy, Senior Director of Global Partner Experience at Poly joins Impartner CMO, Kerry Desberg, to discuss why now is the perfect time for a digital transformation in your channel. Jennifer offers tips and tricks for leading a large transformation and seeing positive results like onboarding thousands of partners, all while going through an acquisition. Here is a quick recap of their insightful conversation:
Is a Digital Transformation Necessary?
If you have many prospects arriving on your doorstep during this pandemic, chances are that they have not gone through a channel digital transformation. Now more than ever our clients need a robust partner program, they need their partners to be the boots on the ground, they need you to be present for your partner community and they need automated solutions to help manage their partner program. Now is the time to evolve, especially if you’ve had a reduction of staff, and get reenergized to hit the ground running. It’s no longer about surviving but thriving, scaling and prospering once we come out of this stage in time.
The Keys to a Successful Digital Transformation
Identify your overall objective, what do you want to walk away with at the end of this transformation? Evaluate the steps that you’ll need to take when you’re looking for a vendor to support those initiatives, then devise that multi-tiered plan. Once you figure out your strategy, realize that you don’t have to be all in at once and that it can be a phased approach. You don’t have to do everything at once, chip away at it and enjoy those small victories. Whether that is launching something new or adding new features and components, keep the rolling wins going. Be present and share, presence is so critical during a global pandemic and you don’t want to lose that relevance with your partners.
Transform Your Channel Program
Having a PRM allows you to simplify, gain traction and transform your channel. PRM platforms are facilitators that help you get to where you need to be. Work with cross-functional groups and figure out how a PRM would amplify what you’re trying to achieve. Do your due diligence and figure out how PRM solutions integrate with your IT and make sure they are a partner with your IT organization. Validate your content, clean up your assets and make sure you enable the PRM system’s robust search engine. Make sure you understand your partner community and define your objectives for each audience in your channel. Figure out where your ROI is and build your business plan on where you’re going to see the moving of the needle from a revenue perspective. In this time and age, your PRM platform needs to help you stay adaptive, relevant and transformational.
We’re proud to work with some of the top corporations and the brightest channel leaders worldwide. Hosted by Impartner CMO Kerry Desberg, the Lessons from the Edge Podcast Series features Impartner’s customers and brings to life valuable lessons and key insights from these top channel pros. Tune in and don’t miss an episode!
Subscribe to the Lessons from the Edge Podcast Series
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]]>The post Increasing Channel Sales in a Pandemic appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Remember the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray? Working during a global pandemic can feel like you are living your own version of Groundhog Day. You’re stuck at home, days have turned into weeks, weeks have turned into months and escaping the monotony of your daily work-from-home routine can be challenging. Although it feels like there is no end to this unforgettable chapter in your life, you have to remind yourself that you are encountering problems you’ve never dealt with before and you are resilient. You’ve learned to be resourceful with fewer resources, to embrace change and to be a channel-champion for your partners. Here are a few more helpful tips to get you through those channel challenges:
Rely on Referral Partners
In addition to your regular onboarding process of recruiting traditional partners, build out a lower tier for your referral partners. Allow these lower-tier partners to refer opportunities and receive an award for doing so; this can be an incentive for closed opportunities or an incentive for new opportunities. This will help speed up the sales cycle and provide a low barrier to entry by waiting to onboard some partners until they spend more time demonstrating their value. It’s fairly inexpensive to pay out a referral and it’s a way for you to observe the self-qualification of those partners that will naturally rise to a productive partner position. Help partners get in, spend less time onboarding and help new opportunities get into the pipeline and close.
Organize Your Content
Because we can’t go onsite, having a quick playbook of short videos demonstrating a product or functionality can be extremely beneficial to partners. Create product playbooks by organizing your content in such a way that partners can grab blocks of assets without searching across different portal pages or different folders. Organize them into a playbook that can be favorited quickly by the partner so that they can easily find that content block. These content blocks can have talk tracks, information on the competition, training videos, scripts and quick role play videos.
Create a Partner Advisory Board
Similar to a client advisory board, creating a partner advisory board can help build lasting relationships within your partner program. It can be as simple as asking partners what they want to see in the portal, getting honest feedback on the portal, products, or the company, and creating a space where they can speak openly. It can be as easy as setting up a call on a quarterly or semi-annually basis, asking for feedback and just making partners feel more included in the process of coming up with the content and strategy around their partner program. Make sure to also follow up and provide feedback on future plans or what the next steps are.
You may be surprised at how many channel chiefs are experiencing the same challenges you are. If you would like to meet with and talk to other channel chiefs and find out how they are working through their obstacles, join our Channel Chief and Chill discussions every Wednesday morning at 9 am MST for North America and every Friday morning at 9 am GTM for Europe. You can sign up for your respective region’s discussion here.
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]]>The post Creating Partner Personas: The Ultimate Personalized Experience for Partners appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>One size doesn’t fit all. As we’ve all been at home a lot more lately, shopping online has become a regular way of life. Every time you log in to Amazon, you see things that are strategically positioned to your liking and interest. This obviously benefits Amazon, but it also benefits you, as the consumer just as much. Because it’s not one size fits all, you don’t have to wade through products that don’t relate to you. This is the exact reason partner personas are so important to create for your partner program.
You may have already ventured into the segmentation of partners by type, size, or other criteria, which is a great start, however, creating partner personas digs into the next level of personalization to enhance the partner experience. There may be multiple titles at one organization logging into your partner portal and typically they don’t all want to see the same content. Not only that, but they typically should not see the same content. A marketing contact at your partner account does not need to have the same experience as a sales contact logging into your portal.
As discussed in our recent Channel Chief & Chill best practice discussion, building these personas not only benefits the partner, but it also lets you, as the vendor, see what personas are accessing various content and pieces of training. These reports give you an advantageous viewpoint on how your partners use the resources you give them. Once you have these insights, you can reevaluate and revise the experience and the journey you are giving to partners based on actual data and activity.
If you have not yet created partner personas for your program, here’s a tip to start: Put yourself in the shoes of the different people logging into your portal. Physically map out these personas on a spreadsheet, on paper, or any way that feels right to you. What would you want to see if you were that partner contact? From there, decide which resources should be accessible to which personas and what experience you want each of them to have in your portal. With these changes, your partners will realize how easy it is to do business with you and how much you enable them to do their job effectively.
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]]>SaaS veteran Bill Curran takes helm as CRO, long-time CRO Rogers to focus on Impartner’s fast-growing global partner ecosystem
Salt Lake City, Sept 8, 2020 – Impartner, the world’s fastest-growing, most award-winning Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and channel management platform provider, announced today the appointment of SaaS-industry sales powerhouse Bill Curran as chief revenue officer. Curran replaces long-time CRO and former North American Channel Chief at Akamai Mark Rogers, who assumes the role as SVP of Alliances & Strategic Relationships, to further accelerate the growth of Impartner’s channel and strategic alliance ecosystem, which already includes a global network of partners and key alliances.
Curran brings an extensive history of market-making SaaS and enterprise software executive and sales leadership with companies such as Cedar, Clarus, Synthio, Izenda and ExactTarget, where as VP of Sales he led the enterprise sales team to grow sales 150% annually, driving an increase in total company revenue from $7M to $125M in 6 years. Curran is also recognized for his reputation for consistently exceeding revenue goals and for building, leading and coaching high-performance sales teams.
Curran’s appointment comes on the heels of a steady stream of news and momentum from the company including ongoing national and international recognition; industry-first innovations from the company’s Channel Innovations Labs such as Journey Builder, Channel Intel+, and Program Compliance Manager; the formation of Impartner’s Channel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB), comprised of top channel strategists focused on sharing best channel practices worldwide; the launch of the Impartner Channel Economic Stimulus Packages, which are specifically tailored to help companies stimulate the performance of their channel in this historically challenging business environment; and the company’s just-announced acquisition of the Brand Control and Demand Generation (TCMA) business from TIE Kinetix.
“Impartner and the channel management technology market are in the enviable position of having a solid track record of success and surging demand as partners step into the driver’s seat for companies who can no longer be there in person for the foreseeable future,” said Curran. “I could not be more thrilled to join this experienced team and help take Impartner to the next level in the market.”
“Bill brings an absolutely stellar record of transformative sales success and excellence in sales coaching and leadership,” said CEO Joe Wang. “We’re happy to have him take the reins of the sales organization and, at the same time, to have Mark, who has grown our customer base 10x in recent years, focus on expanding our channel operations.”
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20 and for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465. Follow Impartner on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
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]]>The post Top 5 things to know about the Best Partner Journeys appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American philosopher, and poet, once said, “Life is a journey, not a destination”, and just like life, your channel program needs to focus on the partner journey and not just the end destination. To create the best partner journey, you need a continual lifecycle management tool for your partners. That’s where we come in. Impartner’s new Journey Builder is a ground-breaking solution that moves beyond just automating transactions to automating the journey and experience of partners and rewarding the behaviors that determine success. Easily curate every step of your partners’ journeys through every stage of their lifecycle with a visual and user-friendly partner experience. Take your partners on a journey and have the tools in place to fully optimize your channel revenue.
A partner journey is what happens on the way to the destination, here are the top five reasons why Journey Builder will help you get the most out of your partner relationship:
- Drop Pins on Your Map
Can you imagine trying to find a new restaurant without Google Maps or Waze? We rely on tools to guide us to our destination; our tools detail every single step to get us where we need to go. Journey Builder clearly navigates partners to the destination, making sure top partners have specific tasks and helps channel managers easily set up multiple journeys for each of the roles through workflows to single or multiple partner users. - You Are in the Driver’s Seat
Having the power to create an unlimited number of journeys is a powerful feeling. You are now steering the ship and guiding your crew to sail forward. With Journey Builder, partners are placed on a journey specifically tailored for them, they feel like they are in charge and their journey is completely customizable, scalable, and automated, delivering consistent results from every partner. Each journey consists of phases with activities, each phase has a specified time frame for completion of one or more selected activities. - Offer an Inside Track
Simply onboarding a new client and signing a new client isn’t good enough anymore, the first step in the partner journey is so important, and helping them set up their journeys ensures success. Create a great first partner experience by automating their partner journeys. With everyone currently working remotely, partners are part of the portal earlier and are given more access to the portal. Journey Builder allows you to give partners a low barrier of entry, get partners familiar with the tools, and unlock all the information when the time comes. - On the Road Again
Consider flipping the notion of your partner portal as the destination, but instead as the partner journey. Visually see which partners are following their specified journeys and which inactive partners need to be offboarded. Journey Builder provides a cool and clean visual of the partner workflows in a user-friendly interface. Find out which journeys are leading to more successful outcomes and easily make adjustments to ensure partners don’t stray off the beaten path. Journey Builder’s simple and intuitive interface is designed with channel managers in mind, putting journey control in the hands of those closest to partners. - Provide an Evolvable Experience
As your partner evolves, so do their journeys. Creating new journey types, adapting quickly, and providing flexibility to your partners is very important, especially with the current state of the world. Normally, channel managers guide each partner through the behaviors and experiences that will drive them to their first dollar of revenue generated and beyond. With Journey Builder, partners know exactly where they stand, what’s next, and what the end result will be through their visual dashboard, and channel managers can easily see the partner data. Journey Builder also allows channel managers the use of segmentation, segment journeys by partner type and coverage, and manually override a partner’s journey status and adjust partners as they see fit.
To learn more about how Impartner helps organizations unlock the potential of indirect sales by helping them manage and optimize every step of their partners’ journeys, the best place to start this conversation is with our award-winning channel management platform. Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solutions provide you with the right tools at the right time to represent your brand, build new relationships, and sell more effectively. If you don’t have a PRM, request a demo today and we can show you how Impartner’s new Journey Builder integrates with the rest of our world-class channel management solutions. Find out more by visiting impartner.com/demo.
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]]>Acquisition joins together the channel management industry’s two top technologies
SALT LAKE CITY—August 24, 2020—Impartner, the world’s most-award winning, most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider today announced it has completed the acquisition of the Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) business from partner marketing automation solutions provider, TIE Kinetix (AEX: TIE). With the acquisition, which includes TIE Kinetix’s full suite of contemporary Brand Control and Demand Generation technologies, Impartner now offers the industry’s most holistic channel management platform with unparalleled breadth and depth to help companies accelerate the performance of their channel.
“The shortlist of new-age partner management and marketing solutions gets even tighter as these two top companies merge their best-of-breed offerings and create a new channel management technology powerhouse,” said technology analyst firm Research in Action’s Research Director, Peter O’Neill, who is author of a recent global study on Channel Marketing and Enablement SaaS and Software (CME). In the report, Impartner and TIE Kinetix came out No. 1 and No. 2 respectively, as rated by 1,500 business decision-makers. O’Neill is widely known in the channel technology space, given his most recent role with Forrester where for 12 years he directed the firm’s research on B2B Marketing organization, process and automation topics, including the Forrester TCMA Wave.
“Now, more than ever, companies need their partners to truly be an extension of their businesses and amplify their voice in markets where they can no longer be physically,” said Joe Wang, Impartner CEO. “Adding what is inarguably the most contemporary, usable and easily adoptable TCMA to help our customers market through their partners is part of our ongoing commitment to deliver the industry’s most sophisticated, future-proof channel management platform.”
The divestiture allows TIE Kinetix to focus on its core EDI-Integration technology and 100 percent digitalization of the supply chain. Proceeds from this transaction will be used to invest and grow the core EDI-Integration business. “We could not be more excited to have Impartner incorporate this technology and the talented team that supports this business into what is already the fastest-growing, most complete and award-winning channel management company worldwide,” said TIE Kinetix CEO Jan Sundelin.
The TIE Kinetix purchase is one of a string of acquisitions by Impartner in recent years to expand its channel management technology portfolio, including Tremolo, to automate vendor delivery of customized news to partners, and Amplifinity, which gives customers a way to formalize the management of non-traditional ‘shadow channel’ partners, the industry’s fastest-growing segment.
Impartner will integrate TIE Kinetix solutions within its robust channel management technology platform. For a demo of Impartner’s full suite of solutions and how they help accelerate indirect revenue, click here.
About TIE Kinetix
TIE Kinetix transforms the digital supply chain by providing Total Integrated E-Commerce solutions. These solutions maximize revenue opportunities by minimizing the energy required to market, sell, fulfill and optimize online.
Customers and partners of TIE Kinetix constantly benefit from innovative, field-tested, state-of-the-art technologies, backed by 32 years of experience and prestigious awards. TIE Kinetix makes technology to perform, such that customers and partners can focus on their core business. TIE Kinetix is a public company and has offices in the United States, the Netherlands, France, Germany, United Kingdom and Australia.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20 and for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465.
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]]>The post The Pandemic is Changing Everything: What Changes Will Stick? appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>The author of this piece is Peter O’Neill, Research Director at Research in Action, which is a leading independent technology research and consulting company providing both forward-looking and practical advice to enterprise as well as vendor clients. O’Neill is also a member of the ImpartnerChannel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB). The CCAB is a group comprised of top channel thought leaders, analysts, and consultants who each have decades of channel experience and insights to contribute to channel best practice discussions.
Many of us are eagerly debating what has changed in channel marketing and enablement due to the current crisis. More importantly, many are asking which of those changes, if any, will become permanent. Let me make an attempt to answer those questions here.
Last winter (BEFORE Covid-19), I fielded a global survey asking 1500 manufacturers/vendors about their channel marketing and enablement projects. We asked about their investment drivers, giving 15 options. 1500 ranked “involving partners in our own digital marketing programs” as #6 in their priorities – so already a top priority. In discussions with channel partners themselves, I find that this item is even more important to them, and I expect that trend to continue in the future, as digital business truly dominates marketing, selling, and business relationships.
The survey also showed that businesses now prefer a more comprehensive channel management software platform that covers all of their needs – partner marketing, management, and even sales. Currently, most partner management vendors focus on either channel marketing or enablement only. But manufacturers will seek a channel platform that can support a highly-volatile partner community through a much more complete business cycle, from connection to order processing and service delivery… a quite different partner management world.
How different and why?
I see this transformation under seven separate trend headlines with all these aspects of channel management moving, over time, from the left-side state to the emerging state described on the right-side.
For decades channel enablement and marketing were just a peripheral process in most industries; the mantra was: “first we sell direct and then we’ll find some partners.” Most firms were selling physical products (or at least on-premises software) and just needed knowledgeable sellers to position the offer to buyers they couldn’t reach.
But now…almost every industry is morphing to an “as-a-service” business model. And buyers pull the service based on their own research. But heh! Channel partners are not being “dis-intermediated” — this was such a strange cliché back in the 1990s when the Internet took hold and everybody was writing about eBusiness and eCommerce taking work away from channel partners. If anything, the channel has become even more influential and advocational for businesses. The business model in the channel has changed too and they’re more than likely to live off revenues earned from the end-user than from the manufacturer they now occasionally represent. In addition to resellers or distributors, we now have channel players called affiliates, referrers, associations, communities, groups, and ambassadors.
In fact, just as we like to talk about customer-centric or buyer-led purchasing, the partners are now taking control of the partnerships they need to maintain with vendors. From push to pull. Vendors can no longer map out their target markets and plan partnerships around the battlefield like generals ordering armies around a warzone. The market, the partner communities, run the new game.
This is not only the case in the tech industry. Consider a leading manufacturer of industrial bearings, Sheaffler Group in Germany. They’ve found that their new sensor technology creates a whole set of opportunities as an Internet-of-Things data provider. The sensors they’ve installed in trains, combined with AI technology, can provide vital maintenance data on the railway track itself, which is sold to the Bundesbahn who maintain the infrastructure. Schaeffler continues to be a manufacturer but now also has a data service business with new partnerships. As-a-Service is happening everywhere.
That is the bigger picture and most trends are the result of changing expectations on the buyer side and the proliferation of digital channels across all businesses and industries. It has been the fact that digital transformation has been somewhat held up in certain countries and industries due to the classical resistance to change. COVID-19 has burned away many of those hurdles. Hardly any executive or HR manager will now claim that WFH is bad for business. Companies have learned quickly to continue most of their business relationships both internally and externally through digital media.
Here are the most important other trends I believe are here to stay:
- An optimized experience. The business imperative will become “Provide the Optimal Customer Experience.” Manufacturers will need to ensure that their channel partners are part of that experience and therefore need to provide customer insights to them.
- More effective tools. Partner management platforms will help manufacturers to manage thousands of partners of all types without making 80% of them feel inadequate because they are only a silver-tier partner and do not warrant personal attention.
- Better enabled Partners. There is an even larger boom in sales enablement investments at the moment. Clearly, sellers now interact with buyers digitally, remotely and the signs are that buyers like this new behavior and will prefer it to become permanent. They will focus on those suppliers who have the capability to support them. As I tell every client I talk to: “Channel enablement must be part of the sales enablement program.”
The current crisis has created a sort of perfect storm for sales and channel enablement projects and that is a change that I think will outlast COVID-19 and become a strategic imperative in many companies over 2021 and beyond. Those channel enablement and marketing platform vendors who can cover the needs described above will flourish in this marketplace.
To learn how to stay ahead of these trends, watch the full webinar I presented with Impartner CMO Kerry Desberg, where I dive deeper into the channel research I mentioned, along with each of these trends. If you have questions on how to better manage partners through a partner relationship management platform to increase channel revenue, visit impartner.com/demo.
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]]>Award latest in a string of recognition for the solution, which is specifically tailored for quick, easy integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE
August 4, 2020—Today, the Business Intelligence Group named Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Product of the Year in the 2020 Sales and Technology Marketing Awards program, also known as The Sammys. The Sammys honor global organizations and products helping to solve the challenges organizations have connecting and collaborating with prospects and customers.
Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics 365 is specifically tailored to integrate tightly with Microsoft’s Customer Relationship Management solution at a native level and provide channel marketing and sales professionals with a clean, integrated master view of their channel success. With the solution, lead distribution, deal registration, cooperative marketing, partner onboarding, business analytics and other tools required to successfully scale channel revenue all integrate simply and quickly into a common workspace. Microsoft and Impartner have a collaborative agreement to co-market and co-sell both solutions to Dynamics 365 customers and, together, ensure seamless support.
“We couldn’t be more excited to see the continued recognition for this solution, which provides companies with a control center for managing and optimizing their channel sales ecosystem in the same way that CRM facilitates direct sales,” said Impartner CMO Kerry Desberg. “Impartner PRM provides scale for companies that are increasingly turning to the indirect channel as the growth driver for their business, especially in the face of the pandemic.”
“We are proud to reward and recognize Impartner for their innovation and dedication to helping both the organization using their technology and the ultimate consumer,” said Maria Jimenez, Chief Nominations Officer, Business Intelligence Group. “It was clear to our judges that their dedication and innovation will improve how we all connect with the brands we love. Congratulations!”
To learn more about Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and how it can accelerate indirect sales, click here.
About Business Intelligence Group
The Business Intelligence Group was founded with the mission of recognizing true talent and superior performance in the business world. Unlike other industry award programs, business executives — those with experience and knowledge — judge the programs. The organization’s proprietary and unique scoring system selectively measures performance across multiple business domains and then rewards those companies whose achievements stand above those of their peers.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20 and for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465.
Follow Impartner on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
*Based on an Impartner global study of channel managers and top channel strategists using the Qualtrics platform; results anonymized.
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]]>New Impartner Program Compliance Manager first out-of-the-box solution to automate partner tiering, compliance tracking, and tier status and benefit communication to partners
A staggering 60 percent of channel leaders lack confidence partners are segmented into correct tiers; 78 percent of those worry they may be overpaying partners by 20 percent
Nearly 72 percent of companies say compliance administration requires at least three people
Salt Lake City, July 30, 2020 – Impartner, the world’s most-award winning, most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider today announced a new solution, Impartner Program Compliance Manager, which automates partner tiering and tracking of partners’ progress in complying with tier and program criteria, solving what is widely ranked as a top issue for channel managers – program compliance – second only to deal registration. Once deployed, the solution automates updating partners on their program status, benefits and what is needed to get to the next level and also lets partners check their status in a “frequent flyer” style display.
Until today, a lack of a true, out-of-the-box solution meant program compliance processes for most companies were plagued by heavy, complicated, irregular, generally manual administrative work, making communicating status to partners cumbersome and errors and overpayments a regular and wide-reaching occurrence. On average, a global program compliance study of channel professionals and strategists* showed the scope and scale of the problem:
- 81 percent of channel programs support multiple attainable tiers, levels or program types with different compliance metrics
- 72 percent have at least 3 employees who work on evaluating, calculating and determining tier compliance along with sharing that out to partners, with 21 percent reporting at least 6 employees working on compliance specifically
- 60 percent are not confident their partners are accurately segmented into the correct tiers
- Of the channel leaders not confident their partners are tiered properly, 78 percent said they may be overpaying their partners by up to 20 percent, with more than half of those estimating overpayments of up to $100,000 per quarter
- Because of the difficulty, 42 percent of vendors evaluate, calculate and determine partner tier placement or audit program compliance only once per year
- 53 percent present progress to partners in an ad hoc way and then, many only upon request by the partner
“One of the biggest sources of channel friction comes from vendors and partners not being aligned with status and achievements directly affecting commissions and payments that are rife with errors and frustrating for everyone,” said Gary Sabin, Impartner VP of product management. “With a check box, Impartner Program Compliance Manager instantly reduces the administrative burden of channel teams and improves the ROI of their programs by giving them everything they need to automatically tier partners, track partner progress in complying with tier and program requirements, and communicate their status, benefits and what they need to do to progress to the next level – one of the most important tools in motivating partners to move up and to the right.” Following are the feature highlights of the new solution:
- A “What If,” sandbox-style feature to try out various scenarios and evaluate the balance of how partners will distribute between tiers before rolling out to partners
- The ability to create, edit, delete, configure and manage tier structures (a set of requirements designated for certain partner levels and regions for a given timeframe) – all configurable by channel account managers with no coding required
- Auto promotion or demotion of partner accounts based on tier structure rules
- Dashboards to allow partners to see where they stand, what their benefits are, and what is required to move to the next level
- Native integration into Impartner’s workflow engines, allowing vendors to drive precise communications around tier changes and updates
- Tiering and progress reports showing current payment status of program and tier requirements as well as tier history and per period snapshot data for all tracked partner program requirements
Leading IT technology analyst Peter O’Neill issues a dire warning for companies with poor, error-filled program compliance management systems. “Partners’ tolerance of vendors who are hard to do business with and have poor partner management processes such as compensation support, will find themselves rapidly and increasingly behind those with those with platforms that truly support partners through their complete (digital) business cycle – including in commission transactions,” said O’Neill.
“Our technologies have long solved for the No. 1 problem – channel conflict – with our customers reporting globally we reduce that by 80 percent. We couldn’t be more excited to bring Program Compliance Manager to life, to tackle issue No. 2, which together with our recently announced Journey Builder, can help companies worldwide choreograph and motivate partners to follow the optimal, most profitable path for both the partner and the vendor,” said Sabin.
For a demo of Impartner’s new Program Compliance Manager and the company’s full suite of channel management technologies, click here. For qualified companies, Impartner can have organizations up and running with a free POC to see live how the Impartner’s multi-award winning PRM solution can help accelerate channel performance by 32.3 percent. Request a POC here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20 and for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465.
Follow Impartner on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
*Based on an Impartner global study of channel managers and top channel strategists using the Qualtrics platform; results anonymized.
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]]>The post WILL YOU MAKE THE GRADE? appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Partners Evaluate Vendor’s Response to the COVID-19 Crisis
The author of this piece is Michelle Gunter, EVP at Partner Perspectives which is a full-service channel consulting and enablement firm which guides companies in launching channels, expanding existing ecosystems and developing new ways to improve channel performance. She is also a member of the Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB). The CCAB is a group comprised of top channel thought leaders, analysts and consultants who each have decades of channel experience and insights to contribute to channel best practice discussions.
The Missing Step
I take an agile approach to planning: analyze available data, develop a strategy, make swift decisions and set the team in action. Missteps are not failures, but ways to learn that help to refine the strategy. As a channel sales leader, this approach has yielded strong results. It wasn’t until I led a more complex, global sales organization that I realized I was missing a step.
Even the best strategy and flawless execution can miss the mark if you can’t be clear on who you want to be before deciding what you want to do. I’m not talking about corporate values or a code of conduct, but deciding in every initiative or project how you want to show up and the impact you want to have. Setting a “To Be” list before your “To Do” list creates a clear focus on the desired outcome. This simple step of aligning everyone to a single why had a powerful impact that could be felt by our employees, our clients and our partners.
Vendors, You’re Being Graded
Right now, channel partners are grading their vendors. Many partners are currently realigning their vendor relationships and while this is in part driven by shifts in the marketplace and increased demand for security, cloud and consumption based solutions, this grading is also heavily influenced by how vendors showed up when the world shut down. Partners are heralding vendors who were there for them with relief programs in their time of need and re-evaluating those who were not.
What’s the Criteria?
As partners talk about moving from survival to recovery and revitalization, I was curious about what factors were given the most weight in vendor re-selection. Financial relief? Flexible payment terms? Free licenses? Relaxed revenue targets? And what about the smaller vendors who couldn’t offer relief packages quite so robust? By knowing exactly what partners valued most during the crisis, could it help vendors better understand how to support partners moving forward?
The Results are Surprising
What did grade-A vendors do that set them apart from the rest? The results were surprising.
As I met with partners and scoured polls and online commentary, my focus shifted. I was originally looking for trends in what vendors did, but it was the way they showed up that seemed to resonate with partners. Partners definitely cited the tangibles like financial relief and other programs, but they also focused on how the vendor behaved and made the partners “feel.” It was the level of concern from the vendor—the sense of urgency—and how the importance of the partnership was communicated that set them apart from their lower-grade counterparts. The vendors who showed up strong did not overlook that first but crucial step.
Those companies that first decided who they wanted to be in this crisis were led by a higher purpose when deciding what they needed to do. It resonated in their communications; it showed in their relief offerings; it was reinforced at all levels within their company, from executives to reps. Early remarks from partners such as “they are there for us,” “they understand our needs” and “they are working with us” showed an increased sense of loyalty even during the height of the chaos. The following word cloud lists some of the most common words or phrases partners used to describe their perception of vendors in response to the COVID-19 crisis:
When describing the standout vendors, they used words like “sense of urgency,” “responsive,” “supportive,” “accessible” and “engaged”. Even words not usually associated with corporations like “human,” “caring” and “heart” were used to describe some vendors. While some of the likely candidates with more robust channel programs were cited, many smaller vendors who led with “heart” were mentioned as well.
Retired Starbucks Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz said, “If people think they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.” The pandemic created an unprecedented moment for brands to make strong emotional connections with their customers, partners and even employees. Those companies that connected with their partners through a shared set of values have strengthened loyalty and will be rewarded as revenues rebound.
So Now What
As partners scramble to adapt to the new normal, they are having to re-think how to sell, support and connect with customers in a whole new way. For many partners, they are adapting to:
- Rapid technology adoption
- Virtual-only selling environments
- Digital-only marketing and relationship building
- Changing customer environments, priorities, and budgets
Vendors are simultaneously trying to adapt programs and engagement strategies to support partners in these efforts. Some vendors are providing techniques and tools that enable remote selling. Others are creating effective marketing strategies to build customer relationships virtually. Some vendors are working with partners to design an E2E customer journey without ever stepping foot on the customer’s site. The list of things vendors can do to help partners is long, but if having a clear purpose really is a key differentiator in gaining partner loyalty, vendors should seize this golden opportunity by aligning their “To Be” to their partners’ challenges.
5 Tips on leading with “Be”
- Create a To-Be List: A “To Be” list is not the same as your company values. It is a set intention for a specific project, initiative, or plan and describes how you want people (customers, partners, employees, community) to feel. It does not need to be a complex exercise. Start by asking, “Who do we need to be for our (partners)” and then ask, “What do we need to do to be exactly that?”
- Value What Your Partner Values: Align your “To Be” list with your partners’ values. If you don’t know what your partners value, ask, or let us help you distill it down.
- Talk About It: Be open about who you are striving “To Be” at all levels in your organization. Set the example and reinforce the message often. Openly share your list with your partners when rolling out new initiatives. What gets talked about gets done.
- Make it a Consistent Practice: It doesn’t take a global pandemic to adopt the attributes partners cited (e.g., quick response, flexible, open communication). If partners value these actions from vendors, showing up this way 365 days a year could be a game-changer for your channel.
- Let Your “To Be” List Guide: You’re in business to make money. So are your partners. Defining your “To Be” list should be the catalyst for you to create the tangible assets, benefits and support you’re going to offer your partners to set them up for success in 2H 2020 and beyond. Look at how things have changed, what needs to be adapted, and then find the greatest impact you can have to stimulate growth in their business and revenue for you.
If you’re one of the vendors who got an A from their partners, put a gold sticker on your forehead and take an extra 15-minute recess! If you’re one of the vendors who maybe didn’t get the grade, don’t worry—there’s still time to retake the test.
To Be or Not to Be……I think you know the answer. Happy Selling!
To find more content like this from our insightful Channel Chief Advisory Board members, visit the resource page on Impartner’s website.
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]]>Zoom meetings, invitations to virtual events, and embarrassing conference calls with your team where your three-year-old decides to make a guest appearance—this is what we are dealing with right now. If you’re currently reading this blog from your home office, chances are your office is closed, just like mine, and your team is working fully remote. Global health crisis or not, you need to juggle all the balls you’re given, plan for your team’s success and rise to the occasion… and let me tell you, it can be done.
One of our channel leaders, Robb Franks, senior director of sales engineering at Impartner, shared in our latest Channel Chief & Chill discussion how to stay afloat in a sea of uncertainty and his tips to build an unsinkable ship. Here are some of the highlights from his discussion:
Events Are Cancelled, Now What?
With the current lack of travel, the world practicing social distancing, and face-to-face meetings being nonexistent, we have been getting a lot of questions from our customers about how to support training during this COVID-era and how do you create that one-on-one experience virtually. Set up a self-service approach through computer-based training, allowing partners to move at their own pace, whether it’s through a full-blown LMS or through the Impartner training modules. So, when industry events like ImpartnerCon are gone and trainings have been canceled left and right, your partners still get that personalized training. You are able to hold partners accountable through tracking and partners can easily get access to the accreditations or certifications to hit their goals.
Do you have a COVID-19 First Aid Kit?
Impartner customers have been adapting well to all of the changes in the environment and have created a quick COVID resource center within their partner portal. Something as simple as a page or section within the asset library where partners can get to specific content and resources quickly. Whether this resource center becomes a permanent piece of your partner portal or a resource during this pandemic, having messaging, tips and tricks, videos, how-to guides, or timely policy documents readily available will reassure partners and help them help their customers. It’s as easy as adapting to what’s going on, understanding the need, and supporting your partners with valuable solutions.
If you’re curious about our discussions and you’d like to participate, we’d like to invite you to join our Channel Chief & Chill series. It’s an informal drop-in interactive meeting happening every Friday at 9:00 am MST and another at 9:00 am UK GMT. Find out more by registering for the North America discussion or the EMEA discussion.
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]]>The post Impartner Bootcamp: Basic Training for New Security Partner Program Recruits appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>2020 has been a pivotable point for many security companies, whether you’ve experienced major changes to your channel ecosystem, supported more partners with fewer resources or witnessed a major boost in new channel partners, Impartner is committed to protecting and preserving your channel programs. We are the most secure PRM solution, our customers include some of the world’s leading security companies and we are the PRM solution that security companies trust the most.
Not only does Impartner meet security protocols strong enough to be listed on the Salesforce AppExchange, we have achieved the coveted SOC 2 certification and follow stringent security standards for the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and Burp Suite security testing. We also keep your content secure with our SegmentAI, which makes it easy and intuitive to share the right content with the right audience. We strengthen your channel, secure your data, provide boots on the ground through automation and provide a robust product that protects the entire platoon.
Train the Troops
What Coronavirus has taught us about remote work is that most of us were not prepared, we had to move swiftly and adapt to the current situation. One easy way to keep your program data secure is to provide targeted training for partners on security. Whether that training is a quick refresher course on data security, setting up new policies and procedures for working from home, or providing in-depth information about data breaches, this is one of the most important considerations when moving your team to work fully remote. Targeted training and using the right tools are going to guarantee you that piece of mind.
Activate Additional Artillery
It was decided that our physical offices would be closed, and our entire staff would begin working from home for the foreseeable future. This was not the time to think about how to cope with these new changes, our customers are our first priority and we quickly focused on creating COVID-minded content. Coming up with additional assets and creating new collateral about securely working from home will truly provide support to your remote partners. Present partners with resources and tips on how to be secure at home, enforcing multi-factor authentication, sharing sensitive data safely, and exercising caution when using mobile applications with corporate data. Delivering these new assets will allow you to gain mindshare and give value to partners for engaging with the portal.
Backup the Barracks
Whether your team is working in different time zones, weekends, or in the middle of the night, data should always be accessible to them. This important information needs to be available 24/7 and should be housed in one easy to find place. Manage all of your partner information within the portal, keep important files in this system of record, and keep your data secure. Providing data security provides value to partners and helps gain their loyalty. Our customers trust us because we integrate with their CRM, we keep data and program materials separate to avoid unintentional mixing of files and we create a true balance of separation and integration.
To learn more about why Impartner is the choice of top security corporations worldwide to accelerate their channel and growth year-after-year, the best place to start this conversation is with our award-winning channel management platform. Impartner provides an enterprise-class solution for managing all aspects of the partner life cycle, from partner recruitment to marketing and sales, to performance management. Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solutions, keep you and your partner’s data safe and secure while giving your partners the right tools at the right time to represent your brand, build new relationships and sell more effectively. Find out more by visiting impartner.com/demo.
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]]>We are currently finding ourselves in a new dystopian-like situation, having to adjust and adapt quickly, learning fully-virtually, and adapting to whatever gets thrown on our plate. As the current market gives and takes, we are given more time to focus on optimizing our channel operations, but we have fewer resources and facetime with our partners. Pre-pandemic, channel managers have aligned partners from the top-down—starting with their own organizations’ end goals in mind and then figuring out how partners fit into the strategy. With the world turning upside down in recent months, so has this process. Summarized from a recent webinar as part of Impartner’s Build a Better Channel Series, Purechannels CEO and Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board Member (CCAB) Glenn Robertson joins Impartner CMO Kerry Desberg to discuss how to dramatically increase partner experience, partner effectiveness and drive partner revenue.
Start at the End
The best results happen in the end, so why not start at the end? Most companies focus on their needs and goals in mind, but what about our partners’ needs? According to neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) communication therapy, the best judge of our communication is the impact that it has on the recipient. The focus and emphasis are on the recipient dictating success, rather than the deliverer expecting or assuming it. Focusing on your partners means placing more emphasis on their choices; choice of solution, choice of service, choice of support, choice of how they do business, and who they do business with. Choosing to shift your focus from your needs to your partners’ needs will create more emotionally driven decisions for your partners and affect their buying decisions within your channel
Customer Experience to Partner Experience
Drive to create and provide the best partner experience in our channel ecosystem, partner experience should be the focus at the starting point, and we need to place more importance on partner experience throughout the program process. When was the last time you asked your partners what they want? If you don’t ask your partners what they want, you will never be able to deliver what they need. Partners exist to help with sales, to allow ease of doing business, and to generate leads. Knowing what partners want at the end, means knowing where to start and creating less chance of disconnect. By putting partner experience first and relating everything back to partners’ needs and wants, we are far more likely to get the desired end results.
The Five E’s
Based on research, surveying, and data, Purechannels developed a model for achieving the ultimate partner experience. There are Five E’s that are critical to creating a good partner experience. The Five E’s focus on engaging partners, educating partners, enabling partners, evaluating the process, and then evolving over time. There is no necessary starting point to this model, you can jump into it at any point and it will still be relevant and cyclical. Ask what your partners’ needs are, respond to those needs, and understand what you need to do to ensure partner success. Continue to base your actions on your partners’ needs in every part of this cyclical process. It’s never-ending change and you can dive in and start and stop at any particular point. People change, businesses change and your channel experiences change.
The bottom line is that good partner experiences drive good customer experiences. You need to provide contemporary solutions for the current climate and offer expertise, insight, leadership, and help your partners make more informed decisions during this uncertain time. We are living in a strange period in world history and now more than ever companies need to shift their focus on their partners’ wants and needs and create a wonderful partner experience. That’s where Impartner comes in, Impartner provides the tools necessary to give your partners that world-class experience. Create customized partner journeys, empower partners with insightful resources and actionable training, and energize partners to be more productive by providing them a personalized partner experience. Visit impartner.com/demo to learn more.
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]]>The post 4 Key Things to Consider When You’re a Channel Leader appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Have you ever asked yourself what drives channel revenue, what makes partners profitable and what does it take to make your channel successful? The front edge of the challenge with Business Intelligence (BI) tools is always finding a better way to show what really matters and making informed decisions based on real-time data. If you’re a channel chief looking for visibility into your channel, Impartner is here to help and we’ve built the perfect tool that answers those golden channel questions. Channel Intel+ unlocks the ability to create unlimited visuals and reports to provide actionable and crucial insights into partner performance as an extension of Impartner’s robust BI engine. With Channel Intel+ in your channel toolbox, you are the author of your own success.
Find Your Next Trophy Partner
One of the biggest challenges you will face as a channel leader is digging through those large channel haystacks and finding the buried needles. You have to be ruthlessly efficient when identifying the partners that are the diamonds in the rough and the partners that are overperforming relative to their expectations. Whether you’re managing tens or tens of thousands of partners, our BI tools help you create unlimited visuals to enhance out-of-the-box dashboards to get a segmented distillation of partner data and sift through the pretenders and find the true contenders within your partner program.
Provide Partner Value
Channels are almost always understaffed, relative to their counterparts in the direct-side, and even more so as we deal with the current climate. The entire premise of the channel is about leverage, doing more work with fewer people, and leveraging the least amount of internal resources as possible to get as much externally as you can. In the channel space, we have to be extremely data-driven and aware of what collateral is being consumed, which assets and training are helping partners and what’s not working. Channel chiefs don’t want to dig for information, they want to easily see what is on the menu that will benefit them. With Channel Intel+ you have the ability to organize visuals into personalized dashboards and reports. These reports are useful to schedule on an interval that you specify to send to internal stakeholders or even easily serve your partner a plate with no garnishes.
Allocate Your Resources
In the channel, you’ve most likely seen a numerator at best, we don’t ever see a denominator in terms of evaluating a partner’s performance. We tend to prioritize our time and allocation of resources based on which partner makes the most noise. Stop actions like handholding and babysitting partners by making data-driven decisions and truly optimizing your decision on who should get the resources. Who should be getting these important leads and who will turn those leads into major sales? Human-driven decisions can be replaced by data-driven decisions with Channel Intel+, enhanced partner data helps you clearly find the best and most effective partners in your program.
Understand the Journey
You’ve got to understand the path that your partners are taking and truly understand the effectiveness of the tools being given to them. You’ve built a large digital presence for them and the follow-through for that is key, you have to see what path they’re following, and which paths lead to the most successful results. Everyone’s goal is to provide partners with a path to success, the fewer paths you provide to your partners, the less navigating and less confusion. When partners enter your channel, every door should be locked except for the one they’re supposed to go through; no need for partners to plan their own strategy, their own game plan, and assemble their own tools. Leverage our BI tools to reinforce the partner journey, remove any unnecessary noise, and reroute your partners so that they are provided a path that’s proven to succeed.
Leave it to the experts at Impartner and our new business intelligence tool, Channel Intel+, to truly drive partner revenue, profitability, and actionable and crucial insights into partner performance – all through an easy-to-use user interface. Our solutions are not only our customers’ most powerful secret weapon, they are easy to adopt, quick to deploy, and fully customizable for your brand. If you’d like to learn more about how Impartner can strengthen and transform your channel today, visit impartner.com/demo.
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]]>Are you doing everything you can do for your partners? Likely you’re working very hard, but there is always more that can be done to better equip the partners in your channel program. What’s stopping you? If you are like the channel chiefs that join our Channel Chief & Chill discussion, it might be a lack of time, lack of resources, lack of understanding of tools, or something else. Our channel chiefs voiced these challenges and talked solutions.
Here are a couple of suggestions from those same channel chiefs who are on the front lines every day, just like you.
Advance your channel program from “nice to have” to essential
Take a step back and start with the big picture. Many channel programs are viewed internally as “nice to have” but not absolutely essential to the business as a whole, as they truly are. This is either because the channel is not producing or more likely because the fruits that come out of the channel are not accurately portrayed to the rest of the company. If your organization as a whole doesn’t prioritize its own channel program, it can be difficult to find the proper resources and time to truly strengthen that program.
Make your partner program more relevant to your business by having the correct conversations and showing the proper metrics to the leadership team. Use detailed reports and real numbers to show how much of a difference your partners are making and create a business case for spending more time and resources on these partners…then do exactly that! As the business gets behind the program, more resources can be allocated, and you can focus on your partners.
Feed and feed from the same channel trough
Channel becomes more relevant when the vendor starts to simultaneously feed and feed on its partners. Vendors cannot just take, take, take. They need to feed opportunities back into the channel as partner-shared leads. Offload deals to the channel that are not the right fit for your direct teams to work on and then pull leads out of that same channel that is brought in by your partners. As this symbiotic relationship continues and strengthens, you will see stronger and more loyal partners who will continue to fill up the channel trough.
You may be surprised at how many channel chiefs are experiencing the same challenges you are. If you would like to meet with and talk to these other channel chiefs and find out how they are working through their obstacles, join our Channel Chief and Chill discussions every Wednesday morning at 9 am MST for North America and every Friday morning at 9 am GTM for Europe. You can sign up for your respective region’s discussion here.
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]]>Streamlined Channel Ignite solution designed to be ‘digital transformation’ in a box to speed time to market
Salt Lake City, June 22, 2020 –Impartner, the world’s fastest-growing, most award-winning pure play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and channel management platform provider, today announced an Impartner Channel Ignite PRM package specifically tailored to help companies stimulate the performance of their channel in this historically challenging business environment. Channel Ignite is designed to have companies up and running with a PRM in record time, helping channel teams manage their channels in the face of dwindling people and financial resources, and help extend their businesses through partners on the ground where direct travel is no longer feasible for the foreseeable future.
Everything companies need to kickstart their channel
“Across the world, we’re talking to channel chiefs who are scrambling to survive in this period of history that simply no one has ever faced before,” said Impartner CMO Kerry Desberg. “What we know for sure is that while resources and travel are limited, the pressure to have the channel deliver like never before has increased. That goes for existing channel operations and for companies who are just starting a channel because partners put feet on the street in markets where they can’t be. Channel Ignite is designed to be ‘digital transformation in a box,’ easing the path to make the technology leap many companies have long considered with everything companies need to kickstart their channel and grow as they go.”
As part of the Channel Ignite package, companies can be up and running in a matter of weeks on Impartner’s multi-award PRM platform with everything needed to stimulate their channel — with a scalable solution that can grow as they grow. Options in the package include the company’s core PRM solution plus the company’s Training and Certification and Co-Branded Collateral — and the newly released Channel Intel+ business intelligence package with unlimited reports and the ability to schedule and share reports, and Journey Builder, the industry’s first solution which makes it possible for companies to choreograph every step of a partner’s journey and accelerate their time to revenue. Click here to learn more about Impartner’s Channel Ignite package and here to see why one social business software giant and Impartner customer said without the solution, they would be looking at “adding 10 to 15 channel managers to gain the same amount of production.”
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post One-hit wonder Partners: How the Right Partner Journey Can Help appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Don’t let your partners be a one-hit wonder.
Too many partners stop by your program, throw a lead out the window and go back to their work — only to drop off the next lead to your competitors. Don’t let this happen to your channel program. Create loyal partners and get them revenue-ready by giving them the right experience with the proper journey built out specifically for them. Below are two key ideas discussed in our most recent Channel Chief & Chill to take your partner journeys to the next level.
Segment, Segment, Segment
Remember, not all of your partners are starting in the same place or even have the same goals. This is where segmentation comes in. Just like jeans are made to fit tall, short, large or skinny people, partner journeys are not one-size-fits-all. Different journeys can and should be created to fit whatever situation your partners are in. A couple of examples that were mentioned in one of our recent Channel Chief and Chill discussions was to segment by partner type, region, length of relationship or even by activity. As you create these different journeys for your partners, they will be onboarded and maintained according to their needs, which will create loyalty and in turn means more revenue for you.
Use a Referral Program to Onboard and Off-board
A key highlight around the idea that journeys needs to be segmented, which was brought up in this discussion and used by one of the customer participants, is using a referral program to effectively onboard and off-board partners. As partners come into your program and you are unsure of how much they will produce, it may be best to start them out as a referral partner and ramp them up from there, depending on productivity. On the opposite side of this, if your once-thriving partners are now less active than they used to be, off-board them by making them a referral partner. Get them into an automated communication stream instead of spending your time sending them personalized emails, when you could be using that time to work with upcoming, higher-producing partners. If you have questions on how to better make this work for your channel, you can reach out to an Impartner representative.
If you’d like to be involved in discussions like this every week with top channel chiefs from around the world – please join the community! These informal meetings happen in North America every Wednesday at 9:00 am MST and another for Europe on Fridays 9:00 am UK GMT. You can register here, North America discussion or the EMEA discussion.
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]]>New Impartner Journey Builder makes it possible to curate every step of a partner’s journey: Critical to directing 75 percent or more of revenue for companies worldwide
Company’s Spring ’20 Release also features re-engineered BI engine, Channel Intel, which uniquely answers the two golden indirect sales questions: which actions drive partner revenue and what makes a partner profitable
Salt Lake City, June 1, 2020 – Impartner, the world’s fastest-growing, most award-winning pure play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and channel management platform provider, today announced its Spring ’20 release featuring Journey Builder, a ground-breaking solution that moves beyond just automating transactions to automating the partner journey and curating the behaviors that determine success. With Journey Builder’s intuitive, “help-ticket free” interface, Channel Account Managers (CAMs) can curate partners’ journeys through every stage of their lifecycle, taking the variation out of partner outcomes and making it easy for CAMs to see what has and hasn’t happened without having to follow up with partners. The spring release also features Impartner’s new Business Intelligence (BI) engine, Channel Intel, which elevates companies’ ability to answer the two most important questions about partners: Which actions drive revenue and what makes a partner profitable.
The right journey delivers the right result
“In today’s market, it’s not enough to just automate transactions,” said Impartner Vice President of Product Management Gary Sabin. “Out of the box, companies need to be able to move new partners to first dollar consistently. Journey Builder gives CAMs a low-touch, scalable, repeatable way to automate their partners’ journeys — taking the ‘success roulette’ out of the process and delivering consistent results from every partner.” Sabin stresses that the simple, linear, intuitive interface is designed for CAMs, not IT, putting the control of creating partner journeys in the hands of those closest to partners.
Answering the two golden questions
Impartner’s new Channel Intel BI engine, another key feature in the release, also breaks new ground in its ability to visualize the actions that are truly driving partner revenue and profitability, using Impartner’s SegmentAI segmentation engine to segment partner performance and profitability in unlimited variations — not just gold, silver and platinum. The engine both enhances data visualization in Impartner’s core, out-of-the-box PRM solution but also, in an add-on module, Channel Intel+, allows CAMs to create unlimited new reports to present data in the way that’s most meaningful for organizations and schedule and share reports to internal stakeholders
“BI tools are not new,” said Sabin. “But the front edge of the challenge is always finding a better way to show what really matters, and to Channel Chiefs, knowing which partner actions drive revenue and partner success are really the golden metrics. Whether you’re managing tens or tens of thousands of partners, you’re continually looking for the recipe for the perfect partner — the perfect set of actions which drive the most successful partners and, ultimately, accelerate your mutual channel revenue. Channel Intel delivers on that promise.”
On the innovations, Sabin continues, “Our global team of engineers, designers and channel strategists in our Channel Innovation Labs is always excited to release new solutions, but these two are particularly exciting. For months in beta previews, our customers have literally been chomping at the bit for this release. We’re sincerely excited by the value they will bring to our new and existing customers in elevating their partners’ journeys and redefining the visibility with which they can truly see what’s driving the most success for their partners.”
To learn more about how Impartner’s Journey Builder, Channel Intel, and a full suite of channel management solutions can help you accelerate the performance of your channel, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Ushers in a New Era in Partner Management with Partner Lifecycle Automation Solution appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>New Impartner Channel Chief Advisory Board assembles powerhouse group of channel thought leaders from those who regularly generate headlines, present keynotes at top channel forums, curate leading channel events, and are trusted channel advisors for top corporations worldwide
Salt Lake City, May 28, 2020 – Impartner, the world’s fastest-growing, most award-winning pure play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and channel management platform provider, today announced a new Channel Chief Advisory Board (CCAB) of top channel strategists focused on sharing best channel practices worldwide. The global group is curated from powerhouse players in the channel who are conversation setters: those who generate headlines, present keynotes at top channel forums, curate leading channel events, and are trusted channel advisors for top corporations worldwide.
“Like CRM, PRM and channel management technologies are systems of record that companies use to manage their entire channel ecosystem, which represent 75 percent or more of revenue for most corporations,” said Impartner CMO Kerry Desberg. “Our customers and prospects are making big decisions about how to best run their channel and they look to Impartner and this collective group for a continual stream of best practices and thought leadership before, during and after the sales process. We could not be more excited to have the power of this amazing assembly of channel thought leaders join Impartner in being a beacon for best practices — something the market is hungrier for now more than ever given the impact of COVID-19.”
As a part of the CCAB, members will contribute regular content in the form of podcasts, webinars, blog posts, surveys that highlight key directional trends in the market, presentations and 1:1s at ImpartnerCON, the company’s showcase customer channel management summit, which is now set for April 2021.
Kicking off content from the CCAB is a webinar, “The Inverse Channel, The Rise of Partner Power,” featuring CEO Glenn Robertson of Purechannels, a UK-based channel marketing and PR firm recently named best agency by CRN Magazine, and hosted by Desberg. In the webinar, Robertson addresses how the world’s recent events have made vendor partner programs that “drip onto partners” a thing of the past. In the new world order, the most successful programs will be built “from the partner up.” Click here to sign up for the webinar.
“Given the revenue driven by the indirect channel, the pressure for Channel Chiefs to get it right is tremendous,” said Robertson. “We’re thrilled to join Impartner and this amazing group of channel thought leaders in continuing to elevate the conversation around best practices in the channel to not only survive, but thrive and prosper as the market begins its path to recovery.”
Below is a list of the CCAB members, which is also available here on Impartner’s website — along with schedule of upcoming CCAB content:
1. Rod Baptie, President and Founder, Baptie & Co.
Rod Baptie is President and Founder of Baptie & Co., the world’s leading provider of Channel best practice and how-to information for executives in the technology and telecom industries. Baptie’s communities and events, including their flagship Channel Focus event and their Cloud Services Community, provide invaluable insights through peer-to-peer interaction. Involved with the technology industry since the early 1980s, Baptie was Managing Director at WBN, a leading high-tech agency where Baptie was responsible for the successful launch of over 20 major technology companies into the European market. Baptie is also a popular speaker at conferences and seminars worldwide and is widely recognized as one of the leading thinkers in the IT/Telcom channels industry.
2. Gina Batali-Brooks, President, Is Inspired
Gina Batali-Brooks is President of Is Inspired, a leading technology implementation firm that helps companies choose and implement solutions that accelerate the performance of their channel. With over 30 years of experience, Batali-Brooks has extensive channel technology leadership experience in channel strategy development, recruiting, ramping and retaining channel partners and channel team building and managing, and has held channel leadership roles with LeftHand Networks and HP.
3. Theresa Caragol, Founder and CEO, AchieveUnite
Theresa Caragol is Founder and CEO, AchieveUnite Inc., a strategic consulting and education company helping global companies generate maximum results from their channel and strategic alliance partner organizations. Clients include Poly, SES, Ciena, Big Commerce, and Accedian. Caragol has more than 20 years’ experience building and managing multimillion-dollar indirect channel teams and strategic alliance programs from inception to sales success with top corporations including Ciena. Caragol is the recipient of numerous channel accolades, including CRN’s Top 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs, and is a regular keynote at top channel forums globally.
4. Cassandra Gholston, CEO, PartnerTap
Cassandra Gholston is the Co-founder and CEO of PartnerTap, an ecosystem sales platform that directly connects thousands of sales reps across companies so they can uncover new opportunities and close more deals with partner insights. Prior to founding PartnerTap, Gholston spent her 15-year career in sales as a top sales leader in numerous SaaS and technology companies such as Concur and ADP and consulted with domestic and international organizations that were in their hyper-growth phase.
5. Michelle Gunter, EVP, Partner Perspectives
Michelle Gunter is EVP of Partner Perspectives, a full-service channel consulting and enablement firm that guides companies in launching channels, expanding existing ecosystems and developing new ways to improve channel performance, with clients such as Fuze, SAS, Autodesk and Carbonite. As a global sales and business executive with over 20 years of experience, Gunter has helped hundreds of clients design, implement and deliver channel sales, success and support motions, delivering billions in annual revenue. Before joining Partner Perspectives, Gunter was the Global Channel SVP with Sales-as-a-Service company, MarketStar.
6. Donagh Kiernan, CEO, Tenego Partnering
Donagh Kiernan is CEO of Ireland-based Tenego Partnering and Tenego Academy, which provides international channel sales development services and online channel development training programs to growing and established software companies including sales channel planning and development, direct sales execution and sales channel execution. With over 30 years of technology development experience, Kiernan has developed, sold, and delivered high-caliber software solutions to many national and international organizations.
7. Peter O’Neill, Research Director, Research in Action
Peter O’Neill researches and advises on B2B Marketing at Research in Action, a leading, independent technology research and consulting company providing both forward-looking and practical advice to enterprise as well as vendor clients. O’Neill is most known for his 12 years of service at Forrester Research as an industry analyst where, most recently, he directed all Forrester’s research on B2B Marketing topics including channel marketing. Before Forrester, he was at META Group and advised many technology companies on channel marketing and prior to that, held a number of channel leadership positions at HP during his 20 years at that company.
8. Dan Overgaag, Managing Director, The Spur Group
Dan Overgaag is Managing Director of The Spur Group, regularly one of Inc. 500’s Fastest Growing Companies and a leading authority on go-to-market solutions, where he directs strategic initiatives and develops channel management programs for top technology firms such as Microsoft, Cisco and Google. With over 12 years of industry experience, Overgaag leads the firm’s channel management, sales transformation and business intelligence practices.
9. Kevin Rhone, Channel Acceleration Practice Lead, Enterprise Strategy Group
Kevin Rhone is the Channel Acceleration Practice Lead for Enterprise Strategy Group, an IT analyst, research, validation, and strategy firm that provides market intelligence and actionable insight to the global IT community. Rhone helps clients strengthen their global partner-centric strategies, programs, and go-to-market execution. Before joining ESG, Rhone, a 25-year IT industry executive, spent a number of years as a consultant to senior executives at Microsoft, Cisco, Dell, Citrix, and other companies concerning their partnering and go-to-market strategies, programs, and execution.
10. Glenn Robertson, CEO, Purechannels
Glenn Robertson is CEO of Purechannels, a UK-based, multi-award-winning channel sales, and marketing agency that supports vendors, distributors, and partners and drives revenue, relationships and ROI through maximizing channel development, vendor programs, and partner experience. Robertson is a CRN A-Lister, member of the Super-Brands Council, founder of Nuzoo — The Channel News Hub, and host of the “Channel Drop In.”
11. Patricia Rush, President, Rush to Channel
Patricia Rush is President and Founder of Rush to Channel, a channel consultancy specializing in partner go-to-market strategies across diverse channel ecosystems. Rush brings over 30 years of multi-faceted, cross-functional experience in businesses ranging from Fortune 500 to small to midsize, rapid-growth organizations in IT, security, services, and related industries. Rush has led The Channel Company’s XChange conferences and consulting organizations and has led a number of channel management and sales positions with companies such as Western Digital and Maxtor Corporation.
12. Kristine Stewart, VP of Client Success and Marketing, Channel Impact
Kristine Stewart is VP of Client Success and Marketing for Channel Impact, a full-service channel specialty firm focusing on channel staffing, strategy, marketing, and enablement solutions. Stewart guides clients in transforming their go-to-market strategies for the new cloud-based economy, including supporting XaaS and recurring revenue business models. She is an IT industry veteran in the unique position of having held numerous executive leadership roles across sales, channels, business development, and marketing organizations at companies such as Cisco, Hitachi, and Western Digital.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Channel Glitterati Unite to Help Shape Global, Regional and Industry Channel Agendas and Share Best Practices appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Newly appointed VP of Engineering Perry Smith brings extensive B2B software engineering management experience including leading engineering teams that have built world-class web, cloud, SaaS and enterprise applications
Salt Lake City, May 26, 2020 – Impartner, the world’s fastest-growing, most award-winning Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and channel management platform provider, announced today the appointment of Perry Smith as VP of engineering. Smith brings extensive B2B software engineering management experience, including leading engineering teams that have built web, cloud, SaaS and enterprise applications, and will be accountable for leading the company’s worldwide team of engineers to continue to advance the company’s multi-award-winning technology platform. Before joining Impartner, Smith was SVP of Engineering at RES, a digital workspace software company, and has held VP of engineering roles at various software companies including McAfee, Kana Software, MicroWarehouse, Agilisys, and Kewill. He has a master’s degree in engineering from Stanford University.
“We could not be more excited to have someone with Perry’s depth of experience in SaaS and in creating and building global engineering teams join the Impartner team and help us continue to further our leadership position in the market,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang, noting that Perry and the company’s long-time VP of product management, Gary Sabin, will report to him as part of Impartner’s executive team.
“With 75 percent or more of revenue flowing through the channel, I can’t think of anything more exciting than joining a company with technology that has the power to so significantly accelerate the performance of companies globally,” said Smith. “I look forward to the opportunity to continue to expand our market share through continued breakthrough SaaS innovations and our powerful and fast-growing, deeply experienced team of engineers.”
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post What are the World’s Channel Chiefs Talking About Right Now? appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Impartner kicks off a new virtual discussion series featuring best practices, channel experiences given the impact of COVID-19, insights and strategies, personal care, and more. Earlier this month we launched Channel Chief & Chill, an informal drop-in discussion that takes place every week, and registration is available to channel leaders in North America and Europe from top corporations across several industries. Think of it as an open space to connect, share key trends, and have coffee with your peers. As these impactful conversations and relevant topics have emerged in these virtual meetings, we have heard vibrant discussions, built new relationships and networking opportunities, and witnessed a truly collaborative community.
These are a few examples of the timely topics that were highlighted in recent weeks:
Showcase Your Partners
With the current situation, face-to-face meetings have become non-existent, website traffic has increased and transactions are being made online more than ever before. To help ease marketing and sales efforts, your partners need to feel seen and you need to provide partners with true real estate on your website. Feature your Partner Locator front and center on your homepage. Instead of just listing your partners on your website, create an interactive marketplace where potential clients will know exactly who to turn to for the next steps and resources. Create a user-friendly system where users can fine-tune their search filters and categories, easily contact trusted partners, and utilize an interactive map to find the perfect partner for their business. If you don’t already have these solutions reach out—Impartner does!
Pivot and Prosper
It has long been known that 20% of the partners are most likely bringing in 80% of your channel revenue. Now is the time to give your next 20% of partners some love. Identify the next grouping of partners using analytics, support this new tier of potential top partners with the right toolset, and set them up for success by placing them on a partner journey. Help this new group of partners so that they can be revenue ready, faster than before, by splitting up your time to provide more of your attention to this new group of potential top tier partners. As you automate processes like onboarding, training, and segmentation, use the right partner management software and provide the right toolset so that this new group of partners can be placed in a position of success within your program faster than ever. Having the correct tools, such as PRM, is key to gaining the proper insight into these metrics. In the last few months we have seen a 34% increase in partner portal logins among our customers’ PRM platforms. If you have been thinking about implementing or upgrading a PRM, now is the time.
Humanize Your Business
We have become the largest workforce to ever work from home in history and often forget that we are constantly communicating with other humans virtually and that our virtual presence matters. In our interactions with our partners, we need to maintain a personal, human relationship. Automation in the channel should allow you to focus on the human connection aspect of a partnership. If you went to lunch with partners before COVID-19, continue to have lunch with them through virtual meetings, coffee talks or happy hours. Stay connected, get creative, and utilize tools like Event Calendar to leverage these connections. Many people are struggling with new emotions, your meaningful actions during this difficult time will create a stronger, beneficial, and more personal relationship for the future.
Ready to join other experts in your community and share your thoughts and insights on real-time topics? Grab a cup of coffee, hit unmute, and join us for our next Channel Chief & Chill discussion. Without networking events and onsite meetings, it is difficult to connect with your peers and find out what they are doing to be successful during these uncharted times. We are here to help, join us Wednesdays at 9 am (MST) for North America and Fridays at 9 am (GMT+1) for Europe. You can sign up for your respective region’s meeting by visiting impartner.com/channel-chief-and-chill.
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]]>Impartner, the world’s fastest-growing, most award-winning pure play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and channel management platform provider, announced today that CRN® , a brand of The Channel Company, has named Kerry Desberg, Impartner Chief Marketing Officer, to its esteemed 2020 Women of the Channel list. Recognizing the unique strengths, vision and achievements of a select group of women, this prestigious, annual list acknowledges channel leaders who are blazing a trail for future generations. These women are from all areas of the IT ecosystem, including technology vendors, distributors, solution providers and other IT organizations.
The CRN® editorial team selects the honorees to celebrate a list of exceptional women acclaimed for their contributions to channel advocacy, growth, thought leadership and dedication to the IT channel.
As CMO of Impartner, Desberg is responsible for driving demand for Impartner’s channel management solutions, which are the choice of top channel chiefs and corporations worldwide to accelerate their channel sales — many of which are among CRN’s Top 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs and CRN’s 5-Star Partner Programs. Desberg is widely known in the channel, having led the company’s presence at industry events worldwide and ImpartnerCON, the company’s flagship customer and channel management summit, which, in its 5th year, has become the largest channel chief event worldwide.
“CRN’s 2020 Women of the Channel list recognizes an accomplished group of influential women leaders whose strategic vision and unique achievements accelerate channel growth through cultivated partnerships, innovative thought leadership and unwavering dedication to the IT channel,” said Bob Skelley, CEO of The Channel Company. “We are proud to honor them for their accomplishments and contributions to driving channel success.”
“Our customer base includes such an amazing list of top women channel leaders worldwide, and we’re excited to have Kerry recognized as one of CRN’s 2020 Women of the Channel for her work to help elevate Impartner to its leadership position in the channel management technology industry,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “The passion we have for transforming the performance of our customers’ channels is unending, and we appreciate Kerry’s industry leadership and persistent passion for bringing that value to life for corporations worldwide.”
“What an honor to be included with so many amazing professionals for whom I hold such high regard,” said Desberg. “I’m proud of the role that Impartner PRM plays in accelerating the performance of our customers’ indirect sales, and even more proud to count so many of these talented women as customers, colleagues and friends.”
The 2020 Women of the Channel list will be featured in CRN® Magazine on June 8 and online at www.CRN.com/WOTC.
About The Channel Company
The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers, and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequalled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelcompany.com
Follow The Channel Company:Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post Cast Your Net Wide: Pro Tips to Create More Top Tier Partners appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Last week in our Channel Chief & Chill discussion, Robb Franks, senior director of sales engineering, shared some of the things he’s seen, and the pivots being made by his clients during the uncertainty we are currently facing in the market. His focus was on creating new pipeline with new partnerships in your channel. Here are some of the highlights from Robb’s discussion:
- Get more out of what you currently have by identifying and focusing on the next grouping of partners that can quickly be in a revenue-ready position. Identify this new group of second/third tier partners using analytics, place them on an automated partner journey, and position them to become top tier partners.
- Broaden your reach by casting a wider net with the many partner types within your channel. As customer’s needs and the ways we interact are changing, accommodate to the current climate by going through different partner pipelines and creating new partnerships.
- Ask your partners to do even more and turn your partner from a co-seller to a true extension of your brand and the initial frontline support. Look for well-positioned partners, provide your partners with the expanded toolset they need to succeed, create a self-service system for partners to extend marketing reach, and empower partners to generate, present, manage, and close deals.
If you are a channel thought leader in your organization, we’d like to invite you to join our Channel Chief & Chill series. It is an informal but highly engaging drop-in interactive GoToMeeting happening every Friday at 9:00 am MST and another at 9:00 am UK GMT. Find out more about this new series from Impartner by registering for the North America discussion or the EMEA discussion.
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]]>The post Creating Indispensable Partner Relationships in a Time of Uncertainty appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>During this everchanging COVID-19 era, we are seeing an abundant need for a new balance of human and digital interactions to make our channel programs more successful. Strategies, tactics and nearly every aspect of the way we run our businesses have changed amid COVID-19. The channel is changing faster than ever and the same is true for partner relationships. The Spur Group’s Managing Director, Dan Overgaag, and channel management technology giant Impartner’s CMO, Kerry Desberg, discusses how to create that magical combination of digital and human touch to build partner relationships and to create successful channel programs.
Summarized from a recent webinar hosted in April, Dan Overgaag and Kerry Desberg discuss that while technology has made it possible to automate operational basics, using those technologies to free up time for more strategic conversations that truly build personal relationships is the most powerful combination – especially now in this time of worldwide uncertainty. They discuss and offer five strategic solutions that focus on why PRM solutions are vital during the COVID-19 crisis and how these PRM solutions can help companies stand out by creating indispensable relationships with their partners.
Protect and preserve your position as the vendor-of-choice during this time of uncertainty
In the last 18 months, Overgaag has seen a re-prioritization for partners. Partners are looking for a clear and strong partner value proposition instead of focusing on a powerful customer value proposition. A large number of companies fail to develop a core competency around partner value proposition and Overgaag believes that it should be an essential element to any channel effort. A solid partner value proposition provides the competitive filter a partner uses when determining which vendor they will sell and support with their customers. According to Overgaag, companies need to create partner value propositions based on three key elements which are momentum, relationships and economics. With momentum as the first key element, this is composed of customer demand, market share and leadership positioning. Making sure your products or solutions are innovative, making sure there is enough buzz generated around your product and evaluating your position in the field. With relationships as the second key element, partners will align to vendors that they see long term value in, based on their strategic objectives and engagement. Work on creating quality relationships with your partners and providing them with quality experiences. With economics as the third key element, partners want to see the financial return and what they can gain from vendor relationships. Work on sharing information, collaborate on business planning efforts and be thinking about the partner halo benefits.
Adapt and empower to better position yourself in a competitive marketplace
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything, including business models and selling motions. Now is the time to separate yourself from other vendors in the minds of your partners. Avoid costly missteps within your channel management efforts by understanding your unique strengths and weaknesses while evaluating the competitor’s business proposition. Understand your partner value proposition, finetune your competitive position and conduct regular assessments to drive effectiveness with your channel efforts. Now more than ever, it is important to solidify those relationships and focus on delivering the three key elements. Empower your field and telesales teams with vital information needed to drive partner performance. Simplify your remote transactions with partners and invest in proper training. Focus on partner activation, provide structured onboarding and partner recruitment efforts to help partners stay focused and proactive.
Immediate changes you need to make now to ramp up your channel
Overgaag stresses that the steps companies take now to provide a good partner experience will define which vendors they favor for the next several years. Steps like focusing on partner experiences, doubling down on the partnership part of partnering and concentrating on channel efforts. Focus on partner experience by training your channel on new expectations, being magnanimous with program requirements and increasing partner communications around best practices. Double down on partnership by increasing your contra-revenue spend, making any services available more broadly and temporarily removing barriers around protected content. Concentrate on channel efforts by knowing all about your partner’s business, focusing on having and leveraging data and bringing capabilities in-house into your channel organization. Show your commitment and partnership during this time and reap the benefits for years to come.
Utilize channel management technology to handle the operational basics of your channel
Desberg explains that automation gives you time for that personal touch your partners are looking for. Without automation, your channel will not be able to scale, pivot and capture the revenue during these challenging marketing condition. Automation helps run your business without hiring additional staff. By automating these processes, easily provide a first-hand experience to customers in your channel ecosystem and capture every marketing opportunity. Desberg recommends automating the following seven processes: partner recruiting and onboarding, optimized training and certification, deal registration, performance tracking, marketing and communications, engagement, and capturing the showdown channel revenue. Taking care of the operational basics of your channel helps focus on the partner experiences and conversations that truly drive value. Treat PRM as your new employee, an employee that decreases administrative costs by 29% and saves $10 in labor for every $1 invested.
Outperform your competitors and engage your partners using PRM solutions
PRM solutions provide world-class partner experiences and can easily provide content and next steps needed to get partners up and running and delivering what the market needs. Enable partners from the safety of your own home, train and empower new partners with better access to training materials and certifications, deal with less channel conflict and gain partner loyalty, track performance and provide visibility to your partners with accurate reporting, and having the marketing and communication abilities all in one compact and effective solution. PRM solutions provide flexibility in this everchanging market by helping vendors communicate effectively to their partners, reduce 80% of channel conflict and provide contemporary automation tools that increases partner engagement by 41%. According to Desberg, if 75% of your revenue goes through channel, make sure to invest in channel management technologies like PRM to accelerate the performance of your channel.
Packed with essential advice and bursting with expert insights, find out how Impartner can help your business find the right solutions and accelerate growth during these unprecedented times. The best place to start this conversation is with our award-winning channel management platform. Impartner’s solutions are not only our customer’s most powerful secret weapon, it is easy to adopt, quick to deploy and fully customizable for your brand. If you’d like to learn more about how Impartner can strengthen and transform your channel today, visit impartner.com/demo.
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]]>The post Focus on People Instead of Profit: How to Navigate Virtual Human Connection appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>In our Channel Chief & Chill discussion, Olivier Choron, managing director of EMEA, shared his thoughts, feelings and experiences about this global health crisis. Olivier brought up the struggles many people are facing with this new normal of social distancing, working from home and navigating these new emotions. He urged everyone to reach out to others, practice patience and remember that as humans, we are all in this together. Here are a few of the highlights from Olivier’s discussion:
- We have more time to work, more time to spend online and more time to communicate with our partners/vendors/suppliers. As we shift our routine from working in the office to being more active online, be sure to keep your portal active with relevant content, and take care of your active audience.
- Help your partners stay in touch with their customers by providing them with more personalized marketing content, whether that is sharing more social posts or sending them more emails. Make sure some form of communication is being sent to capture that audience and use the extra time you have to add that personal touch to the content that you share with your partners.
- We are working from home and in a very informal state, we have to remember that everyone is human, and we are all dealing with similar struggles. Get rid of the corporate talk from your time before COVID-19 and make your actions and communication more humanistic.
If you are a channel thought leader in your organization, we’d like to invite you to join our Channel Chief & Chill series. It is an informal but highly engaging drop-in interactive GoToMeeting happening every Friday at 9:00 am MST and another at 9:00 am UK GMT. Find out more about this new series from Impartner by registering for the North America discussion or the EMEA discussion.
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]]>The post Communicate and Network Effectively During COVID-19 appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Last week at our first Channel Chief & Chill discussion series, Lindsay Jensen, one of our strategic account directors, discussed what her clients are experiencing during this global pandemic and the successes coming out of this situation. We summarized some of the highlights from Lindsay’s discussion in these recap posts:
- Employees are working more while they’re at home, and we have more time than ever to be focused on our work and portal activity. This is the best time to engage with partners, update portals, and utilize social sharing.
- Many companies are on a spending freeze, cutting team sizes and are having to cut back on their resources. Businesses have to do more with fewer people and fewer funds. Utilize your PRM solutions by automating your workflow and any manual processes.
- During this downtime, make personal connections with others in the industry and be more human. Utilize lunch and learns virtual meetings and take advantage of tools like Event Calendar to connect and engage with others.
If you are a channel thought leader in your organization, we’d like to invite you to join our Channel Chief & Chill series. It is an informal but highly engaging drop-in interactive GoToMeeting happening every Friday at 9:00 am MST and another at 9:00 am UK GMT. Find out more about this new series from Impartner by registering for the North America discussion or the EMEA discussion.
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]]>The post How to Make Partners Powerful – Even When You Can’t Be There appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>As we navigate this new environment, help your partners become the face of your company by enabling them as you would internal employees. Your partners represent your brand locally and now more than ever we need to focus on the importance of connecting your team by creating a more powerful partner channel. Robb Franks, Sr. Director of Sales Engineering & North American Sales at Impartner, discusses how to understand and implement the 7 key strategies to create more power within your partner channel.
Summarized from a recent webinar hosted in March, Robb Franks breaks down these seven ways you can strengthen your partners even when you can’t be there. Franks covers some of the best ways within your partner channel to move your business forward and provides helpful suggestions as we are all facing unprecedented challenges and working within models that we’ve never seen before. Your partners represent your brand, they are not only an extension of your brand, but they truly are the “boots on the ground” for your company.
Your partners adhere to your values and mission, and in today’s climate, you need to make sure to enable partners as if they were natural extensions of your direct selling force. Here are seven things you can do to create even more power within your partner channel:
1. Make Your Content Machine Real-Time – Provide a mechanism that allows your partners to understand your messaging as it comes to market. Whether that messaging is changing daily due to the rapid cadence of communication, make sure that your partners are aware of new policies, new procedures and even new hours for that matter. In order to be successful within your partner channels, your messaging needs to be relevant, quick to digest, move out in waves and you must curate unique content.
2. Social Distance Your Training – As you continue to recruit and onboard new partners, there needs to be a major shift in training and certification. Although in-person or on-location training might not be available at this time, this is your opportunity to shift from traditional training to an online onboarding for new partners. Create training content, easily distribute the content and measure the success rate of each partner within this new training model.
3. Ensure Partner Can Market to the Last Mile -Allow your partners to be that regional focus and that regional reach of your marketing message. Make sure that your partners are provided with co-branded, shareable content as it is distributed out to your indirect channels. While building out new content, enable your partners to consume information at their own pace and leave them in charge of their marketing cadence. Remember to track, measure and monitor content effectiveness to see what’s working and what’s not working.
4. Virtual Meetings are the New Face-to-Face – As channel events, meetups and team meetings get canceled or postponed, we realize there is an opportunity to meet virtually more than ever before. Make sure your partners are part of your new strategies when hosting these upcoming virtual events. Your partners are a great source for leads and attendees to these events, so plan ahead with partners in mind. As you aggregate these virtual events across different webinar platforms, keep in mind to organize all these events onto a calendar that is easily consumable by the partner.
5. More Leads = Thriving Partners – Within these new market conditions there is still real value in showing a local presence, your partner allows you to stay local while still being virtual. This is a great opportunity to distribute leads to new partners, assign leads to local partners and ask partners to follow up on leads. You need to pass the lead while maintaining visibility by tracking the success rate of each of those valuable leads. Measure and monitor to make sure you are using each lead to maximize its value and potential.
6. Make Your Feet on the Ground, Your Ear to the Ground – Ask your partners to provide support for end customers by allowing access to a knowledge base, frequently asked questions, ticketing systems like Zendesk, and allowing the partner to troubleshoot as much as possible to alleviate the burden on overworked help desks. Make sure that partners feel like they can be successful as front line support by giving them access to all the information they might need and the right personnel within your organization.
7. Open Door to Different Types of Partners – Rethink your partner program and focus on bringing in a partner type that you’ve never considered before. During these challenging times, carve out another avenue in which to build a new pipeline for your channel and cast a wider net for partners to provide you with more leads. Provide different ways that partners can build capital and generate interest for your products and services, and don’t be afraid to leverage your brand influencers in the market.
Regardless of the market conditions that we find ourselves in, with the help of Impartner’s award-winning PRM, we can enable your partners to be even more powerful than they are today. Channel management and marketing can feel like quite the challenge, especially as we navigate this new landscape. Impartner is here for you and with you as you embark on this new virtual journey. We will help you harness the power of those emerging referral partners and optimize the performance of your channel. To learn more about how Impartner can help increase your channel revenue by 32.3%, request a demo of the most complete channel management platform by visiting impartner.com/demo.
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]]>Newly-appointed CFO Jonathan Spira and VP of Customer Success Scott Taylor bring extensive experience in high-growth SaaS companies to help take Impartner to the next level in the market
Salt Lake City, March 23, 2020 – Impartner, the world’s fastest-growing, most award-winning Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and channel management platform provider, announced today the appointment of Jonathan Spira as CFO and Scott Taylor as VP of customer success. Spira replaces long-time Impartner CFO Bert Young, who is retiring in June. Taylor takes on the newly created role of VP of Customer Success, which has been split out of a role formerly held by Brad Pace, who now assumes the position of VP of Operations, and will run sales operations, solution implementation and acquisition integration.
“We’re excited to have the CFO and customer success strength of Jonathan and Scott join the Impartner team and help us take the next phase of our company’s growth,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “I want to thank Bert, who has been an incredible help in growing the business 10x in the last five years.”
Spira brings a proven track record of CFO positions, including leading a host of SaaS and software companies from BROWZ to Untangle to Blinkx to Autonomy, where he’s helped drive tremendous growth, complete numerous acquisitions and lead a highly successful IPO. Taylor brings an equally robust background of global customer success leadership with a broad range of SaaS/Cloud/CCaaS leadership including Five9, Workfront, and NICE inContact, plus deep channel experience. Over the course of his multi-decade career, he has designed and built channel programs and strategies for fast-growing companies and managed hundreds of employees in customer services and contact centers worldwide.
“I couldn’t be more excited to join Impartner’s experienced leadership team and help Impartner continue to extend the use of the company’s robust, SaaS-based, multi-award-winning solution to corporations worldwide,” said Spira. “The growth of Impartner’s customer base and the blue-chip list of leading corporations is unparalleled in this industry,” said Taylor. “It’s a privilege to step into this role and help these corporations maximize the value they get from Impartner’s technology solutions and accelerate the performance of their channel operations.”
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>Award buoys Impartner’s collaboration with Microsoft to accelerate direct and indirect sales by co-marketing and co-selling Microsoft’s CRM with Impartner’s PRM
Impartner PRM for D365 specifically tailored for quick, easy integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365
Salt Lake City, March 17, 2020 – Impartner, the industry’s fastest-growing, most award-winning channel management platform provider, today announced that Impartner PRM (Partner Relationship Management) for Microsoft Dynamics 365 received a Gold Stevie® Award in the Relationship Management Solution category in the 14th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. This is the second award already this year for this solution, which is specifically tailored for quick, easy integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365.
The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service are the world’s top honors for customer service, contact center, business development, and sales professionals. More than 2,600 nominations from organizations in 48 nations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were evaluated in this year’s competition.
“Given we’ve seen a tidal wave of demand from companies using Microsoft Dynamics 365 who are looking for a proven joint solution to manage both their direct and indirect sales, we couldn’t be more excited to have yet another award validate the power Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics 365 brings to the market,” said Impartner CMO Kerry Desberg.
Impartner PRM for Dynamics 365 was introduced to the market in 2019 in collaboration with Microsoft to offer an integrated technology solution to help customers accelerate both direct and indirect sales from within a single console. This solution integrates tightly with Microsoft’s Customer Relationship Management solution at a native level and provides channel marketing and sales professionals with a clean, integrated master view of their channel success — bringing together the tools needed to successfully scale channel revenue, including lead distribution, deal registration, cooperative marketing, partner onboarding, and business analytics. Learn more here.
“Stevie Award winners from around the world should be very proud of their achievements,” said Stevie Awards Executive Chairman Michael Gallagher. “The judges were impressed with the vast range of nominations submitted for 2020 and have agreed that their accomplishments are worthy of public recognition.”
About The Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post Impartner Coronavirus (COVID-19) Business Continuity Plans appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>At Impartner, we are closely monitoring the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) as it continues to affect various areas of the world. We are committed to providing a safe environment for our employees and ensuring business continuity to you, our customers and partners. Our commitment to our global community of users and the Impartner platform is unwavering. Thank you for your continued trust in us.
With the rise in diagnoses, we are taking increased measures to maintain business continuity and protect the health of our employees.
We are currently taking the following measures of precaution:
- We have canceled all business travel and recommended that our team avoids non-urgent personal travel as well.
- As of March 16, 2020, all our in-office employees have been advised to work from home. We have taken measures to ensure no impact to our service and our ability to keep the platform running and expanding as usual, with no interruption. We have ensured that our team members have whatever they need to work remotely if needed and to continue doing their jobs securely. We have increased channels of internal communication, and as always, prioritize communication with you, our customers, so you can remain focused on your business challenges and goals.
- We have shared best practice health tips with our team and continue to keep them updated daily.
We will continue to meticulously monitor news from the World Health Organization, among other sources and guidelines, and are committed to reassessing the situation and adjust our plans accordingly.
We wish you all good health and thank you for continuing to place your trust in us. Please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions or inquiries.
Last update: March 16, 2020
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]]>Acquisition joins together the channel management industry’s two top technologies
TIE Kinetix’s modern Brand Control and Demand Generation Platform takes the work out of marketing through partners
Salt Lake City, Feb 14, 2019 – Impartner, the world’s fastest-growing, most award-winning pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and channel management platform provider, announced today it will acquire the Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) business from partner automation solutions provider, TIE Kinetix. With this acquisition, which includes TIE Kinetix’s full suite of contemporary Brand Control and Demand Generation technologies, Impartner will provide the industry’s most holistic channel management platform with unparalleled breadth and depth to help companies accelerate the performance of their channel. The sale is expected to close early in the second quarter of 2020.
“In a recent global study on Channel Marketing and Enablement SaaS and Software (CME), Impartner and TIE Kinetix came out No. 1 and No. 2 respectively, as rated by 1,500 business decision-makers and Research In Action,” said Peter O’Neill, Research Director, Research In Action GmbH, who authored the report and was recently with Forrester for 12 years, where he directed all Forrester’s research on B2B Marketing organization, process and automation topics, including the Forrester TCMA Wave. “To have these two already top companies come together and merge their best-of-breed offerings creates a channel management technology powerhouse. In the research report and a recent blog, I had named a very shortlist of vendors who can help businesses address the new-age Partner Management and marketing challenges that digital transformation has introduced into channel management world: now that list is even tighter.”
“Our customers already turned to Impartner for an unmatched platform to manage indirect sales channels, delivering an average 32.3 percent increase in channel revenue in the first year of use alone,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “Adding what is inarguably the most contemporary, usable, and easily adoptable TCMA to help our customers market through their partners is part of our ongoing commitment to our customers that Impartner will continually invest in and deliver the most sophisticated, future proof channel management platform in the market.”
“We simply could not be more excited to have Impartner incorporate this powerful demand-generation solution into what is already the fastest-growing, complete and award-winning channel management platform in the market,” said TIE Kinetix CEO Jan Sundelin, noting that the divestiture allows TIE Kinetix to focus on its EDI-Integration technology, which is the company’s core offering. The planned transaction is a milestone for TIE Kinetix, providing a tighter strategic focus on 100 percent digitalization of the supply chain. Proceeds from this transaction will be used to invest and grow the core EDI-Integration business.
“Executive teams around the world are hungry for solutions to more effectively advertise with and expand markets via partners,” added Wang, noting that key technologies acquired include trackable web and social syndication solutions that control the entire buyers’ journey through partners from prospects to customers. “TIE Kinetix technology solves one of the biggest challenges for vendors – driving demand for partners in a way that lets them pick up a phone versus having to log in and implement their own marketing programs – all without relying on expensive agencies to execute campaigns.”
About TIE Kinetix
TIE Kinetix transforms the digital supply chain by providing Total Integrated E-Commerce solutions. These solutions maximize revenue opportunities by minimizing the energy required to market, sell, fulfill, and optimize online.
Customers and partners of TIE Kinetix constantly benefit from innovative, field-tested, state-of-the-art technologies, backed by 32 years of experience and prestigious awards. TIE Kinetix makes technology to perform, such that customers and partners can focus on their core business. TIE Kinetix is a public company and has offices in the United States, the Netherlands, France, Germany, United Kingdom, and Australia.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post Channel Enablement and Marketing for a New Decade appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>In a powerful new global study by leading independent technology analyst firm Research In Action (RIA), seven key trends have emerged that will set the pace for how top channel managers and marketers optimize the performance of their channel in 2020 and beyond.
Summarized from a recent webinar hosted in January, Peter O’Neill, Research Director at RIA and Impartner CMO, Kerry Desberg, break down these seven trends and explore how the world’s leading corporations are integrating these trends into their channel. They also cover what top channel marketers are looking at as they build out their technology and market infrastructure. O’Neill is most known for his 12 years of service at Forrester Research as an industry analyst where, most recently, he directed Forrester’s research on B2B Marketing organization, process, and automation topics. Before Forrester, O’Neill held a number of channel leadership positions at HP.
RIA has just released its findings on channel marketing and enablement. It is the result of surveying over 1,500 business professionals and broad market research, summarizing 100,000 data points. Through extensive research, Impartner emerged at the top as the most complete channel management solution, leading amongst the top 20 global players in the market. Impartner continuously ranks as a top channel player because it is the fastest-growing, most award-winning, complete pure-play channel management platform in the market. Impartner delivers a 32.3% increase in channel revenue and a 29% decrease in administrative costs by automating operational basics. 78% of customers say that Impartner gives them a competitive advantage over their competition, and 77% report ROI payback in 18 months or less.
According to O’Neill, the two categories that are most important to marketing professionals are channel marketing and channel enablement. Channel marketing is the brand and asset management, where programs, promotions, and leads are managed. Often referred to as local or distributed marketing, and sometimes labeled through-channel marketing automation (TCMA). Channel enablement is the process around the partner relationship management (PRM), recruitment, registration, contractual details and information exchange. Channel partners have also become more influential and advocational for businesses. Our affiliates, referrers, associations, communities, groups, and ambassadors have become our key channel players. Companies have realized that their success will depend on the recommendations and influence of many new intermediaries.
From the global study put together by RIA, these seven trends of channel management emerged and will help transform your channel strategy:
1. Product Business Model to As-a-Service Business Model
In the past, customers would buy, license or subscribe for service and support. In the future, almost every industry will be transforming into an as-a-service business model, and buyers will purchase the service based on their own research. Buyers will subscribe to the full service and renew or upgrade depending on their satisfaction.
2. Push Action to Pull Action
In the past, customers needed to be registered, enabled and incentivized partners to push their products into the markets they could not reach. In the future, partners will pull business when needed from a vendor with little interest in product margin compensation.
3. Recruitment to Enrollment
In the past, channel managers would seek and manage their list of desired partners. In the future, channel managers will notice which partners are productive and will create a general platform for partnership automation.
4. Resell to Concierge
In the past, channel partners bought and sold customers’ products at the margin. In the future, partners will recommend services as part of their solution.
5. Strategic Approach to Casual Partner Relationship
In the past, customers stratified a channel to incentivize and manage resources. In the future, partners will enter in and out of business relationships over time, as well as provide functionality around social and community management.
6. Vertical Planning to Horizontal Planning
In the past, customers mapped their channels to their own targeted segments. In the future, partners will not map easily into the segmentation plan.
7. Hundreds/Thousands to Unlimited
In the past, the channel software market was too fragmented and there were too many vendors. In the future, the emphasis will be on automation while thinking about user experience.
Your journey of digital transformation is always ongoing, and at times, it can feel daunting. Desberg says, “Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and it’s gorgeous in the end.” The hard work is always worth it in the end.
Channel management and marketing can feel like quite a challenge. Impartner is here for you and with you as you embark on this journey. We will help you harness the power of those emerging referral partners and optimize the performance of your channel. To learn more about how Impartner can help increase your channel revenue by 32.3%, request a demo of the most complete channel management platform by visiting impartner.com.
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]]>Automated, personalized and targeted web-based communications solution gives Juniper partners the news they want, when they want it
Salt Lake City, Utah – Feb 6, 2020 – There is very little debate that companies that regularly merchandise the benefits of their partner program have more engaged partners. A “build it and they will come” approach simply isn’t enough for vendors to stand out, inspire and retain partners who deal with an average of 12 vendors. Network and cybersecurity solution giant Juniper Networks struggled with communicating timely information that didn’t inundate their partners, adding to already full inboxes. Enter the company’s choice of Impartner’s News on Demand solution, which ensures partners have the news they want when they want it.
In a new video case study released today, Juniper Partner Programs Manager Roger Horine explains the company’s journey to transform partner communications. “Before we used Impartner’s News on Demand, it was a big production to develop globalized news content versioned for each theater that was timely and catered to the interests of each partner,” said Horine.
The choice of Impartner’s News on Demand technology streamlined the process immediately. “When we discovered Impartner, we were able to rely on its tight integration with Salesforce to combine everything we know about each partner organization with everything we know about each individual contact within the partners,” said Horine. “This enabled Juniper to target news to partner audiences far more precisely than ever before. Then, to match the company’s targeting ability with each partner’s need, the Impartner solution allowed us to deliver content options to our partners, enabling them to choose the subject areas of interest, delivered at the frequency that suited them.”
With the improved distribution and partner experience, Horine says the solution has helped give Juniper a competitive advantage in the market. “People want to buy from vendors that make their lives easier, providing highly-targeted, relevant information that is concise.” To learn more about Juniper’s use of Impartner’s News on Demand technology to streamline partner communications, click here for the video case study. If you’re ready for a demo on how Impartner’s solutions can improve your partner communications, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics 365 wins best new product
Global BIG Awards judged by a select group of experienced business leaders and executives; recognize most innovative products of the year
Salt Lake City, Feb 5, 2020 – Impartner, the world’s fastest-growing, most award-winning channel management platform announced today that Impartner PRM (Partner Relationship Management) for Microsoft Dynamics 365 has won a best new product award in the 2020 BIG Innovation Awards presented by the Business Intelligence Group. Impartner PRM for D365 is specifically tailored to integrate tightly with Microsoft’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution at a native level and provide channel marketing and sales professionals with a clean, integrated master view of their channel success. With the solution, lead distribution, deal registration, cooperative marketing, partner onboarding, business analytics and other tools required to successfully scale channel revenue all integrate simply and quickly into a common workspace. Microsoft co-markets and co-sells both solutions to Dynamics 365 customers and together with Impartner, ensure seamless support.
“Innovation is a major theme for organizations across virtually all industries and this year’s winners are a testament to the creativity, passion, and perseverance of individuals worldwide,” said Maria Jimenez, chief operating officer of the Business Intelligence Group. “We are thrilled to be honoring Impartner as they are leading by example and making real progress on improving the daily lives of so many.”
“It’s incredibly rewarding to have the value this proven integration has delivered to customers receive this recognition,” said Impartner CMO Kerry Desberg, noting recent case studies featuring customers like Wacom and CommScope, who benefit from the powerful one-two punch delivered by Impartner PRM’s integration with Dynamics 365.
Impartner PRM is Microsoft’s only endorsed PRM vendor and is part of both Microsoft’s Business Applications ISV Connect Premium Tier and Azure Co-sell Program.
To learn more about how Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics 365 can help accelerate your channel, click here for a demo. If you’re a member of Microsoft’s sales team and want to learn more about how co-selling with Impartner can help you win against the competition and retire quota faster, click here.
About Business Intelligence Group
The Business Intelligence Group was founded with the mission of recognizing true talent and superior performance in the business world. Unlike other industry award programs, these programs are judged by business executives having experience and knowledge. The organization’s proprietary and unique scoring system selectively measures performance across multiple business domains and then rewards those companies whose achievements stand above those of their peers.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post Top 10 Ways Impartner Grows Customer Channel Revenue appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Impartner’s 2019 customer survey reports an average channel revenue increase of 32.3%.
Find out how our platform solves the common challenges that companies face when managing their channel.
What contributes to our customers’ success? How does Impartner’s platform solve the most common challenges that our customers face with channel management? Customer success and an increase in channel revenue can be achieved with these 10 business solutions using Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management (PRM).
1. Automated Partner Recruiting and Onboarding
Before switching to Impartner PRM, our customers dealt with a manual, and often expensive, process to recruit and onboard new partners. Impartner offers an intuitive workflow and the tools needed to provide a world-class partner journey starting at the recruitment level. We guide customers towards success by offering segmented content and clearly showing them next steps. As a result, Impartner customers boost their channel revenue by scaling their partner program, with an average 45% increase in ability to recruit and onboard new partners.
2. Optimized Training and Certification
Just as your direct sales team needs to be trained on your products and tools, so does your indirect channel. Impartner’s Training and Certification module allows you to keep your partners informed, enabled and effective. Impartner’s customers report a 35% increase of their channel revenue due to better training of their partners. 75% of Impartner customers claim an increase in ability to scale, with 37% seeing this increase without adding headcount to their channel team.
3. Better Deal Registration
Impartner PRM provides a best-in-class experience for both partners and those who manage the vendor-side pipeline. The primary reason for partner attrition is channel conflict. Impartner’s Deal Registration creates real-time integration, which means your account managers and partners are always on the same page and can easily collaborate and manage both direct and indirect selling efforts in our platform. Is it easy to see how Impartner customers saw an 80% reduction in channel conflict by using our platform.
4. Clear Performance Tracking
Many companies hesitate to use their channel with fears that they will be unable to manage channel sales with the same level of visibility as direct sales, which makes channel sales feel unpredictable. With Impartner PRM, channel managers have the tools they need to manage partner performance by optimizing and prioritizing their time and resources. Impartner’s visual KPI Builder encourages the right partner behaviors by showing the next-level benefits and how to achieve these goals. Our customers have seen a 50% increase in account managers’ ability to meet quota and a 26% increase in partners improving their performance.
5. Valuable Marketing and Communications
Channel teams require external
resources, like IT and marketing, to help send out communications. This can
create backlogs and stale information going out to your partners. Impartner’s
marketing tools are designed to give you full control of your communications
and ensures you are clearly communicating targeted content, and the right
partner gets the right information at the right time. No waiting in line for
corporate marketing tools, and no begging for outside resources to assist. With
Impartner’s News on Demand, our customers saw an increase of 30-50% in
newsletter open rates and a 50% reduction in production time.
6. Increased Engagement
Many vendors offer suboptimal partner portals and struggle to keep partners engaged and using their tools. Impartner SegmentAITM ensures that every user gets new information regularly and has an easy-to-use and personalized experience — all without the need to touch code. Because our partner portal keeps content fresh and personalized, our customers saw a 41% increase in engagement.
7. More Valuable Use of Internal Resources
Your company probably has a team of highly experienced channel leaders that can help recruit the best partners and work with them to create valuable strategies. If those key players are tied up doing administrative work, like tracking partner recruitment or managing your marketing development funds, they are not reaching their full potential.
Impartner PRM includes workflows and intuitive UI-based admin tools to make management easy. By automating operational basics so that the best talent can focus on creating strategic relationships with partners, our customers reported a 29% decrease in administrative costs.
8. Building Partner Loyalty
We know loyalty is important to our customers because loyal partners sell more of your products than competitors’ products. Impartner PRM provides multiple ways to help you build partner loyalty within your partner ecosystem in a scalable and cost-effective way. 78% of our customers have stated that Impartner PRM gives them a competitive advantage. We not only work for you — we work with you.
9. Capturing the Shadow Channel
Channel sales can feel unpredictable and it’s easy to get lost in the shadows. The shadow channel of non-traditional partners has emerged because business unit buyers, who make 72% of purchasing decisions, increasingly turn to unlikely groups to help implement technology. Impartner’s Referral Automation Platform brings the same process and structure we’ve brought to managing traditional partner models to managing and rewarding referral partners. Our customers have seen an average revenue increase of over 30% from these referral partners.
10. Channel Experts that Guide Your Channel Upward
The most common question our customers ask is how to best configure their PRM to follow best practices. With Impartner PRM, you have the most experienced customer success team and a large library of best practices to guide you through your PRM. Our customers have the best combination of solution and support available to optimize their partner program and maximize their revenue.
If you’re wondering about Impartner’s secret sauce and how we are able to accelerate growth year-after-year for our customers, the best place to start this conversation is with our award-winning channel management platform. Impartner provides an enterprise-class solution for managing all aspects of the partner life cycle, from partner recruitment, to marketing and sales, to performance management. Impartner’s solutions are not only our customer’s most powerful secret weapon, it is easy to adopt, quick to deploy and fully customizable for your brand. Find out more by joining this webinar.
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]]>Kerry Desberg promoted to lead Impartner’s global marketing organization
Salt Lake City, Utah – Dec. 16, 2019 – Impartner, the world’s fastest-growing, most award-winning Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and channel management platform provider, announced today that it has promoted Kerry Desberg to Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). As CMO, Desberg will be responsible for leading the strategy, planning and development of Impartner’s global marketing initiatives and continuing to build a worldwide marketing organization that can support the company through its next phase of growth. She brings more than 30 years’ experience across the marketing and communications spectrum to the CMO role.
“Since joining Impartner in 2015, Kerry has provided strategic leadership and delivered strong results in developing world-class marketing initiatives that have helped propel Impartner and our technologies into a top position globally,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “I’m pleased to announce this promotion and recognize the ongoing contributions Kerry has made to our growth. As CMO, we’re excited to have her energy and passion for marketing continue to drive awareness for the differentiated value of Impartner and worldwide demand for our expanding portfolio of channel management technologies.” Desberg, who was formerly global marketing director, replaces well-regarded and dynamic CMO Dave R Taylor, who has accepted a soon-to-be-announced role with another emerging growth company on the East Coast.
Desberg is widely known in the channel, having led the company’s presence at industry events worldwide throughout her tenure with the company, including serving on The Channel Focus Women’s Leadership Council Advisory Board. Prior to joining Impartner, Desberg has held marketing and communications leadership positions with some of the world’s top Fortune 500 corporations and agencies, including Procter and Gamble, Owens Corning, Danaher, Lockheed Martin and Fleishman Hillard.
“I’m thrilled to take on the role at this point in the company’s history, especially having just been named the No. 1 PRM globally in a recent analyst report,” said Desberg. “It’s an incredible opportunity to continue to expand our market share worldwide through breakthrough marketing strategies and our powerful and fast-growing team of world-class marketers.”
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>Impartner PRM-powered partner portal rated 5 stars by partners
Salt Lake City, Utah – Dec. 5, 2019 – When Wacom, a leading creative digital pen manufacturer set out to take its global partner experience to the next level, choosing a Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution that could easily integrate with their Microsoft Dynamics 365 solution was key. In a new video case study released today, Wacom outlines their journey to reinvent their partner experience and their decision to choose Impartner, the industry’s fastest-selling, most award-winning pure-play PRM worldwide.
Wacom Vice President of Marketing Operations Steve Greene said, “Our customer support and sales teams worldwide run on Dynamics, so in making a PRM decision, it was essential for us to find a solution that could seamlessly integrate with Dynamics, specifically Microsoft Dynamics. We needed to make sure that when a reseller registers their deal in the portal, it accurately makes its way to the right teams and into our CRM – and the Impartner platform does that.”
Just as important, not only has the Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementation with Impartner met Wacom’s integration expectations, the portal itself has been incredibly well-received by Wacom’s partners. “We surveyed our partners and we asked them, a range of questions like, ‘What do you think about Wacom in general’ and ‘How easy are we to do business with,’ and to rank us on certain criteria,” said Chris Bradly, national account manager for Wacom. “We were very pleased to see that 98.5 percent gave the Wacom Partner Portal a five-star rating.”
Sheridan Lea of Wacom’s Enterprise Marketing Group expanded on the value to partners. “Everything’s so beautifully laid out,” she said. “We’ve been able to brand the portal, so it looks like ours. It’s also a great central repository for us to keep our assets and it’s easy for resellers to log in and find what they need.”
To see the full case study of Wacom’s use of the Impartner platform, click here. If you’re ready for a demo to see how Impartner can help your company deliver a five-star experience for your partners and integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics 365, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post World-Leading Satellite Operator SES Chooses Impartner to Power Global Rollout of Partner Program appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Impartner’s partner relationship management solution helps SES expand their scope and market reach, and generate new business opportunities
As world-leading satellite operator SES expanded its core business from delivering video services to include new, flexible satellites that suit the needs of any enterprise customer anywhere, they knew they needed a partner network on the ground to deliver the technology on the ground to customers. In a new case study, SES’s journey to build a partner ecosystem is detailed, including their ultimate choice of Impartner’s award-winning Partner Relationship Management solution to manage their new indirect sales operation.
“Bringing partners into our mix allowed us to unlock our service offering – transforming the way we do business with our customers, said Elodie Maurer, partner marketing manager for the SES Partner Program. “We’re accelerating our path to generating revenues, scaling our business, and reaching new regions and new customers in new markets. However, in starting this new partner universe, it was so big, so complex, and there was so much to offer, we knew we needed to rely on a technology, a robust PRM platform to help us deliver world-class partner experience.”
The selection process, said Maurer, was comprehensive. “We did a thorough RFP process to review and compare the different systems until we selected the best,” she said. “Impartner PRM is the most complete PRM system available in the market today. Straightforward, simple to use — a world-class partner experience.” In the video case study, Maurer highlighted the following key benefits to SES and partners:
- Dedicated customer support throughout the entire implementation process to ensure the system is implemented and up and running on time
- Seamless integration into existing their CRM system – and capability to integrate into their future CRM
- Powerful features such as MDF management, deal registration, online business planning, and CMS
- Easy-to-use content management system with segmentation and co-brandable assets
“Our partners really embraced this portal quickly,” Maurer said, noting that the company now has approximately 70 partners in 46 countries in every region around the world. “It helped us engage with our partner ecosystem in a way we’ve never done before, creating value within this ecosystem and better serving the business needs of every single partner with the ultimate goal to grow our businesses together.”
As for Impartner, Maurer said the value is more than just in the solution. “Impartner is a community of highly professional and passionate experts in channel strategy, not only for the technology they bring to the table but also for the whole team – the whole support they provide,” Maurer said. “I would 100% recommend Impartner.”
To watch the video case study, click here. If you’re ready for a demo on how Impartner can transform your channel operations, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>Impartner earns highest market position among top 20 global vendors based on over 100,000 data points from 1,500 manager surveys, analyst opinions and vendor evaluations
Salt Lake City – November 20 2019 — Impartner, the fastest-selling, most award-winning channel management solution was named the No. 1 global winner on Research in Action’s Vendor Selection Matrix for Partner Relationship Management (PRM). Impartner also scores No. 1 on a parallel report for Channel Marketing and Enablement (CME) SaaS and Software, which shows rankings for those companies that provide BOTH PRM and marketing support. Impartner was found superior to other vendors evaluated due to its pace of innovation, breadth and depth of solution offering, ability to manage both referral and reseller networks due to its recent acquisition of Amplifinity and its price-to-value ratio.
In creating the research, the top 20 vendors in the Channel Marketing and Enablement space, selected by the survey respondents, were all evaluated using the technology research company’s unique survey-based methodology for comparative vendor evaluation. At least 60% of the evaluation results were based on enterprise and SMB buyers’ survey results. Analyst opinion accounted for a maximum of 40% of the evaluation results. The evaluation results and forecasts were based on customer and vendor feedback, publicly available information, including more than 100,000 data points, triangulation, as well as analyst opinion.
“Our Vendor Selection Matrix is an important tool, providing useful information for channel leaders and marketers,” said Peter O’Neill, Research Director, Research In Action GmbH. “In our survey, the breadth and depth score of Impartner’s solution was the highest of all the 20 vendors, and the company emerged as the perceived market leader for CME and PRM based on a broad range of criteria, including vision, go-to-market strength, innovation, viability, execution capabilities and customer satisfaction.”
“It’s incredibly exciting to have Impartner come out on top as the solution people know and turn to, to manage their channel in this comprehensive, worldwide user view of this market,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner CMO. “What’s equally rewarding is that in addition to price/value ratio, the second most important priority for buyers is finding vendors that provide coverage of three components: marketing, channel enablement and sales enablement. Our strategy has long been to provide the most complete channel management platform, and to place No. 1 as the vendor capable of meeting that need is a testament to the value we bring to the market.”
Join Taylor and O’Neill on December 18th, 2019 at 8 a.m. MST for a webinar, where they will discuss this research and channel enablement and marketing for a new decade. Register HERE.
To download your complimentary copy of the PRM Vendor Selection Matrix, CLICK HERE
About Research in Action
Research In Action GmbH is a leading independent information and communications technology research and consulting company, providing both forward-looking as well as practical advice to enterprise as well as vendor clients. Peter O’Neill is most known for his 12 years of service at Forrester Research as an industry analyst where, most recently, he directed all Forrester’s research on B2B Marketing organization, process and automation topics. Before Forrester, O’Neill held a number of channel leadership positions at HP.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>Salt Lake City – Nov 14, 2019 –Impartner, the fastest-growing and most-award winning pure-play channel management platform, announced today that it has received $20 million in growth capital financing from Vector Capital, a leading global private equity firm specializing in transformational investments in technology businesses. The financing will allow Impartner to further accelerate their already strong growth by increasing sales and marketing expenditure and acquiring complementary technologies, continuing to capture momentum in the fast-growing channel management technology market, which analysts estimate could be as large as $5 billion.
“Impartner has a proven track record of helping companies accelerate indirect revenue and providing them with a powerful lever that can accelerate their performance,” said Ilya Voytov, head of research for Vector Capital’s Credit Strategy. “We are pleased to be working with CEO Joe Wang for the third time and are confident that Impartner has the right team and product offering to extend their leading market position in this sector.”
“This is a pivotal period in Impartner’s history,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “In the more than four-and-a-half years since acquiring Treehouse, now Impartner, we’ve been on a market-making trajectory that’s changed the face of how companies worldwide manage their channels. This funding is additional octane that helps us continue to accelerate that transformation.”
The funding announcement continues a steady stream of recent news from Impartner including ongoing national and international recognition for Impartner PRM, a cooperative agreement with Microsoft to co-sell and co-market Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Impartner PRM, a recent acquisition that is the second in just over a year, a new milestone of more than 10M partners signing into portals using Impartner technology worldwide and a move to a 4th office in as many years.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post Top 3 Reasons Referral Programs Fail appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“You can’t just ‘set it and forget it’ and expect good, long-term results.”
As marketers and salespeople, we all know the power and impact of word-of-mouth on our business, yet we still struggle to leverage it. Why? Because it’s hard to measure, difficult to systematize, and seemingly impossible to monetize. While these challenges exist in some cases, Amplifinity continues to prove every day that the best way to solve them is through closed-loop referral marketing programs. Before launching another mediocre referral program that will fail to drive meaningful long-term lead volume, consider these three common referral program mistakes:
1) Failure to Support with the Right Systems, Processes, and Strategies
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com said it best: “Although every company knows customer references are important, most companies have a lax approach to managing them.” Just like any other marketing program a referral program must be well-strategized, tested and continually optimized to ensure peak performance. And when you automate a referral program and take the manual tracking and management aspect out of the equation, the results are even better.
You can’t just ‘set it and forget it’ and expect good, long-term results.
2) Lack of Executive Sponsorship
Typically, a referral program is initiated by an executive and handed off to a junior-level employee to drive – often without the proper knowledge or bandwidth. As a result, the program is launched haphazardly and left to run itself. This method can provide average results, but we all know average isn’t gonna’ pay the bills.
Referral programs that are continually improved upon – and viewed as long-term acquisition channels have the power to produce just that: ongoing and sustainable customer acquisitions.
3) The Black Hole Effect
In order to manage lead volume and quality, it’s important that every customer, prospect, and sales rep enrolled in the referral program is kept in the loop regarding the status of their referrals and any incentives tied to them. When referrals are made and disappear into a “black hole,” engagement plummets, operational costs of managing escalations increase precipitously, and the program loses credibility.
Customers who refer new business to you are your BEST customers. Regular communication and nurturing them results in satisfied, high-producing additions to your company’s “sales team.”
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]]>The post 4 Differences Between Referral and Affiliate Programs appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“When reading a blog post recommending a brand, it’s not nearly as influential as if a friend recommended the brand.”
A question we get often is, what is the difference between a referral program and an affiliate program, and which one is better for my company?
The differences are more pronounced than they expect. The simplest answer is, referral programs leverage the trust and enthusiasm of people who know your brand and turn those trusted individuals into a new and high-quality customer acquisition channel. On the other hand, affiliate programs place a brand link on a brand or blogger website with the intent of motivating site visitors to click the link.
Let’s look at four major differences between these two programs:
1) Referrals are personal. The advocate (the person who makes the referral) and the prospect know and trust one another. Prospects are more likely to trust a recommendation from a friend than any other source, Nielsen has found. In contrast, affiliate programs generally don’t leverage relationships and transparency. When reading a blog post recommending a brand, it’s not nearly as influential as if a friend recommended the brand.
2) Referred leads are higher-quality. As opposed to affiliate programs with their low personal connection, in referral programs brand advocates know both the brand and the prospects they refer to, so there is a high probability that they are referring friends and associates that are a good fit for the brand. The advocate has effectively pre-qualified the prospect and provided the prospect with an endorsement of the brand.
3) Referral programs drive high lead-close rates. With referrals, the marriage of high advocacy participation rates and trust that originates from the personal connection ensures higher conversion rates and a shorter sales cycle. Our data shows that personal referrals close 42% of the time, double the industry average of 21%. That translates to two new customers for every five referrals made.
4) Referral programs drive high advocate participation. They enable brands to directly reach out to their customers, employees, and partners to uncover loyal brand advocates. Affiliate programs typically do not reach the level of engagement and penetration that referral programs do, mostly because of less program structure and, again, an absence of the personal relationship that naturally drives trust and brand loyalty.
All-in-all, the proactive approach of referral programs trumps the generally more passive nature of affiliate programs. This is not to discount the value of affiliate programs – just to show that you can do better. In fact, affiliate programs can work well in parallel with referral programs. But, on their own, our data proves time and time again that affiliate programs will not contribute to the bottom line to the same extent as a well-managed referral program.
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]]>Salt Lake City – Nov 7, 2019 – Digital transformation is the phrase on every corporation’s lips, defined by “fundamentally changing how you operate and deliver value to customers.” When network infrastructure giant CommScope set out to transform its go-to-market technology that manages their direct and indirect sales in a compressed time period – they turned to the proven, powerful integration of Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology.
“We may be a bit unique, in that we decided to do a full CRM transition into Microsoft Dynamics 365 at the same time that we built our partner portal with Impartner and it was critical both solutions integrated well,” said Melanie Zevenbergen, VP of sales and channel enablement with CommScope, as she broke down the transformation in a new Impartner video case study released today. “From the start, we had to put a lot of trust in both Impartner and Microsoft, and we had to trust that they were going to work together extremely well with us, or we were never going to make the go-live date.”
In rebuilding the company’s portal, the objective was to move from a home-grown portal with custom code to an out-of-the-box solution which made it easy to scale and deliver an agile, customized, personalized experience to partners without a lot of work, energy and time. “Our partners play a critical role in bringing our solutions to life, and for many of our partners around the world, our partner portal is the face of CommScope and is key to our ability to facilitate process and build relationships,” said Zevenbergen. “Impartner rose to the top in the vetting process as both one of the most highly recommended solutions but also the one, in competitive analysis, that best met the current and future needs of CommScope.” Following are the key benefits since launching the new portal:
- Dramatic increase in portal usage
- Much improved user experience
- Dynamic dashboards with just-in-time information and relevant information for partners
- Customized news feeds for partners based on user profile and organization
- Social media amplification tools that make it easy for partners to share CommScope messaging
The development process, said Zevenbergen, was also positive. “We worked together right from the start to make sure that our CRM implementation was hand in hand with our Impartner build. We connected with the Impartner team from day one. You would join conference calls and it felt like a big family. We laughed a lot, but we also worked really hard. You don’t see that very often in the space. Those are the kinds of people you want to get in the trenches with when you’re doing a project like this. And I was amazed that we were able to do what we did. I know that Impartner is here for us today, and I know that Impartner will be there for us tomorrow.”
To learn more about CommScope’s digital transformation, watch the video case study here. If you’re ready for a demo of Impartner PRM and to learn more about our seamless integration with Dynamics 365, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most complete SaaS-based Channel Management Platform, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>Salt Lake City –November 6, 2019 – Impartner, the world’s fastest-selling, most complete channel management platform, today announced it has received the 2019 Business Intelligence Group’s BIG Award for Business for New Product of the Year, Technology Software, Small Companies. The organization’s annual program rewards companies, products and people that are leading their respective industries worldwide and nominees are judged by business executives with relevant experience and knowledge.
In winning the award, Impartner was recognized, in part, for its introduction of Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics 365. With its proven integration with Microsoft’s flagship CRM, customers can now manage their direct and indirect sales from within a single console. Impartner’s recent acquisition of Amplifinity was also recognized, given the purchase makes Impartner the only channel management platform to offer a partner management solution for both traditional/transactional and referral/non-transactional partners. Referral partners are now the fastest growing segment of partners, and companies with a formalized versus ad hoc program generate 30 percent more revenue from this new generation of partners.
“We are so proud to reward Impartner for their outstanding 2019 achievements,” said Maria Jimenez, chief nomination officer of the Business Intelligence Group. “This year’s group of winners is clearly leading by example in the global business community.”
“Recognition like this is always exciting for the light it shines on the value we bring to our growing customer base worldwide of top corporations that include a who’s who list of names from T-Mobile to CommScope to Fortinet,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner CMO. “It’s particularly rewarding to have our new Microsoft solution and our recent referral software acquisition be part of what sets us apart with the judges, as both tap into dramatic growth opportunities for our customers and our company.”
About Business Intelligence Group
The Business Intelligence Group was founded with the mission of recognizing true talent and superior performance in the business world. Unlike other industry award programs, business executives—those with experience and knowledge—judge the programs. The organization’s proprietary and unique scoring system selectively measures performance across multiple business domains and then rewards those companies whose achievements stand above those of their peers.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reducing administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post 4 Ways Sales Can Benefit from Referrals appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“The good technology solutions should help replicate and facilitate those processes to “institutionalize” and scale the process of driving referrals.”
Until recently, large corporations have struggled to figure out how to scale the success of individual sales reps to systematically and proactively drive large volumes of referrals. This is all changing as technology is now coming to market that can help large brands automate the best practices of sales reps and institutionalize the process of generating referrals from customers, employees and other people who influence the buying decision.
Good technology systems are typically designed to automate manual best practices. Let’s take a look at key functions that great salespeople all tend to have in common:
They Build Referral Channels
The majority of salespeople are excellent networkers. Whether meeting people via the local rotary club, the area chamber of commerce or at the local pub, great salespeople can be very good at telling everyone about what they do – their friends, family, customers, other employees and even strangers. Great salespeople also know that the more people who know what they do, the better the chance of that specific network spreading the word.
They Ask Their Channel for Referrals
Most great reps never leave a meeting, business or personal, without asking for a referral – and they are skilled at handling it with a gentle approach. One of the most staggering statistics that I have recently heard is that between 70 percent and 80 percent of all people are willing to refer leads if asked, yet less than 15 percent of individuals and companies ask for them. The great ones ask, and they ask often.
They Motivate the Channel
Compensation is a great motivator (just ask the majority of the 17 million commissioned sales reps in the U.S.) and many of the great ones build professional referrals networks where they compensate people and companies for leads referred to them that can eventually lead to business. There are both monetary and non-monetary ways to incent people to do things that actually work.
They Nurture the Channel
They always thank their network for referrals, they compensate their network in a timely fashion for referrals and they keep them in the loop.
The good technology solutions should help replicate and facilitate those processes to “institutionalize” and scale the process of driving referrals. These solutions must:
- Make it easy to enroll customers, employees, and influencers into the referral program. The idea is to build a referral community.
- Provide them with the tools to make it easy to refer.
- Track and manage all the workflows so you can measure results.
- Automate the process of thanking and nurturing these channels for their contributions so they continue to perform.
While the marketplace is changing at a pace that is liable to cause even the top salespeople to question their sales strategy, there is one thing that will not change. Networking will always be #1 for driving quality leads that must be nurtured, thanked and motivated.
The only real difference today is that these steps can be completed at a faster, more efficient pace, generating exponentially more leads and closed deals – and enabling the best salespeople to be even better.
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]]>The post Fintech’s Revolution AND Evolution: From Competition to Collaboration to Referral Partner Programs appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“The digitization of businesses has heightened B2B customers’ expectations of deliverables. “
Tornadoes, whiteouts, hurricanes… we can usually see signs of their impending arrival, but even so, we are never quite prepared for the effects they bring. One day, we see a well-known and understood the landscape, and next, everything has changed and we must learn how to navigate new territory.
Thus was the fintech revolution.
But while this shift of the financial landscape may have seemed sudden, there were signs. Once the financial meltdown removed the guarantee of banks being a stable financial choice, the idea of alternatives to the traditional banking model suddenly became a viable option. And with the technological boom, digitalization of finance operations was logical business innovation. Disruptive and transformative, a wave of financial technology (fintech) startups formed from these two coinciding developments. While new B2B fintech business models targeted several different facets of the financial world, the majority have focused in on payment and lending. These startups brought the finance industry into an age of technological innovation by infusing automation, real-time payments, and better loan offerings through peer-to-peer lending platforms into the financial ecosystem.
From this, the finance world got much more snug. Suddenly, banks’ dominance of financial markets wasn’t a given, and the financial industry was overrun with the competition. The status quo was no more. But the fintech revolution didn’t stop there. This revolution has undergone an evolution. And competition was just the first step in an evolving chain of transformations that allows not only fintechs to benefit but banks and clientele as well.
Competition: fintech vs. banks
The recent boom in the fintech industry reaches across the globe as people become more comfortable managing their money and business online. These B2B fintech startups are offering tech-enabled payments, currency exchange, crowdfunding, online lending, and wealth management services. These companies are competing and beating out traditional banks and financial services firms. Why?
The digitization of businesses has heightened B2B customers’ expectations of deliverables. Fintechs offer companies agility, speed, transparency, and integrations that banks have only ever offered businesses on a superficial level. According to Business Insider, 82% of customers said that a primary value proposition of these products is that they are easy to use, 81% said faster service and 80% said good customer experiences.
There is a large frustration with big banks which allows fintech companies to fill the demand. Goldman Sachs estimates that fintech start-ups could steal up to $4.7 trillion in annual banking revenue, and $470 billion in profit, from established financial services companies.
But competition isn’t solely a worry for banks. Other fintechs also face their own competitors. Like any disruptive business innovation, disruption of industry standards only get you so far. Fintech startups are flooding the industry, and because of this banks won’t be the only ones who disappear in the coming years. And while these FinTech startups may have changed the financial structure for good, when the dust settles, and the new landscape is set, the financial world is going to get much more hostile for these pioneers. This is especially true for fintechs that only have a niche offering and lack the long-standing experience and insight many investors are looking for. But don’t get me wrong, the fintech industry is still growing. So what does this mean overall? While the fintech industry has amazing potential to overtake banks, it also has its own challenges from within. With fintech lacking the long-term success and wider offerings needed to dominate the financial market and banks lacking the agility to compete head-to-head against fintechs, the realization has occurred that continued survival does not lie in competition, but rather collaboration.
Collaboration: acceptance and integration of digitalization
As fintechs grew in abundance banks tried to compete, but their established internal structure lacked automation, was restricted by regulations, and couldn’t adopt anything that would come close to the agility of fintechs’ SaaS products. On the other side, fintechs found it extremely difficult to garner industry respect and trust without the historical experience that banks have. In this way, fintechs and banks have become two halves of a whole, and thus came about the inspired idea of collaboration.
So it’s settled, fintechs and banks collaborate to create disruptive new offers. Unfortunately, it isn’t as simple as that. How to go about designing a beneficial partnership requires more thought. This hang-up is felt throughout the industry. In fact, according to Business Insider, 46% of banks plan to collaborate with fintechs, but only 13% believe their core systems can handle the technical demands of partnerships. The financial industry believes partnering with these companies is the best way to stay afloat. This makes sense since banks are set up to maximize security and minimize their costs, not to innovate. Reliance on fintech companies for innovation will be critical. And for fintechs, to gain expertise in regulatory matters and create stronger offerings they need to be able to set up an equal partnership with banks. But in order to do this, it is crucial that fintechs and banks find a way to automate and scale this type of collaboration. Thus enters automated referral partner programs.
Referral partner programs: Aligning banks and fintech companies
Fintechs and banks both have different strengths that allow them to accomplish a certain level of success, but they each also have challenges that hold them back from growing further. A partnership removes the need for either to have to overcome these challenges internally. But in order to create long-term sustainable partnerships, banks and fintechs need to be able to automate that relationship. Referral partner programs do this by facilitating a seamless referral partnership that is low friction. Referral partnerships are at the core of many fintechs’ success. OnDeck, Funding Circle, and Lending Club and TSYS are just a few that have developed referral partner programs in order to establish greater trust, provide a wider offering and reach new customers. This is because referral partner programs can create deep partnerships with banks and fintechs that fill offering gaps to increase the value they can provide customers. Referral partners understand the pains of the target customer and can extend the trust they have previously developed to encompass the referred company.
Fintech and banks can go about referral partner programs in three different ways:
1. A company can build a referral partner program for their many different individual partners, small businesses and agencies. These will usually be for unmanaged partners.
2. A company has a major partner entity, for which they create a dedicated referral program. This type of referral partner program would be based off a deeply integrated offering on the technological side and the ideological side. One example of this type of referral partner program is Funding Circle and H&R Block. In this referral partnership, H&R Block made Funding Circle the preferred lender for all their small business customers.
3. A company builds a program for one or many major partner entities and their sales teams. This is a more advanced and requires the ability for partner entities to have the ability to keep track of, manage, and increase their advocate pool while having greater capabilities to incentivize and manage partner activity. OnDeck has found great success at using a more advanced referral partner program to increase customer acquisition.
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]]>The post How a Referral Partner Program Decreases SaaS Churn appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“These challenges partners face with traditional deal registration software leads to poor partner experience and disengagement with a company. “
The partner channel has played a critical role in the software industry, but with the adoption of a SaaS-based business model, a referral partner program has become even more important. Take into consideration the importance of recurring revenue in a business model that requires less upfront cost to the customer relative to the one-time charge, on-premise model. It makes reducing churn vital to the survival of SaaS companies. This is especially true when considering the need to generate ‘replacement’ revenue for lost customers. In addition, the immediate impact of a lost customer including the loss of upselling, cross-sell, and reference opportunities only deepen the proverbial wound.
So how can channel partners help? Well, one of the most effective ways to reduce churn is to attract the right customers. Partners have the ear of potential customers and a deep understanding of the buyers’ need for your solution. Bringing this type of context to the deal improves the quality of the connection between your customer and your product. By increasing partner referrals, SaaS companies reduce the need to take on customers who aren’t a great fit for their product, decreasing the risk of customer churn.
This is reflected when comparing how referred customer stack up to non-referred customers. According to the Harvard Business Review, referred customers have an 18% decrease in churn and a 16% increase in LTV compared to non-referred customers. But how are companies supposed to take advantage of this? Both referral partner program software and deal registration software have been used to facilitate referral partner deals. The question is, how do you choose between deal registration software and referral partner program software? Let’s look at the facts.
A referral partner program vs. a deal registration program
A referral partner program is a specialized and streamlined form of deal registration. Within deal registration software, deal registration functionality works by allowing a partner to refer or register a prospect they know is in the market for your product. That referral is then pushed to your company’s sales team to take action. For most partner programs, deal registration functionality is buried in larger partner management software. The added engagement capabilities of these platforms can introduce a high level of complexity to both the deal registration workflow and program management. Furthermore, other deal registration solutions often lack the functionality needed to properly manage these valuable leads.
CompTia’s Third Annual State Of The Channel Study: Channel Conflict And Deal Registration Trends, document the challenges of traditional deal registration software, including:
- 61% of channel partner respondents citing deal registration programs have inadequate communication such as lack of reporting on deal success, the status of the deal payout, and overall incentive information.
- 49% of responding channel partners have technical issues with deal registration software that make the tool difficult to use.
These challenges partners face with traditional deal registration software leads to poor partner experience and disengagement with a company. And because the SaaS industry has a low barrier of entry, no individual product or company can truly dominate the market, which means partners have a choice in who they partner with. This creates an even greater need for SaaS companies to keep partners engaged.
For many traditional partner programs, referrals are a viable alternative to streamline the deal registration workflow for partners. Since referral partner program software takes a focused approach, its functionality supports continued partner engagement and partner interaction with the referral deal to speed up the sales pipeline. This includes:
- Partners facilitating an introduction between the referral and business.
- A personal partner homepage to keep track of the deal’s progress to sale and how close the partner is to receive their payout.
- The ability for partners to invite new advocates to the program and keep track of their activity.
- Automatic email updates to partners on their referred deal status.
Along with better engagement, make it easy for partners to refer or register a deal. After all, time is money, and if the software to refer a deal is hindering the process you’re trying to enable, your partners won’t refer. Basically, you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot.
Try creating a simple and easy interface for partners to refer, manage, and gain insight into their referral deal all in one place. This way you offer better usability and partner experience to increase the number of referrals.
But these claims aren’t mere postulation. A leading SaaS company has had amazing result with their referral partner program. In the first 3 years of the program:
- 8,966 partners have enrolled in the program
- Partners made 5,208 referrals each year
- 39% of referred leads end up becoming customers
With partner engagement being such a large revenue generator, you need software to enable their referrals. And while companies looking to influence partner behavior say they need deal registration software, 70% of their deals still go unregistered with that software, (Third Annual State Of The Channel Study: Channel Conflict And Deal Registration Trends). Don’t let your company’s growth reflect that. Use this free ROI calculator to see what your referral partner program ROI could be.
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]]>The post Meet the Impartner Team at Dreamforce 2019 appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“Impartner will be hosting a multitude of session and breakouts that you don’t want to miss.”
With less than a month to Dreamforce 2019, we’re down to the wire. With over 2,700 sessions and workshops to attend, 50+ keynotes, and a show floor to make your head spin – Impartner wants to make sure we make it on your Dreamforce schedule!
Visit the Impartner Booth for Live Demos
Impartner will be located in the epicenter of the expo. Visit us in booth #1412 – look for the white shirts and yellow shoes.
We’ll be providing live demos and groundbreaking information about current best practices in the channel as well as insight into our Referral Automation Platform (RAP) and how it can help bring scalability and repeatability to managing referral partners.
Sessions and Breakouts
Impartner will be hosting a multitude of session and breakouts that you don’t want to miss.
Untapped Revenue: How LogMeIn Tapped into Referral Partners to Accelerate Revenue
The fastest-growing segment of channel partners is one you may not be managing effectively. What analysts often call “Shadow Channel” partners have stepped out of the shadows and into the mainstream. Companies that manage their referral partners purposefully (versus ad-hoc) gain 30% more revenue from this emerging force. In this case study from remote desktop software giant, LogMeIn you’ll learn:
- Why it is critical to managing both traditional, transactional reseller partners and non-traditional, non-transactional referral partners with a set of common tools
- Why referral partners have emerged as a critical and fast-growing partner type
- How a Referral Automation Platform like Impartner’s can help bring the same scalability and repeatability to managing referral partners as Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solutions have brought to managing traditional partners
The Two Surprising Key Words Powering McAfee’s Channel Transformation: Frictionless and Simple
Complicated systems that guard against the world’s biggest threats vault security leaders like McAfee onto front pages daily. When it comes to winning with partners, however, complexity is the enemy. In this session, McAfee’s Global Channel Programs and Operations Director shares how McAfee has focused on creating a frictionless, simple, industry-leading experience for partners that ensures they are a vendor of choice – including the critical role Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management solution plays as their channel management system of record.
How to Build an App on Salesforce That Works on Both Lightning and Classic
Developing universal solutions on Salesforce can be a challenge. Are you going to support lightning or classic UIs and components? Do you know up-front what custom fields will need to be created and their API names? How much variability in scope and configuration can your app handle? Impartner Director of Salesforce Solutions, Dan Lang and Impartner VP of Product Management Gary Sabin show us how to build an app, that is:
- Dynamically configurable for each organization without having to iterate packages or manage multiple versions
- Looks like lightning, even when it isn’t
- Move configurations from one organization to another, while retaining managed code
- See a living example of how Impartner has used this understanding to build a new partner performance solution for Impartner PRM
How to Do Business on Your Partners’ Terms Not Yours
Impartner’s business is Partner Relationship Management. Our PRM technology connects with Salesforce and leading CRMs worldwide. Sometimes, however, larger partners want their CRM and their Vendor’s CRMs to interact directly without any technology in the middle — when it comes to lead objects: Some large partners want the leads ‘injected’ directly into their CRM from the vendor. In this session, with Impartner VP of Strategic Accounts, Curtis Brinkerhoff, you’ll learn how Impartner Connect does just that and how it:
- Removes the manual effort for lead, deal, order/ POS, data management can be removed to share that data at the right time in a secure fashion
- Makes it easy to do business with large partners who want only limited, lead-based information without having to sign into a portal
- Provides a securable, trackable method to share leads with a simple interface
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]]>The post 5 Tips for a Successful Referral Program appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“Referrals have the power to create an enormous amount of brand equity in prospects that are interested in your products and services.”
1. Maximize Awareness
In order for any referral program to be successful, it must have lots of referrals. Getting a large number of referral prospects into the pipeline to engage with your sales team is critical to your program’s success. The most effective way to ensure that your referral pipeline is full is to have a referral marketing plan that utilizes all available communication channels with your customers and partners – who are your referral advocates. Referral marketing plans are always-on, integrated strategies that should be central to your company’s sales and marketing efforts.
2. Make it a Seamless Experience
A key factor that determines the success of your program – and whether or not your advocates make multiple and repeat referrals – are your advocates’ perception of how easy it is to refer to you.
The easiest referral for an advocate to make is one where they see opportunity in knowing or finding out that someone whom they know is in the market for your products or services. When this opportunity presents itself, the advocate needs to be able to quickly and easily communicate the referral and give a clear path to purchase, either online or offline.
The referral program website must be both comprehensive and easy to use and understand. In addition to giving your advocates many options to refer, it must also define the referral process for them, give a status for each of their referrals, and help answer common questions they may have with an FAQ section. The website should also have both a desktop and a mobile version; the mobile version will be easy for the advocate to access when they are out and presented with the opportunity to refer.
3. Keep Your Advocates and Prospects in the Loop
Keeping your advocates informed by communicating the status of each referral is key to keeping them happy. If an advocate does not receive regular updates about their referrals, they’ll wonder “What happened?” and “Where’s my reward?”
Proactive communication regarding each referral is not only helpful in keeping your advocates informed and happy, but it also provides you with an opportunity to nurture your advocates, remind them about the program’s benefits, and ask them for additional referrals. If an advocate knows where their referral is in the sales process, they may even be happy to follow up with them and nurture them towards a successful purchase.
Each time a referral moves through a step in the sales process, an email notification should be sent to them to let them know. When a referral becomes a lead, when they purchase, and when the referral reward is paid out all represent key opportunities to nurture each advocate and improve their performance. Receiving an email notification that says that a referral has purchased and a reward is on the way has a huge positive impact on the advocate’s brand equity, especially in regards to a closed-looped, referral program. Why not capitalize on it by asking for another referral? This will help your advocates with one referral to achieve two, two to achieve three, and so on.
4. Help People Refer Offline and Online
Earlier in this post, we talked about advocates needing to be able to quickly and easily communicate a referral, especially when the opportunity presents itself. Each referral program should give advocates the opportunity to refer both online and offline in a variety of ways. Referrals will most often choose the easiest path in front of them to make a purchase, so it is of paramount importance that the referral program supports their choice to aid in a seamless, closed-loop experience. Some common and important referral methods to leverage include:
- Printed referral cards, which can be mailed to an advocate or printed at home.
- Verbal referrals, where an advocate gives their referral program number or account number to their referral, who will then give it to a salesperson when making a purchase.
- Email referrals, which leverage branded referral program content, and are available on the referral program website.
- Social media referrals, which also leverage branded referral program content, and are shared by the advocate from the referral program website to their social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc).
5. Recognize the Power of Referrals
Referrals have the power to create an enormous amount of brand equity in prospects that are interested in your products and services. This leads to a higher spend on the initial purchase, higher lifetime value for each customer, and greater engagement with your brand. This should be a central focus in sales and marketing strategy and planning, from the CMO’s office to each individual salesperson. The referral program should be a central part of a salesperson’s training, where they should be taught to recruit advocates who will naturally recruit people whom they feel are a good fit and help make warm introductions. Those prospects will naturally have a higher amount of brand equity in your business when they are introduced to one of your salespeople.
This is the case both for prospects who are unfamiliar with your business, as well as those that may have shown interest in the past. In addition to creating new leads, a referral will sometimes re-activate an old lead, or sway a purchase decision on an existing opportunity. A good referral program will recognize this, and credit advocates for these referrals when they happen. Referral program policies should be written with the flexibility to recognize such referrals, prioritize them as the source of the purchase, and credit them when they have been a factor.
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]]>The post Referral Tracking Software and Untapped Lead Generation appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“The evolution we saw in our example client shows the untapped potential that referrals have for lead generation.”
So we have this client here at Amplifinity, a big business-to-business services company, that until a few years ago, used no referral tracking software and thus had no means to efficiently and automatically reward customers, employees, and partners who referred new customers. Without tracking and rewards, management didn’t care, customers didn’t care, and referrals made up only a small fraction of their total leads.
What a difference a few years can make. Today, as shown in the graph below, powered by Amplifinity’s software, referrals now comprise over half of all of the leads flowing into our client’s sales organization.
The evolution we saw in our example client shows the untapped potential that referrals have for lead generation. Let us break it down…
- Rewards generate leads. We’ve seen this again and again. No matter how much customers love brands, they will refer a lot more once you give them an incentive. It works. It catches fire. Earning rewards for making referrals makes them love the brand even more. Amplifinity’s referral tracking software has the capability to automatically nurture advocate to refer again and again with escalating rewards.
- Leads generate happy sales reps, who’ll hunt for more referrals. Our client experienced such rapid evolution in the sourcing of its revenue because of referral marketing snowballs. Once your sales reps see leads coming to them from your referral automation solution, they will find faith in your referral program— they will see how easy it is to get leads from referrals instead of cold calling. Accordingly, they will turn their attention to working their existing book of business to give them more referrals. The assurance of rewards for existing customers gives them a reason to do this with friendly confidence.
- Successful referral programs breed additional successful referral programs. Automated referral programs are contagious. As soon as you get a referral program cooking for one of your brands, its performance will build a fully-quantified business case for referral programs for your other brands. As soon as you have referral programs to reward your customers, you will see a business case for employee referral programs and affiliate referral programs. (Amplifinity’s platform can handle programs for as many brands and advocate types as is optimal for your organization.)
With the fully-automated customer, employee and affiliate programs deployed you will soon realize the full lead generation potential for referrals. In all of our clients, we have seen it transform the way they market, the way they sell. Referral marketing is the future of B2B lead generation, and referral automation makes the world your sales team.
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]]>The post Why Offline Referrals are Still Important to Brands appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“The truth is that many successful referrals are made to friends and colleagues that are best unknown to employers, spouses, etc.”
Why Offline Referrals Are So Important
Some of our most successful clients, giant household name brands, have built powerful referral programs around our platform’s remarkable capability to handle and reward offline referrals. Amplifinity’s platform gives advocates a referral code that they can pass on to prospects. Advocates can give these codes out verbally or they can print them out on referral cards on their computer. Marketers can even mass-laser print referral code cards in advance to give to their advocates to hand out to their friends. The prospect can use the referral code wherever they buy the goods in question—whether it is calling into a call center or walking the code into a retail store.
- Leave no trace, but still earn a reward: The truth is that many successful referrals are made to friends and colleagues that are best unknown to employers, spouses, etc. (Don’t tell my old boss, but at my previous job, I once referred a good vendor to a competitor, just because the vendor was so awesome.) And yet, even if a company or personal email account is not used to transmit the referral from the advocate to the prospect, a referral automation solution is still needed, behind the scenes, to listen for these referrals, to close the loop on successful referrals, and to reward advocates for making them.
- Believe it or not, not everyone is digital: It’s hard to believe, but many people, even if they are on the net or own cell phones, don’t rely on these things for digitally communicating with the people they care about. Marketers must make referrals easy to share.
- Printed referral codes may actually have higher response rates: One of our most successful client referral programs ever, winner of a WOMMY award, ran primarily on pre-printed referral cards. Their referrals made offline eclipsed the performance of modern digital methods. The client was a chain of laser beauty clinics, the type of sale that requires a high level of emotional trust and discussion between advocate and prospect. Much like referring the hitman in our story, it’s the kind of referral that requires a conversation. Accordingly, a printed card physically handed between friends goes well with a face-to-face conversation.
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]]>The post 3 Ways Verbal Referral Functionality Will Increase Advocate Referrals appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“This missing functionality causes advocates to lose faith in the referral program, thereby discouraging future referrals.”
As marketers, we are constantly asking ourselves and others, “What do customers want?” The answer is simple, they want what we all want – for everything to be easy. This need must be fulfilled starting at first contact and continuing all the way through to post-purchase engagement, like referral marketing programs.
To prove the importance of providing an easy customer journey, McKinsey surveyed 27,000 people in 44 industries. The survey found that making the customer journey as easy and effortless as possible increased revenue growth by 10-15% and increased positive customer experience by 20%.
Amazon, all the way back in 1999, understood this concept. That was the year Amazon added the option to enable 1-click purchase. No need to enter personal information or go through the process of verifying the credit card, just click purchase on the product page and you’re done. Why did they do this? To make purchasing easy for the customer. The time it took to check out was often the biggest barrier to purchase on Amazon.
Of course, not everyone used this function. I decided against it because I wasn’t fully confident in my ability to resist pushing that nice yellow button for spontaneous purchases. But the fact is, functionality that enables companies to offer the option of making interactions easier is being applied in many different facets. For referral marketing programs, they are automating and tracking verbal referrals.
How the verbal referral option benefits advocates
1. Allows easy referral attribution
The process of easily and automatically attributing a referral lead to the advocate who referred and reconciling it in the CRM’s system of record has become a no-brainer when deciding on the functionality needed in a referral program. But what about when you need to attribute a referral to an advocate after the referral has already become a lead?
One thing I’ve seen a lot is advocates getting upset because they referred a lead but the referral happened verbally instead of through the referral channel so it was never attributed to them. For instances, let’s say Claire the customer (of Magnificent Marketing Automation) is meeting with her old co-worker Patrick for lunch. Patrick tells Claire about how his businesses really need marketing automation software. Claire tells Patrick about Magnificent Marketing Automation and how it has satisfied her company’s needs. Later that day Patrick goes on Magnificent Marketing Automation’s website and fills out a lead form. Since Claire didn’t refer Patrick through the designated channel, Magnificent Marketing Automation will most likely not give her the reward she deserves since they have no way of tracking it as a referral and attributing it to Claire.
This missing functionality causes advocates to lose faith in the referral program, thereby discouraging future referrals.
By making verbal referral functionality a part of referral program software, referrals are able to be attributed to the advocate easily at any point in the sales process. Even after Patrick has become a lead, Sandy the sales rep is able to link his referral to Claire’s through the advocate lookup function which allows Sandy to search for a contact record in the CRM and attach it to the referral lead. Claire can then keep updated on the status of her verbal referral in her personal homepage and receive automated email updates as the referral lead status changes. This way, Claire effortlessly gets credit for the referral and stays engaged with the referral program, making her more willing to refer in the future.
2. Decreases the effort advocates have to put into a referral
We are all busy. And this is especially true for B2B referral advocates who have their own responsibilities and workload. Often times this means that making a referral can be put on the back burner for a time. However, regular contact points with customers or partners such as sales and customer success check-ins, scheduled training, or contacting a customer after a product has had success, is a natural point at which to collect a referral if you have the verbal referral functionality.
For instance, let’s say Claire is on a call with Sandy the sales rep for a regular check-in and tells Sandy that she knows someone who might be in the market for Magnificent Marketing Automation. Claire has not registered for the referral program yet, but while Sandy is on the call with Claire Sandy is able to input the referral lead and attribute it to Claire. This is done through the easy lookup function in the CRM that allows Sandy to type in Claire’s name to find the right contact record and assign her as the referring advocate. That way, the verbal referrals reduce the amount of effort Claire has to put forth. Of course, she will eventually have to register to become advocates, but that’s number three.
3. Incentivizes referral program enrollment
Enrollment into a referral program can slow down (while not stopping) a customer from immediately registering to be an advocate. So how does verbal referral functionality make that easier? By incentivizing the enrollment process.
Even though Claire isn’t registered for the referral program, she is automatically sent an invite after she is assigned as the referring advocate. That way, Claire has an even greater incentive for registering for the program since she already has one referral under her belt. But she still doesn’t have to register at this point. When Patrick buys, Claire will be notified of the referral success and that there is a reward waiting for her upon enrollment in the referral program. Now Claire will be excited about the reward waiting for her which will also lead to a higher likelihood of immediately referring another peer like Patrick from her personal homepage.
By offering verbal referral functionality, you give customers the option to simplify their referral process, and in turn, increase engagement with the referral program. Discover how a referral program with verbal referral functionality can increase your referral ROI by providing a low effort experience.
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]]>The post 12 Reasons PRM is the Single Most Powerful Lever You Can Pull to Accelerate the Performance of Your Channel appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“Users report improvements on everything from deal registration, sales enablement, onboarding, training and marketing that help accelerate performance.”
Author: Dave R Taylor, CMO, Impartner
As a business executive, you know how rare it is to find a single business “lever” that, when pulled, will deliver 5% or 10% growth. You work hard to find process enhancements that will yield even a 1% or 2% increase in revenue. Everyone is looking for the most powerful lever to accelerate their performance.
For the second time in the last few years, Impartner conducted a Customer Success Survey of our global customer base. In the anonymized survey, using the Qualtrics analytics platform, we asked our over 300 customers to share the business results they have experienced from using Impartner PRM. In one surprising statistic after another, the power of this solution to accelerate channel revenue and optimize the partner experience at every step of the partner journey is unparalleled.
Based on the results of Impartner’s second, bi-annual global Impartner customer survey in which responses are anonymized, THE lever is clear: Partner Relationship Management. In one surprising stat after another, the power of this solution to accelerate channel revenue and optimize the partner experience at every step of the partner journey is unparalleled.
Consider these statistics from our customers and the impact Impartner PRM could have on YOUR business:
- 32.3%: Increase in revenue in the first year of use alone: At every step of the partner journey, from recruiting to onboarding to deal registration to lead management to business planning to marketing to training, Impartner’s turnkey, out-of-the-box PRM helps you optimize every step of your partner’s experience and performance. Plus, you’ll be able to manage your indirect sales with the same level of visibility you have into your direct sales – all culminating in an average increase of 32.3% a year in channel revenue in the first year of use alone. PRM gives you more revenue from your channel.
- 29%: Decrease in administrative costs in the first year of use alone. Your company probably has a team of highly capable, highly experienced, highly paid channel leaders who can help recruit the best partners and work together with them to create the most valuable strategies – they are money. However, if they’re tied up doing administrative work on spreadsheets to track partner recruiting or MDF spend versus actually driving business, you’re wasting their value. By automating operational basics, your best talent can focus on creating strategic relationships with your partners that truly elevate your program. PRM allows your talent to spend their valuable time on strategic, versus administrative work.
- 78%: A partner experience that’s a competitive advantage. Let’s face it, in a world of speeds, feeds and other performance stats, the customer/partner journey is THE differentiator for most companies. The experience has become the product. A full 78% of companies using Impartner PRM say the experience the solution allows them to create for partners gives them an advantage over the competition. PRM makes you more competitive.
- 77%: ROI payback in less than 18 months. Very few businesses decisions result in an average 32.3% increase in revenue. Investing in a contemporary, out-of-the-box PRM is the single most important investment you can make to transform the performance of your channel and pay for itself in just over a year and a half. PRM accelerates your indirect sales and delivers rapid ROI.
- 75%: Better ability to scale. The indirect sales channel, by its very nature, is an accelerator for your business by giving you an entirely new path to market. However, PRM is truly what separates those companies who have an incremental growth, to those companies who have a transformative leap in performance that explodes the growth of the channel. PRM helps you scale your channel program faster.
- 41%: Better engagement. Every day, we all make decisions about which websites to visit to run our lives – for news, for communicating, for traveling, for shopping. You come back regularly for new information and in today’s market, you have a fundamental expectation for an easy-to-use, consumerized experience. That same expectation extends to the experience users expect from the business solutions they use – including your Partner Portal. Is it any wonder then, that companies see a 41% jump in the number of partners signing into their portals when they deploy a new PRM. Sign in is easier, content is fresher, and the experience is “consumer-grade” and simpler. PRM gives you more engaged partners.
- 45%: Better partner onboarding and recruiting. The first impression of your partner program is your portal. Without one, especially one without a frictionless, consumer-grade experience, you send the message you’re not serious about your channel. No matter how much more value you drive out of your existing partners, if you want to truly grow and scale your partner program and convey to the best partners that you are a desirable company with top-flight technologies, your Partner Portal must match that promise. Plus, once you get them on board, the automation is key. Without automation, beyond 50 partners, leading analyst firm Forrester says admin will stall your growth. PRM supercharges your partner recruiting and onboarding.
- 80%: Less channel conflict. The No. 1 reason for partner attrition is channel conflict. If you can’t see what your partners and your direct sales teams are doing with a deal and make sure you can protect the deal properly, you are going to have one or all of three things: conflict with your partners, legal exposure, and loss of valuable channel partners. In 2019, there is no reason you should have this risk to your channel. PRM eliminates channel conflict.
- 26%: More partners performing better. The stat of 20% of partners producing 80% of revenue is everywhere, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Impartner PRM’s ability to segment your partners in a way that allows providing the right “care and feeding” to every kind of partner, brings out the gold in everyone. We help you shorten the “long tail” and make sure more partners are performing to their full potential. When the “the next 20” partners perform as well as the top 20, the impact is immediate and powerful. PRM makes more partners perform better – driving more channel revenue from your existing partner base.
- 22%: more revenue from partners who use marketing solutions. If you can afford to reach 1,000 prospects, making it easy for your partners to amplify your marketing message through our partners, can help you reach tens of thousands or millions more (all while protecting your brand). Through-channel marketing solutions help even your smallest partners market like pros – you provide the tools and the messages and they simply amplify your messages with their own efforts. PRM helps your partners amplify your marketing in a way you can’t afford.
- 50%: better ability by CAMs to meet quota. Many companies have shied away from the channel for fear that they will be unable to manage channel sales with the same levels of visibility as direct sales – making channel sales feel unpredictable and repeatable. With Impartner PRM, channel managers have the tools they need to crack open the black box on partner performance and be able to optimize and prioritize time and resources so much so, that users see a 50% increase in their ability to meet quota. PRM helps your channel team meet quota predictably and consistently.
- So many good stats help drive revenue: Users report improvements everything from deal registration, sales enablement, onboarding, training and marketing that help accelerate performance. matter how you slice it, Impartner’s contemporary PRM solution elevates every aspect of your channel. As a system of record for your channel technology stack, a PRM unifies and optimizes the performance of your channel – enhancing the experience for your partners and accelerating revenue for your indirect sales in a way that ensures your channel is viewed as a valued revenue producer and not a cost center. PRM elevates the performance of your channel from every angle.
For the full whitepaper detailing these results, click here for your complimentary copy. If you’re making PRM decision and want to learn more about how Impartner can help you drive these results for your business, share 15 minutes and let us show you a demo and see we can increase your revenue by an average of 32.3%.
We’ll pull back the curtain and give you the additional insights you need to make this investment decision with confidence based on the proven value it will deliver for your business.
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]]>The post The Stormy Challenges of an In-House Referral Program appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“The number one factor driving successful referral programs is a fully-engaged advocate base.”
Developing software in-house is always a risky business. This is as true for referral programs as it is for other types of software systems. Marketing lead-gen teams must fight through stormy weather when having to design requirements from scratch while simultaneously navigating the turbulent waters of IT concerns and project priorities.
At Impartner, previously Amplifinity, some of our most successful referral programs are for customers that had endured the storm of their home-grown systems before turning to us. These are both B2B and B2C brands that have previously been unable to scale their programs sufficiently to meet their referral goals.
With their in-house programs, these brands had high operational costs and frustrated their advocates with poor communication. While these programs achieved some level of referral success, they did not achieve the level of solid lead generation and closed sales that were anticipated.
This post will focus on the three main challenges of in-house programs: scale, advocate experience, and operational costs. Implicit in the text is the understanding that a solid SaaS referral platform addresses the challenges with the right mix of enterprise hardening and rich feature sets. Look for future posts with an emphasis on the best referral practices and program features that make for the most successful referral experience.
Scale
To scale is the ability to support millions of referral events without depending on IT to keep the software running, or requiring manual intervention to complete any of the referral processes, and with sufficient tooling to support program changes without involving IT.
We’ve seen in-house referral systems that successfully empower advocates to make referrals, but then require manual intervention to complete the referral process. They don’t effectively close the referral loop so advocates get rewarded in a timely manner, they may calculate rewards within a spreadsheet, or they may require manual steps to fulfill the rewards. These manual steps are manageable at the outset of the program, but when referral volume climbs to hundreds or thousands of successful referrals per month, manual processes cannot keep up. Operational costs go up and advocate experience goes down.
Advocate Experience
The number one factor driving successful referral programs is a fully-engaged advocate base. Once a customer, employee, or partner accepts your invite to become an advocate, your referral program has to do everything in its power to deliver a positive advocate experience.
Happy advocates make more referrals. Unhappy advocates abandon the program. This happens when the referral loop doesn’t close, either because of inadequate system design or because of dependence upon a manual process.
With in-house referral programs that successfully close the loop, there remains a missed opportunity to stimulate the advocate to make more referrals, which is an active, and automated, nurturing program. Every time a prospect takes action, whether responding to an advocate’s email or completing a purchase, the brand has an opportunity to reach out to the advocate, thank them for their referral activity, and ask for more referrals. In-house programs generally don’t have this capability and lose out on a key method for amplifying the success of the program.
A closed-loop assures a positive advocate experience. An effective nurturing program turns that experience, and the referral results, to great!
Operational Costs
Manual processes and unclosed referral loops increase operational costs. Interestingly, these are not IT costs, but the cost of extra work on the business side to keep things moving.
On the IT side, the largest operational cost for in-house systems comes from the management of the referral program content. This includes the web pages that advocates and prospects use, the referral tools, and the emails that go to prospects and advocates. What we’ve seen in home-grown systems is how it is expensive to maintain this content and maintenance generally depends on IT involvement.
Successful referral programs are built on platforms that remove IT dependency from the equation once the initial integration to the back-end systems is completed. This requires tools that allow marketing teams to manage their own content and configure their reward rules. We have found this self-management capability to be very popular with our customer base.
It takes time and money to build and maintain an effective referral program. Organizations that choose to go it alone find that they are putting Referral Program Calm Watersmoney and time into an unproven, incomplete referral platform, which more times than not results in lackluster referral results. This blog has focused on the turbulence of in-house referral programs as compared to using referral software. In subsequent blogs, we will address specific capabilities that the most successful enterprise referral platforms use to calm those stormy in-house waters.
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]]>The post Top 5 Must-Dos for a Successful Referral Program appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>” Research on referral program success rates shows that broad promotion of a company’s referral program is a significant step in getting customers to refer multiple times. “
Organizations looking to develop a referral program have a lot to consider. Everything from finding the appropriate technology to determining the best date for launch to figuring out their reward structure, it all takes deliberate thought to make sure the right decisions are made. Of all the moving parts to consider, following these top five must-dos will ensure your program is a success:
1) Devote the time, money and resources needed to set the program up right the first time
Companies often think launching their referral programs as pilot studies and then growing them into more robust programs later is the way to go. Typically this is because they either don’t have the IT resources available to create important integrations, or they don’t have complete buy-in from corporate. This is a mistake because referral programs need to be designed and implemented from the get-go to be full-fledged functional and efficient tools for the audiences they serve. Approaching a referral program with “one toe in the water” will net potentially inconclusive and often mediocre results. If the referral program is going to be an integral part of the enterprise, then find a way to incorporate all the parts of the enterprise necessary to ensure program adoption and success right from the start.
2) Understand IN PRACTICE how leads are currently making it into the sales funnel
When a potential customer came in with an existing referral program that needed improving, their executives explained how the sales process worked: sales reps were currently using a home-grown referral database to enter leads and then managing those leads using their CRM.
The home-grown referral database was unsophisticated and the data proved hard to track referral marketing success. They needed a more streamlined approach whereby the sales reps could simply enter leads into the referral program and have them sync to the CRM, updating automatically as the sale progressed. It turned out, reps had never utilized the home-grown referral database at all; instead, they were entering the leads directly into the CRM.
After developing a new process to “streamline” things, they had inadvertently introduced a whole new step in the sales process. This is not an uncommon discovery for companies when they start to dig into the details of how their sales processes work.
Before considering a referral program, companies need to truly understand how their sales team interacts with the tools they are provided when it comes to current customers and potential leads. There are ways to successfully integrate referral programs into CRM systems that can streamline the work being done and increase ROI without introducing a change in the organizational culture or sales process.
3) Make the call-to-action for customers crystal clear
Drop-offs in referral program participation often occur in two spots: the registration point for customers and the call-to-action point for leads. This happens because customers may be drawn to what the referral program is offering, but if the message is vague or cumbersome at the point of decision to join, they are less likely to complete their registration. Similarly, leads may click through the emails or social posts from their friends, but if they can’t tell what they get for providing their personal information, the drop-off rate will increase.
A company with a successful referral program used the following headline in their recruitment emails to customers: “Get a $20 card and 1000 reward points when you get your friends to buy our product.” In the body of the email, there were three steps to achieving the reward.
The message is simple: 1) Tell your customers what you want them to do. 2) Tell them how to do it. 3) Tell them what they will get for doing it.
4) Promote the referral program everywhere customers go and promote it constantly
Research about referral program success rates shows a broad promotion of a company’s referral program is a significant step in getting customers to refer multiple times. On average, twenty percent of customers will register for the referral program, then a significant proportion of those who register for the program will only make one successful referral during the lifetime of the program. Customers who have a positive experience with the referral program are twice as likely to successfully refer again, and one-fifth of any company’s customers who register for their referral program will refer successfully multiple times.
One of the key values reoccurring referral customers bring to a company’s sales process is their knowledge of others who are in the market for a particular product. However, timing is critical. If a current customer gets a referral program invitation email from a company but has no referral in mind, the email will be ignored. However, weeks later, the same customer may identify a referral and will need to be able to easily find a link to the company’s referral program, preferably on the website or through the online account pages.
The average number of days between successful referrals for customers who refer more than once is sixty-three. Companies must advertise their referral program everywhere their customers go and promote it constantly through as many channels as possible in order to gain results. Without frequent and continued promotion, referral program success is left completely to chance.
5) Follow FTC compliance and IRS tax laws
Companies with referral programs need to be aware of the various laws and regulations around solicitations (CAN SPAM), promotions, and rewarding. There are two regulatory considerations companies need to keep in mind:
First, the Federal Trade Commission recently passed a law under its 16 CFR Part 255, “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” The regulation states if a person makes a post on any social network (such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, or LinkedIn) and stands to gain a profit from the endorsement or testimonial, he or she must at a minimum include a statement such as, “This is a paid endorsement,” or “#paidad.” Your referral program Terms and Conditions should include this language so you can be certain your program is compliant with the most current statutes and you are protected against legal action.
Second, depending on the amount of the referral reward and the rigor it takes to achieve it, companies need to consider how much money any one customer could potentially earn in a calendar year. The reason for this is simply the IRS. If a customer receives over $599.00 per year in rewards, to be compliant with US tax laws the company who paid those rewards must collect a W-9 from that person and submit a 1099 to the IRS on the customer’s behalf. There are referral program vendors that will track 1099 information and disseminate the paperwork as needed to be certain you stay compliant with US tax laws. Be sure to ask if these are features of their platform when talking with a potential referral program vendor.
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]]>Seventy-eight percent of top corporations also say Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management solution helps them create a partner experience that’s a competitive advantage
Salt Lake City – September 11, 2019 – Impartner, the fastest-growing and most-award winning pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today announced the results of its second, bi-annual global customer survey, which continues to validate the transformative power of PRM to accelerate channel revenue. In the study, for which responses are anonymous, companies in Impartner’s customer base worldwide reported an average of a 32.3 percent increase in revenue and a 29 percent decrease in administrative costs in the first year of use alone. Just as significant, 75 percent reported that the company’s flagship solution, Impartner PRM, helped them scale their channel program, 78 percent said it delivered a partner experience that was an advantage over the competition and 77 percent report a return on investment in less than 18 months. Full survey results are summarized in a new Impartner White Paper, “The Business Case for PRM,” which is available as a complimentary download here.
“The results validate what we see and hear from users around the world everyday – that PRM has an unparalleled ability to accelerate revenue over nearly any other decision a company can make,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner CMO. “It’s incredibly rewarding to see customer after customer use Impartner PRM to transform the performance of their channel in a way that ensures it’s viewed as a valued revenue producer and not a cost center.”
Other Impartner PRM performance statistics in the study include:
- Reduction in channel conflict reported by 80%
- 41% increase in partner engagement
- 45% increase in ability to recruit and onboard new partners
- 26% increase in the number of partners whose performance has improved
- 22% increase in revenue from partners using through-partner marketing
- 50% increase in channel account managers’ ability to meet quota
- Expressed as percent of channel revenue increase, percentage of the following attributed to PRM:
- 47% better deal registration
- 36% better sales enablement
- 35% recruiting and onboarding process
- 35% better training
- 21% better marketing through and to partners
- 20% better performance from more partners
“No matter how you slice it,” said Taylor, “a contemporary PRM solution elevates every aspect of your channel. As a system of record for your channel technology stack, a PRM unifies and optimizes the performance of your channel – enhancing the experience for your partners and accelerating revenue for your indirect sales in a way that ensures your channel is a strategic competitive advantage for your organization.”
The study continues a stream of news and milestones for the company, including ongoing national and international recognition for Impartner PRM, a cooperative agreement with Microsoft to co-sell and co-market Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Impartner PRM, a recent acquisition that is the second in just over a year, a new milestone of more than 10M partners signing into portals using Impartner technology worldwide and a pending move to a 4th office in as many years.
Download your complimentary copy of the whitepaper here. If you’re ready to see this same performance from your channel, click here for a demo.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reducing administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>Salt Lake City – September 5, 2019 – From deep in the heart of Utah’s Silicon Slopes, a seemingly endless stream of innovative tech companies continues to emerge, including PrinterLogic, a serverless printing infrastructure innovator. Having both a direct and indirect path to market has been key to their growth, but in taking their channel to the next level, they knew they needed to replace their home-grown portal with a Partner Relationship Management system and portal capable of delivering a world-class experience for their partners. A new video case study released today details their journey to select a new PRM and their choice of the industry’s fastest-growing, most award-winning solution, Impartner.
“When we’d originally built out our channel program, we started with our own, home-grown PRM, which was expensive and time-consuming,” said PrinterLogic Channel Marketing Manager Nate Truman. “We had to have a few employees just in charge of our internal PRM and it simply wasn’t working efficiently or effectively.”
“As we looked at solutions in the market,” Truman continued, “Impartner gave us more of the value we were looking for and immediately when we started working with them they gave us a rep to walk us through step by step. Impartner was great at giving me all the resources I needed to get started going. We had a weekly call with them, and they worked with our IT team to set it all up – and we’ve been able to scale rapidly as soon as we got up and running.”
Not only has the portal helped PrinterLogic scale, it’s been well received by both partners and sales teams. “One of the things we love about Impartner is that it’s so seamless….I’ve heard from partners that we have one of the best partner portals that they’ve seen,” Truman said, adding that their sales teams have also latched onto the solution. “They’ve loved knowing that their partners can jump on our portal and start working with them immediately. Rather than them having to dig in and find an asset, they can tell the partner where to find it and to go into the partner portal and start using it.”
To learn more about PrinterLogic’s choice and implementation of Impartner, and why Truman said, “They have made my life and my team’s life so much easier,” click here for the full video case study. If you’re ready for a demo on how Impartner can help your company accelerate your channel, click here for a demo.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The user experience is now a top concern for enterprises. Companies today want software that is highly responsive, reliable and easy to use. The Enterprise Technology category honors companies that create communications solutions that make life easier for end-users, while providing greater innovation to the enterprise marketplace.
According to the publication, Impartner was selected for its SaaS-based PRM software, which over the last year has been updated with multiple new features, reinforcing its position as an industry leader in the PRM space. ChannelVision is proud to honor Impartner as a 2019 Visionary Spotlight Award winner.
“Impartner continues to set the standard for excellence in the PRM industry,” said Beka Business Media President and CEO Berge Kaprelian. “We were very impressed with the new features that the company has added to their solution, including a segmentation engine, an asset automation engine, CRM sync, and more. Congratulations to Impartner—a 2019 Visionary Spotlight Award winner and a formidable player in this competitive space.”
“We are grateful and humbled by this award from ChannelVision Magazine both for our team and the recognition of the value our continued drumbeat of innovation brings to our rapidly growing customer base worldwide,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner CMO.
The recognition comes on the heels of a continued stream of news and milestones for the company, including other national and international recognition for Impartner PRM, a cooperative agreement with Microsoft to co-sell and co-market Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Imparter PRM, a second acquisition in just over year, a new milestone of more than 10M partners signing into portals using Impartner technology worldwide and a pending move to a 4th office in as many years.
To learn more about Impartner’s award winning features and how Impartner PRM can transform your partner experience, click here to learn more.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
About the Visionary Spotlight Awards
The annual Visionary Spotlight Awards competition was created to highlight channel and service provider innovation in communications. The awards honor outstanding products, services and deployments across numerous technology categories.
Visionary Spotlight Award winners exemplify this goal, showcasing the communications industry’s overall innovation, capacity for future-thinking execution, and creativity and feature set differentiation; and offering channel partners a cornucopia of opportunities to boost their roles as trusted providers.
For more information about the Visionary Spotlight Awards program, click here or contact Berge Kaprelian at [email protected].
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]]>The post Shadow Partners Step into the Mainstream appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Impartner Acquisition of Amplifinity Helps Companies Optimize Revenue from Referral Partners
“Companies using an intentional versus ad-hoc process like Amplifinity see an average yearly increase in revenue of more than 30.”
In 2019, a stunning 72 percent of all tech purchase decisions now go through business unit buyers versus purchasing or IT teams. This change in purchasing behavior has caused a seismic shift in the channel partner landscape as these buyers increasingly turn to disparate groups such as industry-based consultants, service providers, and independent software vendors to help implement technology given their role as trusted advisors. What’s emerged, is a powerful ecosystem of “shadow channel” partners, similar to the Shadow IT phenom of recent years, as these same buyers circumvented traditional IT processes to more nimbly secure technologies of their choice in the manner in which they chose.
Like shadow IT, however, shadow channels are emerging into the mainstream and traditional and non-traditional partners, now typically called referral partners, are the new normal for corporations everywhere. What’s needed in today’s market, are new, performance-based tools designed to manage all types of partners, business models, and various customer technology consumption preferences. This week, with Impartner’s acquisition of Amplifinity, (press release here) the leading referral partner management solution, our customers now have a complete toolset to maximize their business relationship with every type of partner and accelerate revenue for everyone. The impact of that technology is significant. Companies using an intentional versus ad-hoc process like Amplifinity see an average yearly increase in revenue of more than 30.
The emergence of shadow channel partners is one Forrester’s top channel analyst, Jay McBain has long forecast. In his Forrester blog, What I See Coming For The Channel, one of his predictions was that “vendors will put formal shadow-channel programs in motion,” noting one vendor who has since replaced “its traditional, compliance-based programs with new performance-based programs designed to reward all types of partners…Most programs will follow suit in 2019.”
If you’re ready to follow suit with your company, click here for demo and see how formalizing your referral partner program can help you accelerate revenue from this new generation of partners.
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]]>Salt Lake City – August 20, 2019 – Impartner, the fastest-growing and most-award winning pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today announced it has acquired Amplifinity, the leader in referral partner management software, to help formalize management of emerging “shadow channel” partners, which are expected to explode in growth in the coming decade. By providing corporations with an intentional, versus ad-hoc process for managing these increasingly critical relationships, companies see an average revenue increase of over 30 percent from these partners. The shadow channel of non-traditional partners has emerged because business unit buyers, who make 72 percent of purchasing decisions, increasingly turn to disparate groups such as industry-based consultants, service providers and Independent Software Vendors to help implement technology given their role as trusted advisors.
“The shift in today’s partner landscape is tectonic,” said Joe Wang, Impartner CEO. “With factors such as changing business models due to SaaS companies and the shift to business unit buyers from IT, an increasingly omni-channel environment has emerged to serve the customer no matter how they reach out. The time is now to make sure we’re rounding out our technology with solutions like Amplifinity to help our customers bring the same process and structure we’ve brought to managing traditional partner models to managing and rewarding new types of partners in this changing channel landscape.”
Forrester’s Principal Analyst, Channel Partnerships and Alliances, Jay McBain, addressed the trend earlier this year in his Forrester blog, What I See Coming For The Channel In 2019. One of his 2018 predictions was that “vendors [will] put formal shadow-channel programs in motion,” wrote McBain, citing a vendor who has since replaced “its traditional, compliance-based programs with new performance-based programs designed to reward all types of partners, business models, and various customer technology consumption preferences…Most programs will follow suit in 2019.”
“This acquisition underscores that emerging partner groups have moved into the main stream mix for corporations everywhere and need to be managed as such,” said Amplifinity CEO Bill Weissman. “Traditional and non-traditional partners are the new normal for corporations everywhere, and by bringing our technology together with Impartner’s, customers now have a complete tool set to maximize their business relationship with every type of partner and accelerate revenue for everyone.”
The acquisition includes Amplifinity’s referral marketing software, which automates and formalizes the referral process for lead generation at scale and includes its incentive management technology and integrations to a suite of payment fulfillment providers to reward this new generation of partners in the manner they most prefer. Amplifinity’s team will remain in the company’s Ann Arbor, MI, offices, adding a Midwest team of developers to Impartner’s global Channel Innovation Labs, made up of engineers, data scientists, UX and UI professionals and channel strategists who are committed to providing future-proof channel management technologies and services that accelerate channel performance.
To learn more about how this newly acquired referral marketing software can help you manage your growing referral partner network, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post The 5 Best Practices for Starting a Channel appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>” The vendor needs to establish a demand generation closed-loop process that results in the partner getting qualified and ready-to-buy leads.”
If you’re building a channel, it’s always best practice to follow best practices. In an excerpt from Impartner’s eBook, “The Ultimate Field Guide to Starting a Channel,” here are the five key steps for success:
1. Solidify and clearly explain the policies you will employ within the program.
The first step is to establish a strategy, then establish policies, then the program. It’s important for senior leadership to understand the channel and the depth of these requirements or leaders risk fast employee burnout or over-commitment and under-resourced initiatives which ultimately fail or do not produce the expected growth. For example, your strategy could be to have a direct relationship with enterprise corporations. Therefore, you would have a policy that states when an opportunity would be taken directly or with a partner. And your program would state the rules of engagement that support the policy.
You could also use deal registration as an aspect to your program to enforce some of the policies. If your strategy were for enterprise accounts to be managed directly, your policy would ask for partners to register opportunities to help identify anything that supports the vendor’s enterprise direct touch strategy. And, your program would enforce the best practices of deal registration with extra benefits to drive that type of behavior.
Channel conflict is another set of critical up-front policies to establish. Hand in hand with deal registration, you will need to set forth the policies on how you will handle involvement with your direct sales force and indirect sales force. Within your program, you may establish a list of accounts that are known direct, or rules for which a partner may then work a direct account. Whatever you do, be sure they are clear and are identified early in the sales process, to avoid any duplication of efforts or worst yet false starts or fast partner failures. Channel / Indirect – Direct / and Partner – Partner conflict is one of the prime reasons partnerships fail to produce expected targets.
2. Invest in end-user demand generation for partners.
The pace of business these days is incredibly fast, and the fastest way to revenue is when vendors assist in finding and somewhat qualifying leads for partners to engage with.
You may think of this as “priming the pump” but it really has become the best practice way of getting partners on board and getting to revenue quickly. The “best practice” is a co-marketing/co-demand generation with the channel partner. The vendor needs to establish a demand generation closed-loop process that results in the partner getting qualified and ready-to-buy leads.
3. Make systematic and inter-organizational trust and collaboration a competency in your organization.
Collaboration should be the primary vehicle for progress versus command and control. According to an annual CEO study, collaboration — both deliberate collaborative business practices and processes emerge as a strategic competency. Collaborative business practices have emerged as a new ISO11000 standard – turning it from an art to a science – and aimed at ensuring channel partnerships and strategic alliances are built on strategic business practices from the onset.
4. Ensure that you have the highest level of skills within your team.
You can assess the current team’s skills against a channel/partner competency model, recognize hiring gaps, and/or prepare to elevate the skills of the teams where necessary. Theresa Caragol Consulting’s new 2017 Competency Model established that as a best practice for the requirements for our next generation CAMs, they should cover the 4 main areas of knowledge for a CAM: Business Acumen, Industry Expertise, Deep Channel Expertise and Collaboration Acumen / EQ. This quadrant and the sub-skills for each can serve as a checklist for the types of individuals you will need to have leading and working on your indirect channel initiative.
5. Protect all of the above with a technology and systems support plan including PRM.
Often, building this “Channel Technology Stack” is an afterthought and companies go wrong and end up with more costs later. As the indirect model expands into new geographies, partner types, customer use cases, and channel business models – the one common link is the support infrastructure.
It’s important to make automation decisions from the onset that will grow with your success. For example, consider a Customer Relationship Management tool that integrates well with your Partner Relationship Management tool, and yet further integrates with Incentive Automation or Demand Generation Platform. Evaluate your options available, check references and talk to existing clients; and consider the companies you are buying them from to ensure they are capitalized well for the long term. For example, you may choose to work with companies who have established relationship and partnership with other vendors in a potential “stack” of a solution you are taking to market. Taking these factors into consideration can save you time, money, and aggravation as your channel strategy and programs scale with success.
Want to learn more about building a channel? Get your complete copy of Impartner’s Ultimate Field Guide to Starting a Channel here.
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]]>Winners chosen from nearly 100,000 submissions from ACQ5’s readers worldwide
Salt Lake City – July 31, 2019 – Impartner, the best-selling and most-award winning pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today announced it has been recognized with three ACQ5 Awards for International Technology Company of the Year, SaaS-Based PRM Solution Provider of the Year and Gamechanger of the Year for CEO Joe Wang. This is the second year in a row Impartner has received multiple ACQ5 awards, which are chosen from nearly 100,000 submissions from the corporate news site’s global readership. The awards recognize organizations and individuals that demonstrate an ability to deliver services and skills to meet clients’ needs and adapt to market and regulatory conditions – and are truly worldclass in the way they are run and in the services they deliver to clients.
“These awards come on the heels of what has already been a tremendous year for Impartner, and we couldn’t be more proud of the recognition this gives to our employees and the value we drive for our customers worldwide,” said Dave R Taylor, CMO of Impartner.
Taylor notes recent accomplishments for the company include crossing the 10 million mark for partners signing into portals using Impartner technology and its yearly customer conference, ImpartnerCON, establishing itself as the largest gathering of channel chiefs worldwide. “This is the year PRM has absolutely ascended to the same level as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions for its criticality to any company’s go-to-market technology architecture,” said Taylor.
To learn more about how Impartner can help your company accelerate the performance of your channel by an average of 31 percent a year, click here to schedule a demo.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post Pure Power for Your Channel: Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Impartner PRM appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“We’re way ahead in $” and “Our economics got much, much better.”
Today’s headlines show that sales for Microsoft Dynamics 365 (MD 365) soared 455% in Q4, helping fuel Microsoft’s climb to the top of the list for the world’s most valuable publicly traded companies. Impressive for sure, but having just spent the week at Microsoft’s showcase event, Inspire – not surprising. At every level, the show was sleek and buzzing with an energy that emerges only around the industry’s hottest conversations.
Having just signed a cooperative agreement with Microsoft to amplify direct and indirect sales by co-marketing and co-selling MD 365 with Impartner PRM, we couldn’t be more excited about the potential of this 1-2 punch combination and the value it brings to so many stakeholders in the Microsoft ecosystem:
For companies using or considering Microsoft Dynamics, this cooperative agreement gives you confidence that these two solutions will implement seamlessly and provide you with a single console to manage your direct and indirect sales. Even better, regardless of the size of your company or what CRM you use, you can transition to these solutions quickly, knowing other major corporations have made the switch in a matter of months—delivering immediate results. Check out the Commscope Case Study, to see why the channel chief says, “We’re way ahead in $” and “Our economics got much, much better.”
For Microsoft resellers and system integrators. Partners and resellers are at the point of attack in the new world of digital transformation and are counted on to create real-world solutions for customers’ business problems. As such, they are constantly looking for not only new technologies but also value-added products and services to help them evolve their businesses to meet the challenges of this new era.
Implementing the MD 365 and Impartner PRM solution makes that digital transformation possible and provides you with the ability to leverage the MD 365 value proposition and broaden that value through integration across the channel tech stack. According to a new whitepaper from technology analyst firm, Enterprise Strategy Group, this enhances partner growth and profitability in several important ways:
- Impartner is a robust platform with a range of embedded, valuable features that are flexible and configurable and that integrate with existing tools in the MD 365 environment. This reduces cost, and importantly, customers understand the value of seamless integration services.
- The ability to deliver incremental partner-led services will drive strong top and bottom lines that fund growth.
- Joint offerings create new high-value opportunities, adding a strong installed-base value proposition to the sales mix.
- Impartner PRM is a good fit with the skill sets of existing Dynamics 365-focused businesses. This means you can leverage the existing knowledge and experience of their sales and tech teams.
- Partner upfront investment is modest. You can satisfy their initial clients, develop “win” stories, and then pursue new ones, all while managing the financial risks.
- PRM/CRM investments will drive revenue for resellers based on the value they deliver.
And now, thanks to the cooperative agreement between Microsoft and Impartner, you’ll be able to change your competitive battlespace and have more doors to knock-on, to:
- Extend the power of Dynamics to your customer’s indirect sales channel with PRM
- Provide Partner Engagement insights
- Enrich Dynamics data, further securing existing accounts, e.g. Learning Management System
- Drive new revenue from your existing accounts
Sum total: whether you’re a company looking for a proven CRM/PRM solution that can accelerate your direct and indirect sales from a single console, or a Microsoft sales pro or reseller/integrator looking for new revenue streams and a powerful 1-2 punch to win in the market against other major competitors, MD 365 and Impartner PRM can help you win at every level. Click here to learn more.
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]]>Salt Lake City – July 15, 2019 –
When facing a two-month deadline before having to pay millions of dollars in fees from a vendor they no longer wanted, a major multi-national network infrastructure company turned to Avtex, a top Microsoft partner, to transform the technology stack they were using to manage their direct and indirect sales. Despite the tight deadline, the customer was determined to transition to a modern, integrated CRM/PRM solution that met customer and partner expectations for ease-of-use, similar to solutions found in consumer-type applications – ultimately resulting in the choice and implementation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics in just a few months.
A new whitepaper released today from Enterprise Strategy Group, an IT analyst, research, validation, and strategy firm, details this rapid business and successful business transformation. The paper, sponsored by global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) pure-play leader Impartner, paints a comprehensive picture of how these two solutions can be easily and rapidly implemented and integrated – not only providing an additional revenue stream for this top Microsoft Partner but also confidence for other corporations looking for a fast, proven transition to a contemporary, world-class solution.
“For business leaders worried about making a change to their core sales and marketing go-to-market technology infrastructure, this is a remarkable story of transformation that truly inspires confidence that it can be done, at a major scale, in a relatively short amount of time, and deliver immediate results,” said ESG’s Kevin Rhone, director of channel acceleration and whitepaper author.
Key highlights in the whitepaper include how and why the customer ultimately pulled the trigger on the transformation, how they conducted search, why they settled on Dynamics 365 and Impartner PRM, and ultimately, why they said, “Our economics got much, much better.” Just as important, the transformation delivered powerful business benefits for Avtex, allowing them both the chance to delight this customer, but also have a demonstrable transformation that includes both CRM and now, with a proven, out-of-the-box PRM solution, further expanding their revenue stream and giving them a powerful, proven, 1, 2 punch against other competing CRM/PRM solutions in the market.
In addition to Impartner’s out-of-the-box flexibility, Avtex Systems Implementation Lead Nick Trotta stresses the depth and experience of the Impartner team in helping bring their new client’s technology stack to life. “The people at Impartner deliver an expertise around channel management that helps guide companies on how their channel should run – they are not just web developers or software providers. Throughout the process, we had people in the room that could challenge our thinking and carry best practices into the process – and together we were able to launch this world-class solution and meet our client’s deadline.”
What’s equally exciting, said Jason Wickman, Avtex VP of sales and marketing, is the revenue growth potential moving forward. “We see a huge opportunity with our clients and prospects for transforming marketing, sales and service through PRM,” said Wickman. “Impartner is making all the right investments and providing a solution that is innovative and amplifies how we can help them with this approach.”
“Stories like these are incredibly rewarding for us at Impartner,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner CMO. “At every level, it’s exciting to see Microsoft’s accelerating growth in the market and as more and more prospects look to us to be able to operate in the Microsoft technology ecosystem, it becomes increasingly important to ensure we provide an easily integratable managed solution with entities that are simple to map from the PRM to the CRM and ensure they have clear, master view of how every aspect of their company is performing.” Taylor also noted that both customers and partners can purchase and implement Impartner with the additional confidence that comes from the company’s recent ranking as a leader in the Q4 2018 report, The Forrester Wave for Partner Relationship Management.
To download your free copy of the whitepaper, click here. To explore what Impartner can do for your company or partnership, visit Impartner in Booth 2910 at Microsoft Inspire July 14-17 in Las Vegas.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post New ESG Whitepaper Highlights the Power of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Impartner PRM to Accelerate Direct and Indirect Sales appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Salt Lake City – June 27, 2019 – Impartner, the world’s fastest-selling and most-award winning pure play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today announced that it has surpassed the 10 million marker for partners signing into partner portals using Impartner technology, a 10X increase in the past three years. The milestone is a clear sign that PRM technology has moved beyond “early adopters” and into place as the defacto channel management technology solution for leading corporations worldwide, who typically see 75 percent or more of their revenue flowing through the channel.
“We’re proud to power the front door for millions of partners on behalf of companies who have turned to Impartner PRM to transform their partners’ experience and optimize the performance of their indirect channel,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “However, while this is a significant milestone, it signals to us that the market has now reached the tipping point where the indirect sales performance of corporations using a contemporary, out-of-the-box PRM solution that can be up and running and delivering value in as few as 14 days will outpace those without. The ‘have nots’ are now at risk of falling behind, and we expect this milestone to double quickly.”
This PRM market momentum tracks with leading analyst firm, Gartner. According to the Gartner Hype Cycle for CRM Sales, 2018 (July 2018), “the PRM technology market is moving toward the Plateau of Productivity in less than two years on the strength and quality of products offered by the leading vendors, and innovation offered by new vendors. However, there is still considerable opportunity, based on the fact that only few industries (such as the high-tech industry, retail banking and large insurers) have adopted the full range of PRM.”
This milestone joins a continual list of recent accomplishments for the company, including the following:
- Signed cooperative agreement with Microsoft to co-market and co-sell Microsoft Dynamics 360 and Impartner PRM to accelerate direct and indirect sales
- Grew its annual customer and channel management summit, ImpartnerCON19, which was held in May of this year, into the largest gathering of channel chiefs worldwide in just four years since the company’s acquisition by Wang and growth equity firm, Kennet Partners.
- In the same time period, grew the company’s logo base 10X, drawing in a stream of world-class companies including Splunk, ZenDesk, T-Mobile, Finastra, CommScope and Smartsheet.
- Added additional logo growth of such marquee clients such as Autodesk and Juniper Networks through sales of Impartner’s News on Demand and Social on Demand solutions, which were added to the company’s product portfolio after acquiring Tremolo Software just over a year ago.
- Won a continued streak of national and international awards, including, for the second year in a row, being named a Red Herring Top 100 North America winner.
- Continued expansion of Impartner’s employee base, including the ongoing growth of its Channel Innovation Labs team of engineers, data scientists and UI and UX professionals in EMEA and LATAM. To accommodate the expansion, the company is moving into its third office in recent years in August.
To learn more about how Impartner can help transform your partners’ experience, accelerate the performance of your channel, and ensure your corporation does not fall behind others who have already turned to a contemporary PRM to turn their channel into a strategic competitive advantage, click here for a demo.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Partners Signing into Partner Portals Using Impartner Technology Surpasses 10 Million Worldwide, a 10X Surge in Three Years appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>The post How to Successfully Enable Your Partners appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Blog Series: The Old Man and the Channel – with Olivier Choron, Managing Director EMEA, Impartner
Part 6: Partner Enablement – 2020 and Beyond
I was recently asked to discuss “Partner Enablement” with the additional caveat of looking at “2020 and beyond”. Interesting challenge! I know this is critical for many organizations who work with a channel, whether these have tens of local partners or tens of thousands of partners, globally.
Bringing the message home
Like everyone else, and although I have been in the channel for 25+ years, I decided to go online and search for ‘partner enablement’. Sadly, I mistyped my search and it came back with results for ‘parent enablement’. How interesting! I have 3 teenage boys and, for anyone with children, my search results highlighted some powerful messages, most of which also completely relate to ‘partner enablement’.
To successfully enable your children (and partners), you need to:
- Create a common ground, educate and provide; you need to understand each other, to nourish their appetite for knowledge and understanding of the world (or your world), and provide for them.
- Communicate; it’s all about communicating, talking, discussing issues, sharing ideas, all in a 2-way direction. This means speaking the same language and sharing the same objectives.
- Be at the ‘same level’; If you have children going through their toddler tantrums, you may understand about kneeling down and reasoning with your children at their levels. It’s not about dominance and it’s never about imposing one-sided un-explained rules!
I found my accidental search results so surprisingly insightful. Looking at Partner Enablement, now or in 2020 and beyond, we need to keep these principles in mind. Partners are simply people who all have different experiences, backgrounds, and expectations. If we don’t listen and try to speak the same language, if we try to push ‘our views’, if we don’t agree on joint objectives, if we don’t communicate and educate, we will only face resistance and fail in enabling them and engaging with them!
But you need to move this to the next level! Children have one set (or maybe two sets) of parents. Your partners have 10-20 suppliers they work with. You need to understand that and make sure you know your place – you are one of many your partners are engaging with…
So, what should we do today?
If you’ve been in the channel for as long as I have, you already know what is required. It’s a tick list, but start with the start!
- Understand each other and plan together. This is not always easy. With 20 partners to manage, Channel Account Managers can have meaningful discovery and joint planning calls. GREAT! With 10,000 partners to deal with, it’s a strain on the organization. NOT SO GREAT! But you need to try. You cannot succeed in delivering a solid and impactful enablement program if you don’t understand the needs of your partners. Ask the questions, on- or off-line. Ask what they want to accomplish. Ask if they need help with selling and marketing. Ask if they have staff dedicated to pre-sales, post-sales, marketing, etc.
When possible, write a joint business plan. When it’s not possible, ask for what they need and what they miss most. Why push some marketing training or campaigns if they don’t have staff or budget to support this? Why push for sales training on some products, which they are not interested in? WASTED!
- Train your partners. Of course, you are likely to include technical training as a mandatory part of your Partner Program. I understand this and so do your partners. I am not talking about this though. I am talking about OPTIONAL and FREE sales and marketing enablement training. Potentially you could also train them on customer support or contract-writing best practices. They need to know about GDPR, SEO, email marketing, social selling, and much more. Don’t just enable them to be better at selling, marketing or supporting your solutions. Enable them to be better salespeople, better marketers, or better customer-centric organizations. Forget about your own agenda and deliver partner-centric programs.
- Communicate, communicate and communicate. To make sure your partners are the best at what they do or what you want them to do, you need to communicate with them, in a way that’s meaningful and personalized. You need to show them that you respond to THEIR needs. You need to inform them about products and programs THEY want and require. Don’t send one-size-fits-all emails to your entire partner base; it will only serve one purpose – to alienate them. I am biased (!) but have a look at News on Demand from Impartner and discover that the era of 100% targeted and 100% personalized comms has started!
- Measure. You do need to see how successful you and your partners are. Track portal visits, assets downloads, email engagement, campaign involvement, training courses attendance, event registrations, call, and support requests, organization sales, and profitability, customer satisfaction, etc.
Again, make sure you align these results with the plans you put together or the expectations you have for these partners. But it’s important you encourage engagement and not penalize them for low engagement (remember my ‘parental engagement’ introduction!). You are in this together; if a program doesn’t work for certain partners, it’s most likely that your program doesn’t answer their needs and is ill-suited to your and their purpose.
- Listen and respond. Finally, you need a feedback loop. If it’s not working, then ask and fix!
What’s for us in 2020 and beyond?
Let’s now look at what we need to do that is different for 2020 and beyond. Why should we do this? Simply put, the world is changing. Your partner audience is changing in terms of demographics and roles. Welcome to the era of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Welcome to the world of Managed Service Providers (MSPs). Let’s embrace Generation Z. Portals and tools are evolving – we can now automate processes we never thought could be done online.
- Shift from persona- to people-based marketing. We have, in very recent years, stopped from treating partners as ‘organizations’. We have started to understand partners are composed of individuals. Because of technical restrictions, we introduced the concept of ‘personas’, grouping people in distinct pockets to allow us to target them differently. Sadly, by creating personas, we have made assumptions. ‘Sales’ personas want this. ‘Technical’ personas want that. This was a great start, but it’s so wrong!
We now can and need to shift to people-based marketing. Let individuals tell us what they want and let us deliver on what they each require. In 2020 and beyond, we will be able to center everything (education, communications, measurements) around individuals and make everything we do personal! Some of this technology is here today (again, have a look at News on Demand from Impartner) but this will expand. Training and enablement programs will be geared to meet the needs of your partner individuals.
- Become a data-driven channel organization. To deliver these ‘human-centric programs’, we need to better understand our partners. We need to draw upon all the knowledge we have about them, whether it’s been collected offline or online, on your Partner Relationship Management (PRM) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Learning Management systems.
To do so, we will need to leverage the advances in Machine Learning (ML) or Artificial Intelligence (AI). We will need to add Data Scientists to our channel organizations to make sense of the data we produce and collect. Channel Marketers will be hired less on the grounds of their ‘flair’ and more on their capability to understand, analyze, and deliver programs based upon the data presented to them.
- Shift from Through Partner Marketing (TPMA) ‘feeding’ to collaborative partner marketing services. We will stop pushing our mono-branded campaigns to partners and, based on the data we have collected and analyzed for them, we will offer concierge services that will deliver personalized campaigns to them. Finally, we will be able to develop marketing programs and campaigns that meet their needs and drive real demand. We will focus on true enablement and development. Partners will be more in control; they will ask and we will respond. We will be in a
position where we can truly collaborate together. Each campaign will be tailored to each partner.
- Mobil-ize. Consumer-ize. Google-ize. With new data within our reach and new automated platforms to leverage this data, some of which are already available today, our portals and tools will become simpler to utilize and digest.
I look forward to the days when my portal experience is as sleek and individual as my Google search engine and my Netflix portal. Partners want to be in control. As individuals, they use consumer-centric tools every day that is tailored to their needs. They search, they get, they save… but they are also served ‘sponsored’ content. In 2020 and beyond, they will be able to navigate through your portal, on their desktop or their phone, as they navigate through the internet today. They will find the product assets, deal registration pages, incentives they are looking for, whilst you will be able to – intelligently and systematically – serve the content you think – you know – they also need.
But to make this happen in 2020 and beyond…
… we will need to have more budget allocated to the channel. To become smarter, more intelligent, more partner-centric and more data-centric, we will need to add Data Scientists, Marketing Operations and other expert staff members. Data will need to be collected, integrated, cleansed, manipulated, and analyzed. PRM systems will need to be customized, workflows to be created, programs to be enabled. This can only happen with budgets.
To obtain these budgets, we will need to elevate our channel roles within our organizations. We will need to see Channel Chiefs or, as I call them, Chief Channel Officers appear and represent us at board-level.
About the author
Olivier Choron joined Impartner in June 2018 when Impartner acquired Tremolo Software. Olivier was the CEO and Founder at Tremolo, the provider of News on Demand and Social on Demand products, which have now been added to the unique Impartner PRM portfolio. He is currently the Managing Director for EMEA.
With 25+ years of channel marketing expertise, gained in Europe and in the US, at companies such as 3Com and Nortel Networks, Olivier is a well-recognized figure in the channel. Having also run a channel marketing services firm for 12 years in the UK, Olivier has advised many organizations on how to best structure their channel programs and how to best enable their partners, including Adobe, Vodafone, Trend Micro, Zyxel, and Samsung, among others.
Olivier holds a ‘Diplôme d’Ingénieur’ in computer science from the ENSI de Caen (France), and a master’s degree in electronic engineering from the University of Kent (UK).
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]]>The post Why an Early Investment in a PRM Solution Will Accelerate Company Growth appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“Getting partners ramped to profitability is key – and sales enablement is critical to Smartsheet’s ability to do that.”
Smartsheet explains why an early investment in PRM is a critical channel scale pedal
When it comes to scaling a channel program – and doing it faster than the competition – many ask: “When is the time to switch from a non-automated tracking tool to a fully powered Partner Relationship Management solution to manage my channel?”
For Smartsheet, a leading cloud-based platform for work execution that empowers organizations to plan, capture, track, automate, and report on work at scale, which now has 80,000 customers in 190 countries and a growth rate of more than 50 percent a year – the answer was sooner rather than later.
In a case study presentation at Impartner’s recent customer and channel management summit ImpartnerCON19, Smartsheet Director of Global Channels Steve Stewart, highlighted key reasons Smartsheet invested in a contemporary, out of the box SaaS PRM solution as a key channel acceleration tool ahead of others in the industry – helping the company bat ahead of the competition.
“We’re a high-transaction, low-deal value house, so having a channel program that is rapidly scalable is super important,” said Stewart during the presentation. At the time of the session, Stewart, a channel industry veteran from channel powerhouse companies like CA technologies, had recently joined Smartsheet as part of the company’s commitment to expanding their channel and inherited the newly implemented Impartner PRM solution.
Following are six key highlights from Stewart’s presentation on how a “right-now-versus-later” investment in PRM can help channel teams accelerate building and scaling their channel program:
- Justify the value of your expanding channel to finance: Continual evaluation of channel versus direct sales is a recurring conversation in most companies. Stewart says the data provided by Impartner PRM helps him prove the value of the channel and channel infrastructure to the CFO on a regular basis. “The famous Jack Welch of GE always said, ‘In God, we trust. Everyone else brings numbers’ – and that is absolutely true for the channel,” he said.
- Faster recruiting: Growing fast – and growing in non-US geographies — makes partner recruitment a big motion with Smartsheet’s channel team. “Being able to show partners the portal and its sales and marketing functions helps show them how well they will be supported,” said Stewart, adding that having a portal in local languages, especially in France and Germany, helps partners know they are going to be supported in their own language and adds credibility to the program.
- A clear view of which partners and regions are adding the most value: With Impartner PRM, Stewart says the portal and the deal registration process helps him show which deals are partner-led and which ones partners have collaborated on, so he knows 24/7 which partners are delivering the most value, by country — and he can adjust investments accordingly.
- The ability to map channel team structure based on data: To really understand how the Channel Account Manager structure should be organized, Steward said, “We needed a better line of sight to where we have the opportunity and maybe where we need more coverage – or less. Impartner PRM provides us with that data to be able to manage that coverage.”
- Brand protection at scale: “All partners want to co-brand but we want to make sure that our brand is being treated properly worldwide,” said Stewart. Impartner PRM ensures they have a co-brandable tool that provides guidelines and structures to help partners work in multiple geographies and expand their marketing reach – protecting their brand at the same time.
- Accelerated partner productivity: Getting partners ramped to profitability is key – and sales enablement is critical to Smartsheet’s ability to do that. Stewart said that is especially true outside of English-speaking countries where Smartsheet is not heavily implementing demand gen and awareness campaigns. Partners in those markets must be able to execute marketing campaigns, and Impartner PRM is critical to extending the company’s campaigns in real-time. “We continually put new campaigns up and we take ones down that have stopped converting,” said Stewart, helping ensure their partners have the same powerful sales enablement tools as their direct sales team and are fully armed to market to different personas, overcome objections and have strong competitive messaging. Plus, Stewart, said that by having data on which assets perform better than others, it’s easier to make data-driven decisions about what works vs., what doesn’t, given cultural differences in each region.
Sum total, Stewart says Smartsheet’s early investment in ImpartnerPRM has helped the company accelerate the growth of its channel against other emerging players. “Walking into an organization as I did three months ago where all this was actually built was fantastic because I could pull credible, believable data out,” he said.
To find out how Impartner can help your emerging company turn its channel into a strategic competitive advantage, click here for a demo.
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]]>Salt Lake City – May 21, 2019 – Impartner, one of the world’s fastest-selling and most-award winning Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solutions, announced today, for the second year in a row, it has been named a 2019 Red Herring Top 100 North America winner at Red Herring’s annual awards event. The awards recognize the continent’s most exciting and innovative private technology companies and are chosen from thousands of entrants. Companies were judged by industry experts, insiders and journalists on a wide variety of criteria including financial performance, innovation, business strategy, and market penetration, and include winners from a host of verticals including FinTech, marketing, security, IoT, and many more. Brands such as Alibaba, Google, Kakao, Skype, Spotify, Twitter and YouTube have all been singled out in Red Herring’s storied history.
“This year’s crop of 100 winners has been among our most intriguing yet,” said Red Herring Chairman Alex Vieux. “North America has led the way in tech for so many years, and to see such unique, pioneering entrepreneurs and companies has been a thrilling experience. Impartner should be proud of its achievement.”
“For more than 20 years, Red Herring editors have built a reputation for cutting through the hype and picking companies that will continue on a trajectory to success, and we’re incredibly honored to receive this recognition for the second year in a row,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “This award is ongoing validation of the power of PRM to transform indirect sales, which is typically 75 percent or more of a company’s revenue – and is why we repeatedly hear from industry analysts that Impartner is the next Marketo – another powerful testament for this transformative technology and the work by our Impartner teams worldwide.”
Ongoing momentum
The recognition comes as Impartner continues an exponential growth streak that’s driven by an ever-increasing slate of customer wins from Fortune 100 corporations in multiple verticals from tech, to manufacturing to oil and gas, to FinTech. Top logos include Autodesk, CommScope, Fortinet, JDA and Smartsheet, all of which recently presented at the company’s annual customer conference, which is now the largest gathering of channel chiefs worldwide. Global customer studies of the power of Impartner’s PRM channel management software show an average increase of 31 percent a year in channel revenue and a 23 percent decrease in administrative costs.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>Salt Lake City – May 3, 2019 – Impartner, the world’s best-selling pure-play Partner Relationship Management solution today announced the winners of its fourth annual customer awards, which were presented at ImpartnerCON19, the company’s annual global customer and channel management summit. The theme for this year’s conference, which is now the largest conference of channel chiefs in the industry, was Elevate, with the focus being on helping companies prepare for 2020 and the decade beyond. Following are the winners of this year’s Impartner Elevate Awards, which are presented to companies setting the pace for channel operations:
- Autodesk: For pushing the boundaries of personalized channel communications in eight languages using Impartner’s News on Demand solution.
- Avigilon/Motorola: For innovation in CPQ functionality for partners and spectacular growth in partner engagement.
- CommScope: For completely transforming their CRM and PRM solutions simultaneously and in record time, and at the same time, delivering an innovative, ground-breaking partner experience.
- Finastra: For pioneering use of PRM in the fast-growing fintech industry.
- McAfee: For a rapid, streamlined, efficient implementation of a PRM solution, despite the complexities of a major organization.
- Poly: For nimbleness in the transformation of the company’s channel management solution, all while integrating a major acquisition.
- T-Mobile: For the creation of a unique partner and distribution experience to enable an unparalleled, more comprehensive market presence.
At the event, Impartner also presented its first Partner of the Year Award to AchieveUnite, for being the company’s highest producing referral partner.
The 4th annual conference comes as Impartner continues a growth streak that’s driven by an ever-increasing slate of customer wins from Fortune 100 corporations in multiple verticals from tech, to manufacturing, to oil and gas, to fintech, all of which has resulted in a 10x growth in new customer logos in the same four-year time period. During the conference, the company also announced a new collaboration with Microsoft to accelerate direct and indirect sales by co-marketing and co-selling Impartner PRM and Microsoft Dynamics 365.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>Impartner launches Partner Relationship Management technology specifically tailored for quick, easy integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Salt Lake City – May 2, 2019 – Impartner, one of the best-selling, most-award winning Partner Relationship Management (PRM) providers, today announced a collaboration with Microsoft to offer an integrated technology solution to help customers accelerate both direct and indirect sales from within a single console. In support of the collaboration, Impartner is launching Impartner PRM for Microsoft Dynamics 365, which is specifically tailored to integrate tightly with Microsoft’s Customer Relationship Management solution at a native level and provide channel marketing and sales professionals with a clean, integrated master view of their channel success. With the solution, lead distribution, deal registration, cooperative marketing, partner onboarding, business analytics, and other tools required to successfully scale channel revenue all integrate simply and quickly into a common workspace. Microsoft will co-market and co-sell both solutions to Dynamics 365 customers and together with Impartner, ensure seamless support.
“Impartner has worked tirelessly to attain the level of market success we have seen to date,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “We couldn’t be more excited about this collaboration to better serve the tidal wave of demand we’ve seen from our customers, many of whom are embracing the power and flexibility of Microsoft Dynamics 365, and are looking for a proven joint solution that ensures they can be up and running quickly.”
“PRM solutions provide companies with a nerve center for managing and optimizing their channel sales ecosystem in the same way that CRM facilitates direct sales,” said Ariel Katz, General Manager of Dynamics 365 for Sales. “Impartner PRM provides scale for companies who increasingly turn to the indirect channel as the growth driver for their business. Impartner has developed integrations into Dynamics 365 to deliver an end-to-end solution that critically accelerates both direct and indirect sales.”
Smooth, rapid integration
Already, Microsoft System Integrator and Premier Gold Partner NuSoft is benefitting from Impartner’s new solution. “As a system integrator, solutions that are out-of-the-box and can be implemented quickly are what delivers the most value to our customers,” said Nick Trotta, a systems implementation lead at NuSoft. “That’s certainly the case with Impartner PRM, which we’ve recently implemented for a major communications infrastructure company. We were under an incredibly tight deadline to help this company migrate from their existing CRM to Microsoft’s solution and bring in a new PRM solution at the same time – and we could not miss the deadline at the risk of a major financial penalty to our client. With Impartner, we were able to stand up the solution quickly with a combination of out-of-the-box features which required no customization, and also had flexibility to customize where necessary to address some specific needs of our client.”
The newly released integration between Impartner and Microsoft enables sales teams to:
- Manage indirect sales with the same level of insight and scrutiny that they traditionally manage direct sales. Rather than relying on “quarterly business reviews,” channel sales teams and their indirect sales partners can communicate and pass critical deal information back and forth through the portal on a 24×7 basis, cracking open the “black box” of channel sales and removing the surprise of revenue production (or the lack thereof) from the indirect channel. Customers can see their pipeline with great insight and clarity, and report and manage it with the same suite of Dynamics 365 tools they use to manage direct sales.
- Provide indirect sales partners a single login experience. Impartner makes it easy for partners to register deals, access leads and opportunities, request and use cooperative marketing funds, and get updates on business goals and incentives — all through a perfectly personalized portal experience.
- Bring process and discipline to the indirect sales channel. Impartner provides a unified set of analytics and management tools that seamlessly align with the Microsoft suite of tools traditionally used to manage the direct sales channel.
To learn more about how the collaboration between Microsoft and Impartner offers new ways indirect sales teams to more effectively engage with partners, visit Impartner.com/Dynamics365
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Collaborates with Microsoft to Accelerate Direct and Indirect Sales; Co-market and Co-sell Solutions appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Fourth annual gathering now largest vendor-led event for channel chiefs worldwide, mirrors Impartner’s 10x growth in new customer logos in same time period
Headliners include analysts from top firms and customers outlining best practices using Impartner to drive revenue including Autodesk, CommScope, Fortinet, JDA and Smartsheet
Salt Lake City – April 26, 2019 –For the fourth year in a row, channel leaders from the world’s top corporations are flocking to Utah for ImpartnerCON19, the global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) pure-play leader’s annual customer and channel management summit. Speakers at the conference, which has quickly become a must-attend for channel chiefs worldwide, include keynotes from top analysts including Jay McBain, Forrester’s Principal Analyst covering Channel, Partnerships and Alliances, and customer presentations from leading corporations such as Autodesk, CommScope, Fortinet, JDA and Smartsheet.
“The momentous growth of this conference absolutely tracks with the revolution in channel management driven by technologies like Impartner PRM, which companies must embrace at the risk of peril for their businesses and their careers,” said Joe Wang, Impartner CEO. “Today’s channel leaders must possess a robust, contemporary combination of technological prowess and business acumen that’s powerful enough to keep up with the pace of change and increasing complexity in today’s market. This conference is 100 percent focused on helping our customers tackle those challenges, be ready to conquer 2020 and the new decade beyond, and maximize the indirect sales opportunity.”
This momentum in the market tracks with insights from Forrester’s McBain. “The third stage of sales and marketing transformation will be anchored around effective partner relationship management and through-channel marketing automation,” wrote McBain in a recent Forrester blog post. “With 75 percent of world trade flowing indirectly, brands are starting to invest in their indirect channels, partnerships, and alliances at the same level.”
Informa Tech Editor T.C. Doyle has attended the conference since its inception and has observed the astounding growth firsthand. “Seeing yet another Utah company ascend in the market and so quickly create a conference that’s now drawing the kingpins of the channel to discuss channel strategy for the next decade is a testament to the value Impartner delivers to its customers.”
Fourth-time attendee Sherman Tam, head of enterprise partner marketing for Data Center Systems at Western Digital, confirms the value of the conference. “If there’s one event I go to each year, it’s ImpartnerCON,” said Tam. “As a channel leader, I have access to attend a host of conferences throughout this year, and ImpartnerCON is the one I can’t miss because it’s not just attended by IT leaders. It brings together channel leaders from different industries and top analysts to exchange best practices. There is no other conference that provides direct access to such a broad range of channel professionals.”
The conference comes as Impartner continues a growth streak that’s driven by an ever-increasing slate of customer wins from Fortune 100 corporations in multiple verticals from tech, to manufacturing to oil and gas, to fintech. Global customer studies of the power of Impartner’s PRM channel management software show an average increase of 31 percent a year in channel revenue and a 23 percent decrease in administrative costs.
For more information about ImpartnerCON, including presentations by SiriusDecisions, Forrester, and the 2112 Group and CRN Magazine’s sponsorship of a Women of the Channel reception during the event, click here. To learn more about how Impartner can accelerate your indirect revenue, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post How to Win Deals and Influence Partners appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Blog Series: The Old Man and the Channel – with Olivier Choron, Managing Director EMEA, Impartner
Part 5: Should I bother with the small fishes?
As an organization, your goal is to stand out from the crowd and offer something no-one else does. When it comes to your channel, with your competitors also fighting to gain mindshare, you need to keep your partners interested and involved at all time!
Instead of – like Santiago – focusing on the ONE big fish and failing, shouldn’t you plan to catch many small fishes and spread your risk? But how do you ramp up your channel activities for 10,000+ partners? How do you manage tiers 2, 3 and 4 resellers across the globe? Can you manage the so-called “unmanaged partners”?
You cannot ignore them!
Before you say “I don’t need such a channel”, remember that your channel is there to open new opportunities for you, whether in terms of new geographies, new horizontal markets or new industries. You cannot ignore the need to set-up such a large-volume channel. The need may not materialize for several years, but trust me, you will have to face this challenge at some point in your career!
This group of partners will, one day, form the majority of your channel. Each will represent a tiny amount of business, but cumulatively, they will be your main source of income. They will also command how you are perceived – globally; they will be your voice and your feet on the ground.
What to expect?
These partners will typically be small (in revenue and team size) but will command the attention of their end-users in THEIR market(s). They will work with many other vendors and not be able to commit to just YOU. They will be difficult to find, as there are SO MANY and difficult to communicate and engage with, as their business is their FIRST priority. They will also have NO marketing resources, which will become a challenge for your through-partner marketing plans.
Are they really “un-manageable”?
The answer is a clear ‘NO’! You can definitively manage these partners and see some great returns, as long as you set your expectations correctly and focus your efforts on ‘relevance’ and ‘automation/ efficiency’.
You will need to automate and streamline all the processes you currently have in place (for your direct partners). You will need to think about the cost-effectiveness of all your programs. You will have to tailor everything by regions or even countries. You will have to translate and localize everything.
You will also need to expect less commitment, fewer sales, and marketing engagement, and smaller campaign ROIs for each partner (remember that’s it’s the total mass of these partners that will make you win).
How do you influence these partners?
You could tap your distributors or other ‘influencers’ for help and promote your brand, communicate your messages, and provide some sales, marketing, and technical support.
Whilst these options can and often do work to some degree, you are not in full control of what others do for you, and essentially you are delaying the inevitable. You need a ‘plan for today’ strategy. In other words, you should focus on these partners and ‘up a gear’ to be more proactive in delivering programs that turn these ‘unmanaged’ partners into ones you can ‘manage’ to achieve the success you desire.
Action 1: The Partner Program
An effective Partner Program is the first key step to success. You need to put in place an effective framework within which to formalize your partner proposition and to manage your partners – and not just your ‘top’ partners, but the hundreds or thousands of smaller resellers that desperately need some form of formal relationship with you.
Avoid falling into the trap, however, of believing that a partner program with lots of tiers and different levels of benefits will solve all of your problems. Only differentiate by tiers if you absolutely need to, promise only what you can deliver and above all, keep it simple to minimize the administration and management of your partner program.
Action 2: Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Systems
To be cost-effective, when it comes to managing these partners, you will need to automate as many processes as you have and require. You will need workflows and email notifications that replicate – electronically – what you do today with your tier 1 partners – face-to-face.
To do all this, you will require a Partner Relationship Management (PRM) system to not only run your partner portal from but also “enable” your partner relationships. I could spend hours discussing this, but have a look at the Impartner PRM ‘stack’ of modules. This should show you how extensive we can be and how much you should be able to do!
Action 3: Data
As channels proliferate and more specialized partners emerge, you need to really ‘get under the skin’ of your partners to build closer relationships and to create a best-fit match of partners to your portfolio.
In other words, don’t just gather a business name and address. Instead, obtain and manage contact data on your partners’ key decision-makers including their sales and technical teams. There are huge benefits to be gained by building information intelligence about your partners, such as: Which vertical markets do they specialize in? What size of business do they service best? What other vendors do they partner with to create turn-key solutions?
With this information on tap, you can speak in their language and optimize your ‘pitch’ from all angles – be it in person or through your marketing communications. But it goes beyond communications. One often-ignored aspect is your partner locator. If you are selling to Small and Medium-sized Businesses, it’s likely that only these tier 2, 3 and 4 partners are the only ones you can refer… and how can you refer people you don’t know?
Action 4: Communications
Assuming you have solved your partner data intelligence issues, it should now be relatively easy to deliver segmented and tailored marketing communications to your partners. This is critical; they have little time to spend with you, so you need to make absolutely sure that they ONLY receive the news they want and that are appropriate to them.
I am very biased but have a look at Impartner’s News on Demand; such innovative solutions will help you deliver 100% targeted and 100% personalized content to every single recipient. You’ll also save money on managing multiple, multi-lingual communications, whilst retaining control over your communications in different countries.
Action 5: Training and certifications
Training is often considered as the ‘first’ step into the partner program for tier 1 partners, yet is often overlooked for tier 2, 3 and 4 partners. But, it is particularly important to have a training process in place as part of the partner program and to make sure that they are trained before acknowledging them as a partner – otherwise, you will have to deal with many dissatisfied customers!
Using your partner program as the vehicle, offer a zero-cost training syllabus to your lower tiers, with sales and technical tracks available together with online tests and webinars. Achievement of a ‘mini-certification’, i.e. partners that have passed tests, should result in additional benefits for these partners such as an advanced tier level, improved listings on your partner locator or deal registration access to the business.
Action 6: Sales support
Ask any tier 3 or 4 partners what their biggest bugbear is when dealing with vendors and you’re more than likely to hear the answer of ‘inaccessible’ or ‘unresponsive’.
The most successful vendors are those that treat partners truly as customers, not just a route to customers. Your focus should be on delivering great customer service to those partners through an account management function (even if this is inside sales-based) and on providing a solid process for handling inbound requests.
Should you in-source or outsource your partner help facility? If you’ve got hundreds or thousands of partners in multiple countries, chances are that you will receive a plethora of diverse in-bound partner queries. Whatever route you choose, you need to give your partners the very best technical and sales support by filtering and answering queries in a timely and accurate manner.
Action 7: Sales and marketing programs that work
Delivering sales and marketing programs for your tier 3 and 4 partners that really work (and assume that many won’t!) is key to your success. To make programs succeed, they need to be strategic, kept simple, measurable and enforceable.
Sales and marketing programs that work for tier 3 and 4 partners include deal registration, lead generation, license renewal management and market development funds/co-marketing.
Action 8: Incentives and loyalty
Partner loyalty programs are a critical part of managing partners. Much like a partner program, a loyalty scheme is often mistakenly seen as a must-have ‘tick the box’ type activity as opposed to a strategic marketing tool that can drive your partners’ behavior exactly in the direction you want. I think you should incentivize and reward your partners – and preferably those who will close the deals for you! Not only will this give them something for them to think about you, but it will also give you extra reasons to get in touch with you and be top of their minds!
Action 9: Recruitment
Once all this is in place, it’s time to recruit those tier 3 and 4 resellers you need. You need to be able to provide answers to the following questions; Who – what sort of partners do you want?; Where – in what geographical locations?; What – what skills, experience or other attributes should they have?; Why – what is the reason they should be interested?; How – what will be the recruitment process?; Numbers – how many are needed?
Answering these questions will provide the basic groundwork to form the basis of a coherent recruitment program. It will also dictate where you get lists of potential partners, how you should recruit them and what event you need to attend or organize to ‘meet them’.
You will need to write your partner proposition, write your recruitment emails, create your telemarketing scripts, produce show banners and get ready to recruit partners!
Summary: you CAN manage these ‘unmanaged partners’ and succeed
If you do the right things (at the right time and at the right cost – for you), if you humanize your programs (to meet the need of these 10,000+ individuals), if you allow your partners to get what they need (when they need it), you will discover some gems and some very manageable partners!
About the author
Olivier Choron joined Impartner in June 2018 when Impartner acquired Tremolo Software. Olivier was the CEO and Founder at Tremolo, the provider of News on Demand and Social on Demand products, which have now been added to the unique Impartner PRM portfolio. He is currently the Managing Director for EMEA.
With 25+ years of channel marketing expertise, gained in Europe and in the US, at companies such as 3Com and Nortel Networks, Olivier is a well-recognized figure in the channel. Having also run a channel marketing services firm for 12 years in the UK, Olivier has advised many organizations on how to best structure their channel programs and how to best enable their partners, including Adobe, Vodafone, Trend Micro, Zyxel, and Samsung, among others.
Olivier holds a ‘Diplôme d’Ingénieur’ in computer science from the ENSI de Caen (France), and a master’s degree in electronic engineering from the University of Kent (UK).
The post How to Win Deals and Influence Partners appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Close collaboration between the business unit buyer and IT teams helped the company choose Impartner as the solution best suited to integrate with existing technologies and power efficient, scalable channel growth
Salt Lake City – March 5, 2019 – When customer service and engagement software leader and long-time investor favorite, Zendesk set out to find a new technology solution to power its channel operations, one thing was clear from the beginning: a close collaboration between the business unit buyers and IT would be key to choosing the technology best suited to integrate with the company’s existing technology stack and power the growth of their already global network of channel partners. In a new video case study released today, Zendesk’s John Sampson, director of channel marketing, and Alana Hill, IT manager of marketing applications, detailed the company’s choice of Impartner, the industry’s best selling, most award-winning pure play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, as the system of record to manage their channel.
“We focus on the partner experience first, so we wanted a solution that could allow us to not only provide a great experience for our global network of partners and the people that were interacting with us through our partner portal, but also a great platform for our sales and marketing people to collaborate and engage with partners in a way that was scalable and efficient,” said Sampson. “In conducting the technology search, we were looking for a better way to get good opportunity information from our partners and then make that information available to our salespeople and marketing people working with those partners to drive the sales cycle and ultimately close deals.”
Hill says all options were considered in choosing a solution, including those from their existing CRM vendor and also the option to build a solution in house. “Development can be very expensive, and the question always needs to be, ‘Does it make sense to choose a company that understands that market and has built out a solution that is based off best practices, or does it make sense for us to try to develop something in-house based off the knowledge we currently have?’ In the end, we decided to go with Impartner and not built it ourselves, as we felt it would not be the best use of our resources, it would have taken us longer, and would not result in something that would enable us to the scale to the point we needed.”
In choosing Impartner, Sampson said, “We looked at a lot of different point solutions and found it was to our advantage to consolidate with one solution provider that offered all functionality on one platform. Impartner’s integration with our CRM, coupled with its capabilities to communicate with partners and provide a partner experience through the partner portal that was consistent with our own brand and look was really a great match for us. And now, everybody’s working off the same record and the same data and ultimately getting better engagement from both end customers – as well as partners and our own internal people – to drive the sales cycle forward and ultimately close deals.”
The result is also a win for the IT team. “As an IT organization, we really appreciated Impartner’s ability to integrate with our existing tool stack and how they have listened to our needs and impact how we can meet our partners’ needs worldwide,” said Hill. “We were able to provide a fully functioning portal that extended to our international partner network. We were able to effectively leverage the integration to display the kind of metrics and reporting data that was essential to our business partners and within the organization.”
“We are fortunate to work with some of the world’s leading corporations, and time and time again, when we see the kind of collaboration between the business unit buyer and their IT team in making the purchase decision from the very beginning, it is always a smoother, faster process at every level,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner CMO. “It’s a powerful combination of talent and it’s no surprise Zendesk is growing so quickly. We’re proud to have them as part of our amazing customer base.”
To learn more about Zendesk’s choice and implementation of Impartner PRM, click here for the full video case study. For a demo of what Impartner can do to help you accelerate your channel an average of 31 percent a year in the first year of use alone, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Customer Service and Engagement Leader Zendesk Powers Channel with Impartner appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>The post 3 Ways to Ensure Your Partners are Getting the ‘Right’ Content appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Blog Series: The Old Man and the Channel – with Olivier Choron, Managing Director EMEA, Impartner
Part 4: I am the best fisherman around; who should I tell?
Preface:
I often see my customers struggling to write good content on their partner newsletters, e-shots, and portals. Having done it myself for many years, I must admit it’s a tough job and it’s so easy to get it all wrong. Here are 3 issues to consider together with a few tips on how to make sure partners really get the ‘right stuff’, at the ‘right time’ and ‘just for them’.
Consideration # 1: The 80-20 rule
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but only 20% of your partners will truly be interested in what you say. Whatever your channel strategy, whatever programs you put in place, whatever tools you provide, I have seen it time and time again: only 20% of your partners will be engaged with your brand. These are the few for whom you are important and for whom you represent a nice chunky part of their business. You may be lucky and be in a market where mono-brand-supporting partners are the norm but for most of us, this is not and will never be the case!
Consideration #2: You are one of many
For all partners, even your top 20%, you must remember that you are not the only vendor they work with at any given time. They have other hardware and software suppliers they also deal with on a daily basis. Some research firms indicate that a ‘typical partner’ can deal with 18 vendors regularly. You are only part of one solution, and they may have multiple customer propositions themselves. So, for them, your news is not THAT critical; it is part of everything else they do, and (sadly for you) what they do themselves is more critical to their business…
Consideration #3: Partners cannot be bundled as ‘one group’
A typical mistake we – marketers – are guilty of, is assuming that our ‘typical partners’ speak the same language. We conveniently assume, for the sake of making our programs and emails easy and cost-effective, that they are all very technical and care about our technical news. We forget that many are in sales or marketing or procurement functions. So, typically, we don’t tailor our messages to each of these audiences and instead create one news-for-all.
There are several other considerations to take in account – if you have different product lines or if you serve very different vertical/ horizontal markets, then not all your partners will want to ‘follow’ these or be informed about these. If you are working globally, you will also need to tailor your news to your local markets – yes, people don’t react to the same content tone/ approach.
You get the gist…communicating with channel partners isn’t a job for the faint hearted! So, let me help you; here are a few things you can do to drive partner readership of and engagement with your communications.
Tip #1: Really Smart Tools
I will start with something which no one wants to talk about. There are partner portals and communications platforms that can really help. I will blow my own trumpet by saying that our own Impartner News on Demand communications platform and our own Impartner PRM solution (especially our smart asset library) can give your partners the ability to select what they want to follow/ hear about. By giving them the choice to opt in or out of certain content (especially if you organize this by product line, vertical and/or horizontal segments), you will guarantee better engagement/ readership levels.
Tip #2: There is Only ONE Story
All I hear about these days is ‘content stories’. People believe they have to create stories to sell the news. It is quite true, of course, but when you are dealing with channel partners, there really should only be one story – how your organization will make theirs more profitable! Everything else should support this story. So, don’t try and be too creative, stick to the one story and make sure everything you do and communicate is about that! Changing stories would be like changing value propositions… it will bring confusion!
Tip #3: Simple Writing
Because most of us don’t have the resources, budgets or tools to send a different copy (of the same announcement) to different audiences, whether they are in management, sales, technical or marketing functions, we are left with having to create ‘one style fits all’ content. If this is the case, make sure it is clear, concise, and can be read and understood in 30 seconds, by everyone. Most partners don’t have the time to read lengthy content.
Tip #4: Catch Their Attention
Make your email title meaningful – it’s for 100% of your partners; make your news articles very brief (and clear) – and I mean 3 lines, maximum. If we can do it in 140 characters on Twitter, let’s try to do it in our newsletters too! Make sure, however, your top 20% of partners also get what they want– the full news by adding a link to ‘read more’ to enable those who are interested. Don’t try to squeeze all the news in your newsletters.
Tip #5: Make Your Newsletters News-Worthy
There is no point in communicating about old news, simply because you missed your last deadline or because you need ‘space-fillers’. Keep to current items. Sadly, because most of us still rely on ‘monthly newsletter schedules’, we tend to spend a lot of time collecting news, organizing, translating and sending it. By the time the newsletters are sent out, the news items are old and it’s very likely your partners have seen or heard of the news elsewhere. This will not help you achieve great results!
Tip #6: Illustrate Your News but Don’t Go Overboard!
Images should not be used to lighten the newsletters or make them pretty. Space in an email or newsletter is worth gold. Use images to add value and priority to your copy. Make them tell the story. Your partners will see them first. Images should grab their attention much faster than the text you write beneath or around it. So, don’t include one image/ icon for each news item, but focus on key news and develop your few images around them.
Tip #7: CTAs that Work
Some news articles will not require action, but these should be few. Most news items should require your partners to do something – check more details, register for an event, view a file or research report. Make sure your Call to Actions (CTAs) are clear and obvious. You don’t want to lose your partners through their journey.
Tip #8: Think About Responsive Designs
We can no longer ignore mobile devices; in fact, you need to assume that your news is likely to be read on some mobile device of some sort. Your email or newsletter design must be constructed to render best on these devices, as the first priority!
Finally, an email or newsletter should be 600pixel wide; that’s the norm! Don’t use bullet points; they are likely to break your HTML. Don’t use multiple fonts or font sizes; it will be confusing and messy.
So, that’s it…just a few tips from me. I hope they help. If you would like to discuss these or bounce around some ideas, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
About the author
Olivier Choron joined Impartner in June 2018 when Impartner acquired Tremolo Software. Olivier was the CEO and Founder at Tremolo, the provider of News on Demand and Social on Demand products, which have now been added to the unique Impartner PRM portfolio. He is currently the Managing Director for EMEA.
With 25+ years of channel marketing expertise, gained in Europe and in the US, at companies such as 3Com and Nortel Networks, Olivier is a well-recognized figure in the channel. Having also run a channel marketing services firm for 12 years in the UK, Olivier has advised many organizations on how to best structure their channel programs and how to best enable their partners, including Adobe, Vodafone, Trend Micro, Zyxel, and Samsung, among others.
Olivier holds a ‘Diplôme d’Ingénieur’ in computer science from the ENSI de Caen (France), and a master’s degree in electronic engineering from the University of Kent (UK).
The post 3 Ways to Ensure Your Partners are Getting the ‘Right’ Content appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>The post How to Recruit Partners and Keep Them Around appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Blog Series: The Old Man and the Channel – with Olivier Choron, Managing Director EMEA, Impartner
Part 3: I Caught My Fish…Now What?
What’s Next?:
If you recruit a partner and stop there, you may face the same problem as Santiago! He netted his dream fish but didn’t plan ahead and lost it to the elements (and other fishes – Santiago’s competitors). For you, you will have spent a huge amount of effort and resources to recruit your partner but will lose it immediately to your competitors.
Let’s Define the Word ‘Recruiting’
When clients tell me they have recruited partners, I always ask the question ‘in what?’ and they look at me, puzzled. Most think about it and say ‘in my portal’, some say ‘in my partner program’… none say ‘in my proposition’.
Recruiting a partner should go beyond having them registering on your portal or signing your agreement. For them, this is typically a big step; it means they want to join your ‘world’ and work with you; your partner proposition makes sense to them and they agree that selling your products – alone – is not enough. They want more!
Remember, your partners may have done a lot of research and work before they contacted you and registered or signed that contract. They may have spoken to other partners; they may have read your Partner Program brochure; they may have spoken to your sales team and attended one of your events.
Essentially, they are committing to spending some time and effort with you. Are you ready?
This is Step 1; What’s Next?
You now have partners; they have access to some channel account managers, discounts, assets, funds, activities, incentives and, of course, your partner portal. What’s next?
You need to first onboard your partners fully into their respective programs and make sure they stay engaged. How do you do this?
You need to think about all the different partners, their strengths, weaknesses, and needs. This is what you have (or should have) done when you put together your Partner Program. You have (or should have) analyzed your current and desired partner landscape. You have (or should have) laid out a matrix of requirements and benefits for each type of partners you are working or want to work with.
Next, you need to automate these programs and the best way is via your Partner Relationship Management (PRM) system. Note, I didn’t say your ‘partner portal’. Portals are only the visible tip of the whole partner systems you need to put in place to, among others, ensure the relevant training, asset delivery, and co-marketing processes are delivered for the right partners at the right times.
With or Without PRM?
One way or another, for each new partner, you need to have a roadmap of activities that both parties (you and the new partner) need to walk through. In one word, you need processes! Sadly, it gets complex very soon; not only do you have to consider your products and their diverse routes to market, but you also have to consider your local market characteristics, and the persona (at the partner level) you need to work with.
Does Excel work? Of course, it does… but it won’t for long! Keeping tab of who has done what, what needs to happen next and how this affects each partner user, is a tricky thing to do… PRM solutions have been engineered to solve these challenges. For any user, based on what they sell, what type of partners they are, where they are, you can create different journeys, with different outcomes.
The Desired End Results
Ultimately, you want your partners to be ‘fully onboarded’ a few weeks after they have joined your program. This means they should discover and learn about your program(s), tools, incentives, training and certification requirements (and benefits). Ideally, you will take a personalized/ persona-based approach and have arranged a sequence of emails, training sessions, in-portal notifications to fit the needs of each of your partners, based on their job roles and interests.
For best results, you may want to put in place a 30-, 60- and 90-days approach to coincide what you expect your partner to be able to do after 30, 60 and 90 days. Remember, there is a lot to learn and these partners don’t have much time!
Whatever approach you choose, this has to be personalized and it has to meet your users’ needs. These are very complex processes and will require many workflows, and emails. Do spend the time thinking about the whole ‘learning cycle’ your partners will have to go through, but do not make too many ‘assumptions’ when creating these processes.
Is This It?
Of course not! The same way you have onboarded your partners, you need to keep them informed and continue (forever) the process of making sure your partners stay engaged with you… You will need to communicate regularly (and we suggest in a ‘personalized manner’) with your partners and create more action-to-result-based workflows that can last for the duration of their relationship with you.
Application Tactics:
- Your Partner Proposition: This is what your partners are buying when they register on your partner portal. Make sure it’s relevant and enticing. They are not buying ‘portal access’!
- Think About Your Audience: What do your large System Integrators or Service Providers want and need? What do your small resellers and dealers want and need? Think about them when you put your Partner Program together.
- Recruiting Partners is Important: Of course, it is, but sending one email to say they now have access to the portal is not enough. Don’t assume your partners will visit your portal and do everything you want them to do!
- Onboarding and Enabling Your Partners is Even More Critical: Instead, put together a 30-, 60-, 90-day communication, onboarding and enablement plan, so your partners have a great initial discovery journey with you.
- Use Personas, With Care: It’s critical you put yourself in the shoes of the individuals who join your Partner Program, whether they are in Management, Sales, Marketing or Technical roles, but don’t assume too much. The more assumptions you make about that these personas’ want and need, the more likely you will fail. Instead, let people decide – themselves – what they want and what they need. Make your programs and activities easily searchable.
- Implement a Smart and Contemporary PRM Solution: To support your partners through their journey with you and to help you manage the many processes and workflows you need to deliver on that journey, it’s crucial you can leverage the power of a state-of-the-art PRM solution, like Impartner PRM. Our research shows that using Impartner PRM, our customers have increased their channel revenue by 31%, sped their partner productivity ramp time by 37% and increased their partner engagement by 53% (source: A CFO’s Business Case for PRM).
About the author
Olivier Choron joined Impartner in June 2018 when Impartner acquired Tremolo Software. Olivier was the CEO and Founder at Tremolo, the provider of News on Demand and Social on Demand products, which have now been added to the unique Impartner PRM portfolio. He is currently the Managing Director for EMEA.
With 25+ years of channel marketing expertise, gained in Europe and in the US, at companies such as 3Com and Nortel Networks, Olivier is a well-recognized figure in the channel. Having also run a channel marketing services firm for 12 years in the UK, Olivier has advised many organizations on how to best structure their channel programs and how to best enable their partners, including Adobe, Vodafone, Trend Micro, Zyxel, and Samsung, among others.
Olivier holds a ‘Diplôme d’Ingénieur’ in computer science from the ENSI de Caen (France), and a master’s degree in electronic engineering from the University of Kent (UK).
The post How to Recruit Partners and Keep Them Around appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Indirect sales channel key to amplifying growth, maintaining first-mover advantage says bold new eBook from top channel strategy firm
Salt Lake City – December 19, 2018–While it may seem like there is enough wind in the sails of the SaaS market to power even those boats without a strong go-to-market strategy, in reality, companies who embrace both a direct and an indirect sales channel will outpace those who focus only on direct sales. This proclamation comes with the release of a new eBook, “The 555: Why a Channel is Critical to Your SaaS Company,” from a top channel strategy firm AchieveUnite. In the book, sponsored by Partner Relationship Management (PRM) pure-play technology leader, Impartner, AchieveUnite outlines the five reasons a SaaS channel is a go-to-market must, five reasons it’s different, and five things companies must do to stay ahead of the competition. A complimentary copy is available for download here.
“SaaS businesses are here to stay and growing rapidly and, according to Gartner, expecting to top $73B in revenue this year,” said AchieveUnite CEO Theresa Caragol. “If you have any doubt about that number, companies need look no further than their own tech stack. SaaS applications are prolific. From top applications like Box and Slack to up-and-coming tools like AppCues and Proov, the common denominator is growth. Most SaaS companies are reaching for growth rates of 40 percent or higher, but they can’t go it alone. Aggressive SaaS companies need partners to be seen as future-proofed service providers.”
However, Caragol continued the question for most SaaS companies is where the channel fits in a direct-to-paid subscription model. “The answer is simple – everywhere,” she stresses. “Partners amplify growth, attract buyers, fill product gaps, drive increased value and validate your solution. However, a SaaS channel IS different, and the eBook is 100 percent focused on explaining how to design an optimum SaaS market revenue strategy.”
“Whether or not to choose indirect sales as a go-to-market path is a core discussion we are having with SaaS companies around the world, who are struggling to define what is essentially a new world order when it comes to the channel,” said Dave R Taylor, CMO of Impartner. “We couldn’t be more thrilled to help bring this eBook and this conversation to life with an organization like AchieveUnite, whose leadership represents deep channel DNA and experience with market-leading corporations such as IBM, Ciena, Extreme Networks and Progress Software.”
To learn more, click here for a complimentary copy of the eBook. If you’re a SaaS company looking to get started on building your channel, click below for more information on AchieveUnite’s new Channel Acceleration Bootcamp.
About AchieveUnite
AchieveUnite is dedicated to helping high-tech vendors and service providers achieve measurable growth by delivering state-of-the-art partner performance programs. AchieveUnite works with companies at all stages of channel development, helping them create and execute the best channel strategy possible for their organizations and improve their vendor/partner relationships. AchieveUnite also develops individual and organizational skills within the business by delivering advanced thought leadership and research that helps future-proof the company. Schedule a no-obligation assessment and learn more at achieveunite.com.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Despite Staggering 2019 Growth Projections, SaaS Companies Risk Being Left Behind Without Diverse Go-to-Market Strategy appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Secure edge leader StackPath provides additional tools for partners
Salt Lake City – December 18, 2018–Global pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner announced today, secure edge platform provider, StackPath, has chosen Impartner PRM as the system of record to power its channel. StackPath, whose customers range from early-state enterprises to Fortune 100 organizations, joins Impartner’s fast-growing portfolio of security customers including Fortinet, Cambium Networks and LogRhythm who have turned to the company’s best-selling, multi-award winning PRM solution to take their channel performance to the next level.
“At StackPath, we are completely committed to the channel and providing them with the tools, collateral, and tracking they need to be successful,” said Marissa Bybee, director of StackPath channel sales. “The features and functionality of a PRM are as critical to the channel as a CRM is to a direct sales team, and we want to provide the best to our partners, which is Impartner PRM.”
StackPath’s use of PRM is on the front edge of leading corporations everywhere, not just in security. In a recent blog post by Forrester’s Principal Analyst, Global Channels Jay McBain, “Partner Relationship Management Comes Of Age,” he wrote, “The PRM market is growing because more executive teams, as well as channel, marketing, and sales professionals, are recognizing the impact of third-party influencers in getting to new buyers. They are placing trust in PRM providers to act as strategic partners, allowing them to broaden their reach and influence the partner journey in new ways.”
“We’re excited to have StackPath join the roster of leading security vendors turning to Impartner PRM to transform their partner experience into a critical differentiator, all with the confidence that we follow stringent security standards for the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Burp Suite security testing, and our SOC 2 certification,” said Impartner CMO Dave R Taylor.
To learn more about why Impartner is the choice of top corporations worldwide to accelerate their channel and has recently been named a PRM leader by Forrester Research “The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2018,” click here for a demo
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market, and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post StackPath Joins List of Top Network Security Corporations Who Trust Impartner PRM to Manage Their Channel Operations appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Impartner PRM helps remote support and access giant TeamViewer ramp new channel program from zero to more than 2,000 partners and 60 distributors in just over two years
Salt Lake City – December 13, 2018–TeamViewer, a remote support and remote access corporation, has been on a phenomenal growth track since launching in 2005 and is now the world’s No. 1 remote support solution with business in more than 180 countries. Until recently, that growth had been driven through direct sales. All that changed a little over two years, ago, when the company decided to add an indirect channel to further accelerate that growth – and turned to Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution as a foundational technology to help the company scale its partner business, which now has more than 2,000 channel partners and 60 distributors. A new video case study released today that details that journey is available here.
“TeamViewer had a phenomenal growth track record, but we never really focused on working with partners – and two-and-a-half years ago we changed that,” said Konstantin Ebert, TeamViewer vice president sales EMEA, APAC & Global Channels. “We knew it was important that we immediately find a way of managing those partners, working with them efficiently, and supporting that growth. We knew we had to find a way to make our partners’ lives easy and meet their needs, including deal registration and getting them the right sales and marketing assets.”
Working to find the best way to meet partner needs, drove the company to start a project to determine the classical make or buy position. “When we saw how easy Impartner could make things happen for the company and partners, how widely known their name was, and how fast they could help us scale – we went for it,” said Rajesh Nakarajan, TeamViewer director of sales.
The results since implementation have been tremendous. “The portal makes partners’ lives easier – every day they can simply visit the portal to see what’s coming up, if there’s any news, if there are any ongoing promos, or if there are any new functions that they need to implement for the end customer,” said Nakarajan. “It’s easy to understand, easy to implement, and easy to use. The growth from what we had before to now is tremendous. The one tool that fits everything is Impartner – get them on board.”
To watch the full video case study and learn more about how Impartner PRM has helped power the growth of TeamViewer’s partner program and see why the company has recently been named a leader in the “The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2018,” click here.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market, and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post TeamViewer Chooses Impartner as Foundational Technology to Power Channel Business appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>The post Why Channel Partners of All Sizes Matter appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Blog Series: The Old Man and the Channel – with Olivier Choron, Managing Director EMEA, Impartner
Part 2: Small or Big Fishes?
Small or Big Fishes:
Here is the question, “Should you focus your channel sales and marketing efforts on catching and retaining the big fish, or try to net as many small fishes as possible?” Over my numerous years in the channel, I have found many companies struggle with this and yo-yo constantly between one approach and to the other.
Is this a real problem? It’s actually not about whether or not to work with big and small channel partners. The difficulty is, companies find it a strain to support both types of partners in a cost-effective manner. This is because companies cannot align their sales and marketing support structures to meet the needs of these differing partner types.
Typically, sales organizations can cope well with this situation by employing Strategic Channel Account Managers for the most ‘significant partners’ and by sharing account management responsibilities across inside/telesales teams and even distributors for the smallest partners.
If an organization isn’t coping well with the different types of partners, they need to support their channel marketing organization. Marketers struggle to align their strategy and activities with these varying partners and tend to deliver the exact same programs for all audiences. Remember, there is typically not a channel marketing team responsible for the big partners and one for the smaller partners.
BIG Mistake!
Creating programs for the ‘big fish’ and trying to apply them to the other thousands of small partners (and vice-versa) does not and cannot work. It’s not only because these partners are different and want/ need different things, but it’s because the cost models to efficiently support them, at a marketing level, are different.
Your MDF programs also need to be different. Your co-branded campaigns, which may work well for well-engaged, highly-aligned-with-you, mono-brand-supporting partners, but will fall flat for the other small multi-brand-supporting partners you have. Your partner portal will have to present different options, menus, personas, and journeys. Your partner recruitment processes will have to include certain steps for partners and an entirely different set for the others.
Partners V. Activities
Going back to the initial question, it’s not about whether you should focus on small partners versus others, it’s all about focusing your marketing efforts on delivering effective and cost-efficient campaigns, tools and program that work for all sets of partners.
Aligning these campaigns to your respective revenue models and spending a little on each small fish, while using automation as far as possible, you will ultimately be able to spend more on each bigger fish and include some of the communication media you have just for them, i.e. your Strategic Channel Account Managers. Resulting in making sure our activities are cost-effective and targeted.
If you can separate campaigns and make sure they are aligned to each audience, then you can win that battle and deliver, at the right cost level for each audience, something that is meaningful and has a chance to succeed.
Don’t fall into Santiago’s trap and focus solely on hooking the big fish. It could lead to a substantial loss. Make sure you are ready to deal with the big fish, but also be prepared to catch small fishes.
Application Tactics:
- Narrow Your Audience: Establish what your large system integrators or service providers want and need. As well as, what do your small resellers and dealers want and need. Once you have made identified these, be sure to put them first.
- Create the Right Options: Find out what you have at your disposal to influence these different audiences and think about how your internal organizations manage and work with them. Are there internal teams you could leverage more effectively? What automated tools (portals, email marketing, content/ social/ web syndication platforms, etc.) do you have at your disposal?
- Plan Your Campaigns Per Audience: Map out what you need to do, and how you are going to deliver these campaigns for each audience. If your campaign doesn’t make sense for one audience, don’t include them in that campaign; this will only create background noise these partners really don’t need.
- Prepare for Audience Segmentation: Make sure your portal and communication platforms can deal with different audiences. This doesn’t mean you have to go down the individual ‘personas’ route, simply make sure you can create portal pages and send emails only to certain audiences versus others. Tools within Impartner PRM (i.e., segmentation functionality) and News on Demand (thanks to its targeting functionality) can help you achieve this!
- Word of Caution: Be sure not to overdo your segmentation. The more distinct audiences you have, the more work you will give yourself and the more the activity will cost, especially if you translate everything in multiple languages. We encourage you to balance relevance and targeting against workload, resources, and budgets.
About the author
Olivier Choron joined Impartner in June 2018 when Impartner acquired Tremolo Software. Olivier was the CEO and Founder at Tremolo, the provider of News on Demand and Social on Demand products, which have now been added to the unique Impartner PRM portfolio. He is currently the Managing Director for EMEA.
With 25+ years of channel marketing expertise, gained in Europe and in the US, at companies such as 3Com and Nortel Networks, Olivier is a well-recognized figure in the channel. Having also run a channel marketing services firm for 12 years in the UK, Olivier has advised many organizations on how to best structure their channel programs and how to best enable their partners, including Adobe, Vodafone, Trend Micro, Zyxel, and Samsung, among others.
Olivier holds a ‘Diplôme d’Ingénieur’ in computer science from the ENSI de Caen (France), and a master’s degree in electronic engineering from the University of Kent (UK).
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]]>The post How to Successfully Market Your Channel Program appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Blog Series: The Old Man and the Channel – with Olivier Choron, Managing Director EMEA, Impartner
Part 1: Build it and They Will Come!
Background:
After more than 20 years in the channel, I sometimes feel like Santiago, Ernest Hemingway’s hero, unlucky in my quest to get the big fish. For Santiago, this was taken literally, for me, it’s been all about getting the best from my channel program.
During my voyage, across the seas and within my programs, I have accumulated a large net of ideas, strong-minded opinions, hobgoblins and dreams about what truly drives success in the channel.
Failing is part of the process
How many of us have created what we thought was the best program, campaign, or tool, only to see them inexplicably flop? For me, and I will be frank, this has happened a few too many times.
I have always considered it to be part of being in the channel; always assuming we didn’t have enough budget to make it big, and assuming our channel partners had too many other fish to fry.
The trick is to recognize our failures and rearrange to make situations work in our favor.
Invest in yourself
Very rarely did I invest enough energy, budget, or activities to drive partners to my ‘best thing since sliced bread’. I did just enough to tick the box and launch. Even then, I’ll admit I didn’t do a good enough job to communicate the relevant value proposition and tailor it to my audiences.
I created great partner programs, but partners were confused. I created limitless incentives, but nobody took part. I created dreamy campaigns, but not many bother to run them.
Although I had the ‘best thing’, nobody really knew about it or knew enough about it to care, hence the flop.
One size rarely fits all
There is no excuse. It can be expensive and time-consuming to communicate to partners, but it is crucial to put a strategy and action plan together for launch and beyond. We must understand and segment our partner audiences to deliver meaningful messages. We need to create ‘personalized’ content and translate when needed. We need to build emails and repeat this process until the message gets through to our partners. In today’s age, our traditional ‘one-size-fits-all’ activities need to change.
Focus on people
Don’t go mad and over-do it. Your channel partners are people, with different backgrounds, knowledge, needs, and understandings. Don’t slice the cake in too many small portions or you will not be able to deliver anything. At the very least, focus on those who sell, market, are technical and who direct and manage. Focus on the groups that tend to be very active and even those who are dormant.
Focus on what makes your partners tick. Hone in on their interests and effectiveness of your messaging.
Let them decide
You have all the information about how much and what they sell, and this is in your CRM. Don’t make the mistake of assuming what they want. The CEO of a channel partner organization could be very technical, another could be salesy. Assuming they are all equals and treated the same way could lead to more mistakes and a failed communication approach.
It may be helpful to build a preference page for your communications. A place where your partners can choose exactly what they want to hear from you and when.
Once you have this information, you can start to automate your communication processes and deliver targeted messages, which you can use at launch and post-launch.
Application Tactics:
- Scrap your existing email platforms – none allow you to customize content to partners, or at least easily (considering you have many partner types/ tiers, countries you cover, languages you need to support).
- Use our own News on Demand (this is the biased part) – this will allow you to share news based upon the recipients’ selections (in their Communications Preferences Centre), delivering email communications when requested, without the need for any HTML development. With News on Demand, you can deliver 100% personalized and targeted newsletters and emails to each user, in a highly cost-effective manner.
- Think about your audiences – do they all need to receive sales, technical, marketing and other news? Write different content for the selected audiences.
- Tailor your content on the portal or landing page – with the right PRM platform like our own Impartner PRM (yes, I am biased again), you should be able to tailor content based on job roles or any other partner segmentation options you have.
- Communicate, communicate and communicate – never stop; partners have typically little time to give you. It’s not that they don’t like you, but they work with many other suppliers and have their own job to do. So, communicate with them until you are happy with the results or until they say ‘enough’; you will catch them once and this may be enough to hook them in.
- Think all media – don’t just focus on emails; think about your partner account managers and the phone calls they make every day (and make sure they talk about your campaign); think about your distributors (and make sure they are equipped to talk about your campaign); think about social; think about paper-based media too (if your campaign is big enough).
- Track and track again – remember, you need to make sure they come and visit the page or program you want them to see or participate in. Don’t be satisfied until you know!
About the author
Olivier Choron joined Impartner in June 2018 when Impartner acquired Tremolo Software. Olivier was the CEO and Founder at Tremolo, the provider of News on Demand and Social on Demand products, which have now been added to the unique Impartner PRM portfolio. He is currently the Managing Director for EMEA.
With 25+ years of channel marketing expertise, gained in Europe and in the US, at companies such as 3Com and Nortel Networks, Olivier is a well-recognized figure in the channel. Having also run a channel marketing services firm for 12 years in the UK, Olivier has advised many organizations on how to best structure their channel programs and how to best enable their partners, including Adobe, Vodafone, Trend Micro, Zyxel, and Samsung, among others.
Olivier holds a ‘Diplôme d’Ingénieur’ in computer science from the ENSI de Caen (France), and a master’s degree in electronic engineering from the University of Kent (UK).
The post How to Successfully Market Your Channel Program appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wireless Technology Leader Cambium Networks gives Impartner Partner Relationship Management Solution five stars for its ability to help scale partner network
Salt Lake City – November 15, 2018– When Cambium Networks, a leading global fixed wireless technology company, opened a search for Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology to optimize the performance of their channel operations and enhance their ability to scale, they knew the solution had to be well established, and not only meet their business needs at the time, but also their needs in the future. Impartner, the industry’s best-selling and most-award winning PRM solution and a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2018, was Cambium Networks’ solution of choice.
“One of our primary requirements was a company that was fairly well capitalized, was well known, and had been at it for a while,” Ron Ryan, senior vice president for Cambium Networks stated. “That fit Impartner. But not only do they have the functionality that Cambium needs today, we could see from their roadmap where they were going. When we compared the solutions we were considering, Impartner stood out as a company that not only was ahead of the game today but looked like they would be ahead of the game tomorrow.
Since implementation, Ryan says the response from partners has been stellar. “One of the issues in the old portal was the organization of it – it was hard to find things and a little clumsy,” said Ryan. “With the asset library, it’s easier for people to find things—the presentation is better and the functionality just works better. I meet partners all over the world, and during each trip, our partners complement our portal, so it was a great decision.”
To learn more about how Impartner has helped Cambium Networks scale their partner program, vet poorly performing partners, and be agile in bringing on 1,500 additional partners since implementing the solution, click here for the full case study. For a demo on how Impartner can help optimize and scale your partner program, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market, and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
About Cambium Networks
Nerdio is the cloud IT management platform company for both private and public cloud, empowering SMBs/SMCs and the MSPs that serve them. Nerdio for Azure is ridiculously easy-to-use IT automation technology that delivers packaging, pricing, provisioning, ongoing management, and cost-optimization of up to complete IT environments in the Microsoft Cloud. Nerdio Private Cloud is a fully-integrated platform that delivers a comprehensive IT environment at your fingertips — including virtual hardware, software, security, backup and disaster recovery, and 24/7 tech-nerd support. For more information please visit cambiumnetworks.com
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Impartner Partner Relationship Management technology helps Cloud IT leader Nerdio accelerate multi-product channel program
Salt Lake City – November 7, 2018– Two years ago, when Nerdio set out to start a channel program, they knew the first order of business was to get processes and technology in place to be able to scale quickly. Impartner, the best-selling, most award-winning pure play Partner Relationship Management technology quickly rose to the top of the list as the core channel management system of record. To learn more, click here to get a new video case study released today.
“When we looked at options, it was either go buy something or try to do it ourselves,” said Nerdio’s Senior Director of Channel Sales and Operations, Pete Langas. “We didn’t really want to do it ourselves, because we knew that would have been a huge amount of money and time and effort. We were really busy with lead generation, building our channel out, and doing a lot of relationship building, so to start thinking of pulling those resources and putting them on portal design was not a direction we wanted to go.”
Impartner’s pure-play focus on PRM was a key factor in the decision. “There are other companies that some of what they do is a partner portal – where it’s part of a module, or it’s a module of part of their solution,” said Langas. “However, with Impartner, they’re partner portal focused — so we really liked that about them.”
The decision for the company has been a good one. “If we didn’t have Impartner, I can’t imagine doing my job without it because having visibility into what our partners are doing, both in terms of deals and how they’re engaging with us, in terms of what collateral are they looking at and what kind of knowledge-based articles are they reading. Those kinds of things are really important for us,” Langas continued, adding that partners really appreciate the fact that the portal is easy to navigate, they can get what they need — and that feedback has been fantastic.
To learn more about how Nerdio has scaled its channel program with the help of Impartner’s flagship PRM solution, click here to view the video case study.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market, and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
About Nerdio
Nerdio is the cloud IT management platform company for both private and public cloud, empowering SMBs/SMCs and the MSPs that serve them. Nerdio for Azure is ridiculously easy-to-use IT automation technology that delivers packaging, pricing, provisioning, ongoing management, and cost-optimization of up to complete IT environments in the Microsoft Cloud. Nerdio Private Cloud is a fully-integrated platform that delivers a comprehensive IT environment at your fingertips — including virtual hardware, software, security, backup and disaster recovery, and 24/7 tech-nerd support. For more information please visit www.getnerdio.com
The post Fast Scaling Nerdio Powers Channel Growth with Impartner appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Impartner’s award-winning technology ‘does the work of 10 channel managers, allows channel team to spend less time behind computer and more strategic, more value-added, face-to-face time with partners
Salt Lake City – November 2, 2018– Cloud-managed Wi-Fi platform powerhouse Mojo Networks is bringing smart, self-healing, infinitely scalable cognitive Wi-Fi to the market in a big way. As the company worked to scale its partner network with a ‘disaggregated” model to include distributors and traditional hardware partners, they began the search for a channel management solution that would allow them to more easily manage their robust, multi-touchpoint indirect sales process. Their legacy PRM solution at the time, provided by their CRM vendor, made that management process difficult and could simply not provide the visibility into their indirect sales they were looking for. Enter, Impartner Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology, the industry’s best-selling, most award-winning PRM solution, which was recently named a leader in the “The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2018.”
In a new video case study released today, available here, Mojo Networks Director of Global Channels, Brian Thomas, details the company’s journey to upgrade the company’s PRM solution to one built from the ground up to truly automate channel operations, optimize partner performance and help the company scale its channel operations.
“When we heard about Impartner, Mojo was still very much a startup,” said Thomas. “We understood that we needed to build a scalable channel with high visibility because if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. So that’s why we came to Impartner initially because we needed to make sure that the foundation was right. It was crucial as a startup. We didn’t have the luxuries of larger companies that have massive channel organizations, so we needed to make sure that at least foundationally, we had the management piece right to manage our partners. And that, of course, is what PRM is all about.”
Since implementation, Thomas said response from the company’s channel team has been tremendous. “Our channel account managers spend a lot less of their day on the mundane tasks that they’d normally be assigned, and more value-added, face-to-face time with their partners on more strategic initiatives,” said Thomas. “They tell me, ‘This is the simplest portal I have ever used because I can literally register a deal and have full visibility into that registration within 30 seconds.’”
Most important, stresses Thomas, is the impact automation has had on Mojo’s ability to scale. “Had we not implemented Impartner, we would have had to expand our team five to 10 more additional people,” Thomas said. “Simply put, it’s automation. If you’re looking to build out and scale your organization, whether it’s from scratch or you’re mid-tier, this is the necessary tool you need to succeed in the channel, because this is an automated piece of your channel network. If you’re hiring channel account managers, distribution managers, marketing managers – this is a way for them to get that 20 percent more done a day.”
To see the full video case study on how Impartner has helped Mojo automate and scale their partner program and optimize their partner experience, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market, and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Mojo Networks Chooses Impartner to Automate and Scale Channel Program appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Impartner achieves highest scores possible in 16 of 26 categories including Recruitment/workflows, Lead and Opportunity Management, and Deal Registration
Company’s market presence explodes as top corporations from Fortinet and Marketo to Zendesk and Splunk choose Impartner PRM to power their channel
Salt Lake City – October 31, 2018– Impartner, the industry’s best-selling, most award-winning pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today announced that it has been named a PRM leader by Forrester Research, based on results in all three evaluation categories: Current Offering, Strategy and Market Presence. In the report, the “The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2018,” Forrester recognizes Impartner’s integratablility and focus on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM market, commenting that Impartner is, “a good fit for customers who have invested in CRM solutions like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics and are looking for a fully integrated, easy-to-implement, full-featured PRM solution.”
In writing the report, Forrester evaluated the 12 most significant PRM vendors in a 26-criteria evaluation in the categories of Market Presence, Current Offering, and Strategy. Within the report, Impartner received the highest scores possible in the following criteria for Market Presence; Number of Customers, New Customers Added in 2017, Number of Users and Number of Employees, and for Current Offering; for Partner Type and Taxonomy, Planning and Management, Recruitment and Workflows, Service Automation and Collaboration, Lead and Opportunity Management, Deal Registration and Opportunity Management, Marketing Through/with Partners and MDF, Portal Management, Integrations with Back-End Systems, and Incentives Management. In the Strategy Category, Impartner also received the highest scores possible for Product Vision and Partner Ecosystem.
“This recognition from Forrester caps off an amazing year for Impartner which includes adding world leading corporations from Marketo to Splunk,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “These companies have the insight and resources to choose the best possible technology, and they overwhelmingly chose Impartner.” Wang also noted that the company has received a continual stream of national and international awards including its just-announced Top 100 Global Red Herring win. “For a company of our size to have the market presence we do in terms of customers and new customers added, it is a true testament to the power of our solution and the confidence our customers have in our best-in-class Innovation Roadmap. They have confidence that Impartner will keep them on the leading edge of channel technology.”
“In choosing our PRM solution to optimize our channel performance and enhance our partner experience, we validated a wide spectrum of PRM vendors on functionality, usability, technical alignment, vendor background, customer success leadership and total cost of ownership,” said Armin Moaddel, senior manager, partner operations, Marketo. “Impartner was the clear leader by a wide margin both for their existing solution and their best-in-class innovation roadmap, and we’re not surprised, and truly delighted to see them have a position as a leader for their current solution in this Wave.”
Premier global fixed wireless technology company, Cambium Networks conducted their search for a PRM with equal rigor and made the decision to choose Impartner for similar reasons. “Not only did they have the functionality that we need today, they also were very good about sharing the roadmap with us about where they were going,” said Ron Ryan, senior vice president for Cambium Networks. “When we looked at everybody else, side by side, Impartner really stood out as a company that not only was ahead of the game today but looked like they would be ahead of the game tomorrow. We’re pleased to see them recognized in this Wave.”
To take a demo of Impartner PRM, and learn why the industry’s best-selling, most award-winning solution is the choice of top corporations worldwide like Cambium, Fortinet, Marketo, Splunk and Zendesk, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market, and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Named a Leader in Partner Relationship Management Evaluation by Independent Research Firm appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Impartner Partner Relationship Management technology continues global award sweep; company’s market presence continues to explode as top corporations turn to Impartner PRM to power their channel
Salt Lake City – October 29, 2018– Impartner, the industry’s best-selling, most award-winning pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today announced that it has been selected as a winner of the 2018 Red Herring Top 100 Global award, which recognizes the leading private companies from North America, Europe, and Asia, celebrating these companies’ innovations and technologies across their respective industries.
Red Herring’s Top 100 Global list has become a mark of distinction for identifying promising companies and entrepreneurs. Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize that companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube, and eBay would change the way we live and work.
“This award and the continued, explosive pace of our customer growth is further testament to the power of our technology, our continued pace of innovation, the strength of the Impartner team and the transformative power of PRM to help companies accelerate the performance of their channel,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang.
“Choosing the companies with the strongest potential was by no means a small feat,” said Alex Vieux, publisher, and CEO of Red Herring. “After rigorous contemplation and discussion, we narrowed our list down from hundreds of candidates from across the globe to the Top 100 Winners. We believe Impartner embodies the vision, drive, and innovation that defines a successful entrepreneurial venture. Impartner should be proud of its accomplishment.”
Red Herring’s editorial staff evaluated the companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy, and market penetration. This assessment of potential is complemented by a review of track records and standing of companies relative to their peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the “buzz” and make the list a valuable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the most promising, new business models from around the world.
To see a demo of how Impartner helps companies manage their channel and accelerate their revenue 31 percent and decrease administrative costs 23 percent in the first year of use alone, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner helps companies worldwide transform the performance of their indirect sales, increasing revenue an average of 31 percent and reduce administrative costs as much as 23 percent in the first year of use alone. Impartner’s SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software is the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play solution on the market, and can be up and running in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post The Breakout Technology That Allowed A $14B Manufacturer To Build A Holy Grail appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“That meant having one system channel partners could access where everything they need to be successful was at their fingertips with secure authentication.”
As the pure-play global leader in the fast-growing PRM market, Impartner’s priority is the success of our customers. Among the list of Impartner’s world-class customers lies manufacturing leader Ingersoll Rand. We were delighted to be joined by Ingersoll Rand’s Director, Marketing Technology and Operations, Liz Cope, at Dreamforce 18’, where she spoke about how using Impartner PRM technology allowed Ingersoll Rand to offer a differentiating partner experience. We are excited to share her post from Dreamforce on our blog. You can also view the live webcast from Dreamforce 18’ here.
Holy Grail Partner Management: Streamlining Partner Business Processes with PRM
Liz Cope, Director, Marketing Technology and Operations at Ingersoll Rand
I spoke at Dreamforce last week on Partner Relationship Management technology – PRM – covering, “The Breakout Technology That Allowed a $14B Manufacturer to Build a Holy Grail,” sharing my experience deploying partner-focused tech. Candidly, three years ago, I didn’t know much about partner management technology. Because, let’s face it, the martech space is saturated with solutions designed to improve the performance of just about everything. As a career marketer and channel chief, I was hunting for that secret sauce for channel sales enablement, and I knew our team needed a technology to help grow our brand through our partners – that “holy grail” for partner engagement.
Knowing that micro-movements improve the whole, I consulted with our channel partners and team and got very specific about the go-dos, and admittedly, they were pretty fundamental. Our team needed a SaaS that had an engaging UI for partners and included Lead Management, Asset Management, Marketing Automation, and multi-lingual capabilities as well as solid back-end analytics. Additionally, they wanted a view of our partners that was more than just their revenue performance – I wanted to get to their personas. Our partners wanted us to make it easier for them to do business with us.
Identifying the feature set we needed was only half the battle.
I needed to find a solution that operated seamlessly from start to finish, and was CRM integration-ready but not CRM dependent, or required an army of developers or IT to implement and manage.
I also had to reduce the complexity of doing business with us for our partners and #enablethesale. That meant having one system channel partners could access where everything they need to be successful was at their fingertips with secure authentication.
Understand the buying experience of your leads
And I had to deliver a lead management platform that optimized the investments we were making generating demand. Leads generate significant new business for our partners. But, we had no way to track partner engagement with those leads or measure the buying experience of our end-user. Over 70% of our leads were new customers. Would they be repeat customers? A large risk in my mind was the buyer experience after the lead left our hands and was dispositioned to our partners.
#PurposedBasedTechnology
I discovered PRM and the ability to deploy an out-of-the-box structure to support our channel in their effort to be as effective as possible while centralizing the day-to-day management of the marketing team.
There are many PRM solutions, but for this situation, I implemented the SaaS from Impartner since their product fit the purpose and the budget. The platform came complete with a leads dashboard that provided our channel with a comprehensive view of their performance, as well as alerts and reminders to help keep the momentum going. In 2017 we saw a 200% increase in our pipeline influence goals and exceeded 2018 goals by mid-year. Partner engagement with the program hovers around 74% globally.
It also featured an asset library that serves as a one-stop-shop for partners to find collateral and tools to help them represent our brands with accuracy, and better communicate and sell the benefits of our products to their customers. At the time of this post, we’re seeing metrics like a 10% compounded monthly increase for asset views and downloads, month over month increase of partner logins, and steady increases in partner web activity.
At the end of the day, our partners are busy solving major manufacturing problems. They need to be able to count on us to help them execute and serve the customer quickly. To serve our partners and our customers, we depend on our PRM. And because we’re using the right technology for the purpose, we are building, faster than ever, towards transcendent partner management.
The post The Breakout Technology That Allowed A $14B Manufacturer To Build A Holy Grail appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Impartner’s award-winning technology helps RingLeader create the right partner experience from the first moment- optimizing every sales interaction, every lead, and every opportunity
Salt Lake City – October 23, 2018– RingLeader is pioneering crowdvoicing, a concept that provides voice over internet services to crowds of people. Key in their go-to-market strategy is using partner channels to distribute the crowdvoicing concept to customers throughout the country. Early on, the company realized they needed a technology to not only manage and optimize partners but also be able to provide training to enable them to explain the concept of crowdvoicing to their customers. Enter the company’s choice of Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology, the breakthrough solution that’s taken the market by storm, and become the industry’s most award-winning, best-selling pure-play PRM choice. A new video case study released today details RingLeader’s PRM journey.
“The demo was key in our decision in how we selected a PRM solution,” said Neil Darling, a principal at RingLeader. “We found it very impressive, and it delivered things that other solutions just couldn’t match.”
Having made the choice for Impartner, RingLeader said the implementation process was smooth. “The implementation process was very straightforward,” said Darling. “With the other solutions that we had either used and failed with, what made the biggest difference with Impartner was the commitment they have to provide a dedicated team to help with integration, — it’s not just a short-term thing. It’s actually a long-term commitment that has made it successful.”
Most important, Darling added, is the positive reaction from partners. “Impartner has improved things from the first moment partners interact with us – every sales interaction, every lead, every opportunity they have, they’re interacting with the portal. Impartner’s solution is tracking things through the portal, and it really allows a way for partners to effectively interact with us and eliminate any conflict that may be in the channel.”
To see the full video case study on how Impartner has helped RingLeader scale their partner program and optimize their partner experience, click here.
To learn more about Impartner and why this breakthrough technology is helping the world’s most progressive companies their channel revenue click here to take a demo.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and is one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com, or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Crowdvoicing Pioneer RingLeader Chooses Impartner as Game-Changing Channel Management Solution appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Continued string of innovation from Impartner’s global Channel Innovation Labs keeps Impartner Partner Relationship Management technology in the winner’s circle
Salt Lake City – October 12, 2018– Impartner, the best-selling and most-award winning pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today announced it has been honored with Product of the Year for Technology Software, Small Company, in the Business Intelligence Group’s 2018 BIG Awards for Business. This is the second time Impartner has received product of the year nod from The BIG Awards and is one more award in a continual stream of national and international recognition for Impartner’s flagship PRM solution.
“Impartner’s ongoing innovation is a key reason top corporations around the world from Xerox to Fortinet choose Impartner,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner Chief Marketing Officer. “We future-proof their investment by ensuring our PRM solution continually sets the pace for channel management technology. We could not be more pleased about this recognition of the value our team of engineers, data scientists and UX and UI professionals in our global Channel Innovation Labs bring to our customers. It’s been a big year of advancements and innovation on key technology platforms such as Microsoft Dynamics, which has become important as our customer base expands deeply into manufacturing and telecom companies.”
“We are so proud to reward Impartner for their outstanding 2018 results,” said Maria Jimenez, chief nomination officer of the Business Intelligence Group. “This year’s group of winners are clearly leading by example in the global business community.”
To learn more about Impartner and why this breakthrough technology is helping the world’s most progressive companies their channel revenue click here to take a demo.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
About Business Intelligence Group
The Business Intelligence Group was founded with the mission of recognizing true talent and superior performance in the business world. Unlike other industry award programs, business executives—those with experience and knowledge—judge the programs. The organization’s proprietary and unique scoring system selectively measures performance across multiple business domains and then rewards those companies whose achievements stand above those of their peers.
The post Impartner Wins Product of the Year in Big Awards for Business for Second Time appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>The post Impartner Makes Base-Camp at Dreamforce ‘18 appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“Impartner’s 10 Minutes 2 Modernize Your Portal, provided a customized look at your company’s instance within Impartner’s portal.”
650 breakout sessions and more than 170,000 attendees compile just a few data points from this year’s Dreamforce event. Impartner was honored to attend the show this year alongside some of the industry’s leading companies.
Impartner hosted several informational sessions on and off the show floor this year. As we engaged with each of you, we were able to see how Impartner helps provide the results channel programs require that no other PRM offers.
Impartner Customizes Portals on the Spot
Taking a new approach this year, Impartner’s 10 Minutes 2 Modernize Your Portal, provided a customized look at your company’s instance within Impartner’s portal. Our product gurus worked tirelessly to deliver hundreds of customized demos right at our booth, proving to be a real crowd-pleaser. Click Here for more information. Click Here to view your customized portal.
Top IT Leaders Join Live Panel at Dreamforce
Impartner’s own Chief Marketing Officer, Dave R Taylor, joined a plethora of IT leaders for a live panel, Tech Stack Secrets from Top IT teams. Alongside him was, Lief Koepsel, Fortinet, Armin Moaddel, Marketo, Margaret Back, McAfee and Kevin Sequeira, Splunk. If you missed the live panel, Click Here to view.
Can You Guess the Secret Ingredient?
We always seem to make a buzz with our famous secret ingredient in our gourmet chocolates, and this year was no exception. Giveaways at both our booths included wireless chargers, stickers, hoodies, and Starbucks gift cards.
Still Seeing Impartner Yellow
With an abundance of compliments on our coordinated matching yellow shoes, we left the show feeling inspired and proud. At such an enormous show it can be easy to feel like a small fish in a huge pond, yet Dreamforce leaves you feeling stimulated and renewed, dreaming up new ideas to show the floor what more you can bring in the many years to follow.
Check out the top ten highlights of Dreamforce on the Salesforce blog here.
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]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New release mirrors transactional data into separate data lake optimized for analytics: provides prescriptive/predictive recommendations to maximize every partner interaction
Fall ’18 release also features industry first use of Salesforce Streaming API; provides unprecedented flexibility in managing channel data by allowing users to choose PRM or CRM as system of record on field-by-field basis in real time
London, UK – SiriusDecisions Summit Europe– Engineers in Impartner’s global Channel Innovation Labs have set the stage for a new era of data-assisted decision making in the Partner Relationship Management (PRM) industry with the company’s Fall ‘18 release. With the new release, Impartner technology will mirror transactional data into a data lake optimized for analytics, which, as it learns, will provide predictive, prescriptive data-backed recommendations to channel managers to help them continually improve the performance of their channel.
In addition to the data lake, other key features in the new release include Impartner’s CRM Sync, which offers the industry’s first use of the Salesforce Streaming API, supercharging Impartner’s real-time bi-directional sync. Bi-directional syncing allows companies to choose whether the PRM or the CRM is the system of record on a field-by-field basis and enables mapping of PRM data directly into the Contact and Account fields in Salesforce – providing the flexibility to manage channel data the way companies prefer and not the way the system dictates. With the use of the Streaming API, companies can now also avoid data integrity issues caused by batch sync limitations from other competing solutions due to API call shortages. The ability to sync at this capacity level has become increasingly critical as financial services and life sciences companies have woken up to chantech and bring with them millions, not thousands of transactions. Other key enhancements to the company’s CMS and News on Demand round out Impartner’s latest release.
“While there is a lot of hype around AI, the focus of this release is not on a blue-sky future, but rather, is more pragmatic in helping channel managers who are looking for prescriptive and predictive tools to help them make micro motions that make every part of their program better,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner Chief Marketing Officer.
“Channel programs bring some of the most complex business challenges our customers deal with,” continued Taylor. “Industry analysts tell us most companies would self-assess their channel programs at a three or four out of 10 in terms of their capability. They’re not looking for 50 new things to do, they’re looking for the one or two things they can do every day to improve. This Impartner data lake pools what’s happening with their partners gets smarter as more data is added, and with Elasticsearch distributed search and analytics capabilities, provides recommendations on how every micro movement can be more powerful – all without burdening the parallel transactional database and allowing it to focus on day-to-day business interactions. When you make every decision better by degrees, the entire performance of a channel increases.”
Following is a summary of the key features of the new release:
- Impartner Data Lake: With every transaction, data is automatically replicated into a data lake optimized for analytics – leaving the transactional database free to serve day-to-day business needs without getting bogged down. The analytics data lake is then free to process data and provide users with a continual stream of predictive, prescriptive data-backed recommendation to make every micro movement channel managers make smarter and more impactful.
- Impartner CRM Sync: With Impartner CRM Sync, channel managers now have unprecedented flexibility in how they manage channel data because real-time bi-directional syncing means they can choose whether the PRM or the CRM is the system of record on a field-by-field basis and map of PRM data directly into the Contact and Account fields in Salesforce. This ends the tyranny of solutions that force companies to manage the way the system requires versus how they would prefer to manage their channel data.
- Impartner CMS 3.0: Having transformed CMS for the PRM solution with the industry’s first in-line CMS editor and drag and drop menuing and pages, Impartner takes the next step by extending the power of its SegmentAI segmentation engine to its CMS, making it possible to automate the hyper personalization of every partner’s experience based on an infinite number of attributes. Literally every message, every page, and every interaction can be changed on the fly. Plus, with this new release, a new advanced emulation engine makes it possible for channel managers to preview any page, for any user, on any device before publishing, providing a final quality check before going live.
- Impartner News on Demand with Social Sharing: In the first innovation since Impartner’s acquisition of Tremolo Software, Impartner News on Demand now features social sharing capability, allowing customers to let users share content to their own prospects on social. With social sharing, users can mark newsletter articles they are sending to their partners as ‘public’ and let these partners, when they receive their newsletter or view their news on their news portal, edit and share this content via social media in in two clicks, expending their partner’s ability to amplify messages.
To learn more about the new features in this release and how Impartner can help deliver an average of a 31 percent increase in revenue and a 23 percent decrease in administrative costs, click here to take a demo.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Lays Foundation for Prescriptive, Predictive Engine to Optimize Channel Performance appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Awards continue a three-year streak of national and international recognition for the company, which is transforming how companies manage their channels worldwide
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — September 27, 2018 — Impartner, the best-selling and most-award winning pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today announced it has climbed to 83 in the latest list of the Top 1000 SaaS companies in the world and been recognized with two ACQ5 Awards for International Technology Company of the Year and the International Gamechanger of the Year for CEO Joe Wang. The SaaS 1000 is published by FE International, a leading SaaS mergers and acquisition advisory, and is an elite group of companies, made up of high-achieving, ambitious SaaS businesses of a caliber unparalleled by most. ACQ5 is a leading global corporate news site, and awards are chosen from submissions from their nearly 170,000 subscribers worldwide for 0rganizations and individuals that have achieved outstanding commercial success.
“When our CEO Joe Wang and Kennet Partners acquired Treehouse Interactive (now Impartner) a little over three-and-a-half-years ago, there was no question that the PRM market was on the cusp of being a breakthrough technology with the same transformative power as CRM,” said Impartner Chief Marketing Officer Dave R Taylor. “This latest recognition is further validation that the time is now for PRM, and we could not be prouder of our Impartner team and the spotlight this shines on the value they bring to the table every day for our customers around the world.”
These awards are the latest in a continuous string of recognition for Impartner, which has been on a rapid growth trajectory since the acquisition. Since 2015, the company has introduced a stream of industry-first innovations to make Impartner PRM the industry’s best selling, most powerful, easy-to-update pure-play platform in the market; grown revenue 300 percent and number of employees by 5 times; expanded into multiple markets globally; increased the number of customers by 7 times; closed a new round of funding from Emergence Capital; recently closed an acquisition focused on helping vendors amplify their branding to and through partners; and driven its base of partners signing into portals using Impartner technology to nearly 8 million.
To learn more about Impartner and why this breakthrough technology is helping the world’s most progressive companies from Fortinet to Zendesk accelerate their channel revenue click here to take a demo.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post PRM Powerhouse Impartner Rockets to No. 83 in Global List of Top 1000 SaaS Companies; Collects Two Top International Awards for Top Tech Company and Gamechanger CEO of the Year appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>The post Find Out the Secrets to Building a World-Class Tech Stack appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>Featuring Marketo, McAfee, Fortinet, and Splunk
Dreamforce is a sprawling showcase of today’s technology leaders, vying for attention from top corporations to be part of their tech stacks. The field is crowded, and the overwhelming amount of choices can actually slow down, not speed up the process of ensuring a company’s set of tech solutions is truly helping them stand apart in the market.
Fortunately, there are secrets to navigating this process, and at this year’s Dreamforce, Impartner is hosting a live webinar on Brighttalk, “Tech Stack Secrets from Top IT Teams, featuring top IT and Channel Leaders from Marketo, McAfee, Fortinet, and Splunk.” These powerhouse leaders, from four of Impartner’s customers, who absolutely set the bar for how the nimblest, fastest-moving companies quickly and efficiently build a world-class tech stack.
During this 45-minute conversation, hosted by Impartner’s CMO Dave R Taylor, we’ll pull back the curtain on how these companies navigate working with their business counterparts how they decide to make or buy, and how they decide whether to use functionality from an existing vendor or bring in a totally new technology provider.
“These are the top issues top IT teams are and should be asking, and we couldn’t be prouder to have representatives from our customers with world-class companies help provide these insights,” said Taylor.
As you head to Dreamforce and/or consider the technologies you’ve seen there or are considering in general, sign on here to learn the secrets these top corporations rely on to set the pace for their industries and the market in general.
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]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Online learning software giant Instructure works with partner relationship management leader Impartner to accelerate channel revenue
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — September 7, 2018 — When Instructure, an online learning SaaS technology company in education, learning, and employee development, wanted to further accelerate its partner program, it turned to another Salt Lake area SaaS leader, Impartner, and its Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution. Instructure uses Impartner’s best-selling, multi-award winning PRM software to help customers find technologies they could use through their partner program as well as identify the best ways to implement those technologies. Click here for a new case study released today to learn more.
“At Instructure, we remain focused on customer success and choose partners who share that vision,” said Melissa Loble, Instructure VP of partners and platform. “Working with the awesome team at Impartner meant we could quickly implement a solution for our customers and see the long-term growth and improvement of our partner program.”
“In today’s market, the fastest, most nimble companies know that finding a well-engineered SaaS solution like Impartner PRM that they can smartly snap into their network and quickly advance their business are the ones that are outpacing their competitors,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner’s CMO. “Instructure exemplifies that thinking and it’s absolutely no surprise they’re one of the fastest growing companies in Utah.”
To view the full case study video on how Impartner has helped Instructure create a powerful, differentiating partner experience, click here.
To learn more about how Impartner can help your company transform its indirect sales, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Two Fast-Growing Silicon Slopes SaaS Corporations Power Each Other’s Mutual Growth appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Direct sales talent shortages, a demand for analytics and partners who insist on a world-class partner journey are driving demand for channel executives with a deeper, more rounded set of business skills
Definitive new eBook by top channel strategist outlines key strategies for new channel chiefs to defy expectations in first 180 days
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — September 6, 2018 — With more than 75 percent of corporate revenue running through indirect channels, * and with an enterprise sales talent shortage causing 75 percent of companies to struggle to meet revenue goals,** the channel has never been a hotter path to market. The bar is raising for the skills Channel Chiefs now need to bring to the table and in a new eBook from business strategy and research firm The 2112 Group, “The Definitive Guide for New Channel Chiefs: How to Exceed Everyone’s Expectations in 180 Days,” the firm lays out a prescriptive, 180-day set of actions to help this new breed of chiefs defy expectations. The eBook, sponsored by Partner Relationship Management leader Impartner, is available here.
“Expediency is as important as effectiveness for new channel chiefs,” said Alex Hart, senior vice president of strategic services at The 2112 Group. “To exceed expectations, the new Channel Chief must be willing to act boldly and with urgency while also putting into effect a set of elevated business skills. This eBook is 100 percent focused on helping them cut cleanly through their first 180 days with best practices updated to address today’s increasing and accelerating business demands.”
“We’re in the fortunate position to work alongside channel leaders with corporations of all sizes worldwide, and we see clearly and quickly those new chiefs who will shine in their organizations,” said Impartner Chief Marketing Officer, Dave R Taylor. “Pressure on those leaders is higher than ever before, and time and time again, those who gain the most traction, the most quickly, demonstrate the process and business skills 2112 has outlined in this eBook. We couldn’t be more excited to work with The 2112 Group to help the market’s newest Channel Chiefs tackle their roles successfully.”
In the eBook, The 2112 Group breaks down the following six tenets of the 180-day imperative and detailed, step by step recommendations on how to best approach each tenet:
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- Understanding: Learning the company products, channel programs, and partner profiles.
- Diagnostics: Identifying strengths, weaknesses, shortcomings and opportunities
- Goal-Setting: Defining key objectives for future success, aligned with company goals
- Prioritization: Establishing a cadence and task order
- Planning: Establishing the means to achieve the goals
- Execution: Putting plans in motion to achieve strategic objectives
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To listen to a podcast with The 2112 Group and Impartner on this topic, click here. To download your free copy of the eBook, click here.
*Accenture, Improving the ROI of Indirect Channel Incentives Report, 2015
** Survey of hiring managers of 200 national and international corporations, 2017
About The 2112 Group
The 2112 Group is a business strategy firm focused on improving the performance of technology companies’ direct and indirect channels through our portfolio of market-leading products and services. We leverage proprietary intelligence with qualitative research, market analysis, tools, and enablement programs. Our industry experts approach each engagement by applying innovative solutions customized to meet the needs of our clients. By looking at the technology market from the viewpoint of vendors, partners, and end users, 2112 is uniquely positioned to develop go-to-market strategies that are beneficial to all parties from both a channel and enterprise perspective.
Visit us: the2112group.com | Follow us: @the2112group | Read our Blog
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Market Dynamics Spur Demand for a New Brand of Channel Chief appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>The post How to Transform Partner Communications – with Autodesk appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“I’ve had really good feedback from my stakeholders; we have a lot of people who have been auditors and submitting articles for channel news. I’ve had nothing but positive feedback.”
Autodesk Project Manager, Eric Owen
While communicating with partners is critical, what it takes to get a newsletter out the door is generally a dismal process. Cutting and pasting, special favors, multiple tools, and manual steps are standard challenges and make the process cumbersome and one that often requires multiple triple checks for correct formatting, working links, accurate information and more.
That was certainly the case with software giant Autodesk, which was sending 13 newsletters each week to partners across a wide range of geographies and industries, from architecture to entertainment to manufacturing. Given partners are responsible for as much as 75 percent of Autodesk’s revenue, getting communications right was crucial for the company. Adding to the pressure, the multinational software corporation was undergoing a large business model transition from selling perpetual licenses to selling its software as a subscription – and making sure its partners were aware of new promotions, policies and more had become even more critical.
All that changed when the company implemented Impartner’s News on Demand. In a new webinar, available here, Autodesk Project Manager Eric Owen highlights how Autodesk was able to streamline its global partner communications strategy and delivery using Impartner’s 100 percent customizable newsletter platform, News on Demand. Using this comprehensive, dynamic, and targeted solution, the company immediately saw the following 8 tangible results:
- Better Relationships. Autodesk has been able to work closely with each partner to customize tools and set up. This allowed them to build more personal connections between themselves and their channel partners.
- Greater Internal Productivity. Instead of five or six different tools, News on Demand consolidated everything into one, handling initial submission all the way through archiving. In addition, each article is now handled individually, which means less manual work and reporting because all the necessary metrics and insights are their fingertips.
- Increased Flexibility. As an alternative to a rigid process of managing every article individually, it is now extremely easy for Autodesk to pull out, edit, and retest a single article without having to worry about the entire newsletter.
- Clearer Channel Communication. Autodesk realized that News on Demand’s main tools were designed and built with channel partners at the forefront. They are now able to work with partners who truly understand the channel and who can discern the special challenges and complexities of working with partners.
- Faster Publication. Autodesk has shortened their lead time by up to 3 days for translating articles and sometimes even more.
- More Partner Satisfaction. With over 700 partners visiting the preferences page, which accommodates the type of information each person wants to receive, Autodesk knows they are sending out very targeted newsletters.
- New Opportunities. Autodesk articles are now available to new audiences they were never able to target before. They also discovered that News on Demand can support as many languages as they like and easily reach their emerging global markets and regions.
- Better Business. Autodesk is now able to streamline their internal processes by producing better newsletters with fewer resources. By making the switch, they realized News on Demand was much more cost-efficient and a very good long-term investment.
“I’ve had really good feedback from my stakeholders; we have a lot of people who have been auditors and submitting articles for channel news. I’ve had nothing but positive feedback,” said Owen.
To learn more about Autodesk’s use of News on Demand, view to the full webinar here. To take a demo and see how News on Demand can help drive your business, click here.
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]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution does the work of up to 15 channel managers in helping Jive scale channel program
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — AUGUST 16, 2018 — Impartner, the best-selling and most-award winning pure play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today released a new customer case study with Jive Communications (now part of LogMeIn,) a powerhouse unified communications hosted voice over IP company. In the case study, Josh McFadden, Jive’s director of programs and enablement for partners, highlights how Jive implemented Impartner after initial development with a competing PRM solution failed to deliver on expectations after nearly a year into implementation – and how the flexibility of Impartner’s PRM solution and the company’s team has ultimately helped Jive power their exponential channel growth. The case study is here.
“At a high level, the differences, between the previous PRM and the current PRM, really came down to the level of care that Impartner gave us,” said McFadden. “And even now as we grow the program and the platform, they continue to help us refine what we’re doing and ask questions such as ‘Why are you looking into this?’ and ‘Why are you transacting this way?’ We’ve even changed different ways of doing business from our relationship with Impartner.
“A key part of the value,” added McFadden, “is Impartner PRM’s ability to reduce channel administrative costs,” which Impartner customers typically see reduce 23 percent in the first year of use alone. “The cost of Impartner is about as much as an all-in senior channel manager. However, the production we’ve gained has been far more than just a single channel manager. A year later, we’d probably be looking at adding 10 to 15 channel managers to gain the same amount of production.”
In the case study, McFadden also stresses the value of Impartner’s real-time synch into Salesforce CRM, which has allowed them to offer real-time Price Quoting (CPQ) and is critical to remaining competitive in Jive’s industry. “When we were looking to switch PRM solutions, the No. 1 concern was ensuring the sync with Salesforce was in real time and not batched so we didn’t have data integrity issues,” said McFadden. “Impartner has delivered on that need and more. As a managed package, Impartner PRM not only integrates easily with Salesforce, it also provides a true real-time synch and the functionality we need to provide Salesforce price quotes on the fly.”
To learn more about how Impartner PRM has helped Jive transform its channel program, click for the case study. To take a demo on how Impartner can help you transform your channel, visit https://impartner.com/demo/.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Unified Communications Powerhouse Jive Turns to Impartner to Power Exponential Channel Growth appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>The post How to Deliver Targeted Newsletters to Thousands of Partners appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“If your engagement is decreasing, you aren’t getting ahead of your competitors.”
Delivering targeted newsletters to thousands of partners is not only expensive, but it’s also time-consuming. Find out how you can deliver targeted content to your partners on your schedule, with just one click.
Common Targeted Newsletter Issues
Most companies manually deliver several newsletters each day to targeted audiences. Segmenting your partners to deliver the right content use to be the only model to achieve this. The trouble is, most partners fall into more than one category, resulting in the possibility of multiple newsletter sends, often receiving duplicate information. The result tends to be a significant decrease in engagement.
On top of decreased engagement, the amount of time this task requires can consume valuable time. Consider approval times, translations, coding and formatting. The turnaround would be incredibly slow and the result could be delivering old content that was no longer relevant.
Growing Pressures for Partners
If your partners work with other vendors, managing and engaging with their content and competitors can be challenging. The goal is to create content people want to read.
If your engagement is decreasing, you aren’t getting ahead of your competitors. Your partners are your most strategic asset, and the content you deliver is essential to keeping them informed.
There’s a Better Way
News on Demand allows your company to create a 100% targeted newsletter that can be sent to every partner. The partners select what the content they are interested in, delivery time and frequency.
The software will intelligently create a newsletter based upon their preferences. What’s particularly beneficial is the lack of HTML coding needed, simply upload articles and select a category.
Increase engagement levels and open rates today! Click here to find out more about Impartner’s News on Demand solution.
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]]>The post 3 Ways to Identify if You’ve Made the Wrong PRM Decision appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“The success of your products greatly depends on the ownership of certain duties.”
In today’s market, the true revenue hero is the channel. You might have noticed the number of Partner Relationship Management solutions decreasing over the years, but the buying decision can still be difficult for some to make.
World-leading companies like Fortinet, Rackspace, and Xerox have made Impartner PRM the industry standard by using our solution to power their Partner Portals. While these companies know a contemporary PRM solution can take your optimization and operations to the next level, several companies are still finding themselves falling behind.
We’ve outlined a few ways to identify if you’ve made the wrong PRM decision and what you can do to get your teams to focus back to growing and scaling the partnerships that truly drive success.
- Lack of Personalization – In today’s tech world a tailored online experience is expected. From website recognition to targeted advertisements, each step of our buying process is customized to fit a persona. If your portal cannot recognize your partners, personalize their experience, or offer up resources to help them optimize their relationship with you, you’re ultimately falling behind the competition. Impartner PRM provides a fully customized, contemporary experience that allows your partners to optimize their relationships and digital interactions.
- Who Owns the Roadmap? – The success of your products greatly depends on the ownership of certain duties. Your partner portal should be held to the same standards. While the first few days of your portal launched without a glitch, you are finding without help from your IT team, you cannot make basic functional updates. Your portal will inevitably fall behind, and the resources required to keep it up to date are time-consuming for your internal team, not to mention the cost to use your original vendor.
- You Cannot Keep Up with Updates – While a single-tenant PRM solution may seem tempting, but this means every portal is standalone. When a product or security update needs to be implemented, your vendor must update them one by one. These kinds of updates can put you behind weeks or even months. Impartner’s pure-play PRM solution creates a frictionless, world-class customer experience at every step of the partner experience (PX).
The temptation to implement a solution that appears to save you time and money is easy to fall for, but don’t be fooled by the other companies. Find out for yourself why you should choose Impartner.
Impartner is the fastest to implement, with the ability to have you up and running is a few as 14 days. Impartner is trusted by some of the world’s largest companies with some of the most complex networks. Impartner integrates seamlessly with any major CRM and third-party application and legacy system. It’s no wonder Impartner has outlived other solutions, making its way to number one.
For more ways to identify if you’ve made the wrong PRM decision, you can download our eBook here: Top 13 Signs You’ve Made the Wrong PRM Decision
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]]>The post 3 Tips to Working Smarter, Not Harder appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“On average, a company can take six to 12 months to build a homegrown portal. “
If your current partner portal isn’t helping optimize your partners’ performance, it is likely costing you money and time. Wouldn’t it be nice if that time you are spending building a portal could be distributed to a cause that could improve your sales and in turn make you more money?
We want to improve your company’s workday! Below we have provided insight into why building your own partner portal will only contribute to the ‘work harder’ model, and how investing in a PRM solution can advance your company sales right now.
1. Stop Wasting Time
On average, a company can take six to 12 months to build a homegrown portal. This means several departments in your own company are taking time away from their everyday duties, which contribute to your bottom line. With workflows and field information fully integrated into the system, the level of effort essential to managing a PRM solution would require the work of one full-time employee.
2. Stop Wasting Money
Portals need infrastructure – servers, security, configuration, redundancy, and availability, and that is just the beginning. Consider for a moment, what it would cost to build, host, and support a portal that managed thousands of partners around the world.
3. Stop Creating Chaos
There is much more to a partner portal than just a website. Decide now, to implement proven strategies and effective structure for your channel programs. The value of your company should reflect in your partner portal. Utilizing an expert will save you time by applying best practices which will ultimately accelerate your indirect sales.
In a world of DIY and instant gratification, building your own portal may seem tempting. The outcome isn’t worth the execution time, the risk of poor integration, or the loss of focus on your teams. Do your own research and find out how you can have a PRM tool up and running with a complete partner portal in as few as 14 days. Click here for more details.
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]]>The post How to Increase Channel Sales Through Partner Marketing appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“If your channel partners don’t know the value of your products, how are they going to successfully sell them?”
If you are in the business of selling, you want your channel partners to perform well. While we face many obstacles when it comes to closing a deal, marketing to our channel partners doesn’t have to be one of them. To market to your partners successfully, you must consider them as a chance to grow your revenue and reach goals.
We’ve outlined a few key components to consider when building your marketing program to your channel partners.
1. Build a Bridge
If your channel partners don’t know the value of your products, how are they going to successfully sell them? Improve their knowledge by providing your partners with easy to read product information and collateral. Utilize a platform that allows you to easily share resources back and forth and be sure to keep these assets up to date. Another great way to keep partners informed is through a weekly/monthly newsletter.
2. Modernize Selling Techniques
While the B2B industry has been around forever, selling techniques are constantly evolving. Make transitions easy by providing social assets and shareable content on a platform like Social on Demand. Also, consider providing co-branded web pages and partner locator features to improve your partner’s techniques. Offer support by providing lead activity, feedback, and stages of the buyer’s journey to ensure the new techniques are generating successful results.
3. Create Valuable Relationships
Bridging gaps and improving sales techniques will assist in your marketing plan, but none of that matters without a solid foundation. For your channel sales to scale and grow, you must create and maintain trusting relationships that are built on the alignment of the company’s goals.
When implemented correctly, marketing has the ability to elevate the relationship with your channel partners. We have found, by building solid relationships, evolving your marketing dynamics and effectively sharing properties the outcome of your marketing efforts will continue to produce successful results for both you and your partners.
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]]>The post 3 Things to Prepare Your Company for the Channel appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“Entering new vertical markets or industries can be challenging because they require you to understand the dynamics of that industry.”
When Partners sell your solutions, your revenue, market share, and profit increases. As a bonus, Partners can give you access to market segments you would not otherwise penetrate.
Most technology companies maximize profit by maximizing revenue. This principle is the basis of digital economics. If adding more direct sales resources is not a practical approach to revenue growth, or if you need to diversify your business so you are less dependent on one revenue stream, an indirect strategy may be the best option for your business.
But how do you know you need to partner? Here are a few situations where you may need a channel to sell and support your business:
- You’re trying to break through the mid-market. The size of the mid-market is massive, making it difficult to effectively drive sales through this channel. The only effective way to target mid-market is by leveraging channel partnerships that profile-specific businesses in a specific category. The same logic applies to small businesses.
- Your company needs to expand geographic reach. Outside of North America, channel and indirect business models continue to represent 80% of the IT industry according to CompTIA. Doing business in certain countries requires an entity and often currency translation. Partnerships and channel models are an efficient and cost-effective way to get into geography and learn the business.
- You want to target a specified segment. Entering new vertical markets or industries can be challenging because they require you to understand the dynamics of that industry. Knowing the exact customer profile, the client participates in like, detailed business challenges and industry governance regulations is the only way to be effective. The right channel partnerships can help you reach those industries effectively and build much stickier and differentiated value offerings for the client base.
Doing business with channel partners is highly cross-functional in terms of the resources required for execution. Organizations have the task of orchestrating activities in Product, Sales, Services, Operations and Marketing, among others, to deliver the requirements for product readiness for the channel. Developing and successfully implementing a channel model right the first time is not a sales only initiative; it’s a company-wide effort.
Want to know more about starting your channel? Check out our eBook, The Ultimate Field Guide to Building a Channel.
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]]>The post The Art of Recruiting the Perfect Channel Partners appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“Many of the new players like accounting firms, marketing agencies, and consultants do not even know what the IT channel is.”
By now, the fundamentals of channel development are common knowledge. At Impartner’s customer conference, the channel experts talked about this in great detail. Of course, there are different requirements for each type of vendor, but with experience and effort, you could build the right channel programs, tools, and partner portals.
Will these details be enough for them to come and stay? The key is to attract the right partners, and if you are still not finding the right-fit partners, this may force you to build your own partners (BYOP).
The DNA of the new channel partner is a mixture of various species – traditional VAR, MSP, ISV, Telco, POS etc. As these companies collide or merge, all sorts of hybrids are emerging. Many of the new players like accounting firms, marketing agencies, and consultants do not even know what the IT channel is. It is your job to inform them and create the best fitting partners.
The basic key to unlocking the perfect-fit partners is to know the persona, target markets, and skillset of the partners you need to sell your products. If you can narrow in on this, you will enable yourself to search for near-fit prospects and work with them to build out the channel difference that you need. As we work towards finding our best-suited partners, it is crucial to never forget to build loyalty to protect your ongoing investments. Click here to schedule a demo.
This content was originally presented by Julian Lee, CEO at TechnoPlanet, as part of a Lightning Round presentation on the “Top 9 Things Channel Chiefs Must Do in 2018 to Transcend the Performance of Their Channel.” To watch the entire presentation featuring a host of top channel strategists, CLICK HERE.
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]]>The post How to Effectively Deliver News to Your Channel Partners appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“Keeping track of opens, clicks, and bounces allow you to make future decisions when sending your newsletter.”
Last week we posted 5 ‘donts’ when sharing the news with your channel partners. This week we want to give you the 5 ‘dos’ and how you can implement them into your news delivery strategy.
- Do ask recipients what they want to receive– Give your channel partners the choice about what content they receive from you and when. By using our News on Demand tool, you can do just that. Recipients will only receive content that is of specific interest and selected by them, which will increase engagement levels.
- Do test your newsletters– Before sending out your email newsletter, we recommend using a preview tool to ensure it looks right on all devices. This doesn’t take long and will ultimately increase your open rates.
- Do send newsletters in local languages– Rather than providing English only version emails to global channel partners, increase your reach by providing translated versions. This will make the delivered content more personal. Sending email newsletters in your channel partner’s time zone is also vital to grab their interest.
- Do be consistent– Be sure to inform your audience about the type of content they should expect to receive from you. By doing so, they will be able to pay special attention to it because they know it will be of value to them. Enable your channel partners to become accustomed to receiving your content by sending your emails on the same day and at the same time.
- Do track your performance– Keeping track of opens, clicks, and bounces allow you to make future decisions when sending your newsletter. Analyzing and sorting through this data can be a simple process and once you track your results, you will immediately see the value.
Delivering successful and effective content can be a daunting process. By following these steps and investing in Impartner’s News on Demand tool, you can streamline processes and create time for more important tasks. Click here to schedule a demo.
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]]>The post 5 Steps to Avoid When Communicating with Channel Partners appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“Your channel partners are not all going to be interested in the same information since they all belong to different markets.”
We are all looking to improve our channel communications strategy. Don’t be fooled into thinking you can apply the same approach to prospects, partners, and customers. In order to deliver news effectively, you must treat them as individuals.
Check out our quick list of what to avoid when it comes to communicating with your channel partners.
- Don’t use ‘nurturing’ emails– Partners are an audience you should know well, nurturing emails are not necessary for their communication. Instead, send them informative, useful content that appeals to their company interests. This will encourage better overall engagement.
- Don’t send the same newsletter to all recipients– Your channel partners are not all going to be interested in the same information since they all belong to different markets. We suggest personalizing their content and only sending them information about the products they sell or are part of their partner tier.
- Don’t include too many images– Beware that some recipients have, by default, blocked images from appearing in emails. Always be sure to include a decent amount of text to ensure the recipient knows what the email is about. (Adding too many images can also have the catastrophic effect of directing your precious newsletter into your recipient’s spam folder, never to be seen again.) To ensure this does not happen we adhere to the 60/40 rule – 60% content and 40% images.
- Don’t Spend too long creating a newsletter– The review, approval and creation process is often a tediously long affair. The longer this process takes, the more outdated the content will be by the time you send it. Instead, focus on speeding up the creation process. You can do this by either reducing the approval and creation process or alternatively using a tool, such as Impartner News on Demand, which enables articles that have been added to the tool to be sent to applicable users alongside other relevant content.
- Don’t forget how your partners read these newsletters – The email account your recipient uses will affect how your newsletter is displayed in their inbox. Paying special attention to areas such as ‘preview text’, the line of text which will appear below the subject line, is a great way of providing a synopsis of your email and encouraging recipients’ to click and find out more. This is taken from the main body of your email, and we recommend it be no longer than 50 characters.
At Impartner, we deliver news quickly and efficiently to segmented lists with News on Demand. Want to learn more about this great new tool? Click here to schedule a demo. Stay tuned, next week we will be sharing the most effective ways to deliver news to your channel partners.
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]]>The post How to Personalize Your Channel Communications With News on Demand appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>” Personalization can and has to go a lot further when communicating with your channel partners. “
Adding the recipient’s name to newsletters hardly counts as personalization… well, not in this century anyway. Personalization can and has to go a lot further than this when communicating with your channel partners. That’s if you actually want them to read your content and stay engaged.
Here are 5 simple ways you could drastically improve your efforts:
- Opt-in and out of topics– Enable channel partners to decide which topics they are most interested in, and only send them content related to this. By doing this, your audience will feel assured from the get-go that your email will be of use to them, thus encouraging positive engagement.
- Send only when they want to receive it– Ask channel partners when and how often they would like to receive an email newsletter from you. You will then know the perfect time to send the email and the optimal frequency that fits their busy schedule. Bear with me, there’s an easy way to do this!
- Localize content– When working with channel partners globally, offering content in their first language is a pivotal way to maintain their interest. Understandably, your content will be a lot easier to read and feel a lot more personal to them. This is a must if you want engaged partners!
- Make sure it’s relevant– After gathering the valuable data about precisely what your channel partners are interested in, and when they want to receive it from you, make sure you stick to it. If you don’t, your channel partners will quickly feel discouraged, especially after they made the effort to tell you what they want. You will almost be at the point of no return if you do not do this.
- Segment your audience– Do you have different tiers of partners, such as gold, silver, and bronze? Do they receive different discounts, incentives and/or have a slightly different contract with you? You may want to broadcast certain things to each, it makes sense to send them a different email newsletter!
You may be thinking that the above is a pipe dream, but we can safely say you are wrong. You also won’t need an army of people to achieve it. Far from it. What’s more, it won’t take long to create. Have you heard of Impartner’s News on Demand?
By using this solution, you will be able to accomplish the above and more. You will be able to send a different newsletter version automatically (with no HTML coding required) to each recipient, based on; what they have opted into, their tier type as well as content that matches their language type, etc. The recipient also decides when they want to receive it and the frequency. You just need the right tools to make this happen. Click here to schedule a demo.
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]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Recognition comes on the heels of the company’s announcement earlier in the week that it has been named a Red Herring Top 100 Company
Newly acquired company, Tremolo Software, also named a top UK B2B martech company
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — JUNE 28, 2018 — Impartner, the best-selling and most-award winning pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today announced it has won three major awards from IT World and CEO World, the second major awards announcement the company has made this week. In the IT World Awards, Impartner received a Gold for Best New Product and Service, and from CEO World, a Gold for CEO Achievement of the Year for Impartner CEO Joe Wang, and a Silver for Best Products, Upgrades and Innovation of the Year. In another nod this week, B2B Marketing, a leading UK marketing outlet, also named Impartner’s newly acquired Tremolo Software as a top UK martech company.
The IT World Awards® from Network Products Guide are the world’s premier information technology awards honoring achievements and recognitions in every facet of the IT industry. The CEO World Awards encompass the world’s best in leadership, innovation, organizational performance, new products and services, CEO excellence studies, corporate social responsibility, and milestones from every major industry in the world. More than 80 judges from a broad spectrum of industry voices from around the world participated and their average scores determined the 2018 award winners.
“We’re incredibly humbled by this esteemed industry and peer recognition,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “It’s a powerful testament to our team, our products and the value we bring to our customers everywhere around the world to help them drive revenue through their indirect channels.
The awards marks another important milestone in Impartner’s history, which has been on a fast-track since the company’s acquisition just over three years ago. In that time, the company has introduced a stream of industry-first innovations to make Impartner PRM the industry’s most powerful, easy-to-update platform in the market; grown revenue 300 percent and number of employees by 5 times; expanded into multiple markets globally; increased the number of customers by 7 times; closed a new round of funding from Emergence Capital; recently closed an acquisition focused on helping vendors amplify their branding to and through partners; added host of blue-chip clients from Splunk to ZenDesk, driving its base of partners signing into portals using Impartner technology to nearly 7 million; and won more than 35 national and international awards. For more information, take a demo at https://impartner.com/demo/
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Winners cited as continent’s most exciting and innovative private technology companies
Award continues Impartner’s multi-year streak as the most award-winning Partner Relationship Management solution in the market
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — JUNE 26, 2018 — Impartner, the best-selling and most-award winning pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today announced it has been named a 2018 Red Herring Top 100 North America winner. Winners are chosen from thousands of entrants and recognize the continent’s most exciting and innovative private technology companies. The award is the latest in a global, multi-year streak of recognition for Impartner including multiple nods for product and executive leadership.
Red Herring winners were judged by industry experts, insiders, and journalists on a wide variety of criteria including financial performance, innovation, business strategy and market penetration. Winners ran the gamut of verticals, from fintech and marketing to security, IoT and many more.
Red Herring’s editors have been evaluating the world’s startups and tech companies for over two decades. It gives them the ability to see through the industry’s hype, to pick firms that will continue on a trajectory to success. Brands such as Alibaba, Google, Kakao, Skype, Spotify, Twitter and YouTube have all been singled out in Red Herring’s storied history. This year’s awards were presented at a special awards ceremony at the Marina Del Rey Hotel in California during two days of keynote speeches, discussions and finalist presentations.
“2018’s crop of Top 100 winners has been among our most intriguing yet,” said Red Herring Chairman Alex Vieux. “What has excited me most is to see so many people forging niches in high-tech and cutting-edge sectors. Some of the technical wizardry and first-rate business models on show here at the conference has been fantastic to learn about. We believe Impartner embodies the drive, skill, and passion on which tech thrives. Impartner should be proud of its achievement: the competition was incredibly strong.”
“Having led a host of tech companies over several decades, it’s incredibly rewarding to be recognized by Red Herring, which has long been prescient in recognizing companies as they break from the pack in their efforts to re-defining industries, paths to markets and technologies,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “This award is not only a nod to our team’s innovative spirit but also the foresight of our customers from world-leading corporations like Xerox and Fortinet, who recognized early on the singular power of a purpose-built PRM SaaS solution to transform the performance of their indirect channel.”
The Red Herring award marks another important milestone in Impartner’s history, which has been on a fast-track since the company’s acquisition just over three years ago. In that time, the company has introduced a stream of industry-first innovations to make Impartner PRM the industry’s most nimble, easy-to-update platform in the market; grown revenue nearly 300 percent and number of employees by nearly 7 times; moved offices twice; expanded into multiple markets globally; closed a $15 million round of funding from Emergence Capital; recently closed an acquisition focused on helping vendors amplify their branding to and through partners; added host of blue-chip clients from Fortinet to ZenDesk, driving its base of partners signing into portals using Impartner technology to nearly 7 million; and won nearly 35 national and international awards. For more information, take a demo at https://impartner.com/demo/
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader purchases Tremolo Software to automate vendor delivery of customized news to partners, allow partners to share vendor messages on social media with button push
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — JUNE 8, 2018 — Impartner, the best-selling and most-award winning pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today announced it has acquired UK-based Tremolo Software, a privately-owned enterprise-class software company that helps customers drive brand engagement. With the acquisition, Impartner will add two key technology solutions to the Impartner product portfolio:
- NewsOnDemand®: a unique newsletter platform that allows the creation of automated newsletters to partners which contain only the information the partners request based on their business relationship with the vendor.
- SocialOnDemand®: a social advocacy program which allows vendor’s partners to easily syndicate social content with the click of a button, amplifying the vendors’ messages across social channels and ensuring brand consistency.
“For vendors to have more powerful relationships with their partners — they must both be able to communicate with them precisely and easily, but also make it easy for partners to amplify their brand messages,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “This acquisition is part of Impartner’s ongoing commitment to help our customers streamline communications with their partners and turbocharge their indirect sales by providing the most complete set of channel management solutions available in the market.”
Wang added that the acquisition also adds a deep base of talent to Impartner on both the sales and engineering fronts, and further expands the company’s presence in Europe, which has already seen dramatic growth since expanding to that region in 2015.
“For nearly a decade, first as purechannelapps and then as Tremolo, we’ve been on the forefront of helping world-leading brands like Juniper Networks, Motorola, SAP and Tech Data drive engagement with their partners,” said Tremolo CEO and Founder Olivier Choron, noting that Tremolo employees will remain in the Battle, England-based offices and maintain a primary focus on Tremolo products. “I truly could not be more excited to have our company join forces with Impartner, who in the past three years has absolutely transformed the channel management software industry. This acquisition is a powerful accelerant that will only help amplify that transition and extend our reach globally.”
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Impartner Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution is Miercom Certified to provide exceptional functionality for managing business partner sales.
Key takeaways:
- Through rigorous testing of Impartner partner-engagement tools, Miercom found that Impartner PRM can enrich the sales growth experience with a rich scope of functionality, flexibility, scalability and integration.
- Impartner’s impressive out-of-the-box deployment and unique integration features distinguish it from similar PRM systems.
- Impartner PRM is now Miercom Performance Verified
Silicon Slopes, UTAH — June 5, 2018 — Impartner, the best-selling and most award-winning pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today announced that Miercom, a leading, independent product test center, has verified Imparter’s offering in the PRM market. Based on Miercom’s evaluation, the Impartner PRM solution offers exceptional functionality for managing business partner sales – with among the best capacity for customization that they have seen.
In the report, Miercom highlights Impartner PRM as a “Software-as-a-Service” (SaaS) offering designed to accommodate all manner of partners and offer each an interface and access to all aspects of their dealings with the vendor, all of which is customizable to the degree needed. Included PRM tools offer integrated, automatable and configurable functionality that is straightforward to use and deploy.
The report outlines the results of Miercom’s testing in across the main areas of PRM functionality: partner engagement, scalability, investment and sales growth. What they found was that Impartner PRM offers:
- Exceptional Partner Engagement: With Impartner, a single dashboard reports partner activity with personalized touches pertaining to information delivery, training, segmentation and more, which relate to other functions of the platform.
- Easy Deployment:Impartner provides full out-of-box functionality, and custom branding within a few days. Partner portals in other PRM systems require software integration and can entail months of development for customization. Impartner uses a visual editor, rendered in real-time.
- Ease of Integration:Impartner integrates well with CRM solutions, such as Salesforce CRM, and robust APIs which allows cost-effective leveraging of existing tools.
- Smart Content Management:Impartner SmartContent asset management functionality makes it easy to show partners relevant content, rather than flood them with information.
- Partner Performance Enhancement:Each partner is intricately monitored for each step towards their achieving channel sales goals – and it’s easy to give them tasks, resources and then rewards to help them reach objectives.
- Segmentation that Matters:Impartner’s next– generation partner segmentation engine, Segment AI, allows partners to be parsed by any attribute – tier, geography, performance – anything. This makes it possible for vendors to save time and reach the partners that matter most – and in the way that’s most effective.
- Advanced Workflow Management:Impartner’s ChannelFlow Workflow Engine makes it easy to create workflows across multiple modules and configure triggered activities, which are based on partner status or other characteristics. Unlike other PRM solutions reviewed, Impartner does not “silo” its platforms.
The Miercom Performance Verified certification validates the importance of using a PRM for partner engagement. With this certification, customers can be assured that Impartner PRM is not only effective for managing your partner environment, but also has the best capacity for customization that Miercom has come across.
“Based on our evaluation, the Impartner Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution offers exceptional functionality for managing business partner sales,” said Rob Smithers, CEO of Miercom. “Their impressive out-of-the-box deployment and unique integration features distinguish it from similar PRM systems. We proudly award the Impartner PRM solution the Miercom Performance Verified certification.”
“Impartner PRM was engineered to take the one-size-fits-all approach out of partner management,” said Impartner CMO Dave R Taylor. “Miercom’s third- party validation gives vendors the confidence in considering Impartner to transform the way they manage their indirect sales channels through a customized experience and the ability to track partner performance – without losing its turnkey ability to be deployed quickly.”
About Miercom:
Miercom has published hundreds of network product analyses in leading trade periodicals and other publications. Miercom’s reputation as the leading, independent product test center is undisputed.
Private test services available from Miercom include competitive product analyses, as well as individual product evaluations. Miercom features comprehensive certification and test programs including: Certified Interoperable™, Certified Reliable™, Certified Secure™ and Certified Green™. Products may also be evaluated under the Performance Verified™ program, the industry’s most thorough and trusted assessment for product usability and performance.
To take demo of Impartner’s partner marketing solutions and full PRM solution used by leading corporations such as Fortinet, LogRhythm and Xerox, click here.
To learn more about Impartner’s full suite of functionality and how companies with contemporary SaaS PRM solutions help generate an average of up to $9 million a year in additional channel revenue, please visit: www.impartner.com
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>“CRM solutions are built for direct, one-to-one sales, and not multi-touch channel sales.”
Vendor proliferation is something that every company works to manage. In today’s credit-card swipe technology buying environment, it’s easy to end up with too many solutions that don’t integrate well and result in siloed data.
The opposite is true as well. With big vendors like Salesforce, which serves as the CRM platform for the large majority of corporations, the temptation from IT is to insist business-unit buyers use other affiliated technologies from Salesforce. It seems easy because they are “already an approved vendor,” and another solution is just a box check.
When it comes to PRM – Partner Relationship Management – this is one technology where channel managers need to push back. CRM solutions are built for direct, one-to-one sales, and not multi-touch channel sales.
It may sound tempting on the surface to not go through the effort of vetting other solutions in the market and go with Salesforce Communities (Salesforce’s PRM solution). We’ve found numerous companies are doing RFPs and turning to Impartner PRM, the best-selling, most award-winning pure-play PRM in the world.
Besides being born for the complexities of the indirect channel, here are three key reasons why you should choose Impartner:
- Impartner PRM does NOT require a 3rd party implementer – because Impartner does all the work
- Our PRM deploys in as few as 14 days, vs an average of 9 to 12 months with other companies
- Impartner charges by partner, not partner member, costing about 8 times less than Salesforce per year
- Don’t let those “free” license years fool you, you’ll end up paying the price after 12 months
Xerox, Fortinet, Sophos, and other leading corporations have turned to Impartner PRM to power their channel for those reasons and more. We are so sure we’ll be your first choice after you take a second look, we’ll help you with your RFP:
- Click here if you want us to help fill out your RFP.
- If you’re just getting started, click here for an RFP form for you to collect your information.
Impartner: #RFPFodder at the start, the choice of world-leading corporations in the end.
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]]>The post 5 Things to Prepare Before Your Next Channel Event appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“Whether you are looking to obtain tangible or intangible goals, staying within budget is a key component to planning a successful event.”
You consider your partners to be your most strategic asset, which means you put a significant amount of effort into meeting their expectations.
Channel events are not only a great way to network, but a prime opportunity to show your partners how much you care about them. There are several components to consider when planning and promoting an important event such as this. We have put together a few guidelines and strategies to ensure your next channel event is executed successfully and your attendees are satisfied.
1. Do Your Homework
Identify what you think your partners want. Analyze your past successful events and if this is your first event, evaluate recent events you have attended. Narrow in on the aspects you liked and disliked and what you thought was beneficial. Determine the most important takeaways you want your attendees to leave with. Stay informed about upcoming trends and be sure to implement these into your event program.
2. Set Goals and Budget
Keep in mind your overall event budget includes your marketing plan. Be sure to set goals that pertain to your budget and stay on track. Whether you are looking to obtain tangible or intangible goals, staying within budget is a key component to planning a successful event. Setting limits and staying within your means will ensure you are trustworthy and give you the opportunity to offer your expertise for events in the future.
3. Prepare Your Team
While planning and prepping yourself is essential, preparing your team is the key to a successful event. Create several documents outlining the specifics of your event. Include things like attire, agenda, duties, and any other information you think the team might need to know. We cannot stress the importance of a well-informed team enough. So many events fail or look poorly planned when the entire team isn’t up-to-date. Preparing your team makes the organization look successful, which will ultimately benefit partner relationships, and result in satisfied customers.
4. Promote to the Right People in the Right Places
The number of people that attend your event ultimately defines the success of your event. First, we suggest identifying your target market, then establish which platforms the best fit. This circles back to doing your homework. Once you have found your audience, you can begin to create marketing content to promote your event. Email campaigns are a great place to start your marketing. We suggest including content from previous events and even using teasers to increase your attendance rates.
5. Plan Your Follow Up
As important as getting people to the event is, following up with them is what ensures a long-lasting partnership. Thank you emails and surveys are a great way to keep your contacts engaged. We like to include personalized details from the event, this reinforces a solid foundation for your event attendees and gives them the incentive to register for your next event.
Planning an event takes a great deal of time and planning. These steps will ensure you have the right tools to take your next channel event to new heights.
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]]>The post 5 Tools You Need to Segment Your Channel appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“Study your partners’ performance to gain insight into their potential.”
1. Why Segmentation is Important
The pressure to move faster and produce growth within your business is the key to scaling at a higher rate and your ultimate success. If your company has been experiencing the pressures of tight margins, hiring shortages, and growth targets – it’s time to think about the many ways there are to utilize your indirect channel.
The previous methods for segmenting partners was limiting and involved very little customization. Through witnessing trends first-hand and extensive research we have been able to identify four major components to segmenting your channel in the smartest way possible.
2. Ensure a Balanced Strategy
Instead of bucketing partners into categories from a mechanical level, we recommend analyzing a few components. Study your partners’ performance to gain insight into their potential. Be sure to determine which stage of the lifecycle the partner is in, within your company, are they new to your company? Are they still engaging? This will help you design groups around several different stages of the lifecycle. Include basic taxonomy into your strategy and do not forget to base a portion of your strategy on both the company and individual level.3. Ditch the Tiers and Level Up With a Plan
Traditional gold, silver, and platinum can devalue and demotivate partners unless it is based on an individualized plan. Don’t make the mistake of focusing only on your high tier partners, when your smaller tier partners could potentially be turning out a higher ROI per dollar invested.4. Be Dynamic
Launching a partner program without being able to dynamical adjust gives you little room for error and course correction. In today’s hypercompetitive channel environment, it is important to determine what a good partner looks like to your company. Once you have measured and analyzed your ideal partners, it’s time to optimize and monitor your actual results and continue to adjust accordingly.5. Tool Up and Drive a Segmented Experience
Tools are the critical component to the success of segmentation. You are now able to determine the best way to use your new tools to customize the experience each partner has with your program.As your company expands and develops relationships with several types of channel partners, strategizing a segmentation process will allow your company to reach results that will balance and focus your partner programs for a more profitable future.
This content originally appeared as part of Impartner’s ‘Build a Better Channel’ series. To watch the full webinar click here.
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]]>For Immediate Release
Impartner’s TCMA solutions cited as a good fit for customers who have invested in Salesforce (CRM) and are looking for an affordable, full-featured solution
Silicon Slopes, UTAH — April 27, 2018 — Global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner has been named a strong performer in The Forrester Wave™: Through-Channel Marketing Automation, Q2 2018. In the report, the 15 most significant solution providers have been evaluated against 25 criteria.
In the Wave, Forrester reports that marketing to, through and with partners is critical to reach new buyers.”As brands increasingly use channels, partnerships and alliances as a primary vehicle to reach customers, the ability to include these third parties in marketing programs is critical for success,” Jay McBain, Forrester Principal Analyst and author of the report, wrote. “A consistent brand experience across all routes to market will be the primary factor that differentiates companies and helps them win, serve, and retain customers in the next decade, and B2B marketing pros must source new technologies to support this imperative.”
“Although Impartner’s core focus is on broader enablement of indirect channel revenue growth, we have a strong heritage in marketing automation,” said Impartner CMO Dave R Taylor. “We could not be more proud that our marketing solutions are called out as a strong performer in the report, but also that they are only part of the robust suite of fully integrated capabilities our PRM solution brings to the table for our corporations worldwide. We believe that this report is further validation customers can source the full set of technologies they need to service their partner base, avoiding vendor proliferation, and rest assured that our marketing capabilities are as robust as any TCMA point solution available on the market.”
“Impartner’s business growth absolutely reflects, in our view, what Forrester is observing – that more and more B2B marketing professionals see distributed and local marketing as key to influencing new buyers and broadening their reach to customers in new ways,” adds Taylor. “It’s increasingly rare for our new customers to implement a new PRM solution without incorporating TCMA capabilities. Companies absolutely want to provide their partners with the market-amplifying megaphone TCMA solutions provide.”
To take demo of Impartner’s partner marketing solutions and full PRM solution used by leading corporations such as Fortinet, LogRhythm and Xerox, click here.
To learn more about Impartner’s full suite of functionality and how companies with contemporary SaaS PRM solutions help generate an average of up to $9 million a year in additional channel revenue, please visit: www.impartner-prm.com
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post New Partner Mantra: ‘Show Me (How I Make) the Money’ appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“What partner owners really cared about was what their business risk and the bottom line looked like…”
It’s surprising how many channel people we talk to that do not have a clear understanding of how their partners make money selling their products. If they do, they quite often don’t incorporate all the factors affecting partner profitability into their programs.
When we talk with our clients about the importance of a strong economic value proposition to support their recruiting and re-recruiting efforts, they report many of the same challenges:
- Why aren’t they more engaged?
- Why aren’t they pushing my new product line?
- Why does it seem we are doing all their work?
- Are we recruiting for the right profile with our partners?
I’ve been there! Right after, “where are the sales?”, more cumbersome questions arise: Was it really worth it? Why are only a few resellers bringing in new business? What is wrong with them?
What’s in it for me?
Communicating a compelling economic value proposition to partner owners and execs in simple terms that show how they’re going to make money with your product line has never been more important than it is today. The complexity of total offers–products plus services to deliver complete solutions–makes such messaging critical to get mindshare and wallet share from those partners. More than just messaging to partners at the deal level, you must paint a picture of how they are going to be successful in the short term and over the long haul, which is often the next 2-3 years in today’s changing world.
It’s not just about discounts, rebates, and incentives!
We have often been asked to benchmark companies’ total rewards packages against a market basket of industry companies. This starts with a look at discounts, rebates, special incentives, deal registration incentives, and market development funds compared to best practices and industry norms.
We found that business owners and the partner execs seemed not to care about the up-front factors as much as they should. Of course, discounts, rebates, and incentives are important, but over time they all tend to settle to a competitive norm, so there isn’t a lot of differentiation between vendors. What partner owners really cared about was what their business risk and the bottom line looked like–how much they had to invest to get into the business, how much it took to ramp up to be in the business, and their operational costs to make it a sustainable and growing part of their company. In other words, what they really cared about was what they kept, not just the top line or gross margins.
This led us to additional research into the fundamental economics around the partner relationship, across a number of different markets. We found examples where the deal-level economics were really strong; the top-line revenue was there, and margins were good, but the vendors didn’t have a solid program or ability to execute, which made it very difficult to do business with those companies. We found that partners of those firms would tend to sit back, let the vendor do all the work, and be happy with the more modest margins that came from merely ‘fulfilling.’
It’s all about ‘Transaction Velocity!’
Vendors can have great products, great technologies, customers that love them, and partners that say all the right things. Customer pull-through can mask a lot of issues, so vendors must address two key areas to do more deals, faster:
- Total readiness/enablement focused on marketing and sales motions.
- Ease of doing business through automation of key processes, such as:
- Market development fund management (MDF).
- Lead distribution.
- Configure/price/quote (CPQ).
- Order management.
Effectiveness in these two related areas will combine to drive more opportunities, get to yes (or no) faster, and allow the partner to do more overall transactions at an effective cost of sales, which when it comes down to it, is what partners want out of their vendors.
Build Partner Programs Based on Economic Value Outward – Show Them the Money!
Vendor program elements and investments need to be designed to support the economic value proposition for targeted high-potential partners. To build effective programs you must:
- Understand how the best partners make money with your products.
- Understand how top partners are structuring their businesses to maximize efficiency.
- Invest and execute in three primary aspects of ‘Transaction Velocity’:
- Through-partner marketing programs: assets, campaigns, and resources.
- Field resources and sell-with expertise that can be added to match the buyer’s journey.
- Partner automation technology for ease of doing business throughout the entire program.
Craft a consistent ROI-based message for current and potential partner execs
Through these steps, vendors can show current underperforming and high-potential new partners how their investment in and commitment to the vendor will yield increasing revenue and profits. Vendors who adopt the ‘Show Them the Money’ approach attract and retain more top partners and will actively outperform their competition.
(This content was originally presented by Kevin Rhone, Practice Director and Senior Strategic Consultant at Enterprise Strategy Group, as part of a Lightning Round presentation on the “Top 9 Things Channel Chiefs Must Do in 2018 to Transcend the Performance of Their Channel.” To watch the entire presentation featuring a host of top channel strategists, CLICK HERE. This blog post originally appeared on ESG Blogs, March 7, 2018)
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]]>The post 3 Channel Trends to Revolutionize Your Manufacturing Business appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“You must become empowered with the latest technology to set your sales and service teams up for the greatest success.”
It’s no surprise the manufacturing industry has one of the most complex selling models. With a rapidly changing sales environment, keeping up with the times in the current market can make it difficult to maintain a competitive edge.
As more manufacturers shift from their legacy selling models, which were based on in-depth product knowledge and relationship development, they are finding the importance of to-partner marketing, sales development, and so much more.
We’ve discovered a few trends to revolutionize your manufacturing sales and increase revenue growth:
- Update Your Selling Model – Get on track with industry trends by paying attention to your own analytics and benchmarks. The best way to analyze your future ROI is to look at your past. You must learn the industries best practices for portfolio expansion, spending on sales metrics, and revenue ratios to optimize your investments. Gain the greatest amount of leverage by unlocking your company’s maximum customer revenue potential.
- Investigate Best Practices – Forward-thinking manufacturers no longer rely solely on the quality of their products to win deals. You must become empowered with the latest technology to set your sales and service teams up for the greatest success. This means expanding the use of platforms beyond CRM. Implementing the latest PRM and Marketing Automation platforms can give your company the competitive edge it needs to surpass expectations.
- Optimize Your Data – When it comes to partner data, it is vital to know your partners inside out. Find out who is performing best and what systems they prefer, then optimize your marketing programs to align with your partners selling solutions. Next, look at your customer data and find out which campaigns they prefer from your partners. Compare analytics and determine why certain content resonated deeper than others, and use the data to create a deeper connection with customers.
For more information about modernizing manufacturing, watch ARO, Ingersoll Rand’s Customer Case Study with Impartner and find out how the implementation of our PRM transformed their partner experiences and helped bring their manufacturing company into the 21st century.
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]]>The post 5 Things Channel Vendors Need to Know to Prepare for the GDPR appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“Given the immense amount of partner data vendors manage – it’s critical that they follow these new regulations closely.”
Today, one in four US companies don’t know if they’re prepared to meet GDPR compliance standards, which are set to take effect in May of this year. These new security rules affect any business that stores data on EU citizens, even if the company is based in the US.
Those that fail to comply will be fined up to $20 million or 4 percent of global annual turnover for the preceding financial year, whichever is greater. These penalties are so severe that they could put a company out of business in the EU.
Worried? You should be. But, it isn’t too late to prepare. Here’s what channel vendors need to know to get ready for the May 25th deadline:
1. Data collection will become more transparent
The GDPR was designed to ensure that there will be more transparency between the organizations who collect the data (the ‘Data Controllers’) and the individuals whose personal data is being collected (the ‘Data Subjects’). This means vendors will need to secure consent before collecting data from their partners or their partner’s customers.
2. Excessive data collection will be forbidden
Vendors that collect data from partners will be limited to only what is relevant and clearly disclosed to the individual. Data stored by a vendor which is deemed excessive such as personal contact information or social media handles could be considered non-compliant.
3. Securing data will become imperative
Vendors will need to ensure data is stored in accordance with the security provisions of the GDPR. This means vendors are required to use “appropriate technical and organizational security measures” to safeguard personal data. Depending on what data is being collected and how it is being used, companies should consider encryption and use anonymization or pseudonymization methods to protect it within their systems.
4. Data accuracy will need to be maintained
Partners will have the legal right to request a vendor update their data if the information is no longer accurate. If the partner requests at any time that their data should be deleted, the vendor has to comply with that request and confirm the deletion, not only from their own systems but from any downward systems who were processing that data on behalf of the vendor.
5. Retaining old, unused data will be prohibited
Vendors can only hold on to a partner’s data for as long as is necessary to fulfill the intended purpose of collection, and to comply with any other regulatory commitments. This means, if a partner leaves a vendor’s program, they will need to ensure they have a data retention policy that specifies how long they will retain the partner’s data for and the justification for holding on to the data for the said period.
Given the immense amount of partner data vendors manage – it’s critical that they follow these new regulations closely. If you’re still using a spreadsheet or homegrown solution to manage your partner data, now is the time to make a change.
With Impartner PRM, vendors can establish the level of transparency required to ensure compliance with the GDPR. The contemporary partner portal makes it easy to maintain partner data while achieving a heightened level of security through pseudonymization.
Worried your current PRM solution isn’t compliant? Don’t worry — Impartner can have you up-and-running with Impartner PRM in less than two weeks, so you can be ready for the May 25th deadline.
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]]>For Immediate Release
Fluid management division implements Partner Relationship Management solution to power partner portal; improves lead pipeline metric 200%
Silicon Slopes, UTAH — April 13, 2018 — When 87-year old fluid management brand, ARO®, of Ingersoll Rand, set out to reinvent their service and support of their global channel partners, many of whom have been partners for several decades, the choice was a Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution from Impartner, the best—selling and most award winning pure—play PRM in the world.
While PRM has recently gained solid footing as a core go-to-market technology with the tech glitterati such as Splunk and Zendesk, channel management software like Impartner’s is only just making its way to old-line manufacturing companies like ARO®, which makes pumps, and other fluid handling products, that move nearly every fluid in general use today from chocolate to fuel. The results, have been no less transformative. See firsthand in a new video case study released today, ARO® Ingersoll Rand Customer Case Study.
“When we thought about what we do and the mission that we’re on, it was certainly about growing our business, but it was also about the hundreds of thousands of families that rely on our business in what they do,<” said ARO® Global Marketing Leader Liz Cope. “We were looking to create a space for partners to have an easier, unique business experience, and not only continue to position us as the most reliable brand in the industry, but also as the brand that’s thinking about our customers first in a demonstrable way. With Impartner, we were able to do that.”
A Consultative Approach
In the case study, Cope stresses that because PRM is only just emerging as a technology in the manufacturing space, they were looking for a consultative supplier to help the company make the transition. “Impartner had a desire to speak our language, meet us where we were, and help us understand the space,” said Cope. “They became mentor, coach and vendor all in one. They were really patient about that, and we needed that because we were looking to bring the best—possible experience to our customers—and Impartner provided that guidance.”
The Assets Partner’s Need
A key feature of ARO®‘s new portal, is the asset library, which makes accessing sales collateral and training easy and fast for partners. “Our partners are in a competitive marketplace. Everything we do now in our portal is designed to give them that edge that their competitive distributor does not have,” Cope said.
Stretch Goals Reached
While partners are thrilled, when it comes to driving the performance of the business, Cope says the new PRM has transformed ARO®‘s ability to track leads, pass them to partners, and monitor their performance. “In 2017, I put together a stretch goal to increase our pipeline influence 30 percent over 2016, and thanks to efficiencies, our ability to broaden our partner base receiving leads and onboard new partners, we were able to increase that nearly 200 percent,” Cope said.
A Transformative Experience
In the rollout to partners, Cope said one of the most powerful moments came when previewing the portal to a new partner. “The marketing manager looked at me, and he said, ‘Liz, this is the holy grail. No other manufacturer we carry is doing this.’ That’s a powerful statement for our business. Implementing a PRM solution for your partners lets them know that you are listening to them, and Impartner would be my only choice.”
To see the ARO® case study, click here. and for case studies on the transformative power of Impartner PRM with other leading corporations, click here.
About Ingersoll Rand
Ingersoll Rand (NYSE:IR) advances the quality of life by creating comfortable, sustainable and efficient environments. Our people and our family of brands—including Club Car®, Ingersoll Rand®, Thermo King® and Trane®—work together to enhance the quality and comfort of air in homes and buildings; transport and protect food and perishables; and increase industrial productivity and efficiency. We are a $14 billion global business committed to a world of sustainable progress and enduring results. For more information, visit www.ingersollrand.com.
For more information about ARO® visit www.arozone.com.
To learn more about Impartner’s full suite of functionality and how companies with contemporary SaaS PRM solutions help generate an average of up to $9 million a year in additional channel revenue, please visit: www.impartner.com
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post ARO® Leapfrogs Competition with New Partner Experience appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>For Immediate Release
PRM cements its place as a core enterprise business solution that’s as critical to a company’s customer success as CRM or MAP
Silicon Slopes, UTAH — April 11, 2018 — In today’s market, marketing, sales and channel professionals are drowning in a veritable tsunami of technology solutions, causing widespread confusion on spending priorities and resulting in a hodgepodge of non–integratable solutions and siloed data. In a new report issued today, Forging the Modern Go-to-Market Architecture, top technology industry analyst Tim Harmon issues a bold statement to those responsible for building their company’s go–to–market architecture: “Forget shiny point solutions until you’ve made three technology investments that have cemented the foundational systems of record for today’s salestech, chantech and martech stacks – Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Partner Relationship Management (PRM), and a Marketing Automation Platform (MAP).
“In 2017, the martech solutions space alone grew by about 40 percent, to a total of over 5000 solutions, and it’s simply paralyzing for business buyers to figure out what’s important and what the priority is in their purchase decisions – they don’t know where to start,” says Harmon, managing director of technology analyst firm Nuvoce. “This report is focused on clearing away that confusion, by helping customers understand that the winning, go–to–market technology landscape for every company starts with three critical platforms – CRM, PRM and MAP. Each of these foundational solutions acts as a vital System of Record (SOR), providing the go–to data source for point solutions, and without which, they will provide sub–optimized value to your organization.”
In the report, Harmon explains the causes behind the proliferation. “You can point the finger at the SaaS phenomenon, which invites or encourages under–considered buying and line–of–business decision making without IT input,” said Harmon, stressing that he’s not lobbying organizations to add complexity to their buying process, but rather, encouraging corporations to more intentionally understand what foundational technologies are necessary to implement first, to improve the overall effectiveness of their subsequent investments.
One surprise in the report is the cementing of PRM as a foundational, enterprise technology, alongside CRM and other core enterprise business solutions. “PRM has never been more critical as a scale pedal in helping corporations automate and optimize their indirect operations, which generally represent 75 percent or more of a corporation’s revenue,” said Harmon. “In 2018, a contemporary, world class partner portal ensures you are maximizing that critical real estate you own with your partners – it is truly the window through which you extend all the prowess of your direct sales business processes and applications to your indirect channel partners.”
The foundational criticality of PRM to today’s modern go–to–market architecture is clearly reflected in the growth of Impartner, the world’s largest and most award winning pure–play PRM provider. In just the past year, the company increased its customer base by more than 70 percent, increased the number of users signing into portals using its technology from 75 percent to nearly 6 million, and just finished hosting its third annual customer conference, which has doubled in attendance year over year and draws channel chiefs worldwide from major corporations, from Xerox and Zendesk to Splunk and Fortinet.
“This is a critical time for companies to build out their technology stacks in a way that truly transforms the performance of their businesses,” said Dave R Taylor, CMO of Impartner. “We couldn’t be more excited to have someone with Tim’s technical depth and understanding of the market help distill the most critical go–to–market components for today’s business technology buyer. The fact that our rapidly growing customer base includes marketing leading such as Rackspace, Fortinet and Zendesk further validates the central role PRM now plays in driving the performance of the world’s most successful companies.”
To download a copy of the report, click here. To take a demo of Impartner’s PRM technology, click here.
About Nuvoce
Nuvoce is a global network of industry analysts and consultants specializing in research and insights regarding the go–to–market – channel, marketing and sales – functions. Its mission is to educate and equip go–to–market professionals to innovate and execute their strategies integratedly to effect high business performance. Nuvoce is known for its Technology Investment Decision Management© (TIDM©) methodology, a business case, process and automation framework for optimizing the adoption of new technology solutions.
For more information about Nuvoce, visit www.nuvoce.com.
To learn more about Impartner’s full suite of functionality and how companies with contemporary SaaS PRM solutions help generate an average of up to $9 million a year in additional channel revenue, please visit: www.impartner.com
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Forging a Modern Go–To–Market Architecture: CRM, PRM and MAP appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>The post How to Stop Bribing Your Partners with MDF appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“We are in a state of revolution regarding partner programs, pivoting away from transactional and incentive-led to a new era of loyalty and trust.”
The status quo is no more. We are in a state of revolution regarding partner programs, pivoting away from transactional and incentive-led to a new era of loyalty and trust. Traditional programs are struggling to find and stay relevant. The time is now to reimagine programs, embrace new personas and breathe loyalty and trust into our partner relationships. If you are still stuck on bribing your partners with Marketing Development Funds (MDF), we are here to tell you, there is a better way!
MDF and other like investments are guaranteed to be around for the foreseeable future – but there will be a pivot. We will start to see MDF as a mutual investment that the vendor and partner make together. This investment could be anything that makes sense – like a marketing program to drive leads – but it could also be an external certification that the partner needs to serve your mutual customers. The investments could range from digital marketing classes, sales methodology training, or a funded headcount for a partner to expand into a new area.
We have found programmatic MDF – whether accrued or granted – and are using funds to run marketing programs that don’t take the end-user in mind, provides zero value. According to Jay McBain, Forrester Analyst, customers are looking for hyper-specialized partners and one of the 35M potential customer solutions that could be offered. There is no off the shelf program that could possibly address that. The better option is to consider investments that are focused on the end-user and offer a return on the investment with mutual benefits. This type of paradigm shift breeds loyalty and trust.
The concept of customer lifetime value has been around for a long time and smart businesses use this metric to measure loyalty and understand a customer’s worth to a business. It is important to ask yourself why you are loyal and if the products and services you are providing live up to expectations and deserve the same loyalty in return.
Partner-Centric-Management is the foundation partner relationships are built on, which includes, cooperation, mutual success, trust, and loyalty. We know from research that customer trends dictate the buying decisions to solve a business outcome. This makes it even more important that the vendor and partner work together to provide solutions within a trusted, mutually beneficial relationship, that also builds loyalty.
Consider the specific characteristics you would want in a long-term partner. Determine what makes the perfect partner for your organization. Once you narrow down these traits, you can figure out how you will engage with the perfect partners. A long-term relationship will require intent to provide an excellent partner experience, with collaboration and mutual benefit – and an excellent PRM solution.
As for MDF, you’ll begin to think about it in terms of investing in mutual priorities with ROI.
This content was originally presented by Jessica Baker, Chief Program Officer at Achieve Unite, as part of a Lightning Round presentation on the “Top 9 Things Channel Chiefs Must Do in 2018 to Transcend the Performance of Their Channel.” To watch the entire presentation featuring a host of top channel strategists, CLICK HERE.
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]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New CMS breaks all the molds: makes it fast and intuitive for channel managers to edit complete partner experience and not just content in Partner Portals
Release also transforms creation of sales enablement materials; instantly readies collateral to be customized by partners while protecting vendor branding
Segmentation wizard joins debut, takes segmentation strategy from whiteboard to reality with a few clicks
CLOUD EXPO EUROPE, LONDON — MARCH 22, 2018 — Impartner, the best-selling and most-award winning pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, today announced its Spring ’18 software release, which makes it possible for channel managers to edit, in real time, not only the content but also their partners’ experience in their Partner Portals — without the help of IT. The release continues the company’s ongoing focus on providing the world’s most powerful, most nimble channel-management tools. Impartner’s completely reengineered Content Management System (CMS) allows users to both add and change pages by program segment, tier, region, etc., with a simple drag and drop interface, and make content changes using the solution’s new fast, sleek, intuitive control interface, the Momentum Bar™. Other key features in the release include enhanced sales enablement and segmentation functionalities.
“In 2018, the vendor with the best partner experience wins,” said Impartner Senior Director of Product Management, Gary Sabin, highlighting Impartner’s newly reengineered CMS. “This industry leap-frogging CMS solution is 100 percent focused on making it easier than ever for our customers to be able to continually optimize their partners’ journey with an easy-to-use, consumerized interface that users have come to expect from their business solutions.”
A Paradigm Shift for Sales Enablement
Sabin stresses this same paradigm-shifting engineering vision is the driver behind the release’s new sales enablement functionality. Vendors have long struggled to convert collateral layouts into formats that make it easy for partners to customize for their businesses by dropping in their own images, logos and text content. However, with Impartner’s new AutoSense technology, vendors can instantly scan and detect images and text in collateral material and ready them to be customizable by partners with the click of a button, removing dependence on professional services teams and running up timelines and expenses.
“Sales enablement materials are a critical part of the value partners expect from leading channel programs, and one that we see driving a reported 56 percent increase in profitability for partners who have the resources they truly need to bring a vendor’s products to life in the market,” said Sabin. “By instantly making any existing collateral co-brandable, we’re removing the time, budgeting and logistical challenges that in the past, have caused vendors to limit the collateral they provide.”
Segmentation in a Few Clicks
In its previous release, Impartner ushered in a new era of precision with its SegmentAI automated segmentation engine. With this release, SegmentAI features a new wizard, which takes Impartner’s segmentation functionality to another level by making it drop-dead simple for channel managers to bring their segmentation strategies to life with a few clicks.
“Visionary channel managers are dreaming up strategic segmentation schemes as part of their secret sauce to getting the most out of their channel partners, and imagining unique differentiated programs to stand out in today’s hypercompetitive channel environment,” Sabin Said. “Until now, the challenge has been the difficulty of peeling those strategies off the whiteboard and actually implementing them within their toolset.”
More Control Over the Heart of Your Chantech Stack
Self-service is also the focus of Impartner’s new configurable Single Sign On (SSO) solution. “Because a company’s PRM solution is the Grand Central train station of the chantech stack—the central hub from which partners can jump into other technologies that are constantly being added and reconfigured — our new SSO makes it easy for vendors to make the adjustments that are typical in today’s fast-moving technology landscape,” said Sabin. “Without having to turn to an outside vendor, it’s now 100 percent in the vendor’s control to add and remove technologies as they come and go — making it easy for vendors to maintain SSOs for their partners to ensure they have a seamless transition from their PRM to other technology solutions.”
To learn more about Impartner’s full suite of functionality and how companies with contemporary SaaS PRM solutions help generate an average of up to $9 million a year in additional channel revenue, please visit:www.impartner-prm.com
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post 3 Ways to Change Your Selling Point of View appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“Building a foundation solidified on trust and mutual commitment ensures successful partner/vendor relationships.”
Getting your organization to shift to a partner-centric management mindset will require a change in the way you train your team to interact with partners. Pay special attention to those on the front line like channel account managers. You will have to train (or retrain), CAMs how to engage with your partners and the best ways to practice partner-centric management.
Challenger selling is a thing of the past, we are no longer asking our customers to challenge the norm. Collaboration is the future. When selling aligns with your partner-centric management philosophy, your partner programs are bound to succeed.
Below are a few factors to consider when shifting your teams to partner-centric management:
1. Shift the Power to the End-User
This means buying decisions are now directed by the consumer. Everything from measured business outcomes to vendor loyalty is all stemming from consumer requirements. Collaborating with your partners and consumers gives you the competitive edge you need.
2. Look for a Broader Set of Skills
Technical skills and marketing are not as common at the partner level, which means your partners don’t have the infrastructure, skills, and knowledge to fully support the end-users. This puts an even larger emphasis on collaboration. Servicing your consumers properly means your partners will rely on you for some of these resources. This collaborative element will drive the relationship forward and upwards to a much more entangled, strategic level.
3. Build More Successful Relationships
Building a foundation solidified on trust and mutual commitment ensures successful partner/vendor relationships. Once you sharpen your skillsets and commit to working in unison, you will undoubtedly build strong long-lasting relationships within your own team and that will transfer to your partner/vendor relationships.
ISO recently released a new standard model for collaborative business relationships: ISO 44001. From that model, and from our research, we determined that collaborative selling – where trust is at the core of a mutually beneficial relationship, is the way forward. Collaboration creates something larger than the sum of the parts and it is what today’s partners require.
This content was originally presented by Jessica Baker, Chief Program Officer at Achieve Unite, as part of a Lightning Round presentation on the “Top 9 Things Channel Chiefs Must Do in 2018 to Transcend the Performance of Their Channel.” To watch the entire presentation featuring a host of top channel strategists, CLICK HERE.
The post 3 Ways to Change Your Selling Point of View appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Award marks company’s third anniversary since acquisition and nearly 300 percent sales growth
Latest recognition is company’s seventh Stevie Award and continues Impartner’s streak as industry’s most award-winning PRM
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — FEBRUARY 28, 2018 — Global pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today announced it has won a Gold Stevie® Award in the Relationship Management Solution category of the 12th annual Stevie Awards® for Sales and Customer Service. This award is the seventh Stevie Award the company has won since its acquisition three years ago, adding to a stream of other national and international awards that firmly cement the company’s position as the most award winning PRM in the market. The recognition comes as the company marks the third anniversary of the company’s acquisition by CEO Joe Wang and growth equity firm Kennet Partners. The company has grown nearly 300 percent since the purchase and in the past year alone, has increased the number of partners signing into portals using Impartner technology by 75 percent to nearly 6 million.
“This award is further validation that what the market is already telling us is true — PRM has moved into the mainstream as a core enterprise business solution that’s as critical to a company’s business success as CRM, ERP or any other foundational technology that is part of a modern go-to-business architecture,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner CMO, listing off a stream of world-leading corporations that have recently signed on with Impartner including Splunk, Zendesk and Jive Communications.
The 12th annual Stevie® Awards for Sales and Customer Service saw more than 2,500 nominations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were evaluated in this year’s competition. Finalists were determined by the average scores of more than 150 professionals worldwide in seven specialized judging committees. The full list of winners can be viewed here.
The Stevie Awards for Sales and Customer Service is one of the world’s top honors for customer service, contact center, business development and sales professionals. The group organizes several of the world’s leading business awards programs, including the prestigious American Business AwardsSM and International Business AwardsSM. The awards were presented during a gala banquet on Friday, Feb. 23 in Las Vegas.
To learn more about Impartner’s full suite of functionality and how companies with contemporary SaaS PRM solutions help generate an average of up to $9 million a year in additional channel revenue, please visit: www.impartner-prm.com
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post How to Build Partner Trust and Avoid Fake News appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>How to Build Partner Trust and Avoid Fake News – with Raegan Wilson
“Trust is one of the most important things in any relationship, and this foundation is crucial for success and growth. Partner trust starts with your programs and your products.”
Building partner trust is the key to successful channel programs. Take a moment to consider if you have delivered on all the promises you have made to your partners in the last 6 months and if they have belief in your products and programs. A strong foundation for partner programs is built with their best interests in mind, and then yours.
Fake news kills partner trust. Trust is one of the most important things in any relationship, and this foundation is crucial for success and growth. Partner trust starts with your programs and your products. If they can’t go to market and trust that your solution is going to perform, they’re not going to do business with you. Your programs must deliver on the expectations you present.
Putting the requirements and benefits of your partner program on your partner portal is a great way to hold your organization accountable. This holds you responsible and reliable to your commitments. To avoid confusion from either party you will need to implement processes to manage all the commitments and expectations.
Here are the top 4 things we recommend when building trust with your partners.
1. Honesty
Start by having an honest representation of your program offering. It is best not to embellish, be upfront and truthful about what you can deliver. If you are not ready for an element don’t communicate a commitment to it. It is easier to add things later, then to overcommit and underdeliver. Your partners will thank you and they will be happier with your program if you commit and execute well.
2. Consistency
Put processes in place to ensure nothing gets left behind. Consistency exists when processes are not only strong but followed. Your partners will follow the processes you expect if you hold them accountable. This applies internally as well. If you say a deal registration will be approved within 24 hours, approve it within 24 hours. If partners are expected to register deals within your portal, don’t accept them via email. Follow through on your processes and you will build trust and set expectations for both sides of the relationship.
3. Follow Up
Provide your partners an opportunity to communicate with you and offer feedback. Listen to what your partners have to say about your program and products. Compile the data you receive and act on it. Proper follow up will create an environment of trust and foster long-term relationships.
4. Reciprocate
Trust is a two-way street. Look for opportunities to trust your partners, and acknowledge them when they follow through. Provide partners with opportunities to trust you as well. Building trust takes time and dedication, showing your partners your dedication to them will build long-term successful relationships.
Quit creating fake news within your partner program. Take action on the steps above to build a lasting relationship with your partners. Strong, solid, well-executed programs ensure the trust of your partner programs and benefit you both in the long run.
This content was originally presented by Raegan Wilson, Chief Channel Officer at Channel Squared Consulting, as part of a Lightning Round presentation on the “Top 9 Things Channel Chiefs Must Do in 2018 to Transcend the Performance of Their Channel.” To watch the entire presentation featuring a host of top channel strategists, CLICK HERE.
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]]>The post 7 Characteristics Required to Build a Billion-Dollar Software Company appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“All iconic companies start with great leaders. Great leaders share many characteristics, but the most noteworthy is, Vision, Conviction, and Integrity.”
Do You Have What it Takes?
New software companies are popping up left and right. Acquiring certain characteristics in this type of industry can ensure you don’t get lost in the shuffle. We found the most significant type of qualities amongst the most successful companies and how you can apply them when planning and building your billion-dollar software company.
1. Leadership
All iconic companies start with great leaders. Great leaders share many characteristics, but the most noteworthy is, Vision, Conviction, and Integrity. Vision is the foundation of your idea and will bring direction and ‘why’ to your organization. As Brian Jacobs, Founder of Emergence Capital said, “Conviction is a belief about the future, and that’s how you change the future.” Integrity is the anchor in building an iconic business and the difference between right and wrong. Great leaders with integrity are consistent and clear with their actions, methods, expectations, and outcomes.
2. Team
You cannot do this alone. A great leader brings together the team and with that, they bring a playbook. Once you’ve combined a great leader with their team and an exceptional playbook, it’s time to execute.
3. Focus
The team and playbook have been brought together, now is the time to focus. A great leader is following one course until they have reached extreme success. When you stay focused and own a market or industry, the success of your business has no ceiling.
4. Market Size
Opportunity depends greatly on market size. The larger the market, the greater opportunity to build billion-dollar companies. These opportunities allow organizations to transcend business models and deliver new value to existing and new customers.
5. Market Penetration
The deeper you penetrate your market the more successful your company will be. Market penetration is a key component to the overall success and growth of your company. As Doug Landis mentioned in his presentation, “market penetration is a great indicator of needing to refocus, so you can execute well on one thing.”
6. Defensibility
Analyze the opportunities for others to provide what you provide. Defensibility is having the skillset to stay ahead of everybody else. Having the ability and focus to leverage your defense will make your company unique and show everyone else you are the best at what you do.
7. Go-to-Market Strategy
The worlds best companies have a go-to-market strategy. A go-to-market strategy means creating clear customer profiles and knowing your buyers. Make sure your message is resonating with customers. Know how to find your customers and fill your funnel. Lastly, distinguish what metrics are most important and concentrate on them.
The worlds best companies have focused on and measured themselves on these characteristics. Take a moment to measure yourself. Determine your level of leadership and if you have kept your focus. Realize where you resonate with these characteristics and where you can make improvements.
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]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Fortinet, FireEye, Jive Communications, Kio Networks, Splunk and Zendesk honored for channel program excellence at Impartner’s annual customer conference
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — FEBRUARY 9, 2018 — Impartner, the world’s leading provider of pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solutions, today announces the recipients of its third annual customer awards, which were presented at ImpartnerCON18, the company’s annual customer conference held February 7–9, 2018 at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City. The theme for this year’s conference was Transcend, with the focus being on helping companies grow beyond ordinary limits.
Following are the winners of this year’s Impartner Transcend Awards and the name of the award they’ve won for setting the pace for channel operations:
- FireEye, Transformer Award: For making a complete transformation of their PRM functionality and bringing to life a robust and fully customized portal in record time.
- Fortinet, Magnet Award: For creating a vibrant partner portal experience through pricing, promotions, training, marketing and sales that has driven their customer engagement to the top of the leaderboard for all Impartner customers worldwide.
- Jive Communications, Edge Award: For pushing the boundaries of what is possible in their business and in channel enablement, including a ground-breaking, real-time integration with their Salesforce-based price pricing solution into their PRM, making price quoting available to their indirect channel.
- Kio Networks, Vanguard Award: For leading the way in implementing PRM for mission-critical IT Services and Infrastructure vendors in Latin America.
- Splunk, Integrator Award: For leading the way in how PRM is truly integrated in to the flow of their business and business processes.
- Zendesk, PRM Promise Award: For their ability to truly deliver more value to their partners through automation without adding additional staff, powerfully delivering on the promise of PRM.
“This year’s group of award winners is a clear reflection of the value PRM and Impartner is bringing to some of the world’s most leading-edge, born-in-the cloud, SaaS corporations,” said Brad Pace, VP of Customer Success. “It’s a privilege for us to serve these companies and all our customers that share our unwavering commitment to driving the channel forward.”
This past year has been transformational for Impartner. The company has seen a 70 percent increase in new customers bringing the total number of partners signing into portals using Impartner PRM technology to 5.6 million.
Attendance at the company’s annual customer conference doubled since last year. The star-studded speaker lineup featured the who’s who of the channel including a keynote from Doug Landis, Growth Partner of Emergence Capital, a leading enterprise cloud venture capital firm. Other sessions were led by market-leading analysts from firms including Forrester, SiriusDecisions, ESG and The 2112 Group.
Learn more about ImpartnerCON18
To learn more about Impartner and schedule a free demo of Impartner PRM, please visit: www.impartner.com/demo
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Announces 3rd Annual Global Awards for PRM Excellence appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ImpartnerCON18 speaker lineup features ‘who’s who’ of the channel, including a key enterprise cloud venture capitalist and leading channel analysts and strategists
Channel chiefs from Jive Communications, Ingersoll Rand, Splunk, Wacom and Zendesk among headliners of best-practice presentations for using Impartner PRM to manage their channel
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — FEBRUARY 2, 2018 — Impartner, the world’s largest and fastest-growing pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) company, today announces a speaker lineup that includes the veritable who’s who of the channel — the biggest names in indirect sales all under one roof — for its annual customer conference.
In only its third year, ImpartnerCON18 has become a premiere, thought-leadership event — where industry analysts, customers and partners come together to share new and emerging insights on how to optimize channel performance. The event will be held February 7–9, 2018 at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City. Themed “Transcend,” this year’s conference focuses on a single challenge: Driving channel performance that transcends ordinary limits.
As Dave R Taylor, Impartner’s chief marketing officer, pointed out, the conference offers attendees a singular opportunity.
“The conference has been described by leading analysts as the only opportunity of its kind in our industry. What we’re doing — bringing together an inner circle of channel trailblazers to brainstorm new ideas for the future — is something they can’t find anywhere else and is why it’s drawing customers from across the world to attend,” Taylor said. “This is three days to push the boundaries of what’s possible with channel performance and it’s the one event our customers can’t afford to miss. The opportunity to transform the performance of the indirect channel is now.”
Chief among these trailblazers is keynote speaker Doug Landis, growth partner of Emergence Capital, a leading enterprise cloud venture capitalist firm that invested $15 million in Impartner to advance growth for the market’s most award-winning PRM solution.
Landis’ keynote, “The Transcendent Business Practices of the World’s Best Companies,” will draw from deep expertise gained from Emergence’s catbird’s seat in the market where the firm has an enviable view of what top companies have in common that truly deliver exceptional results. Emergence has backed some of the most iconic and successful corporations over the last decade including Salesforce, Veeva, SuccessFactors, and Box among many others.
Landis joins a roster of channel luminaries from a wide swath of the industry’s most prestigious channel analysts and firms, who are coming together to share insight on how to eclipse the bounds of channel performance.
This year’s lineup, includes:
- Jay McBain, Principal Analyst, Forrester
- Maria Chien, Service Director Channel Marketing Strategies, SiriusDecisions
- Larry Walsh, CEO and Chief Analyst, 2112 Group
- Rod Baptie, President, Baptie & Company
In addition to guest speakers, the conference will feature a Lightning Round of presentations focused on the top things companies need to do to transcend in 2018. Led by Julian Lee, President of TechnoPlanet, the fast-paced knowledge sharing session will include the following participants, consisting of top channel strategists who work with many of the world’s leading companies:
- Jessica Baker, Chief Program Officer, Achieve Unite
- Gina Batali-Brooks, President, Is Inspired
- Patricia Rush, President, RushToChannel
- Kevin Rhone, Director, Channel Acceleration Strategy, Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)
- Raegan Wilson, Chief Channel Officer, Channel Squared
Taylor said he’s looking forward to providing a forum for customers and partners to get up to speed on the latest thinking in channel strategy and optimization. Top channel chiefs from companies ranging from Jive Communications, Ingersoll Rand, Splunk, Wacom and Zendesk will also share best practices on how they’ve driven their channel performance with Impartner’s award-winning technology to a crowd of peers which includes other top companies ranging from Samsung, Quest Software, Fortinet and FireEye.
Building on the company’s dramatic growth in 2017, this year’s customer conference comes on the heels of a monumental 12 months for Impartner, which included a more than 70 percent increase in new customers and a 75 percent increase in users signing into portals using Impartner PRM technology to more than 5.6 million.
Learn more about ImpartnerCON18
To learn more about Impartner and schedule a free demo of Impartner PRM, please visit: www.impartner-prm.com
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Channel Brain Trust to Assemble for ImpartnerCON18 appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Former Cisco security sales VP John McCurdy takes helm as CRO
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — JANUARY 25, 2018 — Impartner, the world’s largest and fastest-growing pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) company, today announced the appointment of John McCurdy, former Cisco VP of Americas, Global Security Sales Organization, as chief revenue officer. With McCurdy’s appointment, current CRO and former Channel Chief of Akamai Mark Rogers shifts focus to strategic customer relationships and building the company’s strategic alliances and fast-growing global network of channel partners.
“In much the same way as CRM has transformed direct sales, PRM is cementing its place as a mainstream technology for its power to transform indirect sales,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “We couldn’t be more excited to have someone with John’s depth of enterprise sales experience broaden our leadership team and capitalize on this market demand, and at the same time, have Mark focus his channel experience on increasing our market penetration through building strategic partnerships and our indirect sales channel — a critical path to market.”
Prior to his role with Cisco, McCurdy, a tech industry veteran of more than 25 years, was vice president, Western North America Sales for Sourcefire, Inc. Under McCurdy’s 11-year leadership, his team attained partnerships with hundreds of Fortune 1000, commercial and public-sector accounts throughout Western North America, growing sales from $5,000 per quarter to $46 million per quarter. Their security solutions are an integral part of operations for organizations in financial services, transportation and logistics, healthcare, retail, online services, communications, high tech, energy industries, state and local government and higher education.
“Having spent the bulk of my career selling to corporations that generate most, if not all, of their revenue through the indirect channel, I fully appreciate the power of working with companies to optimize their channel performance and accelerate indirect sales,” said McCurdy. “The power of contemporary PRM solutions to give channel managers the same visibility into their indirect channel performance that they have into their direct sales, makes PRM the next core enterprise solution, that’s as critical as a CRM or an ERP. I’m more than looking forward to joining this leadership team and helping continue Impartner’s extraordinary market trajectory.”
“The market demand from potential alliance partners for Impartner is tremendous and the time to further expand our own partner network to capture this market opportunity is now,” adds Rogers. “As PRM has become a core go-to-market technology for any company that sells through indirect channels, it has become a must have technology for software and solution integrators and consultants worldwide to have in their arsenal of solutions.”
The expansion of Impartner’s leadership team is the latest in a continual string of news from the company that has been on a rapid growth trajectory since Impartner’s (formerly known as TreeHouse Interactive) acquisition in 2015 by CEO Joe Wang and Kennet Partners, a growth equity firm. In under three years, the company has nearly quadrupled in size, moved offices twice, won countless national and international awards, closed two additional rounds of funding, the latest from VC cloud leader Emergence Capital, and continually added to its blue-chip roster of some of the world’s most prestigious companies from Samsung and Zendesk to FireEye and Fortinet and Ingersoll Rand.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post How to Navigate Signing a New Reseller Partner in Your Industry appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>“Before I begin examining the resellers, I take a look at my own business and what sets it apart.”
So, you signed a new reseller partner. Congrats! NOW WHAT?
Whew, what a process, but you finally got that new partner signed up. You’ve done a lot of prospecting, been on many phone calls along with demonstrations, testing and negotiation. Regardless, it was time well spent as the dotted line got signed. Now, you can sit back and watch the sales roll in.
Well… Where are the sales? You might ask yourself, “Why aren’t my new resellers doing what they do, sell?” Right? Unfortunately, the issue is more complicated than that.
I’ve been there! Right after, “where are the sales?”, more cumbersome questions arise: Was it really worth it? Why are only a few resellers bringing in new business? What is wrong with them?
In my experience, the answer to those questions tends to be, “Look in the mirror.”
I have built/managed Channel programs and have worked with hundreds of Channel vendors and partners over the years. The reason for their issues is always, invariably, the channel program, the channel strategy or, most often, the lack thereof.
When I encounter these types of problems, I start by asking myself and the team the following questions:
- Is our product’s strengths backed up by solid data and value propositions?
- Are we clearly articulating the top 3 to 5 reasons why a channel partner would be crazy not to sell our product?
- Are we recruiting the right channel partners to sell our products?
- Are the target end client/users and the target purchasers clearly defined for our partners?
- Can our channel partners really make money with our compensation plans and pricing?
- How are we helping our channel partners to make money?
Yes, a lot of it depends on us.
Is the partner management process being strictly followed and is it scalable?
Are your strengths backed up by solid data and value propositions?
To find out, use the Competitive Analysis!
Before I begin examining the resellers, I take a look at my own business and what sets it apart. In this regard, I simply cannot stress enough the creation of a well done competitive analysis chart. In most all cases, I can review a company’s website and tell immediately if that company has done a proper competitive analysis, and/or if they know how to use it to drive business.
For example, if a company’s website is littered with industry/category value propositions instead of a solid 3-5 reasons I would be crazy not to do business with them, then the company either hasn’t done a proper competitive analysis, or the company doesn’t know how to use one.
Here is a quick exercise: compare your website to your industry/category brethren. Do you sound similar? What makes your product the strongest in its category? Are you stating points of parity, or are you making it easy for the prospect to see your product’s advantages and uniqueness?
Remember, most everyone says they are the easiest to install, the most cost effective, the most productive, etc. So, you have to stand out and prove why your product is the best! Oh, and to reinforce this, you have to be able to prove your statements.
Ask yourself: what are my top 3-5 reasons? If you haven’t done a proper competitive analysis, you won’t know, or you will sound just like your competitors. A proper analysis will allow you to definitively state 3-5 reasons why a client/end-user/reseller would be crazy not to do business with you. The analysis will be THE document that allows your company to build all its value propositions and marketing collateral while providing you the firepower to help you and your partners to close business.
You may not want to hear this, but you don’t have to be the overall best product in your industry/category — you just need to be able to carve out a well-defined niche. The competitive analysis will allow you to find the niche in your category and dominate in that space.
By the way, the competitive analysis is one of the top three documents that the best and most interested partners will ask for.
Are you recruiting the right channel partners?
Once I have the strengths outlined, I can now consider who the best companies are to resell my product/service. Sure, I can buy a list of resellers, thumb the yellow pages or spend time looking at websites. However, brute force marketing and sales is costly, time consuming, yields low conversation rates, frustrates employees and negatively impacts partner productivity. Remember, it’s not just about recruiting resellers; it’s about recruiting the right resellers.
Consider these factors
- Does the reseller’s business model match my company’s business model?
It should! If you don’t get anything else out of this little article, you need to get this. If your business (and financial) model does not match with your channel, you are going to have a very tough time. - Does the reseller sell to or work with the right kind of end clients?
- Does the reseller sell to or work with the right size of end client?
- Does the reseller sell a competitive product?
- Does the reseller have domain expertise?
Once you have figured out what we at SaaSMAX call the “IPC” (Ideal Partner Configuration), you will be able to target the right resellers, sign them and find your sell-through rising.
Are the target end client/users outlined well?
The vast majority of resellers, especially in SaaS, are quickly verticalizing their client bases. Additionally, most SaaS applications are highly targeted vertically as well as in vertical niche markets. You’ll be in a better position to enable resellers if you understand who is using your product, what business problems your product alleviates and the size of your market. Knowing your end client will allow you to more effectively activate your partners.
It is key to note that when I say “activate a reseller,” I’m not talking about one or two sales. The goal is to achieve Sustainable Partner Revenue. This means that your reseller channel must be able to consistently close on new business. Don’t get excited if a reseller kicks off fast as, in most cases, they will burn out unless you are providing them the right sales support.
Can the channel make money?
I often ask people, especially when interviewing, what the easiest thing to sell is. Think about it. For me, the easiest thing to sell is money. For example: if I put out one hand and ask you for $100 while, at the same time, handing you $200 with the other, would you give me $100? Sure you would! I can sell that all day.
So, make sure your resellers are successful and they will stick with you. If they aren’t profiting, or are cut out of renewals and future revenue, they will find another product to sell. They are resellers and they are in the business, like you, to make money.
Also remember, a reseller does not only judge his/her profitability on what they make from your product. They also consider profit from additional services and companion products like support packages, installation, system integration, and other add products/sales.
When recruiting resellers, “show them the money.” Be prepared to educate the reseller on how they make money selling your product, what ways other partners are making money and how to go about selling it. Many resellers don’t just sell point product. They bundle several products together, add services and installation to meet the business requirements of their clients.
Don’t forget that many of the resellers you will work with are just as savvy as you are. They aren’t just making money –- they’re building an asset they can, at some point, exit. If you help your resellers achieve their goals, you will accomplish your own.
How do you help the channel make money? Yes, it is up to you.
We just talked about showing the partner how to make money. This section is all about enablement.
Resellers are no different than your inhouse sales team. In a sense, you are outsourcing your lead generation and sales to your resellers. Therefore, you should be treating both groups similarly.
You don’t expect a new sales person to come on board and sell at a high level within the first 1-3 months. They need training, support, mentoring and product information. In fact, a new sales person takes 6-12 months to really hit their stride.
It’s no different with your new reseller. You need to train them, provide them with market materials, joint sales activities, sales training and, for your best ones, joint sales and MDF. If you aren’t helping your new reseller to see some money within the initial stages of your relationship, the odds of that partner becoming productive drop dramatically.
One way to assist them is to prepare a simple but effective marketing plan. Provide them with call scripts, presentations, emails templates, marketing slicks they can co-brand, joint webinars, etc. Helping your reseller to make the first couple of sales will ensure their ability to start making them on their own.
Another great way to help jump start the relationship is to provide your reseller with some leads or bring them along on a sale or two. You can even give them a client at a reduced margin. Anything to get them active in the sales process and making some money. If they’re seeing a check from you each month, they’re certainly going to miss it if it goes away.
Is the partner management process being strictly followed and is it scalable?
Lastly, I review all of my channel processes. Are they repeatable? Are the policies and procedures being strictly followed by the team? Are partners utilizing the tools we have given them?
I have found that you always want to stay in front of your partner. Remember: your partners are not only selling or using your product — they’re running a business as well. Keeping mindshare, especially early on in the relationship, is key.
If nothing else, you need a three month program with helpful tools the partner can use to get those first few sales. Help them get a revenue stream started. After that, you still need to stay in front of them and nurture the relationship so that it will continue to grow.
To do this, you need a good system in place to manage your partner relationship (especially if you intend to scale). Yes, it is possible get started without investments in a Partner Relationship Management solution like Impartner. But, to truly scale beyond about 50 – 100 partners, you need to make sure you automate your partner program, or, according to Forrester, you simply won’t be able to scale.
It’s a great idea to invest in current channel management technologies like Partner Relationship Management (PRM). These technologies automate the operational basics and speed up both the onboarding and profitability of your partners. This allows your channel team to focus on more strategic conversations with your partners.
I have covered quite a lot of ground here. The information in this post will be useful if you’re looking to get into the channel or if you’re wondering what more you can do to activate and attain Sustainable Reseller Revenue. I know if you use some of this information, your reseller performance will increase.
If you have further questions or you’re looking for some help, SaaSMAX is the place to come!
This article by Clinton Gatewood, VP Partner and Reseller Development at SaaSMAX Corp., originally appeared on The WiseSaaS, January 16th, 2018.
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]]>” When it comes to SaaS in the channel, the biggest trend and threat for 2018 and beyond is verticalization.”
SaaS/cloud adoption was very strong in 2017, reaching $46.3 billion by year’s end, Gartner predicts. As adoption increased, the IT services channel has been forced to move quicker in its own adoption, service creation and sales of SaaS/cloud products. I expect to see an even faster rise of SaaS/cloud adoption next year as channel companies continue to tool their business models to SaaS/cloud, which will drive adoption in the SMB space to new heights.
As in any industry, there are always going to be naysayers touting SaaS/cloud as the last nail in the coffin for the IT services channel. I believe it will be just the opposite; we are seeing the evolution of the IT services channel into the SaaS/cloud world, as well as the rise of a new channel.
SaaS’ impact on the IT channel
Despite a fair number of IT service providers who’ve been resistant to change, the channel as a whole still comprises many engaged, growth-minded entrepreneurs who thrive on meeting their customers’ ever-changing demands. Remember the death knell predictions of break-fix companies? I do. Many of them didn’t just throw in the towel and walk away. They evolved and flourished by changing their business model and structure to adapt to new technologies and changing customer needs. We are now seeing the same thing happening today as IT applications and infrastructure moves to the cloud.
SaaS is enabling a new service provider business, whether it’s via the evolving traditional IT services channel (e.g., retail VARs, managed cloud services providers) or from nontraditional companies such as PR firms, CPAs, marketing/SEO consultants, and business consultants. All of these firms are enjoying additional revenue from SaaS applications and will have a great impact on sales growth for ISVs who know how to cater to them.
Where SaaS is taking us in 2018
In a recent study conducted by Carolyn April, Senior Director of Industry Analysis at CompTIA, titled, “Software-as-a-Service in Today’s Channel,” April reveals several insights on the future of SaaS. “Three quarters of the channel respondents in the CompTIA study say their cloud-based sales included SaaS-related activities,” she says, “and the number one reason channel partners say they have added SaaS to their portfolio is customer demand. Partners report most of their SaaS-related revenue is coming from customization and integration services.”
Correlating these statements, we have an idea of where SaaS is headed in 2018 — up! Add in the services opportunities for the channel, and a perfect storm, where SaaS is the eye, is created. Considering the channel is the place SMB customers get their services and products and considering CompTIA’s finding, SaaS in the channel is going to be explosive. If 2017 is the year of SaaS, then 2018 will be: “The Year of SaaS in the Channel!”
SaaS-related trends and predictions for 2018
When it comes to SaaS in the channel, the biggest trend and threat for 2018 and beyond is verticalization. Many SaaS applications are verticalized around broader vertical categories like retail, medical, or financial. However, most SaaS vendors are specialized within a subset of the vertical. So, the SaaS app may be a fit for the whole vertical (e.g., healthcare), but it is especially good at a particular subset of that vertical (e.g., long-term care facilities).
Many service providers who’ve been used to selling managed/break-fix services across a number of markets in the past, struggle with honing their services and marketing messaging to the sub-verticals where SaaS really differentiates itself.
The biggest opportunities for ISVs in 2018
Every day new SaaS products are being introduced to the market making the ISV market more competitive. Can an ISV afford to go head-to-head with each competitor simply by growing its in-house sales team? Many ISVs may not have the cash to grow their teams. So, how can they reduce their attrition rates?
An ISV might think it has the best product on the market. Even if it does, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is how an ISV can scale and how fast it can capture a sufficient revenue stream to grow to the next stage and outpace the competition.
ISVs utilizing the channel properly will have a competitive advantage and, eventually, a lower acquisition cost than those that do not.
Here are a few points to consider:
- ISVs utilizing a channel and keeping a channel involved in the renewal process have a 60-70% higher client retention rate.
- The channel is where SMB clients go to get their products and services. Even if you acquire clients, the channel will see your product and will find a competitor they can sell, install/integrate and manage. So, if you lack a channel or aren’t keeping them in the renewal process, channel companies will work against you, so they can make money, too.
- The channel can be your competitive advantage. It will make your SaaS offering more appealing to clients. Remember, many of your channel partners will want to bundle your SaaS application with other SaaS applications to provide customers with more comprehensive solutions. They are very good at this, and this activity should be encouraged.
As the trend toward verticalization continues, at SaaSMAX, our platform is adding more SaaS apps within a diverse mix of verticals every week to satisfy this need for our channel community. We are a go-to distributor of SaaS products that provides customers with all of the resources and tools they need to be successful. When it comes to ChanTech, solutions like Partner Relationship Management (PRM), from vendors like Impartner are a critical part of the technology stack for vendors, SaaS or any other type of company, selling through the channel. Learn more about us at saasmax.com and Impartner’s PRM solution at impartner-prm.com.
This article by Clinton Gatewood, VP Partner and Reseller Development at SaaSMAX Corp., originally appeared at DevProJournal, December 20th, 2017.
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]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Global Partner Relationship Management Leader named silver honoree in Best in Biz and One Planet Award Series
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — DECEMBER 20, 2017 — Impartner, the world’s largest and fastest-growing pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider, has been named a two-time silver honoree in the Enterprise Service of the Year category for this year’s Best in Biz Awards and a first-time silver honoree in the New Product of the Year category for this year’s One Planet Awards. These awards join more than ten major awards over the past year, maintaining the company’s lead as the most award-winning PRM solution on the market for the second year in a row.
The Best in Biz Awards is the only independent business awards program judged annually by editorial teams at top-tier publications across North America. The One Planet Awards is an annual industry recognition program honoring employees and companies across all types and sizes in North America, Europe, Middle-East, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin-America.
“Being recognized by the Best in Biz and One Planet Award Series serves as continual validation of the value Impartner brings to our customers in helping them truly manage their channel with precision and accelerate indirect revenue,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer. “We are providing the world-class technology and partner experience every vendor needs if they want to outpace their competitors in selling through the indirect channel.”
For the Best in Biz Award Series, the Enterprise Service of the Year category includes all enterprise-level service providers, including software-as-a-service. To win, companies are required to show innovation through new features that demonstrate how the product or service is helping address pain points for enterprises. Winners of the Best in Biz Awards have been determined based on scoring from independent judging panels composed of prominent editorial teams from some of the most respected national business, consumer, technology and trade media in North America including the Associated Press, Entrepreneur, eWeek, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Security Products Magazine and Wired.
The One Planet awards honors companies for their business excellence. The series are conferred in category sections which include outstanding individuals, executives, teams, new products and services, public relations, marketing and corporate communications for organizations from all over the world.
For a full list of gold, silver and bronze winners in Best in Biz Awards 2017, visit:
http://www.bestinbizawards.com/2017-winners/
For a full list of gold, silver and bronze winners in the One Planet Awards 2017, visit:
http://www.oneplanetawards.com/world/
To learn more about Impartner, visit: www.impartner-prm.com. To schedule a demo of Impartner PRM, visit: https://impartner.com/view-demo/.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Closes Out 2017 Winning Streak with 2 More Awards appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Impartner data shows that the shortage of enterprise sales pros is holding companies back from reaching revenue goals
The indirect channel moves into spotlight as revenue driver for 2018
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — DECEMBER 12, 2017 — Impartner, the world’s largest and fastest-growing pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution provider, today released a new report revealing that the process of recruiting and hiring enterprise sales professionals is becoming even more challenging.*
According to the new study, nine out of ten hiring managers find it difficult to recruit and hire direct sales professionals, with more than half (57 percent) reporting that the problem has intensified over the past year and a half. These hiring challenges directly prevent companies from reaching revenue goals, according to roughly three-quarters of those surveyed.
The biggest single driver behind this hiring difficulty is a lack of candidates with relevant experience (cited by 46 percent of respondents). Other reasons include a shortage of candidates who understand the company’s solutions (22 percent), high compensation requirements for qualified candidates (16 percent) and increased hiring competition from peer organizations (16 percent).
Despite a number of actions to boost hiring with better recruiting tools and increased compensation, hiring challenges are still holding back the bottom line.
That’s where indirect sales come into play.
“The golden age of the channel has arrived,” said Dave R Taylor, CMO of Impartner. “In a business climate where qualified enterprise sales candidates are costly and in short supply, companies can’t put all their revenue eggs in the direct sales basket. Why struggle to hire direct sales people in an extremely competitive market that’s stifling your ability to increase revenue, when the indirect sales channel provides an immediate avenue to growth?”
However, Taylor notes that to continue to scale, companies that already have a channel need them to work harder than ever before to make up for the inability to grow their direct sales teams, and companies without a channel need to create one at the risk of being left behind in the market.
In either case, contemporary PRM solutions like Impartner’s play a critical role:
- For companies with an existing channel, if they’re still struggling to manage a partner program on spread sheets, using a dated, home grown portal with limited functionality, or using a myriad of point solutions which create a frustrating user experience for partners, they will underperform competitors who have an updated PRM solution. On average Impartner PRM customers see a 31 percent increase in revenue and a 23 percent decrease in administrative cost in the first year of use alone by being able to automate administrative processes and optimize partner performance at every step of the partner journey.
- For companies without an indirect channel, they will fall behind competitors who do because they lack the additional “feet on the street” they need to be able to make up for the lack of enterprise sales talent available in the market. A contemporary PRM solution helps companies ramp their partner programs 46 percent faster and their partners to revenue productivity 37 percent faster.
In the past, Taylor notes that many companies have resisted indirect sales because of a perceived lack of oversight and visibility. However, solutions like Impartner PRM erase that concern, but making it possible to manage indirect channels with the same level of visibility and control as they have over direct sales.
For an infographic on the results of the study, click here.
For a free demo of Impartner PRM, please visit: https://impartner.com/view-demo/
*Based on the results of a survey of hiring managers of 200 corporations that do business nationally and internationally, 2017
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post 9 out of 10 Companies Struggling to Fill Sales Roles, and it’s Only Getting Worse appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>The post How to Bring Manufacturing into the 21st Century With Partner Engagement appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>” Your company relies heavily on the success of an indirect sales channel to market and sell. “
If you’re in the manufacturing industry your customer’s buying journey can easily become complex. The amount of time and consideration dedicated to these investments is critical to your organization and your channel partners. Partner Relationship Management helps improve communication between companies and their channel partners. In the first year of using Impartner PRM (Partner Relationship Management), companies have seen a rise in partners by 46 percent and a bump in revenue by 31 percent.
Your company relies heavily on the success of an indirect sales channel to market and sell. It’s time you thought about increasing your partner engagement and how it will help streamline your manufacturing operations.
- Automation will create an effective and efficient interaction between your company and channel partners. Partner Relationship Management software will increase productivity, loyalty, and engagement, thus creating greater consistency and profitability. By automating your systems, you increase the value of your partner interactions, ultimately making it easier to do business with you. This also frees up your sales talent from mundane manual processes and allows them to get back to selling and building relationships.
- Amplification of your message to more people. Impartner’s PRM integrates marketing into your business strategy. Channel management software will allow your partners to market their unique value-added solutions and distribute complete and accurate content. In the meantime, we suggest including all your partners in your digital marketing campaigns. Targeting specific titles and industries will ensure you are getting the right message to the right person, and it is a great way to start managing your channel partners. They have reach that you don’t, taking advantage of this asset is a great way to generate more leads that close.
- Optimization of your channel strategies. The time is now to move your data from spreadsheets; which can be error-prone and time-consuming to a cloud-based CRM. Optimizing your systems will allow you to close business quicker and increase accuracy. If you are currently running your channel from spreadsheets and email, you can almost guarantee that you are leaving money on the table. Keeping an organized, trackable digital record is a great starting point and will help you move towards a full functioning PRM.
As we begin to see more and more manufacturing companies become clients, they soon realize the benefits of ditching the spreadsheets and emails for a full functioning channel partner/distribution channel ecosystem. For more information about PRM software solutions, check out The Ultimate Field Guide to Starting a Channel.
The post How to Bring Manufacturing into the 21st Century With Partner Engagement appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management solution ensures Blackboard’s global channel partners can get what they need, on any device, at any time, in any language, in one place
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — DECEMBER 1, 2017 — When leading educational technology provider Blackboard sought to enhance the experience it provides to its network of channel partners spanning 55 countries, five key reasons led them to choose the world’s largest and fastest-growing pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner’s multi-award winning PRM software. Blackboard Director for International Channel Marketing Jennifer Falnia outlined the key points in a new case study released today, which is available at this link.
The motivation for Blackboard to implement an advanced PRM solution was clear. “As a technology company, we wanted to ensure the experience we deliver our partners continues to match the sophistication of technology we provide to our end users,” said Falnia. “We wanted to continue to elevate the ease of doing business with us by providing a platform for partners to access all their tools and information in one place — on any device, at any place, at any time. Plus, we wanted to make it easier to recruit new partners and for partners to co-market with us and register new deals.”
In launching the search, Falnia said Impartner’s name came up time and again as a recommended solution, and ultimately, Blackboard chose it for the following reasons:
- Embedded integration into Salesforce
- Speed of implementation
- Strength of content management solution
- Strong, off-the-shelf Marketing Development Fund (MDF) module
- User licenses based on size of partner network, as opposed to per user
Already, in less than a year since deployment, Blackboard has seen tremendous traction with its new portal. “We’ve had thousands of log ins and downloads,” Falnia said. “We look to our new portal as not only an enablement tool for our committed partners, but to attract new partners. We now have the infrastructure we need to accelerate sales with our partners. Impartner is a great solution for us.”
To view the Blackboard case study, click here, and to view case studies of other leading corporations using Impartner PRM technology, click here. Ready for a one-to-one demo of how Impartner can help you transform your partner program and increase revenue an average of 31 percent — click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Selected to Accelerate Indirect Sales appeared first on Impartner PRM.
]]>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Smart segmentation automation and asset delivery functions ensure no partner gets ‘lost in the shuffle,’ regardless of size, geography, partner type or business model
Analyst firm SiriusDecisions stresses that vendors have accumulated many channel partner types, yet few have the resources to engage effectively with all of them — until now
LONDON, SIRIUSDECISIONS SUMMIT — OCTOBER 5, 2017 — Impartner, the world’s largest and fastest-growing pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) company, today announced the Fall ’17 release of its multi-award winning Impartner PRM software, which ushers in a new era of precision in partner management that allows vendors to surgically deliver the exact “care and feeding” each partner in their system needs to optimize their performance. With the new release, the Impartner segmentation engine, Impartner SegmentAI, segments vendors’ partners automatically and intelligently by attributes like tier, region or type of partner (referral, MSP, etc.). Plus, the company’s new asset management system, Impartner SmartContent, means vendors can get exactly the right content to exactly the right partner at exactly the right time, based on their segmentation.
“In 2017, partner programs that only utilize one type of partner are an anomaly,” said SiriusDecisions Channel Sales Strategies Services Director Chris Cleary, a topic that was recently covered in the SiriusDecisions Channel Partner Segmentation Matrix core strategy report, downloadable here. “Most B-2-B suppliers have developed relationships with many types of channel partners, yet few have the resources to engage effectively with all of them. As a result, suppliers tend to focus on top producers, the top 10 percent to 20 percent of the partner ecosystem and miss the opportunity to nurture other types of partners — the other 80 percent. We see tremendous opportunity for suppliers to optimize performance by implementing proven frameworks, processes and tools. Until today, those tools have been missing.”
Impartner Senior Director of Product Management Gary Sabin echoes this need in the market. “One of the most common issues prospects raise in our sales conversations is their inability to provide the right kind of care, of every kind of partner, beyond just the big guys,” Sabin said. “Inevitably, the performance of their channel suffers because they just don’t have the organizational bandwidth to truly service the broader range of partner types in their network. With our Fall ’17 release, we bring the full power of partner program segmentation and asset delivery, ensuring each partner essentially gets a customized partner experience that is laser focused on helping their business accelerate performance—regardless of partner type.”
Following is a full summary of the key features of the Fall ’17 release:
- Segmentation Engine, Impartner SegmentAI: The segmentation engine in the Impartner ’17 Fall Release, Impartner SegmentAI, is the first of its kind in the market and makes it easy for companies to automate the segmentation of their partner programs based on completely configurable set of machine filters, which takes the need for human interaction out of the process. The feature assures that vendors can easily optimize the partner experience for any type of partner program. Now, whether vendors have a host of referral partners, a blend of traditional and born in the cloud partners, or all of the above, they can have confidence they have a personalized “front door” and partner experience for all of them.
- Asset Automation Engine, Impartner SmartContent: With Impartner’s Asset Automation engine, Impartner SmartContent, vendors can automatically ensure that the right partner gets the right asset at the right time, based on their segmentation. The criticality of an ever-improving content management solution is highlighted by a recent global study of Impartner customers, showing that with the right sales enablement materials, their partners are 56 percent more profitable. Full highlights of the asset engine include:
- Impartner’s Channel Flow workflow engine means that channel teams, with clicks, not code, can continually refine the workflow of any partner, to make sure the system automatically gives them access to the information and assets they need.
- Vendors can provide content in multiple versions, meaning it’s easy to serve up documents in the right language and archive past versions of technical documents.
- Channel managers can schedule content publication and expiration dates to coordinate in synch with a launch, a seminar, etc.—avoiding a scramble on the busy days before those kinds of events.
- Partners can easily preview and download the content, and it’s easy for them to share with end users—on email or even through social media.
- The content is searchable by title and metadata, making it easier than ever for users to find what they’re looking for.
- Full analytics are available, making it easy to see what’s popular and not, what’s making an impact, and what’s being shared most on social media.
- Point of Sale Data Capture: Right now, many PRMs give vendors visibility into closed, registered deals. However, there is no visibility into the sales that aren’t part of the deal registration process. Especially for companies whose main products have an average sale of just a few thousand dollars, this could represent a significant portion, if not the majority, of channel sales, as most small sales are not registered. With Point of Sale (POS) Data Capture, Impartner now gives vendors the ability to load in POS data to be able to see all channel sales, registered or not. This provides a better line of site to total channels sales, plus a better idea of which verticals and actual markets companies are selling into and insight into their actual end users. Most important, because vendors have actual POS data, they can make sure they have the data they need to verify and true up rebates to partners. Finally, they have a full line of sight to all channel sales, whether the deal was registered or not.
- Enhanced Data Import Functionality: With this release, Impartner continues to make data importing even easier by taking time and complexity out of the process while further reducing errors. Now, users can import related items in one pass. An analogy would be the screen printing process, where multiple colors could be printed in a single pass, rather than layering on color by color to get the full effect.
To learn more about Impartner’s full suite of functionality and how Impartner PRM helps deliver a 31 percent increase in revenue and a 23 percent decrease in administrative costs, sign up for a demo here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Fall ’17 Release Ushers in New Era of Precision in Channel Management appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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At SiriusDecisions Summit Europe, Xerox outlines role of Partner Relationship Management technology in optimizing channel performance
LONDON, SIRIUSDECISIONS SUMMIT — OCTOBER 4, 2017 — During the SiriusDecisions Summit Europe today, Impartner Partner Relationship Management (PRM) customer Xerox outlined how the use of a contemporary PRM technology is playing a role in helping the company transform and expand its global channels program. Aqua Porter, Xerox VP of business transformation for global channel operations, made the case study presentation in cooperation with global pure-play PRM leader Impartner, a Platinum Sponsor at this preeminent sales, marketing and channel executive conference.
In her presentation, “Not Too Big to Change: How a Partner Relationship Management Solution is Helping Xerox Become a World-Class Channel Company,” Porter detailed how Xerox, despite its size, is in the process of transforming an indirect sales organization with multiple regional channel programs and disparate technology solutions, with the aid of a single, global PRM platform to better enable channel partners and empower channel managers globally.
“So often in our sales process, we run into large corporations who are incredibly hungry to have the precise control and insight our PRM solutions can bring to their channel, but they lack confidence their corporation can get their company to ‘pry up the floorboards’ of their organization’s structure and technology base the way they need to, to make sure they are contemporary in the way they go to market,” said Dave R Taylor, chief marketing officer, Impartner. “Xerox is a shining example that no matter how big or complex your organization, reinvention is always necessary to stay ahead of the game, and with a clear vision for what the future should look like both in terms of the organization and technology, transformation is possible.”
To visit Impartner at the SiriusDecisions show in London, visit Booth 20. To get a one-to-one demo on how Impartner can transform your company’s channel, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Customer Uses Power of PRM to Help Transform Global Channel Program appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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PRM creates a frictionless, contemporary partner experience to attract the best partners, optimize mutual performance and accelerate channel revenue
Impartner PRM customers report an average 31 percent increase in channel sales in first year of use
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — SEPTEMBER 15, 2017 — Impartner, the world’s largest and fastest-growing pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) company, today launched a new interactive infographic which highlights how PRM optimizes every step of the partner journey, which is critical to accelerating channel revenue. In blind survey, Impartner PRM customers report a 31 percent increase in revenue, a 23 percent decrease in administrative costs, a 53 percent increase in engagement and a 37 percent decrease in the time it takes to ramp partners to revenue productivity in the first year alone. The infographic can be found here.
“Without the ability to create a seamless, world-class, comprehensive partner experience at every step of your partners’ journey, you’re leaving money on the table due to lost opportunity and ultimately, you’ll lose your best partners to competitors that provide a better experience,” said Impartner CMO Dave R Taylor. “This interactive infographic makes it easy for companies to see if their partner journey has what it takes to compete by delivering the digitally savvy, consumer-grade experience partners have come to expect from leading vendors.”
The priority for vendors to ensure they’re providing partners with a world-class partner journey has never been more critical. “As customer experience (CX) continues its stronghold on the CEO agenda, the same holds true for partner experience (PX) for companies selling through the channel,” said Maria Chien, service director of Channel Marketing Strategies at SiriusDecisions. Chien outlined five key reasons channel chiefs consider improving their partner’s journey to be one of their top priorities:
- The channel is an engine of growth
- Increasing competition for partner mindshare
- Partners are more selective about investing in vendors, with PX as a primary decision driver
- PX directly impacts CX
- Evidence shows that PX directly impacts partner engagement, performance and loyalty
To see if your company “has what it takes” to maintain your company’s competitive advantage, click here for the interactive infographic.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post New Interactive Impartner Infographic Shows How PRM Enhances Partner Journey appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Funding to further accelerate Impartner’s growth trajectory, which in Q1 ’17 alone has already seen an increase of 88 percent in new customer growth and 77 percent in new bookings
Growth spurred by corporations from Ingersoll Rand to Samsung turning to Impartner PRM to transform the performance of their indirect sales
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — JULY 17, 2017 — Impartner, the world’s largest and fastest-growing pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) company, today announced the closing of a $15 million round of funding from Emergence Capital, the leading venture capital firm focused on early and growth-stage enterprise cloud companies. Impartner will use the funding on research and engineering to continue to advance its flagship Impartner PRM solution, which is already the most award-winning solution on the market, and on sales and marketing resources to further capture market momentum for PRM, which has become the first and most critical investment that companies need to make to contemporize their channel technology stack.
“At Emergence Capital, we strive to invest in market-leading companies that have a global impact,” said Brian Jacobs, founder and general partner, Emergence Capital. “We believe that with Impartner’s strong management team, business execution and blue chip client base, they can expand their current lead in the fast-growing PRM market.”
The base of partners signing into Partner Portals created using Impartner’s technology has climbed nearly 275 percent in the past year alone, reaching more than 3.8 million total partner log-ins from its global customer base. The growing list of enterprises turning to Impartner PRM for its power to increase revenue an average of 31 percent and decrease administrative costs by 23 percent (per a recent global customer survey — whitepaper here), crosses a broad range of verticals from technology to telecom to manufacturing, and includes Ciena®, Conga, Illumina, Ingersoll Rand, Pivot3, Samsung and Splunk. For Pivot3, a leading hyperconverged infrastructure company growing at nearly 80 percent a year, scale was a key driver in its search for a PRM solution. “One of the things you have to do with a channel program is operate in a one-to-many capacity, especially when you’re growing this quickly,” said Pivot3 Chief Marketing Officer Bruce Milne. “Impartner’s PRM solution was pivotal to the rapid expansion of our channel program, which grew by 400 partners in 12 months.”
“Time after time after time, we’ve seen the power of PRM to accelerate the indirect sales of our customers in a way that compares to what the CRM market first did for direct sales a decade ago,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “When you consider the business impact of what PRM is doing for indirect sales, which is generally 80 percent of corporations’ revenue, compared to what CRM has done for direct sales — the market potential is transformative.”
In just over the past two years since the company’s acquisition, Impartner (formerly known as TreeHouse Interactive), has completely refactored its PRM solution to be up and running in as few as 15 days and be easily adopted by main street corporations and not just early tech adopters; introduced a stream of industry-first innovations to make Impartner PRM the industry’s most nimble, easy-to-update platform on the market; expanded into EMEA and Latin America; nearly quadrupled its staff and moved offices twice; and won nearly 30 national and international awards for both products and executive leadership — including two back-to-back CEO of the Year awards for Wang.
To learn more about how Impartner can transform your company’s channel performance, click here to schedule a demo.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Raises $15 Million in Funding from Emergence Capital appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Quoting tool extends native Salesforce quoting capabilities to partners, speeds deal closure
New release also launches deal and pipeline management solution built from ground up to manage multiple-partner participants typical in a channel sale
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — JULY 11, 2017 — Impartner, the world’s largest and fastest-growing pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) company, today announced the Summer ’17 release of its multi-award winning Impartner PRM software, featuring the first PRM which extends native Salesforce™ price quoting capabilities to partners. The channel-friendly price quoting tool allows partners to extend co-branded, opportunity-based price quoting to end users – streamlining the overall process and taking the weight off deal desks so partners can accurately, confidently and quickly move forward with closing deals instead of waiting for quotes. Other updates in the summer release include new deal and pipeline management functionality designed specifically for the channel to track the multiple partner touch points typical of a channel sale; enhanced capabilities for more accurate reporting and forecasting of deals; easier data imports and event management.
“Our new release changes the game for Impartner PRM customers using Salesforce CRM who don’t have a Configure Price Quote (CPQ) solution for their channel,” said Gary Sabin, senior director of product management for Impartner. “For the first time, their channel teams can quickly provide accurate price quotes and proposals to end users without getting bogged down in administrative work or having to bring in yet another technology vendor.”
Following are additional highlights on the key features of the Summer ’17 release:
- Deal and Pipeline Management for the Channel: Impartner’s new flexible, configurable functionality has been built from the ground up to track and manage channel sales, which, unlike direct sales, typically involve multiple touch points with multiple partners. This allows vendors to create a guided and stewarded process for their partners and ensure everyone is fairly recognized and compensated.
- Configurable Product Catalog Functionality for Deal Registration, with Special Pricing Approval: To allow more accurate deal reporting and forecasting, Impartner now provides customizable product catalog functionality which is fully integrated into the registration process. Channel managers can now easily manage product details and maintain more complete information to expose to their partners during opportunity registration and ensuring more accurate pricing. Also, the system allows the flexibility to provide discount percentages on list prices, making it easy to provide and track special pricing.
- Customizable Global Views: In a prior release, the company launched the industry’s “channel first” interface that allows channel managers to create regionalized views personalized for them. With this release, channel chiefs can also create standardized global views for all channel managers to ensure reporting and management consistency on key metrics and focus areas — providing the best of both worlds by making it possible to have global consistency and also a local view.
- Drag and Drop Import Wizard: This release builds on Impartner’s self-service data import functionality by making it even easier with a drag-and-drop interface to map imported data from any source quickly and accurately into Impartner PRM. Users can save imports as pre-set configurations to be used again later to streamline recurring imports and are also able to preview resulting records, link related items and resolve any inconsistencies before being processed.
- Multiple-Participant Event Registration and Attendance Tracking: Impartner’s Event Calendar module makes it possible for vendors to highlight new product launches, webinars and other events for partners. This update makes it even easier, by allowing one person to register multiple attendees from their company, so only one touch point is required from the partner. Plus, the solution now makes it possible to track attendance and ultimately the business value the event delivered in terms of sales, training completed, etc.
To learn more about how Impartner PRM helps deliver a 31 percent increase in revenue and a 23 percent decrease in administrative costs, sign up for a demo here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Releases Industry’s First Price Quote Functionality appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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New case studies featuring Ciena, Conga and Pivot3 highlight the power of Impartner’s multi-award-winning Partner Relationship Management software to accelerate channel revenue
Impartner emerges as newest member of Silicon Slopes tech elite, building on 156 percent growth of customer base in 2016 with an increase of 88 percent in Q1
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — MAY 9, 2017 — Global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today released a series of case studies featuring tech leaders Ciena, Conga and Pivot3, all of whom have recently joined the growing list of businesses worldwide that are turning to Impartner’s robust software to help manage their channel operations and accelerate indirect revenue. The power of Impartner’s robust PRM software platform to increase indirect revenue by an average of 31 percent and decrease administrative costs by an average of 23 percent* helped the company grow its customer base by 156 percent in 2016 and 88 percent in Q1 2017 alone, with a client roster now reading more like a Who’s Who of top corporations, including the three highlighted in the new case studies as well as Xerox, Splunk and Ingersoll Rand.
“It’s incredibly exciting to bring corporations like Ciena, Conga and Pivot3 onboard,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer. “But it’s even more exciting to see the impact Impartner PRM has on helping them scale their channel programs and accelerate the performance of their channel.”
For Pivot3, a leading hyperconverged infrastructure company growing at nearly 80 percent a year, scale was a key driver in its search for a PRM solution. “One of the things you have to do with a channel program is operate in a one-to-many capacity, especially when you’re growing this quickly,” Pivot3 Chief Marketing Officer Bruce Milne said in the case study. “The PRM solution was critical to the rapid expansion of our channel program, and Impartner is absolutely a key partner in that growth.”
All three companies stress that Impartner PRM’s core deal registration functionality is key to the value they can now deliver to their partners. “Our deal registration numbers climbed 275 percent in 6 months,” said Milne, noting that the solution’s easy-to-use interface is crucial to the adoption rate.
Conga, the No. 1 paid app on the Salesforce AppExchange that simplifies and automates data, documents, contracts and reporting, also finds partner response to the deal registration functionality equally powerful. Conga SI and Reseller Partner Program Manager Susie Wallingford said in the case study, “It’s driven down the average age of our deals to sometimes as low as a day, where a partner will register a deal and say, ‘Hey, I’ve done all the work for you. I just need you to send a quote,’ which has made my team look fantastic to our sales teams.”
The market advantage provided by Impartner’s deal registration is also a core feature for Ciena. “This functionality provides the framework that allows Ciena and its partners to collaboratively work on new opportunities, including automated approval/notification workflows and real-time updates between the PRM and CRM systems,” said Genevieve Beaumier, partner experience manager for Ciena, a global network strategy and technology company. “Our partners like this feature because it gives them a competitive advantage.”
To watch or read the complete case studies on how Impartner has helped Ciena, Conga, and Pivot3 take all aspects of their partner programs to the next level in the marketplace, click here. To learn more about the business case for PRM and how it can accelerate indirect revenue, click here. Attendees at the SiriusDecision 2017 Summit in Las Vegas can listen to Pivot3’s Bruce Milne present a case study on their use of Impartner PRM on May 16th, from 11:15 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in the Bassano Room 2602 or visit Impartner in Booth 232.
*Global survey of Impartner customers, anonymous responses.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Top Corporations Rapidly Turning to Impartner to Manage Channel Operations appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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GENBAND, Ixia, Pivot3 and Xerox among top corporations and Impartner clients honored as 5-Star Partner Program winners; Six executives named to 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — APRIL 21, 2017 — Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology leader Impartner today announced its customers won a record 69 percent year-over-year increase in 5-Star Partner Program Awards from CRN Magazine. In addition, six executives from Impartner clients made the 50 Most Influential Channel Chief list.
“The record number of CRN awards aligns with the dramatic value PRM delivers to companies in optimizing the performance of their channel and driving partner engagement,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer, noting data from a recent global survey of Impartner customers, which showed an average increase of 31 percent in revenue, a 53 percent increase in partner engagement and a 23 percent decrease in administrative costs. “Congratulations to our customers who have clearly driven their channel programs and their personal performance to an elite level in the marketplace and are setting the standard for others to follow.”
The 5-Star Partner Program rating recognizes an elite subset of Partner Program Guide vendors who offer solution providers the best partnering elements in their channel programs. Impartner customers who won 5-star ratings for their partner programs include companies such as A10 Networks, Asigra, Ciena, GENBAND, Pivot3, Tegile Systems and Xerox. Impartner clients on the 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs, which represents the “cream of the IT channel crop—leaders who drive the channel agenda and evangelize the importance of channel partnerships,” include executives from Samsung, Splunk and Xerox.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Customers Receive a Record 69% Increase in Awards appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Worldwide, customers report an average increase of 31 percent in revenue and a 23 percent reduction in administrative costs in the first year of use
Results summarized in new white paper which lays out Partner Relationship Management business case for executives: Highlights 13 reasons PRM is most important investment companies can make to drive indirect revenue
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — APRIL 11, 2017 — Global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today announced the results of a new global survey which revealed the startling power of PRM to accelerate the performance of nearly every aspect of a company’s channel performance including average increases of 31 percent in revenue, 37 percent in partners’ ramp to productivity, 53 percent in partner engagement and a 23 percent decrease in administrative costs. The results are summarized in a new Impartner White Paper, “The CFO’s Business Case for PRM”, which is available as a complimentary download here.
“This study validates what we’ve seen with customer after customer,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer. “Companies who deploy a turnkey, contemporary, out-of-the-box PRM solution essentially put their channel program on steroids. There is simply nothing more powerful a company can do to transform the performance of their partner networks than to make PRM the foundational technology purchase for their channel.”
Other Impartner PRM performance statistics in the study include:
- 46 percent faster partner program scalability
- 32 percent increase in percentage of partner based which improved their performance
- 48 percent increase in sales for partners who have completed training programs
- 56 percent increase in profit of partners who used sales enablement materials
- Savings of up to $50,000/year by 90 percent and savings of up to $100,000/year by 10 percent by consolidating technologies and using functionality built into the PRM
The white paper was created in response to demand from sales, channel and marketing leaders, who like all business unit professionals, are increasingly the drivers for technology purchases — and ultimately need to present a business case for the approval of the CFO.
“This is the year analyst firm Gartner projects marketing departments will outspend IT, but in nearly every company, regardless of size, product, vertical or age, the proverbial buck stops with the CFO on nearly all key purchase decisions,” Taylor said. “In today’s market, the CFO may be faced with a multitude of technology requests from a host of different business units and challenged to prioritize value and spend. This white paper simplifies the key information CFOs are looking for to ensure the business case for PRM is clear, so they can confidently make a decision that will drive revenue quickly and dramatically.”
For a complimentary copy of the CFO white paper, click here. To take a demo and for more information on Impartner, click here and learn how Impartner helps leading companies like Conga, Ingersoll Rand, LogRhythm, Quest Software, Xerox and Zendesk harness the power of their partner networks and accelerate indirect revenue.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post New Impartner Customer Survey Reveals Startling Power of PRM appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Impartner included among the best brands and marketers in the world such as Adobe, Autodesk, Brocade, Citrix, Google Cloud, Intel, OpenTable and The Clorox Company
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — APRIL 6, 2017 — Global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today announced that it is a 2017 Marketers That Matter® (MTM) Awards finalist in both the Building B2B Brands and the Transformation Journey categories. Presented by The Sage Group and sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, the Marketers that Matter Awards recognize marketing initiatives for their innovative approach, company impact and measurable results. As a finalist, Impartner is included among some of the world’s most prestigious companies, including Adobe, Atlassian, Autodesk, Brocade, Cisco, Citrix, Google Cloud, Intel, Intuit, Lyft, OpenTable and The Clorox Company.
The Marketers that Matter Awards are judged by an elite panel of chief executive officers and chief marketing officers from Clif Bar, Google Cloud, Old Navy, Sephora, Visa, Zillow and many others. Executives will gather on May 18 for the MTM Gala to honor the finalists and announce the winners.
“The best marketers today are focused on innovative new approaches that drive business results for their companies and the customers they serve,” said Cara France, Sage Group, CEO. “The Marketers that Matter Finalists are mastering marketing in a transformative time.”
“It’s tremendously rewarding to have this recognition for the team for what has been an incredible journey of rebranding and growth since the company’s acquisition in 2015 and our transformation from TreeHouse Interactive to Impartner,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner CMO. “This recognition complements the business results we’ve achieved through our marketing efforts, which in the past year alone include increasing the acquisition of new customers by 156 percent, which is faster than any other pure-play PRM vendor in the market; doubling our staff; closing an $8M round of growth capital funding, and winning nearly 20 national and international awards.”
To learn more about Impartner’s full suite of functionality and how companies with contemporary SaaS PRM solutions help companies like Conga, Xerox, LogRythym, National Instruments and Ciena generate an average of up to $9 million a year in additional channel revenue, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Recognized as Marketers that Matter Awards Finalist appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Guide born out of discussions with customer prospects about the most common issues they see with Partner Relationship Management choices, causing them to seek a new solution
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — APRIL 4, 2017 — Global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today launched a new eBook, “The Top 13 Signs You’ve Made the Wrong PRM Decision,” to help companies who “realize something is wrong” with their current solution, confirm their concerns and provide guidance on why and how to change course quickly. The guide was developed based on conversations with prospects from leading corporations that have made a PRM technology decision they realize is not the right fit for their company and are seeking new solutions.
“Let’s face it, as the buying power shifts to the business units from IT, a new population of professionals are making technology purchasing decisions,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner CMO. “There are multiple factors you need to consider, and for a host of reasons, you don’t always get it right the first time. If that’s the case, sometimes you make the decision to ‘live with it’ when a technology choice doesn’t turn out the way you intended. However, in the case of PRM, which is the single most foundational technology investment companies need to make to optimize the performance of their channel, if you don’t have it right, you need to acknowledge it, pull off the bandage and move on to something that works for your business. Otherwise, you will fail to unlock the potential of your channel and fall behind your competitors.”
Following are the top 13 signs the PRM solution or path your company has chosen is not working for your organization:
- No one owns the roadmap or updates for your custom portal — and it’s falling behind.
- You’ve realized the resources for a build-it-yourself portal are beyond what was anticipated — and the project is stalling for lack of funding and bandwidth.
- You realize the demo positioned aspects of the solution as out-of-the-box, but it was over positioned — and it’s going to require major customization.
- Your “good enough” functionality is proving to not be good enough — frustrating partners and/or causing you to lose credibility in the organization because you can’t see and report the necessary metrics.
- When your PRM vendor has a product or a security update, it is taking weeks or months to get it.
- You can’t personalize your partner experience — it’s not tailored or unique.
- Your team finds it too hard to update the content on your Partner Portal and the content is not fresh.
- Your dot.com site is better than — and doesn’t match — your Partner Portal, the front door to your relationship with your partners.
- You have almost no insights into past success or future projections for your channel partners.
- Your portal can’t support today’s end-user journey.
- You have other solutions in your tech stack that don’t integrate with your PRM — and you’re losing insight because data is siloed and your partners hate having to sign into multiple sites.
- You have channel conflict.
- You only have visibility into a small portion of your channel revenue represented in your sales funnel.
For a complimentary copy of the eBook, click here. If you already see the signs your company has made the wrong PRM decision, take an Impartner demo here, and learn how we help leading companies like Xerox, Conga, Ingersoll Rand, LogRhythm, Ciena and National Instruments generate an average of up to $9 million in additional revenue from their indirect channels per year.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Channel partners projected to be more, not less, important to Cloud technologies: Companies with contemporary Partner Relationship Management solutions outperform competitors
LONDON — MARCH 16, 2017 — In a presentation today at Cloud Expo Europe, Europe’s largest cloud and digital transformation show, global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner’s European Business Development Director Pierre Poggi shared the revenue secret its customers who are exhibiting at the show already know: companies with a contemporary PRM solution deliver an average of up to $9 million more in incremental revenue than those without.
“Despite early concerns that cloud technologies would make channel partners less, not more, important, the opposite is true,” said Poggi, citing analyst firm IDC’s stat, that by 2020, 75 percent of cloud partner’s revenue will be touched in some way by the channel. “As we exhibit at this show, we’re surrounded by our customers who already know that a world-class Partner Portal ensures that you can meet your partners’ expectations for a frictionless, consumer-grade partner experience and truly harness the power of your indirect channel.”
In his presentation, Poggi also shared a number of other key statistics about the power of contemporary PRM solutions to accelerate channel revenue. “From every angle, from attracting the best partners to scaling your channel program, there is no metric that doesn’t point to the criticality of PRM as the capstone technology for your channel program,” Poggi said, noting that “a full 86 percent of partners choose their vendors based on the partner portal, every dollar invested in a PRM saves $10 in manual labor costs and companies will find it difficult to scale beyond 50 partners without automating the partner management process.”
This is the second year in a row Impartner has attended Cloud Expo, which draws leading SaaS companies from around the world, including Impartner customers Ciena, Splunk and SunGard Availability Services. For more information on how Impartner and PRM can help companies increase revenue by up to 120 percent, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Release continues stream of channel-focused innovations in the past 24 months, which have made Impartner the most award winning PRM worldwide
New channel-first interface allows individual channel managers to see personalized views of their specific region without having to sort through an ocean of data
LONDON — MARCH 15, 2017 — Global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Leader Impartner today announced a new ‘channel-first’ interface that gives channel managers a synthesized, personalized view of their individual region, eliminating the need to search through an ocean of data to find action items for their geography. The new interface, announced today at Cloud Expo Europe, Europe’s largest cloud and digital transformation show, comes as part of the company’s Spring ’17 release, also features a number of other enhancements specifically focused on increasing partner engagement and accelerating indirect sales, including a powerful, interactive Event Calendar. In addition, customers are now able to deploy a PRM solution with or without a CRM.
“Impartner’s new interface is built from the ground up to be channel-first in the information it displays to truly give channel managers the specific information, the knobs, dials and levers they are looking for to manage a particular geography or segment,” said Gary Sabin, Impartner senior director of product management.
A key add for this release, which goes live in April, is the ability to assign deals to multiple contacts within partner accounts, a capability lacking in traditional single-tier CRMs. “CRMs are critical tools, but ultimately, they weren’t designed to track the multi-level touches most deals go through when they’re working their way through the channel,” Sabin said.
“While some customers may prefer to continue to use the reporting tools and workflows within their CRM,” Sabin continued, “our expectation is that over time many of our customers will embrace the value of this channel-first approach, a philosophy that helps eliminate the complexities of managing multiple touchpoints through the channel.”
“There are a number of things about a company’s channel that are unique with respect to its direct model,” said Tim Harmon, managing director at Nuvello, a newly minted channel research and consulting firm, “and touchpoint complexity is one of them. While most sales teams know the reporting interface of their CRM, ultimately they want a single distilled workspace that gels direct and channel together. That focus and channel-first approach will enable them to optimize their customers’ experience and outrun their competitors.”
Other key highlights of Impartner’s Spring ’17 release include:
- Impartner Event Calendar: This new add-on module serves as a focus point for vendor’s portals, making it easy to highlight new product launches, webinars, etc. Plus, the calendar features an industry-first integration with the portal’s workflows and approvals, so partners can see information and act on it directly in the activity center — like registering for events or deals — without ever having to leave the screen. This simplifies use and makes it easier than ever to publish and promote information to partners and drive engagement.
- Impartner Activity Stream: A standard feature for all customers, this integrated activity stream brings together all a vendor’s push notifications, social content and event notifications into one live, ‘heads up’ display to help merchandise what they are doing and drive their partner business and increase engagement.
- Self-service data imports: Continuing its drive to make Partner Portal updates self-service and enhance the nimbleness of channel teams, Impartner now provides its customers with the ability to import their own partner data into the PRM solution including applications, accounts, members, leads, etc.
- Integration with Standard Custom Objects: While Impartner has long been recognized for its ease of integration with Salesforce, the company takes that one step further by providing Standard Object Integration as part of their Managed Package within Salesforce.
- All new search functionality: With Impartner’s completely re-engineered workspace, channel teams have access to the industry’s best search technologies to find anything they want inside their channel, including all leads, opportunities and members that apply to any specific region or object and deals in any stage of the pipeline.
To learn more about Impartner’s full suite of functionality and how companies with contemporary SaaS PRM solutions help generate an average of up to $9 million a year in additional channel revenue, here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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First 2017 win demonstrates Impartner’s continued leadership in ChannelTech for helping companies accelerate revenue through indirect channels
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — MARCH 3, 2017 — Global pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today announced it has won a Silver Stevie® Award in the Relationship Management Solution category of the 11th annual Stevie Awards® for Sales & Customer Service. This is the second year in a row the company has won the award for its flagship product, Impartner PRM, and its ability to increase revenue by up to 120 percent for companies selling through indirect channels.
In the judges’ comments, Impartner PRM was lauded for its “compelling case for stronger focus on partner relationships backed by communications and tools that work,” and “advancement in including the partner in the business priority by delivering a technological solution.”
This award is the 19th award the company has received in just over a year, and follows on the heels of the company’s recent news that in the past 12 months, acquisition of new customers has jumped 156 percent, partners signing into portals using Impartner technology have increased to nearly 3 million worldwide, customer churn has dropped 42 percent to an industry low, and attendance at the company’s yearly customer conference climbed 3x from the year before.
“The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service continues to be among the most competitive and fastest-growing of our awards programs,” said Michael Gallagher, founder and president of the Stevie Awards, which saw more than 2,300 nominations this year from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry, for which the full list of winners is here, www.StevieAwards.com/sales. “The growth of the program illustrates the importance of the functions highlighted — sales, business development and customer service — to successful enterprises of all types, and how integral recognition in these domains are to building and maintaining corporate reputations.”
“By every metric, the PRM industry is simply on fire,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer. “We’ve added an amazing slate of who’s who of corporations that have turned to Impartner’s out-of-the-box SaaS-based PRM solutions to transform the performance of their channel such as Splunk, Zendesk and Ingersoll Rand, and it’s exciting to see the value we add to our customers recognized by the Stevies alongside other leading companies like Qualtrics, Citrix Systems and GoDaddy.”
The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service are the world’s top honors for customer service, contact center, business development and sales professionals. The Stevie Awards organizes several of the world’s leading business awards programs, including the prestigious American Business Awards℠ and International Business Awards℠. The awards were presented during a gala banquet on Friday, Feb. 24, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nev.
To learn more about Impartner’s full suite of functionality and how companies with contemporary SaaS PRM solutions help generate an average of up to $9 million a year in additional channel revenue, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Fortinet, GENBAND, Ingersoll Rand, LogRhythm, Quest Software and Xerox honored for channel program excellence at Impartner’s annual customer conference
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — FEBRUARY 10, 2017 — Multi-award winning Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today announced the winners of its second annual customer awards, which were presented at its annual customer conference and recognize companies that have raised the bar on indirect sales and partner relationship excellence. Following are the six winners of this year’s Impartner Accelerator Awards and the name of the award they’ve won for setting the pace for channel operations:
- Xerox Corporation, Onboarding Octane Award: For excellence in designing a 90-day onboarding fast-start program to accelerate partner productivity and customer value.
- Quest Software, Route 66 Award: For rapid implementation of Impartner’s PRM solution and accelerating ROI by more than 50 percent.
- GENBAND, Marketing Afterburner Award: For enabling partner productivity by constantly refreshing content and implementing an extensive co-branded marketing program.
- Fortinet, Pedal to the Medal Award: For world-class partner recruitment and engagement, making Fortinet’s PRM one of the industry’s fastest growing programs.
- LogRhythm, Leaderboard Award: For gamification of their PRM solution, to enhance the engagement of what is already one of the industry’s most robust PRM implementations.
- Ingersoll Rand, Pathfinder Award: For its pioneering approach in bringing new age PRM functionality to the manufacturing industry. Ingersoll Rand’s innovative solution establishes the value of PRM with or without a CRM.
“This past year was an incredible year of transformation for the PRM industry, for Impartner and for our customers,” said Brad Pace, Impartner vice president of customer success. “We couldn’t be more proud of the achievements of this year’s award winners, who truly exemplify best practices on how technologies like Impartner’s PRM solutions can accelerate indirect sales.”
The second annual ImpartnerCON, held in Salt Lake City, grew by 3x in attendance, mirroring the explosive growth of the company in the previous year, which includes a 156 percent increase in new customers and topping nearly 3 million partners using its technology. The agenda included keynotes from IDC Channel Research Analyst Margaret Adam and channel strategy firm 2112 Group’s CEO and Chief Analyst Larry Walsh. Other key speakers included Channel Strategist and Penton Content Director T.C. Doyle; Intacct SVP of Channel Sales Taylor Macdonald; Is Inspired Channel Strategist and President Gina Batali-Brooks; and Channel Chiefs from leading Impartner customers, including National Instruments, BigCommerce and LogRhythm.
Last year’s Impartner Award winners included Xerox, National Instruments, Quantum Corporation, Rackspace, SGI and SunGard Availability Services. To learn more about how companies with contemporary SaaS PRM solutions help generate an average of up to $9 million a year in additional channel revenue, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Adam outlines 10 foundational channel pillars necessary for embracing cloud, big data analytics, social and mobile
Partner relationship management leader Impartner’s 2nd annual conference draws 3x increase in attendees; reflects company’s 2016 growth in new customers of 150 percent
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — FEBRUARY 9, 2017 — Global Partner Relationship Management leader Impartner kicked off its second annual partner conference today with a keynote from IDC Channel Program Director Margaret Adam, titled, “Channel Survival in the 3rd Platform: Engage and Accelerate the Partner of the Future.” In her keynote to channel chiefs from world-leading corporations such as Xerox, LogRhythm and BigCommerce, Adam addressed technology’s rapid shift to what IDC defines as the 3rd platform of computing, including “innovation accelerator” technologies like augmented and virtual reality, robotics and 3D printing, which are being adopted much faster than initially anticipated, and outlined 10 foundational channel pillars necessary to succeed in the face of that change.”
“Channel partners that only focus on 2nd platform technologies such as servers will still have a large market, but depending on the technology, growth will be at best flat and most likely declining,” Adam said. “All growth lies in the 3rd platform, requiring a shift in the way companies manage and reward partners of the future whose business models are significantly different.”
During her presentation, Adam stressed that in the early days of cloud, many partners resisted it as they saw it having the potential to disintermediate them, but the reverse is actually true. “By 2020, we believe the majority of cloud revenue will be mediated by channel partners or cloud brokers,” said Adam, outlining the 10 pillars (major transitions) vendors must make to meet the needs of partners of the future based on IDC research of thousands of partners of all sizes and channel executives. The pillars of transition vendors must take into account include technology, focus, customer, sales motion, time horizon, marketing, activities, competition, alliances and advantage.
“One of the most pressing issues our customers deal with is how to effectively migrate to the ‘partner of the future,'” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner CMO. “We see a historic shift in channel partners away from traditional sales-only partners into referral partners, service partners, support partners, etc. This new type of hybrid channel partner requires a whole new method of engagement and it’s deeply meaningful to have an analyst of Margaret’s caliber at our conference to spend time with our customer community and address these issues.”
For more information on Impartner and how the company’s multi-award winning PRM technology can help companies optimize their channel performance, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Second annual conference builds on Impartner’s 2016 rapid growth trajectory, resulting in a 150 percent increase in new customers and a record-breaking 3 million partners using its technology
In the past 12 months, Impartner has doubled its staff, closed an $8M round of growth capital funding, won 18 awards and slashed customer churn by 42 percent to an industry low
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — FEBRUARY 8, 2017 — Global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today announced the lineup of key industry thought leaders for its second annual customer conference, ImpartnerCON’17, including top IDC Channel Research Analyst Margaret Adam and channel strategy firm 2112 Group’s CEO and Chief Analyst Larry Walsh. Both Adam and Walsh will be addressing key channel industry trends and what actions top channel chiefs need to take to accelerate their indirect revenue in 2017 and beyond. This year’s conference, which will be held February 8-10 at the five-star Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, will draw three times as many attendees as the year before. This builds on the company’s explosive growth in 2016, which saw a 156 percent increase in new customers in a host of verticals from tech to manufacturing such as Splunk, Tektronix and Ingersoll Rand.
“At every level, 2016 was a sea change for Impartner and the PRM industry,” said Impartner CMO Dave R Taylor. “We’ve seen an absolute deluge of demand from top corporations worldwide, who have figured out that the secret sauce of unlocking the potential of their indirect channel is ensuring a contemporary PRM solution is a foundational element of their channel program.”
“To win 18 national and international awards, add blue chip customers at the rate we have, see our annual recurring revenue (ARR) climb to industry leading rates, have three times as many customers headed to our conference and have the number of partners signing into our portal climb to nearly 3 million in such a short amount of time, is an incredible testament to the power of PRM to transform the performance of our customers’ networks and to the team at Impartner to drive this growth,” added Taylor.
In addition to Adam and Walsh, other key speakers at ImpartnerCON include Channel Strategist and Penton Content Director T.C. Doyle; Intacct SVP of Channel Sales Taylor Macdonald; Is Inspired Channel Strategist and President Gina Batali-Brooks; and Channel Chiefs from leading Impartner customers, including National Instruments, BigCommerce and LogRhythm. To learn more about the conference, click here. To learn more about how companies with contemporary SaaS PRM solutions help generate an average of up to $9 million a year in additional channel revenue, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Comprehensive new eBook highlights what it takes to have a high ‘CQ’ and succeed as a channel chief in 2017
Authored by T.C. Doyle, leading channel strategist and tech writer, the eBook also features real-life channel chief examples of each attribute at work — both successes and failures
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA — JANUARY 25, 2017 — Today at the Cloud Channel Conference, Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Leader Impartner today launched a new eBook, “The Top Attributes of a World-Class Channel Chief.” The guide, underwritten by Impartner and authored by leading tech journalist and Penton Technology Channel Content Director T.C. Doyle, provides a comprehensive look at the attributes required to be a top channel chief in today’s market, which more and more must match that of other C-suite players or they risk channel performance that lags behind competitors and being replaced by leaders with a more contemporary skillset. Get your complimentary copy of the eBook here.
“In 2017, compressed product cycles are evolving customers’ needs and business models are undergoing significant reinvention — and the skill set needed for those who manage partner programs for vendors — aka ‘channel chiefs’ — is now much broader and more sophisticated than ever before,” Doyle said. “It’s not just enough to have a high Intellectual Quotient (IQ) or exemplary work ethic to succeed in this capacity; you need a high ‘Channel Quotient’ CQ, which is a combination of nine attributes that include a range of both business and emotional skills.”
In the eBook, Doyle not only outlines the nine attributes listed below, but also brings the power of these attributes to life with real-life examples of successes — and failures. The attributes are:
- Organizational Influence
- Business Acumen
- Decisive Leadership
- Technological Savvy
- Operational Efficiency
- Customer Orientation
- Personal Integrity
- Intellectual Curiosity
- Infectious Optimism
“We couldn’t be more pleased to have partnered with someone with TC’s long tenure in the market to bring this eBook to life to help channel chiefs be on top of the skill mix they need to compete in this critical position,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer, noting that top channel chiefs worldwide have turned to Impartner’s multi-award winning PRM technology as the No. 1 solution they rely on to accelerate their indirect revenue. “To echo TC’s fourth attribute, being technologically savvy and leading the advancement of a company’s channel tech stack is as important as any other change top channel chiefs can drive in their organizations.”
To get your complimentary download of the eBook, click here. To see how Impartner’s PRM technology helps some of the world’s leading channel teams accelerate indirect sales, click here.
About T.C. Doyle
T.C. Doyle is the senior content director of Channel brands at Penton Technology. A veteran technology writer, editor and video storyteller, he is also the co-author of “The Digital Revolution: How Connected Digital Innovations Are Transforming Your Industry, Company and Career,” which was published by Pearson Education Inc.’s FT Press Division in 2016. When he’s not pursuing a story in Silicon Valley or elsewhere, he can be found in Park City, Utah, where he resides.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Judges choose Impartner PRM for its demonstrated ability to increase channel sales by as much as 120 percent, drive engagement and loyalty
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — JANUARY 5, 2017 — Global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today announced it has won a Silver Award for Most Innovative Product of the Year in the One Planet℠ Best in Business Awards, an annual industry and peers recognition program honoring employees and companies of all types and sizes worldwide. Judges chose Impartner PRM—the only winner in the Cloud Computing/SaaS/Internet category—because of its demonstrated success helping companies such as Fortinet, BigCommerce, Rackspace and National Instruments grow revenue as much as 120 percent while driving engagement and loyalty through their differentiated Partner Portals. The One Planet Awards Silver Award is the 18th recognition the company received in 2016.
“It’s incredibly rewarding to be in the company of other leading companies such as Demandbase, Seismic and Attivo in receiving this recognition,” said Dave R Taylor, chief marketing officer of Impartner. “What’s equally exciting, is that the pace of awards we’ve received this year has tracked with the incredible growth of the PRM industry and Impartner as a company. In 2016, we climbed to more than 2 million partners using Impartner technology worldwide, a 100 percent increase year over year, and we look forward to continuing this momentum as more companies turn to PRM to impact their channel sales in as few as 30 days.”
One Planet Awards recognizes companies for their business and professional excellence. The One Planet Awards honors are currently conferred in categories that include executives, teams, new products and services, PR, Marketing, and Corporate Communications, and organizations from all over the world. Learn more about the One Planet Awards at www.oneplanetawards.com and participate.
Click here to find out more about Impartner’s enterprise-class web application for managing all aspects of the partner lifecycle, from partner recruiting to cooperatively marketing and selling to performance managing.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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mpartner customers can now benefit from Impartner Locator’s deep searchability and visibility, simplifying the process of connecting potential customers to the best partner
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — DECEMBER 15, 2016 — Impartner, a leader in Global Partner Relationship Management (PRM), today announced it has launched Impartner Locator for Salesforce Community Cloud on the Salesforce AppExchange, empowering businesses to connect with their customers, partners and employees in entirely new ways. Impartner Locator easily configures with Salesforce Community Cloud and allows both vendors and partners to configure the searchability of partners by any attribute or field in Salesforce, making it simple for potential customers to find the partner best suited to their needs beyond just geography and vertical. Impartner Locator displays results in both a list and an interactive map and features the ability for partners to personalize their listings with multimedia and even customer reviews, which can serve as a landing page for smaller partners without robust sites.
Built on the Salesforce App Cloud, Impartner Locator for Salesforce Community Cloud is currently available on the AppExchange.
“As every company knows, being found is half the battle,” said Impartner Chief Marketing Officer Dave R Taylor. “Impartner Locator is already one of our most popular add-on modules, and with this version tailored specifically for use with Salesforce Communities, we literally put a face on everyone’s business that allows them to pull out and merchandise what they feel is most important about their organization.”
“Companies are looking to transform the way they connect with customers, partners and employees to thrive in the age of the customer,” said Kori O’Brien, SVP, App Innovation Partner Sales, Salesforce. “By leveraging the power of the Salesforce App Cloud, Impartner provides customers with an exciting new way to connect potential customers to the perfect partner.”
For more information on Impartner PRM, which is the only pure-play PRM vendor on the Salesforce AppExchange and which ensures it is an easy-to-integrate and install managed package for Salesforce CRM users, click here.
About Salesforce AppExchange
Salesforce AppExchange is the world’s leading enterprise apps marketplace that empowers companies to sell, service, market and engage in entirely new ways. With 3,000 partner apps and more than 4 million customer installs, it is the most comprehensive source of cloud, mobile, social, IoT and data science technologies for businesses.
Additional Resources
Salesforce, App Cloud, AppExchange and others are among the trademarks of salesforce.com, inc.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Latest award continues winning streak that now tops 17 national and international awards in 2016
Dramatic pace of recognition tracks with company’s growth in partner users, which has surged to nearly 2.5 million — more than a 100 percent increase year over year
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — DECEMBER 2, 2016 — Global pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today announced it has been named a silver award winner in the Best Product of the Year—Enterprise Category in the Best in Biz Awards, North America, 2016. Winners of the awards were determined based on scoring from an independent panel of 50 judges from widely known newspapers, business and technology publications, TV outlets, and analyst firms, including eWeek, Forbes, Network World, Information Week, the Associated Press and Channel Insider.
Impartner PRM is the only ChannelTech winner in the Enterprise category, continuing Impartner’s streak as the most-awarded company in the industry, with 17 awards in 2016 alone. Judges chose Impartner PRM because of its ability to increase channel sales by as much as 120 percent and for its ease of implementation. Impartner’s simple, yet highly engineered Velocity™ process can have new Partner Portals up and running for clients in in as few as 30 days.
“Too many companies today struggle to manage their channel programs on spreadsheets without the use of automation and create contemporary partner experiences that truly optimize the performance of their partner networks, said Dave R Taylor, chief marketing officer of Impartner. “Impartner’s leadership in ChannelTech continues to be recognized as we help companies like Fortinet, BigCommerce, Rackspace and National Instruments outpace their competition with a PRM solution that allows them to grow revenue immediately and create a differentiated partner experience that drives engagement and maintains loyalty.”
The sixth annual program in North America garnered more than 600 entries from an impressive array of public and private companies of all sizes and from a variety of industries and geographic regions in the United States and Canada. Best in Biz Awards 2016 honors were presented in 60 categories. Winners include well-recognized brands such as 1-800-Flowers, Boyd Gaming, Citrix, Dell, Dyson, Eastman, Epson, Experian, Hilton, HP, LifeLock, National Association of Realtors, Safelite, Sandisk, StubHub, Symantec, UnitedHealthcare and YMCA.
“If companies are going to stand out from the crowd and remain competitive in future years, innovation is key,” said Charlie Osborne, ZDNet, one of Best in Biz Awards’ judges this year. “The market is tough and there is no guarantee that today’s dominant players will remain so—unless time and effort are concentrated on research and development. This year’s entries in Best in Biz Awards highlighted not only innovative business practices but the emergence of next-generation technologies, which will keep companies current and relevant.”
To learn more about Impartner PRM and how it can help companies be up and running with a new PRM and a world-class partner portal in as few as 30 days, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Channel Strategist Ian Hutchieson and Impartner CMO Dave R Taylor focus on driving channel engagement and loyalty in a new era of distraction and temptation
Webinar outlines 5 strategies Channel Chiefs must take to remain irresistible to top industry partners; references examples outside the channel that are setting the pace for ‘experience expectations’
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — NOVEMBER 18, 2016 — Global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) SaaS leader Impartner today tackled PRHD (Partner Relationship Hyperactivity Disorder) to help companies address partner loyalty in a new era of distraction and temptation. In a new webinar titled Curing PRHD, Global Channel Strategist and Loyalty Expert Ian Hutchieson, who heads the global channel practice for loyalty consultancy ICLP, and Impartner CMO Dave R Taylor outline the five top strategies channel chiefs must take to continue to remain irresistible to top industry partners and maintain their competitive advantage.
In this webinar, which was originally presented in London as part of the Channel Chief University Series co-sponsored with Impartner’s strategic partner, Gorilla Corporation, Hutchieson and Taylor address the near death of partner loyalty in the market today, which has vendors scrambling to find ways to attract and retain the industry’s best, most profitable and most contemporary partners.
“Leading analysts paint a grim picture of the distraction today’s partners face, with most working with an average of 12 vendors in their portfolio,” said Hutchieson, who provided insights into the following five key strategies companies can employ to ensure their partner programs continue to be irresistible, partnerships become stronger and channel performance improves:
- Make sure your partner experience is BETTER than your competition’s
Leading analyst data shows 86 percent of partners chose their vendor based on the Partner Portal. And today, the experience partners have is rooted in the experience they have as consumers, so the experience companies provide needs to be “consumer grade.” This is especially true when it comes to the Partner Portal, which is the bedrock of the experience for partners. Experience was certainly a key competitive differentiator for FitBit, who cleverly taped into users’ psychology and motivators to create engagement and communication programs and win the market in just a few years — all while massively under spending key market players like Nike. - Make partners successful: FAST
There is a limited window to make a first impression. Recruitment is easy, but keeping partners is hard work, so nurturing early allows companies to recognize partners for early positive behaviors and sales successes right from the start, keeping them from getting distracted and losing interest. Amazon Prime is a great example of a company rewarding customers who originally signed on for a shipping benefit, with a host of other benefits that keep them loyal, including streaming video and music. This quickly made Prime an industry beacon of success. - Make it easy for partners to be PROFITABLE
While a lot of loyalty programs are built around emotion, it ultimately comes down to profitability. No solution is going to make partners feel good if they aren’t making a profit. Helping partners be self-sufficient and find the right tools to self-manage their profitability so they are in control and can manage their business at their desired rate is key — deal registration, MDF funds, leads, etc. A leading UK-based grocery chain, Waitrose, won customers with easy-to-use, personalized and “irresistible” offers and promotions that kept consumers coming back and saving money at industry-leading events for the company. - Make visiting your portal regularly IRRESISTABLE
Fundamentally, a company’s Partner Portal starts to tap into the emotional side of things. Communications aside, companies need to ask themselves what they are doing to make sure they are creating a Partner Portal experience that helps partners prospect, sell and service products and solutions, and an emotional connection with each partner contact to entice them to visit the portal regularly. Don’t undervalue the role of emotion — brand, advocacy and emotional connections — in B2B marketing. AirBnB is the perfect example of a consumer brand that created a beautiful, aspirational experience that allows both renters and those renting properties to get engaged and bring an emotive experience to their properties, quickly emerging as a critical force in the hospitality industry. - Make sure you EVOLVE your channel program and manage churn
At the end of the day, channel management means not just recruiting but also churning to stay agile and invest in partners who deliver the most value. Instead of asking which partners to keep and which to cut out, though, companies should be asking “which partners should I really be investing in? Starbucks’ recent re-do of its loyalty program to focus on those customers who spend more, and not just “regularly,” caused a major stir in the industry, but ultimately helped the company focus on those customers who were truly driving their most valuable sales.
To watch the full webinar summarizing Hutchieson’s strategies for curing PRHD, click here. For more on how Impartner, Gorilla and PRM can help companies increase their partner loyalty and accelerate their indirect sales, www.impartner.com.
About ICLP
As a worldwide leader in loyalty marketing and CRM, ICLP builds loyalty and creates devotion. From acquiring customers and understanding them as individuals, to creating relationships that engage, reward and inspire loyalty, we turn customers into advocates and relationships into profit — and have done for over 25 years. We have global experience in B2B and B2C loyalty marketing in multiple industry sectors including retail, travel, financial services and technology.
ICLP is a Collinson Group company. Collinson Group is a global leader in influencing customer behavior to drive revenue and add value for our clients. With a unique blend of industry and sector specialists, the group develops and delivers market-leading products and services to help build, manage and optimize customer relationships across four core capabilities: Loyalty, Lifestyle Benefits, Insurance and Assistance.
For further information please contact: Carolina Mandich, Business Development Director [email protected] or iclployalty.com.
About Gorilla Corporation
Gorilla Corporation delivers game changing revenue growth for technology companies. Gorilla has been central to Channel Expansion and Optimization globally for over 20 years. Constantly innovating, developing best in class strategy and tactics, Gorilla deploys Channel Teams to recruit and manage partners to decrease the vendor cost of sales, time to revenue and increase market and channel coverage. Gorilla also conducts global channel marketing including Concierge solutions. With Gorilla, Vendor Partners anywhere in the world are supported in co-marketing by a local Gorilla expert.
Proven methodology, solid technology, leadership and customer satisfaction are at the core of Gorilla’s practice. Based in Downtown San Francisco, Dallas Texas, Palo Alto California, Mexico City, Nairobi Kenya, Sofia, Bulgaria, Brussels, Belgium, Barcelona Spain and Singapore. Contact +1 415 829-4245 (Americas Main), +34 93 344 32 61 (EMEA Main). www.gorillaict.com.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Global leader in application networking and security turns to Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management solution to automate channel operations and drive channel growth
With Impartner PRM, A10 Networks’ channel teams use Salesforce interface to manage their indirect sales — without having to learn a new interface
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — NOVEMBER 16, 2016 — When application network and security leader A10 Networks set out to relaunch its global partner program, the company knew it needed to provide partners with a great partner experience that matched the sophistication of the new Affinity™ Partner Program they were launching. Plus, they were looking for a solution that would seamlessly integrate with its Salesforce CRM, and would provide partners with industry-leading deal registration, submit requests for partner marketing funds and training programs. For A10 Networks, the choice was Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner, the industry’s most award winning PRM solution. A new video case study on A10 Network’s use of Impartner’s PRM solution is available here.
In making the choice for a new PRM solution, Lisa Varnell, A10 Networks channel marketing programs manager, said Impartner was the only one who offered all the features the company was looking for. “Impartner provides our Affinity partners with the ability to truly engage with us around deal registration and the other key programs they find most critical, and they can see immediately what’s pending and what’s been denied,” she said, adding that since the new program and Partner Portal was rolled out to its channel partners, the company has seen increased engagement from partners, and growth in the partner community every quarter, generating pipeline and closing deals. It was also important that we chose a vendor who could support us globally, given the fact that our partner network is worldwide.
“I have to say, Impartner makes my job easier,” adds Varnell. “It allows the channel team to focus on the right channel partner at the right time. To have a successful partner program for any partner organization, you need to be able to actively engage with your partners in real time, you need to know what your partners are doing, and you need to have insights into your partners’ pipeline for your solutions. It is critical to your organization’s success. Impartner gives us that insight and helps A10 drive value to our Affinity partners every day.”
“As you start using it, you really appreciate the flexibility and integration with Salesforce, and for me, that’s key,” Varnell adds. “I work in our portal every day, but the data is integrated into Salesforce, so our channel and field sales organizations can view what the channel partners are submitting without having to learn a new interface. Our decision to go with Impartner was the right one.”
To learn more about how A10 Networks uses Impartner’s PRM solution to power their partner portal, click here. To see more case studies, and learn more about how Impartner can help corporations accelerate their indirect revenue, visit the company’s website www.impartner-prm.com.
A10 Networks and Affinity are trademarks of A10 Networks, Inc., and used with permission.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Number of global partners signing into Impartner’s PRM solutions has accelerated 90 percent in one year, climbing past 2 million partners worldwide
Impartner sees its growth tracking with the Gartner Hype Cycle for CRM Sales, which projects PRM reaching main street adoption in less than two years and scores its benefit rating as ‘high’
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — OCTOBER 28, 2016 — Global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Leader Impartner today released a newsletter featuring Gartner research that focuses on helping customers more fully understand and take advantage of channel technology solutions, the market for which has exploded in growth in the past two years. The number of partners signing into Impartner’s multi-award winning PRM solutions alone has accelerated by 90 percent in the past year and has climbed to more than 2 million users worldwide as leading corporations turn to “out of the box” PRM solutions like Impartner’s to accelerate their indirect revenue. The newsletter is here.
“This is the year that channel tech takes its place as a peer alongside marketing and sales technologies as corporations realize that PRM’s ability to help them truly manage and harness the power of their channel partner networks makes it is as critical to their business success as any other solution they can add to their technology stack,” said Dave R Taylor, chief marketing officer of Impartner. “We believe the growth in our customer base and our partner users absolutely tracks with what we’re seeing in the July 2016 Gartner Hype Cycle for CRM Sales, 2016 which shows PRM reaching main street adoption in less than two years and rates its benefit rating as ‘high.’ We couldn’t be more excited about the market traction we see for this transformative technology.”
“Additional Gartner research quoted in the newsletter also includes the firm’s perspective on the PRM market from its Gartner’s Predicts 2016: CRM Sales report.1 A key finding was that, Channel organizations will focus on improving partner channel revenue performance through implementing commercially available partner relationship management (PRM) applications, and also recommended, Include commercially available PRM applications in your channel sales strategy as a sustainable source of competitive differentiation.”
“Corporations who are struggling to scale their channel programs on spreadsheets without the use of automation and create contemporary partner experiences without a world-class partner portal are falling behind their competitors who are,” adds Taylor. “We’re excited to release this PRM overview and further help educate the market on how today’s advanced PRM solutions provide companies with the visibility and the partner engagement they need to change the game for their channel operations and ensure they are the vendor of choice against the competition.”
1 Gartner, Predicts 2016: CRM Sales, 16 November 2015, FOUNDATIONAL 24 August 2016
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Company also shortlisted as Best Software as a Service by the V3 Technology Awards and Cloud Application/PaaS Solution of the Year in the Storage, Virtualisation, Cloud Awards
Awards mark 15th and 16th accolade Impartner’s flagship Partner Relationship Management Solution has received in 2016
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — OCTOBER 12, 2016 — Global pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today announced two new accolades for the company’s flagship PRM solution, including New Product of the Year in the BIG Awards for Business and CIOReview’s list of the 20 Most Promising Salesforce Solution Providers for 2016. The company was also shortlisted as Best Software as a Service by the V3 Technology Awards and Cloud Application/PaaS Solution of the Year in the Storage, Virtualisation, Cloud (SVC) Awards. This latest round of recognition brings the total number of awards Impartner has received for its transformational PRM solution in 2016 to 16, making it the most award winning PRM solution in the market.
The Business Intelligence Group selected Impartner PRM as one of 36 winners amongst multiple categories in its annual BIG Awards for Business. Business executives—those with experience and knowledge—judge the programs, rewarding those companies whose achievements stand above those of their peers.
“Differentiation is a common theme among many of our winners, and we hope that trend continues,” said Russ Fordyce, managing director of Business Intelligence Group.
“Modern companies are now relying on their customers for inspiration and direction to improve and launch new products. We are so proud of all the winners this year. It is truly a select group.”
CIOReview Recognition
In compiling the annual list, CIOReview’s editors identified Impartner PRM among an impressive collection of emerging players in the technology landscape that are solving impediments and overcoming market complexities.
“We are proud to announce Impartner as one among the 20 Most Promising Salesforce Solution Providers for 2016,” said Jeevan George, managing editor of CIOReview. “Impartner PRM was recognized for its ability to provide a channel management team with lead conversion and assignment rates, past quota attainment, pipeline health, predicted sales success of individual channel partners and business planning tools.”
Impartner PRM is the only pure-play PRM solution with an app on the Salesforce AppExchange. As an approved AppExchange App, customers can be assured that Impartner PRM meets Salesforce’s stringent standards of application security, scalability and stability, and is verified for its interoperability with Salesforce environments and processes. With an Impartner PRM integration into a Salesforce CRM system, companies selling through indirect channels can manage all aspects of the partner lifecycle, from partner recruiting to cooperatively marketing and selling to performance management.
“We’re certainly proud of this continued stream of recognition for the innovation our Impartner team has delivered,” said Dave R Taylor, CMO of Impartner. “However, what’s truly exciting is that these awards are from such a wide range of industry bodies for the value that Impartner’s PRM solutions bring to the market and our customers. This year is truly the year channel tech takes its place alongside sales and marketing technologies for its criticality in helping businesses manage their channels and accelerate their business results.”
To learn more about Impartner PRM and how it can help companies be up and running with a new PRM and a world-class partner portal in as few as 30 days, visit www.impartner-prm.com.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Fall ’16 release of Impartner’s award winning PRM software provides an incomparable level of insight into the performance of every aspect of a company’s channel program
Latest update also offers radically new consumerized interfaces 100 percent focused on increasing partner engagement and accelerating partner revenue
Continued enhancements mark the rise of channel tech — the ‘next big thing’
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — OCTOBER 7, 2016 — Global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today elevated the ability of channel chiefs to optimize their channel operations and accelerate revenue with the announcement of a radically new interface for its multi-award winning Impartner PRM solution, which provides actionable, ‘X-ray’ level insights into how a company’s channel program is performing. The new interface is included in Impartner’s Fall ’16 software release, which also features a number of enhancements that are focused on driving partner engagement. Highlights of the release, which was announced at Dreamforce ’16, include:
- Incomparable visibility into channel performance for channel chiefs: Impartner PRM provides an incredibly deep view into channel analytics displayed in a streamlined interface that transforms raw data into insights. This powerful interface shines a floodlight into every corner of a company’s channel program, illuminating what’s working and what isn’t in a way that’s immediately understandable and actionable.
- Consumerized interfaces for both vendors and partners: Technology means that today’s business professionals move seamlessly between their personal and professional lives. The expectation is that business software creates a user experience that is as simple and intuitive as consumerized experience. Impartner PRM puts consumer sizzle into channel management and the Partner Portal experience for partners.
- More mobile, mobility. While Impartner PRM has long worked across all mobile platforms, it now includes a more robust “mobile push notification framework.” Now, Impartner’s mobile friendly notification framework can alert partners about new leads, deal registration approvals, etc. across any platform or device. Partners can simply log in and get working immediately.
- Timed workflows keep partners engaged based on the actions they take — and don’t take. Statistically, the best partners engage within the first 30 days. The new functionality in Impartner’s Channel Flow™ Workflow engine lets channel teams trigger events on milestones that are hit as well as milestones that are missed. For example, if more than a week goes by without the new partner logging in, companies can send them a reminder email. Or, if more than 4 hours has passed since a lead was sent to a partner, it can be retired and passed on to the next partner in line.
“This year, 2016, marks the rise of channel tech,” said Impartner Chief Marketing Officer Dave R Taylor. “Companies who are struggling to scale their channel programs on spreadsheets without the use of automation and create contemporary partner experiences without a worldclass partner portal, are falling behind their competitors who are. Our latest version of Impartner PRM is 100 percent focused on providing our customers with the visibility and the partner engagement they need to change the game for their channel operations and ensure they are the vendor of choice against the competition.”
See Impartner at Booth 225 at Dreamforce.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Strategic financing to further accelerate Impartner’s leadership in the partner relationship management market
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 — Global pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today announced that it has received $8 million in growth capital financing from ORIX Growth Capital, a leading growth finance company, and Silicon Valley Bank, the bank of the world’s most innovative companies and their investors. The financing from ORIX and Silicon Valley Bank will allow Impartner to further accelerate their already strong growth by increasing sales and marketing expenditure, continuing to capture momentum in the fast growing PRM market, which analysts estimate could be as large as $5 billion.
“Impartner is a clear innovator in the PRM space,” said Jeff Bede, co-head and managing director at ORIX Growth Capital. “We recognize the growing PRM market opportunity and Impartner’s differentiated product suite and strong customer traction. We believe Impartner has the right management team and product offering to maintain a leading market position in this sector.”
“Since the acquisition of Impartner (formerly known as TreeHouse Interactive) by Kennet Partners in the spring of 2015, Impartner has been on an absolutely explosive growth trajectory driven by companies’ increasing focus on accelerating revenue by embracing indirect channels,” said Bert Young, Impartner chief financial officer. “We couldn’t be more pleased to have ORIX and SVB as our investment partners in fueling additional growth and we appreciate their understanding of the market opportunity and their willingness to grow with the company over time.”
In the past eighteen months, Impartner has focused on taking PRM functionality to main street corporations; making powerful PRM functionality available in an out-of-the-box solution that delivers ROI in as few as 30 days. In the process, Impartner has won numerous national and international awards that have turned it into the most award-winning PRM vendor in the market.
About ORIX Growth Capital
ORIX Growth Capital specializes in designing highly customized financing solutions for high-growth companies with investments starting around $5 million and growing to $50 million. The team has committed over $1.4 billion to more than 125 companies. ORIX Growth Capital is a business unit of ORIX USA, a Dallas-based financial services firm known for providing innovative capital solutions that clients need to propel their business to the next level. With more than 600 employees spanning 20 offices across the U.S. and Brazil, ORIX USA and its family of companies hold $6 billion of assets and manage an additional $29 billion, approximately. Its parent company, ORIX Corporation, is a Tokyo-based, publicly owned international financial services company with operations in 37 countries and regions worldwide. ORIX Corporation is listed on the Tokyo (8591) and New York Stock Exchanges (IX). For more information on ORIX Growth Capital, visit www.orix.com/growth-capital.
About Silicon Valley Bank
For more than 30 years, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has helped innovative companies and their investors move bold ideas forward, fast. SVB provides targeted financial services and expertise through its offices in innovation centers around the world. With commercial, international and private banking services, SVB helps address the unique needs of innovators. Learn more at svb.com.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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New video case study breaks down how Impartner PRM technology automates LogRhythm’s partner program, allowing its channel teams to focus on driving strategic relationships
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — SEPTEMBER 21, 2016 — When LogRhythm, The Security Intelligence Company, launched a search for a new partner relationship management solution, it had a very specific list of requirements: drive engagement with its rapidly growing, global partner network; help educate and drive use of LogRhythm partner marketing programs; develop a partner portal that reflected corporate branding and messaging; and finally, meet the company’s stringent vendor software security requirements. LogRhythm chose Impartner’s PRM technology, the industry’s largest and most award-winning, pure-play SaaS solution.
In a new case study launched today which details that journey, LogRhythm’s Director of Global Channel Marketing, Ed Cepulis, said meetings with Impartner executives were key in ensuring the launch was successful. “We were able to tell them what we were trying to accomplish, and they were truly concerned with what we were trying to do,” Cepulis said. “They listened and came back with demos, and it was a very interactive process. That interaction and the relationship we built with the team was invaluable in our ability to deploy successfully.”
Since the launch, Cepulis said the most important thing about the portal is how it has allowed the team to shift its focus. “Externally, we’ve allowed our channel account managers to spend more time really building strategic relationships with our partners and having deeper discussions, instead of spending time discussing administrative tasks,” Cepulis said. “Internally, the conversation is now not about ‘how do we update the portal,’ but rather how can we do more marketing, how can we build a blog, and how can we automate even more of the partner onboarding activities that have been manual?”
Cepulis said that for any vendor to work with LogRhythm, it must first be evaluated by the company’s LogRhythm Labs, which is staffed with cyber security experts and helps its customers resolve cyber security incidents. “LogRhythm Labs put Impartner’s solution to the test, and it passed with flying colors,” Cepulis said. “Not all vendors pass, and we’ve had some that have failed pretty significantly.”
The change to LogRhythm’s business since launch, says Cepulis, has been immediate and significant. “In our last quarterly business review with the channel team, the consistent theme was clear, ‘it’s amazing what one quarter has done — and it was based on the implementation of the portal,'” he said. “We’ve been able to brand it as a LogRhythm portal, and it looks like our other assets and provides partners with a consistent experience. We’re able to keep it updated and current with the latest resources, the latest content and the latest news, so we are able to create a sense of urgency and a sense of engagement with our partners. I would strongly recommend Impartner.”
To watch the LogRhythm/Impartner case study, click here. To learn more about Impartner and how the company has helped other leading corporations like A10, Asigra, Carbon Black, Fortinet, Ixia, National Instruments, Tegile and Workfront harness the power of their partner networks, visit www.impartner-prm.com.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Global Pure-Play Partner Relationship Management leader recognized for superior business operations in addition to innovative technology
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — SEPTEMBER 9, 2016 — Global pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today announced that The Silicon Review Magazine has named it among its 50 Most Admired Companies of the Year. The publication selected Impartner based on its revenue growth, creativity in innovation, customer reviews and domain influence.
“The Silicon Review 50 Most Admired Companies of the Year program identifies the most dynamic companies, like Impartner, that have made significant contributions in the field of business and technology and is designed to showcase companies that provide the most leading and groundbreaking effective technologies,” said Manish Pandey, Editor-in-Chief of The Silicon Review Magazine.
“Impartner provides companies with everything they need to accelerate partner revenue by helping at each critical step of the partner life-cycle, from recruiting all the way through performance management,” said Impartner CMO Dave R Taylor. “We’re honored to be recognized for the value our set of powerful solutions provides in helping bring partners into companies’ programs, ramping them quickly to revenue, enabling them to be a powerful amplification of their marketing reach, and facilitating a real-time interaction with partners to see who is producing top results and where performance improvements are needed.”
This recognition from Silicon Review continues an ongoing streak of awards Impartner has received throughout 2016. To learn more about Impartner PRM and how it can help companies be up and running with a new PRM and a world-class partner portal in as few as 30 days, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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In new video case study, BigCommerce channel chief says partners’ No. 1 need is to ‘be easily found:’ Impartner makes it easy for partners to merchandise themselves and drive leads
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — AUGUST 30, 2016 — Ecommerce software leader BigCommerce helps merchants create online storefronts that are beautiful, compelling and convert customers to help them sell more. When the company set out to upgrade the partner portal that services its more than 3,000 partners, the company knew it needed a Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution that could not only help create something that was an extension of that brand, but also could give their partners visibility to merchants looking for an ecommerce solution. To meet those needs, BigCommerce chose global pure-play SaaS PRM leader Impartner.
In a new video case study released today, BigCommerce Director of Partner Marketing and Programs Dawn Lindsey said that while it was important to create a beautiful and engaging partner portal, helping partners be ‘found’ was the single most critical feature the company was looking for in choosing a PRM. “Most of the time, merchants come because they want the BigCommerce platform before they ever find a partner,” Lindsey said. “Our currency is how we differentiate partners to a customer base that is predominately self-serve. That’s why the functionality we’ve been able to create with Impartner — like our partner locator, our partner badging and our ability to do faceted search within the partner locator — is so critical. All of those things help us differentiate our partner ecosystems and allow merchants to find them, which in turn helps us drive partners’ growth.”
Lindsey also has found that Impartner’s technology makes it easy for partners to get relevant information to the BigCommerce sales and support teams about what they have to offer, so when merchants call for help, they have partners ready to hand leads to and help make the sale.
In looking for a new PRM solution, Lindsey said the company did not want a product that required a team of technical people to support the partner portal implementation. “We were focused on finding a technology that would give us out-of-the-box functionality that met our needs and enabled us to get up and running quickly,” she said. “We needed to be able to put relevant information in partners’ hands about how to work with BigCommerce, how to sell more with our platform, and how to really reach merchants in a better way. With Impartner, we were up and running within two months.”
Adoption is key
At the end of the day, regardless of any functionality, Lindsey stressed that the team’s true measure of success for the portal was, and is, partner adoption. “If you can’t get your partners using the tool, it’s not successful. In this case, we absolutely are, she said, noting that the company easily met the goal of getting 75 percent of its top-producing partners onto the platform within 30 days of launch.
“I think part of our success is attributable to the fact that Impartner’s tool is very intuitive for partners to use,” she added. “It allowed us to put tools in their hands — presentations, co-marketing materials — all the things they need to effectively talk to customers about why BigCommerce is the superior platform for ecommerce.”
Moving forward, Lindsey said Impartner is well positioned to help BigCommerce continue to grow its partner network. “Our investment in Impartner has been an investment in our own success,” Lindsey said. “When you find the find the tool that is cutting edge, it’s going to give you a competitive advantage, and that allows you to stay relevant and exceed expectations for your partner ecosystem.”
To learn more about how BigCommerce uses Impartner’s PRM technology, view the case study here. To learn more about Impartner PRM and how it can help companies be up and running with a new PRM and a world-class partner portal in as few as 30 days, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner’s PRM Solution Helps BigCommerce Drive Partner Growth appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Webinar features Independent Research Principal Analyst Tim Harmon and Impartner CMO Dave R Taylor; Duo offer key insights on attracting the RIGHT partners and how to quickly and profitably scale channel programs and revenue
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — AUGUST 26, 2016 — Like a needle scraping off a long-play record, global pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner, today announced a new webinar featuring Tim Harmon, principal analyst with Forrester Research, which reveals a startling, “stop the music” stat for Channel Chiefs looking to scale their partner networks: Every dollar invested in a PRM solution saves as much as $10 in reduced manual business costs.
In the webinar, “Through The Channel Looking Glass: Your Channel’s Value is a Reflection of Digital Engagement,” Harmon joins Impartner Chief Marketing Officer Dave R Taylor to discuss how modern PRM platforms can remediate channel pros’ most immediate challenges including:
- Escalating channel management costs due to inefficiencies
- Constraints to scaling your channel
- Inability to attract the most productive partners
While the webinar covers a host of key trends in the channel and how PRM solves those challenges, the critical summary is simple: in 2016, a world class PRM solution is table stakes for companies wanting to ensure they are a vendor of choice and can scale their channel programs quickly and profitably.
“PRM automation attracts the right partners and that’s what you want — the RIGHT partners,” says Harmon in the webinar. “They’re attracted by the digital capabilities the same way consumers are, and they’re going to be attracted to those vendors and manufacturers that provide the best digital engagement mediums for them. Partners equate PRM digital engagement with their ease of doing business with profitability.”
Just as important, Harmon shares another stat about PRM solutions’ ability to help channel programs with the problem of scale. “PRM automation scales — spreadsheets and email can only take you so far — and that approach hits the ceiling at about 50 partners, he said during the session.
To watch the webinar and learn how a commercially available PRM solution can help you scale your channel operations, click here. To learn more about Impartner PRM and how it can help companies be up and running with a new PRM and a world-class partner portal in as few as 30 days, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Leading Partner Relationship Management solution singled out for rapidly accelerating companies’ revenue through indirect channels
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — AUGUST 24, 2016 — Global pure-play SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner has been named a bronze winner in the Best New Product of the Year—Enterprise category in the Best in Biz Awards 2016 International. Impartner was recognized for its flagship product, Impartner PRM, and the ability of its highly engineered yet simple-to-use Velocity™ onboarding process to have companies up and running with a new Partner Portal in as few as 30 days—immediately transforming their ability to drive more revenue through their indirect channel. Winners were chosen from entrants spanning multiple industries and more than 30 countries and were judged by an international panel from top-tier news, business, finance and technology publications and media outlets.
“Companies in almost every sector have begun to recognize the transformative power of the indirect channel as a means of quickly and efficiently accelerating their revenue, and Impartner PRM provides the entire toolset for managing that indirect channel,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer. “It’s incredibly exciting to have PRM technology and our solution stand out in such an impressive range of entrants for the value it delivers to companies looking to truly harness the power of their partner networks and accelerate the performance of their channel operations.”
The Best New Product of the Year Best in Biz Award is the latest in a string of nearly a dozen national and international awards Impartner has received in recent months, making Impartner PRM the most highly awarded channel management solution in the market. Awards include:
- Channel Vision Magazine, Best Portal Technology
- Frost and Sullivan, Global Frost and Sullivan For Customer Value Leadership in Partner Management Solutions Market
- Stevie Award, Relationship Management Solution, Gold for Best New Product of the Year, International Business Awards
- Stevie Award, Relationship Management Solution, Gold for New Product of the Year, U.S.
- Stevie Award for Sales and Customer Service, Silver in Best Relationship Management Solution
- Stratus Award, Business Intelligence Group, Best SaaS for Sales and Marketing
- The Enterprise Utah Business Journal, Enterprise 7 Award for Technology
Best in Biz Awards’ uniqueness stems, in part, from the composition of its judging panel. Only writers, journalists and contributors to business, consumer, financial, trade and technology publications, as well as broadcast outlets and analyst firms, are invited to serve as judges each year. Structured this way, Best in Biz Awards is able to leverage the experience and expertise of an influential group of global opinion makers to determine award winners. For a full list of gold, silver and bronze winners in Best in Biz Awards 2016 International, visit http://intl.bestinbizawards.com/intl-2016-winners.
To learn more about Impartner PRM and how it can help companies be up and running with a new PRM and a world-class partner portal in as few as 30 days, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Top worldwide honor continues Impartner’s sweep of national and international awards for its core PRM solution, which can have companies up and running in as few as 30 days
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — AUGUST 11, 2016 — Global pure-play SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner won a Gold Stevie® Award in the Relationship Management Solution category in the 13th Annual International Business Awards℠. The company’s flagship product, Impartner PRM, was recognized by judges as the Best New Product or Service of the Year, calling it a “much-needed, customizable product for the PRM industry.”
“Impartner equals partner relationship management,” one judge commented. In addition to winning the Gold Award in the International competition, Impartner PRM also received Stevie Awards in both the Sales and Customer Service and the American Business Awards programs earlier this year, adding to an ongoing cadence of national and international awards from other leading analyst firms and media outlets.
“The continued stream of recognition and enthusiasm for Impartner tracks with the excitement we see in the market around PRM and the explosive growth of our company,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer. “While the PRM industry is not new, the market was clearly waiting for a solution like Impartner PRM that was more easily deployable by main street companies and not just early tech adopters.”
The International Business Awards are the world’s premier business awards program. All individuals and organizations worldwide—public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small—are eligible to submit nominations. This year, the 2016 IBAs received a record total of more than 3,800 entries from more than 60 nations and territories for organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry.
Nicknamed the Stevies for the Greek word for “crowned,” the awards will be presented to winners at a gala awards banquet at the Rome Cavalieri Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Rome, Italy on Oct. 21.
To learn more about Impartner PRM and how it can help companies be up and running with a new PRM and a world-class partner portal in as few as 30 days, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Award marks 8th major award for Partnership Relationship Management leader Impartner in the past six months
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — AUGUST 2, 2016 — Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology leader Impartner announced today that its flagship product, Impartner PRM, continued its global winning streak by earning a Bronze Award in the Golden Bridge Awards® in the Cloud Computing/SaaS/Internet category. Impartner made the announcement today at CompTIA ChannelCON, the premier collaboration, education and networking event for IT vendors, distributors and channel partners. The annual Golden Bridge Awards program encompasses the world’s best in categories such as organizational performance, innovations, products and services, executives and management teams, international business, and customer satisfaction programs from every major industry in the world.
“In the face of a tight enterprise sales talent pool, Channel Chiefs have never been under more pressure to scale their channel programs and accelerate indirect revenue,” said Impartner Chief Marketing Officer Dave R Taylor. “It’s incredibly rewarding to see this ongoing recognition of the power of Impartner PRM in helping increase channel revenue in as few as 30 days by making it possible for companies to automate the operational basics of their partner programs, amplify their marketing reach through partners, and optimize their performance by providing the visibility into channel investments that allows both partners and companies to increase their return on investments.”
Winners of the Golden Bridge Awards will be honored in San Francisco on Monday, Sept. 12, 2016, during the annual Red Carpet Golden Bridge Awards Ceremony.
About the Golden Bridge Awards
Golden Bridge Awards are an annual industry and peers recognition program honoring best companies in every major industry from large to small and new start-ups in North America, Europe, Middle-East, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin-America, Best New Products and Services, Best Innovations, Management and Teams, Women in Business and the Professions, Case Studies, Customer Satisfaction, and PR and Marketing Campaigns from all over the world. Learn more about The Golden Bridge Awards.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Impartner also shortlisted by the 2016 SaaS Awards as Best SaaS for Sales and Marketing; Continues company’s winning streak of national and international awards
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — JULY 20, 2016 — Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology leader Impartner announced today that Impartner PRM won a Stratus Award for Cloud Computing from the Business Intelligence Group in the Software as a Service category. The Stratus Awards honor the companies, products and people that are offering unique solutions that take advantage of cloud technologies.
The recognition is one in a series of national and international awards Impartner has won over the last year, including its recent listing as a finalist in the 2016 SaaS Awards for the best SaaS product for Sales/Marketing. Winners in that program are announced Aug. 9.
“It’s incredibly rewarding to see this kind of recognition for the Impartner team,” said Impartner Chief Marketing Officer Dave R Taylor. “However, what’s more exciting is the continued recognition of the transformative power of our Impartner PRM solution in helping customers like Xerox, Fortinet, Rackspace and National Instruments truly harness the power of their partner networks and accelerate channel revenue by as much as 120 percent.”
“Congratulations to the entire Impartner team for helping accelerate adoption of the cloud and for working to make all of our lives a little richer,” said Russ Fordyce, managing director of the Business Intelligence Group. “The cloud is dominating the technology industry and we do not see any markers for that trend not continuing.”
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Recognition from Utah’s The Enterprise in its inaugural “Enterprise 7” awards continues Impartner’s industry-leading winning streak of national and international awards
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — JULY 11, 2016 — Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology leader Impartner announced today that its flagship PRM solution, Impartner PRM, has been recognized with the Technology Award from leading Utah business journal, The Enterprise, in its inaugural Enterprise 7 Awards. Winners were chosen from seven categories, including technology, business services, education, healthcare, insurance, finance, hospitality and travel, and were judged by a panel of Utah-based business leaders and reporters.
“The response to our inaugural award was overwhelming and exciting, which is indicative that business in Utah is thriving and companies are hard at work making changes and additions to keep up with ever-growing consumer demand,” said Sidney Weeks, the event chair for The Enterprise. “Impartner and our other winners represent the best of the companies in our region for the innovation and implementation they bring to the market that impacts customers, employees and the community.”
“We’re in amazing corporate company in the Silicon Slopes, and it’s truly an honor to be recognized as a technology leader in this region,” said Dave R Taylor, chief marketing officer, Impartner. “What’s equally exciting to see is the recognition for the innovation and value our PRM solutions bring to our customers.”
This award is one of many in a series of national and international awards the company has received recently, capping off what is just over a year since Impartner’s acquisition (formerly known as Treehouse Interactive), by CEO Joe Wang, who had already made his mark in the Utah high-tech community as president and CEO of local software powerhouse LANDesk Software, along with Kennet Partners, a leading international growth equity firm. In just under a year and a half, the company has doubled in size; completely rebranded to better position itself as a contemporary thought leader in the PRM industry; and refactored its core product into a model that is easily deployed by main street corporations around the world, not just early tech adopters.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Under Taylor’s leadership, the company has completely rebranded, increased its leads by a factor of 10, and is now the most award-winning, pure-play Partner Relationship Management solution in the market
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — JUNE 30, 2016 — Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology leader Impartner today announced Chief Marketing Officer Dave R Taylor was named a CXO of the Year by Utah Business Magazine. Each year, the publication awards senior executives for outstanding performance in their roles for teamwork, leadership and expertise in propelling their organizations forward. Taylor was featured in the magazine’s June issue and honored today at an event at Salt Lake City’s Grand America Hotel.
“The PRM industry is a greenfield market that is poised for tremendous growth worldwide, and marketing is a critical element in our ability to tap into and accelerate that opportunity,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “We’re incredibly fortunate to have someone with Dave’s extensive experience with a host of top, global companies, including Intel and WatchGuard Technologies. He has put company after company on the map with his marketing skills, entrepreneurial acumen and ability to create scalable, world-class marketing organizations, and we’re excited he’s on our executive team.”
Since joining Impartner just over a year ago, Taylor has led the rebranding of the company to better position it as a contemporary thought leader in the PRM industry; refactored the company’s core product into a model that is easily deployed by main street corporations around the world and not just early tech adopters; transformed the company’s use of marketing technology that has increased lead generation by a factor of 10; created a robust library of content to further educate and grow the market; and helped turn the company into what is now the most award-winning pure-play PRM vendor in the market. Finally, Taylor led the first annual ImpartnerCON, Impartner’s first customer and industry conference, hosting more than 100 customers and providing insights and tools for companies to transform their channel programs.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Impartner channel growth tracks skyrocketing demand for Partner Relationship Management solutions
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — JUNE 21, 2016 — Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology leader Impartner today announced it has added Woodbury Consulting Partners LLC to its growing list of channel partners worldwide. Connecticut-based Woodbury is an award-winning software provider of on-premise and cloud-based enterprise information management solutions and will help expand the penetration of Impartner’s turnkey, out-of-the box PRM solutions in the Northeast region.
“Given 86 percent of partners now make the decision to work with a vendor based on their Partner Portal and data showing companies with a powerful PRM solution earn an average of $9 million more a year in incremental channel revenue,* the market opportunity for our channel partners is tremendous,” said Mark Rogers, Impartner SVP of sales and strategic alliances. “We’re proud to have a company with Woodbury’s extensive experience selling business process management solutions to business unit buyers join our growing network of partners.”
“As a technology consultant and reseller, it’s been incredibly exciting to be on front lines as the technology purchasing decision shifts from IT to the business units, and from hardware to software and cloud-based solutions,” said Gary Velotta, managing partner, Woodbury. “That’s certainly been the case with CRM, and we’re looking forward to bringing the lessons we’ve learned to the fast-expanding PRM industry and partnering with Impartner, the leading pure-play PRM vendor globally.”
Companies wanting to join Impartner’s channel program should contact [email protected].
About Woodbury Consulting Partners (WCP) LLC
Woodbury Consulting Partners (WCP) LLC (www.woodburycp.com), is a business process management solutions provider based in Shelton, Connecticut. The company is an award-winning software provider of on-premise and Cloud-based Enterprise Information Management (EIM) solutions that provides one simple way to access and manage information. WCP differentiates itself by the client engagement approach it takes when working with its clients. While many technology solution providers today encourage their clients to download, install and configure the software by trial and error and learn the product on their own, WCP prefers to engage and provide guidance to its customers. It invests time upfront to understand their needs, requirements and challenges. It then collaboratively designs a solution that satisfies each one of the requirements. And then it manages the project to a successful completion and stays engaged by providing superior customer service. For more information, visit www.woodburyconsultingpartners.com.
* Frost & Sullivan Global Partner Management Customer Value Leadership Award, 2016
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Gorilla joins growing list of Impartner channel partners worldwide focused on meeting exploding market demand for Partner Relationship Management solutions
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — JUNE 3, 2016 — Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology leader Impartner today announced that it has signed on worldwide channel consultancy Gorilla Corporation as part of its expanding channel program. The addition of Gorilla to Impartner’s growing list of channel partners tracks with the trend in corporations across the globe which are building out their indirect channels to scale their revenue.
Impartner’s channel expansion is led by Impartner Senior Vice President of Sales and Strategic Alliances Mark Rogers, who recently joined the company from Akamai, where he was Channel Chief for the Americas.
“In 2016, the slow burn of the PRM market has fully caught fire as investing in a contemporary Partner Portal has become table stakes for Channel Chiefs, who are under increasing pressure to accelerate indirect sales,” said Rogers. “With 86 percent of partners now making decisions on the vendors they are going to work with based on the Partner Portal, and data showing companies with a commercially available SaaS PRM earning an average of $9 million more a year in incremental channel revenue,* the PRM purchase decision has moved to ‘when,’ not ‘if.’ The addition of a world-class partner like Gorilla will help us continue to meet that demand in the market.”
“To drive your channel’s success means to be able to offer a state-of-the-art customer journey to your partners—a journey that nearly always begins with the Partner Portal,” said Carlo Brayda, CEO of Gorilla Corporation. “A partner-centric portal plays a key role in the way vendors are perceived by the channel. Impartner PRM allows unprecedented control for vendors, while adding value to its partners without intruding. We’re excited to be partnering with the leading pure play SaaS PRM vendor to expand this critical market and help customers manage the relationship with their partners from a single, enterprise-class, fully featured partner portal that is user friendly, secure and flexible.”
As part of its partnership with Impartner, Gorilla will service North American, Europe and Latin American markets, and will turn to Impartner PRM exclusively to offer its clients partner onboarding, deal registration, co-branded lead generation, MDF management, CRM integration, pipeline management, reporting and analytics. “Impartner’s modular structure enables Impartner PRM to tackle all the major needs of a strong channel program with the ability to cater to the specific needs of each customer,” Brayda said.
Companies wanting to join Impartner’s channel program, should contact [email protected].
About Gorilla Corporation
Gorilla Corporation delivers game changing revenue growth for technology companies. Gorilla has been central to Channel Expansion and Optimization globally for over 20 years. Constantly innovating, developing best in class strategy and tactics, Gorilla deploys Channel Teams to recruit and manage partners to decrease the vendor cost of sales, time to revenue and increase market and channel coverage. Gorilla also conducts global channel marketing including Concierge solutions. With Gorilla, Vendor Partners anywhere in the world are supported in co-marketing by a local Gorilla expert.
Proven methodology, solid technology, leadership and customer satisfaction are at the core of Gorilla’s practice. Based in Downtown San Francisco, Dallas Texas, Palo Alto California, Mexico City, Nairobi Kenya and Barcelona Spain. Contact +1 415 829-4245 (Americas Main), +34 93 344 32 61 (EMEA Main). www.gorillaict.com.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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New eBook provides key insights and strategies on how to take control of your indirect channel operations, move business ahead and sleep like a baby
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — MAY 12, 2016 — Indirect channels are having a moment in the market. A constrained talent pool and the need to rapidly expand into diverse geographies mean more companies are looking to the channel as the acceleration pedal for revenue — resulting in insomnia for channel chiefs as they search for solutions to take on today’s indirect sales challenges and win. In its newest eBook, Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner has partnered with some of the industry’s top channel strategists to provide insights and recommendations that will help them transform their channel operations, accelerate their indirect sales — and sleep peacefully.
“In 2016, the indirect channel has climbed into the revenue driver’s seat, replacing direct sales as the primary sales vehicle for businesses worldwide,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer. “Analysts estimate that as much as 80 percent of worldwide Information Technology revenue already flows through the channel, and it is only increasing. As companies struggle to find and retain experienced enterprise sales executives, they almost inevitably turn to the indirect channel as the cost-effective solution to the problem of scale.”
In the new eBook, “The Top 10 Things Making Channel Chiefs into Insomniacs, and What to do About It,” Impartner and members of its network of top channel strategists have provided thoughtful, meaty, practical advice on Channel Chiefs’ key questions about the market today, including:
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- Am I giving the right margin to the channel?
- Do I have the right number of channel partners?
- Does deal registration work for me (protect margin for partners)?
- Are my demand gen efforts impactful and do they work through the channel?
- Am I getting ROI on my MDF investments?
- Is my channel effectively closing leads on their own, or am I still spending my resources on closing channel deals?
- How loyal are my partners, and how do I know?
- Do I have the analytical tools needed to gain insight into my channel performance?
- Am I recognizing and incentivizing the appropriate partner behaviors?
- How is “cloud” changing the game in my channel business?
The increasing focus on indirect channels parallels Impartner’s own growth, which has doubled its new customer base year over year and soared over 200 percent in the first quarter alone as demand for the company’s multi-award winning, out-of-the-box SaaS PRM solution catches fire with vendors scrambling to optimize the performance of their partner networks.
“A modern PRM solution is the single most important investment you can make in your channel program to truly harness the power of your partner network and ensure you have a nucleus from which to drive your channel’s success,” Taylor said. “Research shows that 86 percent of channel partners base their vendor selection primarily on the experience they have with the vendor’s portal. Companies who adopt off-the-shelf commercially available PRM tools see an average of $8 million to $9 million in incremental revenue over companies who build their own or rely on dated portal technology.1 There is great power in a well-crafted portal.”
The channel experts participating with Impartner in this eBook bring decades of cumulative channel experience working with and for companies such as Dell, EMC, Fortinet, Sun Microsystems, HP and Extreme Networks. Contributors include Gina Batali-Brooks, president, Is-Inspired, Theresa Caragol, founder, TCC Consulting, Daniel Hawtof, vice president of business development and channel solutions, Blackhawk Engagement Solutions, Heather Margolis, president and founder, Channel Maven Consulting, Norma Watenpaugh, founding principal, Phoenix CG, and Raegan Wilson, chief channel officer, Channel Squared Consulting.
To download your copy of Impartner’s new Channel Chief’s eBook and find out how you can rest more easily, click here. To learn more about Impartner’s multi-award winning PRM solutions, click here.
1. Frost & Sullivan Global Partner Management Customer Value Leadership Award, 2016
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Teams With Channel Industry Experts to Address Top Challenges appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Award is latest in string of awards for the company, including Visionary Spotlight Award for Best Portal Technology
PRM optimizes the revenue generation potential of indirect partner channels and builds a robust synergy between companies
Recognition comes as Impartner doubles its new customer base year over year, and first-quarter growth soars over 200%
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA — MAY 10, 2016 — Based on its recent analysis of the partner management solutions market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Impartner with the 2016 Global Frost & Sullivan Award for Customer Value Leadership in the Partner Management Solutions Market. Impartner has already proven the value of its partner relationship management (PRM) solutions by helping customers achieve a double-digit return on investment (ROI). Its success in an area with relatively low end-user awareness but significant growth potential is a testament to Impartner’s ability to implement industry best practices and build enviable brand equity. A full copy of the Frost & Sullivan write-up on Impartner is here.
Impartner’s main focus is demonstrating the ROI of premium PRM solutions. Businesses can improve their management of customer channels with its intuitive PRM software solutions and create much more profitable partner relationships.
Impartner’s efforts have gone a long way in altering end users’ perceptions regarding PRM solutions. Once considered an obligatory expense, customers now acknowledge the value of partner management solutions in generating indirect revenue opportunities. Impartner’s professional portal development solutions are emerging as an intuitive solution for identifying secondary revenue streams and helping eliminate the need for less effective do-it-yourself (DIY) portals.
“Impartner’s turnkey Channel Management solutions allow partners to build a symbiotic relationship and establish more partner loyalty than is possible with DIY solutions,” said Frost & Sullivan industry analyst, Brendan Read, noting that businesses with PRM software stand to capture an incremental $8 to $9 million in additional revenue from their indirect channel. “Impartner’s solutions enable both partners and suppliers to grow their end-customer bases, build customer stickiness, and increase sales and revenues.”
Within the United States, Impartner uses a direct sales business model and key strategic partnerships to target companies that have not yet recognized their potential with a partnership strategy. After consulting with potential customers, Impartner builds a professional partner portal that helps businesses capture up to 80% value that their DIY deployments fail to harness. Impartner presents several options for portal deployment, ranging from a turnkey solution with a complete range of features that can deploy in as few as 30 days, to fully customized and branded portals that may take a couple of months to deploy.
Impartner further educates the customer on ways to fully leverage its premium PRM platform. The superior customer experience yields improved ROI and guarantees customer loyalty. While Impartner does sell direct outside of the United States, the primary go-to-market strategy is to employ indirect channels.
Impartner’s unique hybrid-tenancy architecture incorporates the best of both multi-tenant and single-tenant functions. It hosts all portal functions in a multi-tenant enabled, cloud-hosted, back-end application, but exposes the customer through a partner-facing, single tenant portal. While the single-tenant front-end portal supports a personalized partner experience with pixel-perfect branding, the multi-tenant back-end portal provides industry-leading security and functionality. As new features and security updates need to be applied only once, the solutions ensure feature consistency and a superior customer ownership experience.
“As businesses must constantly adapt to remain competitive, creating strong relations with key stakeholders and partners is critical. Impartner offers a solution that allows businesses to seize untapped revenue opportunities,” noted Read. “Although PRM is a relatively new concept that has yet to gain widespread awareness, 86 percent of partners base their partnership decisions on the portal presentation. Impartner’s best-in-class solutions have already proven their worth among adopters.”
“We’re not only incredibly honored by this recognition, we’re also excited to see a leading analyst firm like Frost & Sullivan recognize the increasing criticality of PRM in accelerating indirect sales,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer, noting that in the face of explosive growth in market demand for the company’s PRM solutions, Impartner has doubled its new customer base year over year and grown a staggering 200 percent in the first quarter alone. “This Award is further validation that with the help of a powerful PRM, companies can turn their partners into organizations that are critical and predictable contributors to the bottom line and a key competitive differentiator.”
Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated excellence in implementing strategies that proactively create value for its customers and has a focus on improving the ROI that customers make by using its services or products. The award recognizes the company’s inordinate focus on enhancing the value that its customers receive, beyond simply good customer service, leading to improved customer retention and ultimately customer base expansion.
Frost & Sullivan’s Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for outstanding achievement in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research.
About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today’s market participants.
Our “Growth Partnership” supports clients by addressing these opportunities and incorporating two key elements driving visionary innovation: The Integrated Value Proposition and The Partnership Infrastructure.
- The Integrated Value Proposition provides support to our clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation including: research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation and implementation.
- The Partnership Infrastructure is entirely unique as it constructs the foundation upon which visionary innovation becomes possible. This includes our 360 degree research, comprehensive industry coverage, career best practices as well as our global footprint of more than 40 offices.
For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Is your organization prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics and emerging economies?
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Frost & Sullivan Lauds Impartner’s High-quality Partner Strategy appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Award is latest in string of awards for the company, including Visionary Spotlight Award for Best Portal Technology
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — MAY 4, 2016 — Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner won a Gold Stevie® Award in the Relationship Management Solution category in the 14th Annual American Business Awards℠. Impartner was recognized for its flagship product, Impartner PRM, which judges praised as a “cutting-edge application” to Partner Relationship Management. Customers can be up and running with a new Partner Portal in as few as 30 days with Impartner’s highly engineered yet simple-to-use Velocity™ onboarding process.
Judges also noted how Impartner PRM’s ability to measure partner performance at individual and group levels creates actionable analytics that drive more sales. This award comes on the heels of the solution’s recognition in April as the Best Portal Technology by ChannelVision Magazine and Beka Business Media, and a record number of customers honored by CRN as having 5-Star Partner Programs.
“What was missing for the Partner Relationship Management industry to truly scale to the next level was a solution that was factored in a way that is easy and approachable for any company to deploy,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer. “With Impartner PRM, any company of any size can now easily and quickly implement what is the industry’s most robust, turnkey, out-of-the box PRM solution and accelerate their indirect sales in the way only PRM technology can. We couldn’t be more honored by this recognition from the Stevie organization for the ease of which customers can deploy our solution and the value we deliver to our customers in transforming the performance of their channel.”
The American Business Awards are the nation’s premier business awards program. All organizations operating in the U.S.A. are eligible to submit nominations — public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small.
Nicknamed the Stevies for the Greek word meaning “crowned,” the awards will be presented to winners at a gala ceremony at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York on Monday, June 20. Tickets are now on sale.
More than 3,400 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted this year for consideration, and more than 250 professionals worldwide participated in the judging process to select this year’s Stevie Award winners.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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36 Recognized 5-Star Partner Programs (Nearly Double 2015), with 23 Named Channel Chiefs (Up 64 Percent) and 6 Designated Most Influential Channel Chiefs (Twice as Many as 2015)
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — APRIL 28, 2016 — Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology leader Impartner today announced that the number of clients honored recently by CRN Magazine has climbed by nearly 50 percent or more in every category. This year, 10 customers earned a total of 36 5-Star Partner Programs Awards for 2016, nearly twice as many as 2015, with 23 executives selected as Channel Chiefs, up from 14 last year. Six of those included in the magazine’s list of 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs of 2016, double the number from 2015.
“This dramatic increase in the number of awards received by our customers further validates how Impartner and PRM technology significantly contributes to business success across the channel,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer. “As these companies and executives are proving, partner programs are much more than just an information repository and a communications channel. With the help of a powerful PRM, they’ve turned their partners into organizations that are critical and predictable contributors to the bottom line and a key competitive differentiator. We congratulate our customers on this prestigious recognition and look forward to watching their programs continue to succeed in the years ahead.”
5-Star Ratings
Impartner customers who won 5-star ratings for their partner programs include A10 Networks, Asigra, Commvault, Fortinet, Ixia, NetApp and Pivot3, honored as Software Vendors; A10 Networks, Asigra, Fortinet, NetApp, Pivot3, Quantum and Tegile, as Systems Vendors; A10 Networks, Commvault, Fortinet and Ixia as Security Vendors; A10 Networks, Asigra, Commvault, Fortinet, Ixia, NetApp and Tegile as Cloud Vendors; A10 Networks, Asigra, Commvault, NetApp, Pivot3, Quantum and Tegile as Storage Vendors; A10 Networks, Fortinet and Ixia as Networking Vendors, and Xerox as a Peripherals Vendor. The 5-Star Partner Program rating recognizes an elite subset of Partner Program Guide vendors who offer solution providers the best partnering elements in their channel programs.
Channel Chiefs
Eran Ferajun of Asigra; Ralph Nimbergood of Commvault; Joe Sykora of Fortinet; Nigel Edwards of HGST; Bill Lipsin of NetApp, and John Corley of Xerox were named to the 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs of 2016, which represents the “cream of the IT channel crop—leaders who drive the channel agenda and evangelize the importance of channel partnerships.” Other Impartner customers named Channel Chiefs include Kirsten Lee Young, A10 Networks; Mike Crest, Arcserve; Molly Rector, DataDirect Networks; Jon Bove and Claire Trimble, Fortinet; Patricia Watkins, Internap; Lori Cornmesser, Ixia; Nancy Reynolds, LogRhythm; Scott Strubel, NetApp; Nader Soudah, NexGen Storage; Drew Jenkins, OnRamp; Andrew Brinck and Brad Painter, Quantum; Elizabeth King, SGI; Carmen Sorice III, Sungard Availability Services; Charles Bass, Tegile Systems, and Darren Cassidy, Xerox.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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New video case study highlights how Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management solution helped National Instruments harness the power of its global channel program
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — APRIL 27, 2016 — When National Instruments, the global leader in test, measurement and control solutions, set out to reinvigorate its worldwide partner program, it conducted an extensive, industrywide search for a new Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution to help it take its program to the next level in the marketplace. In a new video case study launched today, having evaluated 21 bids, selecting 14, and ultimately whittling the list down to five companies who demoed over a period of two days, Director of NI Global Partner Program Armando Valim said that in the end, global SaaS PRM leader Impartner was the only company to meet the company’s key requirements.
“Once we decided to go with Impartner, it was fairly quick and easy to go live and took about 40 days,” Valim said. “And we went live in a big way, launching it at our global event, Alliance Day, where we had our partners and our entire sales team for an audience of nearly 2,000 people.”
The results since launch, says Valim, have been dramatic. “Our program had consisted of 600 partners for quite some time, and we weren’t growing. We needed to do something,” Valim said. “In just three years, we now have over 1,000 partner companies. We’ve invested in the channel, we’ve invested in the processes, and it’s paid off.”
Valim stresses that partner satisfaction is equally important to the program’s growth. “We also measure our success by the partner’s success,” Valim said. “Our net promoter score has grown 30 percent since 2012, which would not be possible if our partners were not satisfied with the program.
A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
For NI, a particularly critical function for a new PRM was the partner locator. “From an infrastructure standpoint, we had a directory but you couldn’t really find a partner, and the implementation of Impartner’s locator solved those issues,” Valim said. “Our locator has had over a quarter million unique page views in the past year. We now have partners soliciting customer reviews and competing to be higher on the program level so they can show up higher on the locator and get more leads—so it’s our self-fulling prophecy. Our locator really helped our partners be more visible and created an energy in the marketplace that’s drawing new partners from places we didn’t expect.”
If he has any regrets, Valim said it is because they didn’t implement the solution sooner. “The operations team is happy, the product marketing team is happy, the sales team is happy, and I have positive quotes from partners about using the portal and the locator,” Valim said, noting that NI’s program has won numerous awards from vendors, industry associations and partners alike. “Impartner was the perfect choice for us in that we’re in this together. We’re developing features together and we are improving together. Impartner is coming up with things we could only dream of. They are helping us and our partners be more efficient, and they are helping us save a lot of money. If you ever consider building it yourself you should really think twice.”
“National Instruments is the perfect example of a company that has transformed their partner program from a way to tier out partners to define compensation levels and a communications channel, to something that truly harnesses the full power of a partner network,” said Impartner Chief Marketing Officer Dave R Taylor. “They’ve turned their partners into an organization that operates with the same visibility and rigor as a direct sales team. That is a critical and predictable contributor to the bottom line and a key completive differentiator.”
To see more about NI and its use of Impartner’s PRM technology to help transform its partner program, click here for the video case study.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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Fortinet joins growing list of top network and security companies including A10, Carbon Black, ViaWest and Rackspace, turning to Impartner to scale indirect sales
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — APRIL 26, 2016 — Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner continues its dramatic growth streak with an announcement today that Fortinet, the global leader in high-performance cyber security solutions, has chosen Impartner’s award-winning PRM technology to transform its global partner relationship platform. Using Impartner’s solution, Fortinet’s new Partner Portal will deliver a full suite of integrated technologies including partner onboarding, lead management, deal registration, marketing development fund management and partner performance analytics focused on delivering an industry leading partner experience for the company’s global network of partners and accelerating their indirect channel sales.
“Our Partner Portal is our digital front door to our partners,” said Joe Sykora, vice president Americas Channels and Emerging Technologies at Fortinet. “When it comes to the success of our partners, the quality and profitability of our products goes hand-in-hand with the ease of doing business with us. A critical piece of that is ensuring they have a seamless experience with our Partner Portal. Using Impartner’s technology, our partners will get the information they need when they need it, and we will have better insights into their performance, so we can optimize programs and drive better collective business results.”
“The best companies in the world understand the power of the indirect channel. Having Fortinet join the growing list corporations investing in commercially available PRM is a clear indicator that PRM is critical to harnessing the power of that channel and ensuring it is a growth engine for the corporation,” said Impartner Chief Marketing Officer Dave R Taylor, noting that in 2015 alone, Impartner doubled its customer base, as market momentum for PRM continues to climb.
Increasingly, Impartner is the choice of top network and security companies such as A10, Rackspace, Carbon Black, ViaWest and now Fortinet, because of Impartner’s secure architecture. Impartner is the only PRM vendor to meet the security standards necessary to be listed on the Salesforce AppExchange®. Other key security highlights include:
- Three tiers of sandboxing.
- Certifications for stringent security standards including the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and Burp Suite security testing.
- Data exposure only through secure APIs and services with multiple abstraction layers, and robust logging and auditing capabilities to ensure compliance.
- Single and multi-tenancy combined into the industry’s ONLY hybrid model — delivering instant security and product updates through its multi-tenancy functionality, and the ability to customize, through its single-tenancy capabilities.
To learn more about Impartner’s PRM solutions, click here, and to learn more about Impartner’s security protocols and seamless network integration, click here.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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New video case study highlights how Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management solution helped the new flash storage entrant differentiate in competitive market
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — APRIL 21, 2016 — In the fast growing next-generation flash storage market, Tegile knew being easy to do business with would be critical to its ability to differentiate and win. It also knew to be a 100 percent channel company, it needed a Partner Relationship Management (PRM) system with the ability to scale along with its partner program. To provide that differentiation and enable that scale, Tegile turned to global SaaS PRM leader Impartner.
“In the already well-established storage market, our brand was new and not as established yet,” Tegile Director of Channel Marketing Sherman Tam said in a video case study released today. “In searching for a PRM solution, we knew our channel success would require partner loyalty and commitment—and that would be determined by our ability to make it seamless and incredibly simple for partners to find what they need and shorten their sales cycles.”
“The choice of Impartner and implementation of the company’s PRM solution was easy — it was like flipping on a switch,” Tam said. “It was basically worry free, and we were up and running in about a month. Impartner has industry knowledge from working with companies of all shapes and sizes—from small start-ups like Tegile to large companies like Xerox—which helped them play a trusted advisor role in bringing up the portal. They really spent the time to understand our goals and the experience we wanted to deliver to our channel partners.”
Today, the portal is the central hub for Tegile’s network of channel partners globally. “Everything we do evolves around our partner portal,” Tam said, adding that when the company recruits new partners, it showcases the portal’s well organized design and simple layout, which shows how easy it is to get enabled with Tegile.
Most important, Tam said, is the performance and engagement the portal drives with Tegile’s partner community. “From the moment we turned it on, we had so many great responses, and we saw an immediate jump in the use of our Partner Portal—from 25 percent to 50 percent within a month,” Tam noted. “And now, the majority of our global partners use it regularly, and we clearly see that the higher the utilization of the portal, the higher the revenue of the partner.”
According to Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer, “Tegile is a showcase example of why more and more companies are turning to PRM. It not only provides a differentiating, personalized partner journey that helps them stand out in what is increasingly a fierce competition for the best partners, but also offers a solution that can scale as they scale, and truly optimize the performance of their channel.”
To find out more about Tegile’s use of Impartner’s PRM solution, and how it helped Tegile win CRN’s coveted 5-Star Partner Program recognition four years in a row, click here.
About Tegile Systems
Tegile Systems is pioneering a new generation of flash-driven enterprise storage arrays that balance performance, capacity, features and price for virtualization, file services and database applications. With Tegile’s line of all-flash and hybrid storage arrays, the company is redefining the traditional approach to storage by providing a family of arrays that accelerate business-critical enterprise applications and allow customers to significantly consolidate mixed workloads in virtualized environments.
Tegile’s patented IntelliFlash™ technology accelerates performance and enables inline deduplication and compression of data so each array has a usable capacity far greater than its raw capacity. Tegile’s award-winning solutions enable customers to better address the requirements of server virtualization, virtual desktop integration and database integration than any other offerings. Featuring both NAS and SAN connectivity, Tegile arrays are easy-to-use, fully redundant and highly scalable. They come complete with built-in snapshot, remote-replication, near-instant recovery, onsite or offsite failover, and VM-aware features. Additional information is available at www.tegile.com. Follow Tegile on Twitter @tegile.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Next-Generation Flash Storage Company Tegile Turns to Impartner to Enable Channel Partners Globally appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — APRIL 7, 2016 — Global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner has been honored with an award for Best Portal Technology in the 2016 Visionary Spotlight Awards.
The annual Visionary Spotlight Awards, from ChannelVision Magazine and Beka Business Media, recognize excellence in outstanding products, services and deployments across a broad range of communications technology categories, including voice, data networking, hosting, cloud services and managed services. Winners offer channel partners a cornucopia of opportunities to boost their roles as trusted providers and business success.
Impartner won for its flagship solution, Impartner PRM, which was launched in July of 2015. In developing Impartner PRM, the company distilled its nearly 20 years of experience in helping companies accelerate indirect sales, into its simple, yet highly engineered Velocity™ process, which makes it possible for its customers to have a new, world-class Partner Portal up and running in as few as 30 days. This turnkey, out-of-the-box SaaS solution provides a fully featured Partner Portal with partner management, onboarding, deal registration and analytics, and is customizable with the company’s logo, multiple design layouts and content. Plus, it is mobile responsive and built with the industry’s most secure architecture, making it the only PRM that meets stringent standards necessary to be listed on the Salesforce AppExchange.
“As the pressure on the indirect channel grows, PRM is fast becoming as critical to business success as a CRM and the system of record for companies to manage their indirect sales,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer. “However, what was missing for the industry to truly scale to the next level was a PRM solution that was factored in a way that is easy and approachable for any company to deploy. With Impartner PRM, any company of any size can easily and quickly implement what is the industry’s most robust, turnkey out-of-the box PRM solution and accelerate their indirect sales in the way only PRM technology can. We’re proud we have industry giants like Xerox and Fortinet standing side by side with emerging technology companies like MULTIVOICE and Tegile in our customer base, and couldn’t be more honored by this recognition from Channel Vision for the value we deliver to our customers in transforming the performance of their channel.”
The winners of the 2016 Visionary Spotlight Awards showcase the best of the communications industry’s overall innovation efforts, capacity for future-thinking execution and creativity.
“We congratulate and thank Impartner for its outstanding achievement in innovation in the communications industry, and for its dedication to channel partners and the indirect ecosystem,” said Berge Kaprelian, group publisher at Beka Business Media. “We have created the Visionary Spotlight Awards program to highlight the rapid pace of evolution within the communications industry, and to give innovators and industry visionaries the opportunity to gain the exposure and recognition that they deserve. Impartner embodies these goals.”
This recognition follows close on the heels of other industry recognition for Impartner, including the recent win of a 2016 Stevie Award for Sales and Customer Service and being named as a finalist in this year’s global BIG Innovation Awards, presented by the Business Intelligence Group. Click here to find out why Impartner is fast becoming one of the industry’s most recognized PRM solutions and how the company’s solutions can transform partner relationships and accelerate indirect sales.
About Beka Business Media
Beka Business Media, Inc. is a full-service publishing company that produces trade magazines, provides web and email services to its clients and presents the CVx tradeshow in conjunction with ITEXPO. Beka also provides a daily direct e-blast service to its advertisers. The HTML-formatted releases are distributed to up to 50,000 qualified addresses.
Our publications include ChannelVision Magazine (www.channelvisionmag.com), a bi-monthly publication with a circulation of more than 29,100, which focuses on wholesale and indirect sales channels in the communications and IT space. It is read by telecom agents, IT value-added resellers, integrators, MSPs and service providers selling and distributing communications, cloud, IT, access and other network services.
Beka Business Media also publishes a variety of conference show dailies and show guides for various organizations and associations, as well as other custom publishing work. This includes the show daily and show guide for both the spring and fall INCOMPAS show, serving the competitive telecom industry.
Working with ITEXPO, Beka produces the CVx tradeshow for communications and IT channel partners. This event occurs once a year in Florida. Find out more at www.CVxExpo.com.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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With Impartner’s new Channel Flow workflow engine, channel pros can now instantly update the flow of their partner management systems in response to the changing needs of their business
Channel Flow ushers in a new era of nimbleness for channel management
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA — APRIL 4, 2016 — At the Microsoft Envision Conference in New Orleans, Global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today advanced the nimbleness of the key business solution used to manage indirect channels, PRM, with a new workflow engine that puts the power in the hands of channel chiefs to manage the flow of their channel operations in real time. With clicks not code, the Impartner Channel Flow™ workflow engine makes it easy for channel teams, not IT developers, to instantly tailor their PRM solution to match their business processes and evolve with their business needs.
“Impartner spent 2015 building telemetry and analytics into our PRM solution,” said Dave R Taylor, Impartner chief marketing officer. “It’s a natural desire for a customer, once they see the information flowing in, to want to make tweaks and changes to their indirect channel environment based on that data. Impartner Channel Flow is the solution that lets them iterate their business workflows with a simple, intuitive interface that requires no coding—and no delay—giving them one more level of control over their channel program and content.”
In developing Channel Flow, Impartner incorporated more than a decade of experience in implementing PRM solutions for some of the world’s most advanced corporations including Fortinet, Xerox, Rackspace and Carbon Black. “Our customers wanted the benefit of a turnkey, out-of-the-box SaaS solution that would integrate seamlessly with their business systems, yet still allow the people closest to their channel operations to simply, immediately and continually be able to iterate the system to optimize performance and revenue,” Taylor said. “Now, with our Impartner PRM solutions, our customers will not only have the sensors built into their partner programs that allow them to see what’s happening, but they can also take action and change course in real time in the way that makes the most sense for their business.”
Theresa Caragol, founder of the channel strategy firm, TCC Consulting, agrees speed is of the essence to take advantage of shifts in market dynamics. “Real time is the new speed of business,” Caragol said. “As pressure mounts on the channel, processes and technologies that empower an entire channel team to see trends and then take action immediately without the need for multiple hand offs are the ones that will help companies be able to run faster, improve faster and outpace the competition. The ability to make a change that optimizes a business process instantly versus a few weeks—or more—can make or break a quarter.”
Channel Flow continues an ongoing drumbeat of innovation from Impartner in the past year, all of which is focused on helping companies simplify the process of implementing and maintaining a world-class channel program. “When we introduced Impartner PRM, our award-winning, highly engineered Velocity™ process made it possible for companies to have a new PRM solution up and running in as few as 30 days, and our inline WYSIWYG CMS engine changed the game for marketers in keeping content updated and fresh,” Taylor said. “Channel Flow is that next step in helping our customers elevate their channel operations.”
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Allows Companies to Manage Indirect Channels in Real Time appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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CMOs: Ask these five simple questions up front to stop the battle with CIOs and get IT on board with your channel technology wish list
Partner Relationship Management leader Impartner shares ‘tale of two companies;’ how better anticipating IT’s concerns let one company leap frog another in PRM implementation
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — MARCH 14, 2016 — In today’s world of bi-modal IT, the battle continues to rage between CMOs wanting to make rapid-fire technology purchasing decisions and IT teams struggling to balance business integrity while at the same time evaluating and implementing new technologies demanded by marketing and other business functions. That battle is never truer than when it comes to Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solutions, which have been proven to as much as double indirect sales, but are often bogged down by organizational alignment issues because they integrate with and ultimately consolidate a number of disparate technologies.
A new webinar featuring Global SaaS PRM leader Impartner CMO Dave R Taylor and Gartner Research Director and PRM Analyst Ilona Hansen, outlines the following five key questions sales and marketing pros need to ask up front to streamline PRM purchase decisions with IT:
- What are “commercially available” PRM applications?In the market today, homegrown portals have gone by the wayside, as more robust, out-of-the-box solutions ease the implementation process and speed time to market. Sales and marketers will be wise to have already explored the landscape of competitive options to give IT faith they’ve explored the pros and cons of the key players and have a formed point of view on why the solution they’re recommending is the best fit for their company’s needs.
- What are the benefits of PRM solutions?PRM solutions allow you to automate and optimize your interaction with your partners. You save time, relieve the administration burden of your processes and improve collaboration — regardless of language and location. Make sure you can clearly articulate the value of a PRM to your IT team from your perspective and the perspective of your partners and prioritize the functions that are important to you.
- Is the competition using the technology?In today’s competitive market, the challenge isn’t finding just any partner, it’s in finding the right partner. If your channel team and program aren’t giving top-notch partners the experience they want, you can bet someone else will. While IT teams get endless requests to evaluate technologies, it’s critical to take a look at what the competition is and isn’t using to enhance PX (Partner Experience.) If you’re the first in your space to use a PRM, you’ll be able to use it as a competitive advantage, automate your processes and free up your team to spend more time selling. If your competition is ahead, make sure you find out what your partners find most valuable, so your request to IT already focuses on the most important functions.
- Does this solution meet the needs of channel sales management and the partners?Most of us are under tremendous pressure to make decisions and implement fast. But ensuring you take the time to get input from your internal and external stakeholders is critical. The time you spend up front on understanding demands and prioritizing them and identifying which legacy systems are already in use and may need to be replaced or incorporated, will more than pay back in a smooth implementation, and ultimately a solution that best meets your organization’s needs.
- What technology considerations are important?Without question, this is one of the key questions. While the value of a SaaS versus an on-premise or colocation solution is clear, your IT team will want to understand how the SaaS solution you’re looking at integrates with your company’s business systems. Everything you can do up front to calm the alphabet soup of your IT environment will pay off: make it easy to see how the PRM connects to POS, ERP and CRM solutions; what kind of APIs are available to integrate with legacy systems; how data flows and synchs, and whether the solution has passed BURP security testing. This will go miles in assuring IT that you are partners with them in wanting to find solutions that not only meet your needs from a functional standpoint, but also integrate with your network in a way that doesn’t cause more harm than good.
“At Impartner, we have the benefit of being on the front lines of the PRM purchasing decision for hundreds of corporations,” Taylor said. “It’s clear that the sales and marketing teams who most successfully anticipate the needs of their IT colleagues and approach the PRM buying decision with them in tandem will have the smoothest process and the most successful outcome, which is critical for any business selling through indirect channels. Organizations using a contemporary, commercially available PRM solution will outperform the competition by providing a better partner experience and a more optimized partner program.”
Click here to watch the webinar featuring Taylor and Hansen to learn what sales and marketing teams should—and shouldn’t—do to streamline their PRM buying process with IT.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post New Impartner Webinar Features Gartner PRM Analyst appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Recognition of a Partner Performance Management technology one more market signal PRM has crossed over into mainstream use by corporations worldwide
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — MARCH 10, 2016 — Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner won a Silver Stevie® Award in the new Best Relationship Management Solution category in the 10th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Impartner was recognized for its flagship product, Impartner PRM, and the ability of its highly engineered yet simple-to-use Velocity™ onboarding process to have companies up and running with a new Partner Portal in as few as 30 days—immediately transforming their ability to drive more revenue through their indirect channel.
The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service are the world’s top sales, business development, contact center and customer service awards. The Stevie Awards organizes several of the world’s leading business awards shows including the prestigious American Business Awards℠ and International Business Awards℠. The awards were presented to honorees during a gala banquet on Friday, March 4, at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas. More than 500 executives from the United States and several other nations attended.
“Entries to the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service continue to grow every year, further validating the essential roles that business development, customer service and sales play in business success,” said Michael Gallagher, president and founder of the Stevie Awards. “The widespread support of this program made the 2016 competition that much more intense among finalists. The judges were deeply impressed by the winner’s accomplishments, and we congratulate all of the winners on their commitment to excellence and innovation.”
“We’re thrilled to have an international business-awards organization like the Stevie Awards recognize PRM technology and Impartner and their importance to business relationships on the world’s stage,” said Dave R Taylor, chief marketing officer of Impartner. “Indirect channels are the single, most cost-effective way for companies to boost their revenue. By automating processes, optimizing partner performance, amplifying marketing messages and enhancing partner experience, PRM technologies truly harness the power of partner programs, ensure they become a true growth and profit engine for the corporation, and drive channel sales.”
More than 2,100 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were evaluated in this year’s competition. More details, including the list of Finalists in all categories, are available at www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Wins in 2016 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Rackspace on leading edge of predicted shift of B2B companies from homegrown to commercially available Partner Relationship Management solutions
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — FEBRUARY 26, 2016 — Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology leader Impartner today announced the availability of its newest on-demand webinar, “Why Not to BYOP (Build Your Own Portal); Key Learnings From Real World Customer Experience,” featuring Rackspace Director of Global Partner Program and Strategy Chris Rallo and Impartner Chief Marketing Officer Dave R Taylor. In the webinar, Rallo chronicles the Rackspace journey from building its own Partner Portal to using Salesforce’s CRM platform to build a PRM solution and to ultimately turning to Impartner’s PRM technology to provide an “out-of-the-box,” world-class Partner Portal for its network of more than 3,000 partners worldwide.
“As part of our continual effort to upgrade our partners’ experience and continue to accelerate our channel growth, we initially turned to our internal IT team to develop a new portal with the thinking that we would have more control over our branding,” Rallo said in the webinar. “We were quickly reminded that Partner Portals are not our core competency—delivering managed cloud services is. And although we then turned to the Salesforce platform, it’s not an out-of-the-box PRM and requires a systems integrator to install. We ultimately turned to Impartner’s turnkey PRM solution. The implementation process was seamless, and in just a few months, versus years, we were up and running with no disruption to our partner ecosystem.”
The Rackspace journey is a common one. In fact, in a key finding in a November 2015 report, Predicts 2016: CRM Sales, Gartner predicts that “channel organizations will focus on improving partner channel revenue performance through implementing commercially available partner relationship management applications.”
In the report, Gartner continues, “Although commercially available PRM applications have been on the market for nearly 20 years, many organizations have built their own PRM toolsets during this time to complement their channel sales approach. These toolsets are fragmented and found across different roles and functions within the channel organization of a brand maker’s organization without supporting a ‘one source for all’ strategy.”
“We feel the experience of Rackspace and the fragmented structures Gartner outlines in its report are absolutely key drivers of the dramatic growth we’re seeing in the PRM industry,” Taylor said. “Both Rackspace and Impartner share a deep passion for excellent customer support, and it’s incredibly rewarding for us to see our PRM technology help companies like Rackspace continue to elevate the experience they can deliver to their partners.”
To view the Rackspace webinar on the use of Impartner’s technology to transform its Partner Portal, click here.
Gartner Disclaimer
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Managed Cloud Leader Rackspace Collaborates with Impartner appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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National Instruments, Quantum, Rackspace, SGI, Sungard, and Xerox Recognized for Channel Program Excellence Atop Snowbird’s 11,000-Foot Hidden Peak Meeting Center
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — FEBRUARY 19, 2016 — In a move that underscores its mission to raise the bar on indirect sales and partner relationship excellence, global Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner today acknowledged six exemplary companies at its first-ever annual ImpartnerCON event. These companies have transformed customer experience, increased revenue, enhanced profitability, improved partner participation or impacted other significant business metrics with their Impartner-fueled channel program.
The 2016 Impartner Awards winners include the following:
- National Instruments, Innovator Award, for building a world-class PRM solution which has increased revenue by 91 percent and its partner program net promoter score from 40 percent to 73 percent. NI has continually worked closely with Impartner to develop new innovations, including the new Impartner Locator, which makes it easy for end users to find the right partner and facilitates the match making of complementary partners.
- Quantum Corporation, Commitment Award, for its long-standing commitment to the channel, moving from a business that was almost entirely an OEM to a business that today is more than 80 percent channel with more than 50,000 global partners.
- Rackspace, Transformer Award, for making the difficult decision to change solutions to Impartner after 18 months of investment in a technology that was not working, and then, in 8 weeks, revolutionizing their PRM and launching a new portal with more functionality at a fraction of the cost to support their network of 3,000 partners worldwide.
- SGI, Evolution Award, for launching a new PRM solution which has continually evolved year over year with new functionality to improve the experience for its 2,000 global partners. For their channel programs, SGI’s channel team has been recognized five times in a row as a Five-Star Award Winner in the Annual CRN Partner Program Guide, and almost as many times the company’s channel head has been recognized as a Channel Chief.
- Sungard Availability Services, Accelerator Award, for implementing a new PRM solution which drove a 30 percent category growth rate in channel revenue and a 20 percent increase in partner leads through its 400 partner network in the first year of implementation.
- Xerox Corporation, Transition Award, for its transition from separate regional partner programs to a common global program on one global PRM platform with nearly 100,000 partners in 9 languages, requiring integration with 11 downstream systems.
“Each of these companies have embraced the vision of how PRM can enhance the customer experience for their partners, increase revenue and improve partner loyalty,” said Impartner Vice President of Customer Success Brad Pace. “We’re thrilled to recognize these corporations who clearly recognize that PRM is as critical to their business success as CRM in accelerating their indirect sales.”
Nearly 100 attendees were present at Impartner’s inaugural ImpartnerCON this week, held at the brand new Summit conference center held atop the 11,000 ft. Hidden Peak at Snowbird, one of the country’s top ski resorts. The agenda included a robust mix of keynotes, hands-on training, breakout sessions and panel discussions to help companies selling through the indirect channel make the most of their channel program with Impartner.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Showcases Best of PRM at Inaugural ImpartnerCON appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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SiriusDecisions’ Laz Gonzalez keynotes at PRM leader Impartner’s inaugural global customer conference, outlines top reasons PX is a priority for channel chiefs
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — FEBRUARY 18, 2016 — As Customer Experience (CX) has moved to the front of the CEO agenda, Partner Experience (PX), has become a top priority for companies selling through the channel, a leading industry analyst said today at ImpartnerCON, a conference of global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner customers. In a keynote at the event, Laz Gonzalez, group service director, channel strategies, for global B2B research and advisory firm SiriusDecisions, outlined five key reasons channel chiefs consider improving their partner’s experiences to be one of their top priorities:
- The channel is an engine of growth
- Increasing competition for partner mindshare
- Partners are more selective about investing in vendors, with PX as a primary decision driver
- PX directly impacts experience (CX)
- Evidence shows that PX directly impacts partner engagement, performance and loyalty
“In 2016, ease of doing business is one of the key reasons partners add or drop a supplier offering,” Gonzalez said. “Unfortunately, many B2B leaders who employ a multi-channel model are still only in the early stages of defining partner experience requirements or are struggling with developing and setting goals.”
During the presentation, Gonzalez highlighted common drivers of poor partner experience and counseled attendees to focus their partner experience efforts on the following top pillars:
- Product and profit: develop products that are channel-ready vs. products for customers and then selling them through the channel.
- People and alignment: Create the organizational infrastructure and governance supporting requirements definition and management.
- Programs and tools: Equip partners with quality support, effective enablement tools as well as simple and straightforward programs.
- Processes and technology: Improve processes to reduce difficulties in doing business with partners.
- Promotion and communications: Effectively manage the flow of the right messages to the right partners through the right media
In closing out his session, Gonzalez encouraged attendees to begin the process of building a roadmap to PX excellence by assessing which maturity level best represents the organization’s starting point for each of the PX pillars. While a number of solutions are available on the market to help companies access their partner journey, for more information on SiriusDecisions PX Maturity Model, click here.
Gonzalez delivered his remarks during the keynote address to more than 100 attendees at ImpartnerCON, a three-day business management conference providing insights and tools for companies to maximize their channel program and optimize their use of Impartner’s PRM technologies. The conference is being held in Snowbird, Utah, from Feb. 17–19.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Partner Experience Key to Boosting Indirect Sales appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Award marks another milestone in the continued trajectory of Partner Relationship Management, which is emerging as one of 2016’s hottest sales technologies
Sales and customer service fastest-growing Stevie Awards category internationally
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — JANUARY 22, 2016 — Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner was today named a finalist for Best Relationship Management Solution in the 10th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. The awards are presented by the Stevie Awards, which organizes several of the world’s leading business awards shows, including the International Business Awards and American Business Awards. More than 2,100 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were evaluated this season.
Final award results will be announced Friday, March 4 at this year’s awards gala at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The ceremony will be broadcast live via Livestream.
“The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service continues to be the fastest-growing of our international awards programs,” said Michael Gallagher, president and founder of the Stevie Awards. “The sheer number of nominations is matched by the increasing quality of those nominations. We congratulate all of this year’s Finalists and wish them well in the next phase of judging.”
“This recognition is another clear sign that the Golden Age of PRM has absolutely arrived as companies around the world realize that PRM is as critical to their business as CRM in accelerating their indirect sales,” said Impartner Vice President of Customer Success Brad Pace. “We’re thrilled for the recognition of the value PRM and Impartner bring to customers in enhancing their relationships with partners.”
Details about the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service and the list of Finalists in all categories are available at www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.
About the Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in six programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 10,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 60 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. See www.StevieAwards.com.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Named Finalist for Best Relationship Management Solution appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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New role focuses on ensuring customers drive immediate benefit from their new PRM installations and accelerate their indirect sales
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — JANUARY 11, 2016 — Global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner announced today it has appointed Brad Pace as vice president of customer success. Pace is accountable for ensuring Impartner customers quickly benefit from Impartner’s PRM solutions, which are critical to helping companies sell through indirect channels. These solutions transform the customer experience companies deliver to their partner networks and accelerate their indirect sales by as much as 91 percent. Before joining Impartner, Pace held a number of executive sales operations, customer service and analytics roles at EMC that were focused on optimizing customer experience and performance.
“Making our customers successful is at the core of everything we do,” said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. “Brad has spent years on the front lines optimizing customer experiences for major corporations. We’re excited to bring those strengths to the table in further enhancing our onboarding, training, support and overall success management processes that deliver customer value and build loyalty.”
“I recognize in Impartner the same passion for their customers that has driven my career,” Pace said. “Given the explosive growth of Impartner and PRM solutions in the market, I’m looking forward to joining a team that is this committed to customer success and that as the company scales, ensuring the experience we offer our customers is rich and seamless, and we remain a vendor of choice.”
Pace’s hire comes just 11 months since Wang and Kennet Partners acquired what was TreeHouse Interactive. Since the acquisition, the company has undergone a number of rapid transformations, including building out the executive team; more than doubling the company’s overall staff; moving the corporation to new offices; expanding into Latin America and Europe; rebranding the corporation with a contemporary look and feel; and launching a continual string of innovations that include a reengineering of the company’s core product in a way that makes it more easily adoptable by a broader spectrum of corporations.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Impartner Appoints EMC Exec as VP of Customer Success appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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New video case study highlights how Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management solution allows ViaWest to provide positive, controlled first impression for fast-scaling partner base
SILICON SLOPES, UTAH — JANUARY 6, 2016 — With the explosion of big data and the need for secure solutions, leading Hybrid IT solutions provider ViaWest has turned to global SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) leader Impartner to support and scale its fast-growing partner community. A new video customer case study on how ViaWest is using Impartner’s PRM solutions to help attract and engage its partners is featured here.
“We’ve had incredible growth with our channel program over the past 18 months and we’ve almost doubled the size of our partner base,” said Isaiah Hogberg, director of national channel sales for ViaWest. “To accommodate that growth, we needed a tool to do three things: streamline the registration and onboarding process; make sure we have the most current marketing and training materials available to our partners; and deliver metrics around usage so we can continue to improve incrementally. Those needs led us to Impartner’s PRM solution, which frees up our time so we can focus on our core business and help our partners in more productive ways.”
Hogberg added that ensuring a positive first impression for partners was also key to the decision to work with Impartner. “The ViaWest Partner Portal is the first impression for much of our partner community, and being able to have that impression be positive and controlled is incredibly important.”
“ViaWest epitomizes why PRM is the new CRM,” said Dave R Taylor, chief marketing officer of Impartner. “They know and embrace that the Partner Portal is the front door of their partner relationships and the face they present to the market, and that it automates processes such as onboarding so they can focus on their core business. They also know that solutions like Impartner Marketing make it easy for them to amplify their marketing through their partners and protect their brand by ensuring its consistent and proper use. ViaWest is truly harnessing the power of PRM to optimize their partner programs and drive better collective business results.”
About ViaWest
ViaWest is a leading Hybrid IT solutions provider offering cloud, colocation, compliance services and security solutions, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Shaw Communications, Inc. (NYSE: SJR). With more than 16 years of experience and 30 North American data centers, ViaWest offers IT and infrastructure solutions that solve business challenges while balancing cost, scalability and security requirements. We leverage on-premise platforms, local ViaWest data centers and cloud environments to deliver tailored solutions designed for maximum reliability and flexibility backed by our 100% uptime commitment.
For additional information on ViaWest, please visit www.viawest.com or call 1-877-448-9378. Follow ViaWest on LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — MARCH 11, 2015 — TreeHouse Interactive™ (www.treehousei.com), the technology leader in SaaS-based partner relationship management (PRM), announced today that Kennet Partners and co-investor Joe Wang have acquired majority ownership of the software company. Wang, who has already made his mark in the Utah high-tech community as president and CEO of local software powerhouse LANDesk Software, will lead the fast-growing PRM market leader as the new chairman and CEO. The company’s sole shareholders Craig Flynn and Erich Flynn will remain with the company and collaborate with Wang in leadership positions in development and sales. Craig Flynn will continue to drive product engineering and innovation in his role as executive vice president of engineering. Erich Flynn will expand and lead the company’s sales efforts as chief revenue officer.
Utah tech companies have become a hot-bed for venture capital investments over the last few years with several companies including InsideSales.com, Domo, AtTask, Jive and more accepting investment deals to expand. In fact, Utah ranks 7th nationally in venture capital funding for 2014. According to the PwC/NVCA MoneyTree Report, Utah companies raised over $800 million in venture capital funding in 2014. That beats $316.2 million raised in 2013. The recent investment in TreeHouse is largely based on the growth that is anticipated in the PRM technology space.
In the 2014 Gartner Hype Cycle for CRM Sales*, PRM (partner relationship management), along with technologies such as lead management and eCommerce SaaS, is on the “slope of enlightenment” as an early mainstream maturity level that is expected to reach mainstream adoption from less than two years for lead management and eCommerce SaaS, to somewhere in the next two to five years for PRM. According to the report, PRM continues to gain momentum as companies work to optimize sales and marketing activities across multiple channels, and rely on third parties to expand their market presence.
In January TreeHouse reported that the company’s total overall 2014 revenue grew 49 percent over 2013. The number of partners supported by Reseller View™ PRM surpassed the previous all-time high, reaching more than 160,000 worldwide at the end of 2014. TreeHouse expects the number of partners supported by its robust PRM solution to nearly double in 2015. The company’s PRM platform supports global partner networks for industry-leading enterprises including Xerox, Rackspace, Sungard AS, SGI, Magento, National Instruments, CommVault and Quantum. Reseller View was identified as a leader in Forrester Research Inc.’s The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Platforms report, and cited for “more native functionality, superior user interfaces and usability” than competing solutions.
Reseller View is the most comprehensive PRM solution available and was built from the ground up by channel experts to provide vendors with a scalable platform to deliver vendor partner sales forces with the feature rich tools needed to successfully sell, service and support their products. Functionality includes, but is not limited to:
- Deal Registration
- Lead Distribution
- Partner Portal Website Branded to Corporate Look and Feel
- Automated MDF/Co-op Management
- Partner Locator
- Automated Training and Certification Program
- “Through Partner” Marketing Enablement and Automation
- Integrated “To Partner” Marketing Engine
- Full Service Implementation (No Client Resource Required)
- Automated Partner On-boarding Process
- Automated Contract Management
- Secure Partner Portal Environment
- Out of the Box CRM Integration
- Advanced Multi-Level Document Management
- And much more…
“We are seeing more business generated by the channel than ever before,” said Darren Bibby, program vice president, Channels and Alliances Research at IDC. “PRM technology continues to gain market traction with the growing need for manufacturers to provide partners with holistic technology solutions that automate and enable processes like deal registration, lead distribution and MDF.”
Kennet is a leading growth equity investor with $700 million under management and a long track record of success. “We focus on bootstrapped companies that have a proven market opportunity, product and growth potential. We were impressed with the growth and success TreeHouse Interactive has achieved in the PRM space. With more financial resources and leadership talent we are confident we can take them to the next level,” said Eric Filipek, managing director of Kennet. “Our investment demonstrates the confidence we have in TreeHouse’s PRM solution, the existing team and in its new CEO Joe Wang, who will bring with him a tremendous track record of success.” In addition to Eric Filipek, Kennet managing director Javier Rojas will also join TreeHouse’s board of directors.
Mr. Wang’s record includes growing businesses and generating tremendous returns during his 25 years in high technology. As CEO at WatchGuard Technologies, he successfully turned around the revenue declining and money-losing business, creating a profitable and growing company with vastly improved technology and market position. Prior to joining WatchGuard, Wang was president and CEO of LANDesk Software, an Intel spin-off, where he grew the company by 150 percent in four years. He sold LANDesk Software in 2007, generating 11x return for investors. Prior to LANDesk, Wang was founder and CEO of 20/20 Software. He successfully grew the company and then sold to Symantec, generating 10x return for his investors.
“Utah has developed into a hotbed of SaaS technology, and I’m excited to be back in this dynamic market,” said Joe Wang, chairman and CEO of TreeHouse Interactive. “My investment in TreeHouse demonstrates my strong belief that Reseller View PRM is by far the best PRM technology available today, backed by a powerful team of people. I look forward to strengthening our technology leadership position in the PRM market and expanding the company worldwide.”
“Our Founder, Craig, and I vetted several investment firms over many months for possible investment, said Erich Flynn, chief revenue officer of TreeHouse Interactive. “Kennet Partners and Joe Wang have a proven track record growing successful businesses. We are looking forward to using this investment and adding resources to accelerate sales, product roadmap, and growth objectives while continuing to deliver the innovative technology and support our existing clients have come to expect.”
* Gartner Report: Hype Cycle for CRM Sales, 2014, Robert P. Desisto, July 16, 2014
About Kennet Partners
Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in companies in Europe and North America. Kennet supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is an experienced investor with approximately $700 million in funds under management. For more information: www.kennet.com. Kennet Partners Limited is authorized and regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority.
To learn more about Reseller View partner relationship management, see Reseller View resources and customer reviews on the Salesforce AppExchange and Microsoft Pinpoint.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post Co-Investors Kennet Partners and Joe Wang Invest $17 Million to Acquire Majority Ownership of TreeHouse Interactive appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Channel Experts Heather K. Margolis and Erich Flynn Provide Insights, Best Practices and Offer Examples for Building Strong Partner Relationships and Generating Greater Channel Revenue
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — FEBRUARY 5, 2015 — TreeHouse Interactive™ (www.treehousei.com), the technology leader in SaaS-based partner relationship management (PRM) and marketing automation platform (MAP) solutions, announced the availability of its newest on-demand webinar: 10 Tips to Prepare Your Channel for 2015. Featuring recognized channel experts Heather K. Margolis, president and founder of Channel Maven Consulting, and TreeHouse CEO Erich Flynn, the webinar offers best practices, insights, real-world examples and actionable tips about how to best engage with partners and prepare channel programs that ultimately build stronger partner relationships, and enable them to grow revenue.
“Having defined channel program goals in place when entering a new year is crucial, but before new plans and goals are put into action, it’s critical to ensure last year’s program performance is evaluated,” said Flynn. “This starts with taking a look at what was achieved last year, where the program may have fallen short, and how the channel may have shifted over the last several months. The 10 Tips webinar will address this and offer more best practices, suggestions and technology that can be implemented to increase channel revenue in the year ahead.
Other tips covered in the webinar include:
- Review competing programs
- Update methods of communication with partners
- Socialize partners
- Refresh partner data and agreements
- Review partner goals and establish new ones
- Ensure sales field is communicating with partners appropriately
- Review MDF and spending program effectiveness
- Rethink metrics
“Today it is more challenging than ever to get the attention of channel partners, and even more difficult to gain the mindshare of end user customers,” said Margolis. “At the same time, there are increasingly new vehicles for expanding partner relationships and building loyalty, such as social media and an ever-expanding world of communications vehicles. Tips discussed in the TreeHouse webinar will touch upon both new innovations and industry best practices that give channel marketers plenty of avenues for creating and improving their partner programs.”
About Heather K. Margolis, president and founder of Channel Maven Consulting
Heather Margolis is a recognized channel expert and consultant with a history of leading channel programs for companies including EMC, EqualLogic and Dell. Heather speaks extensively to vendors and solution providers about the importance of adding value and communicating effectively through social media and online engagement. She has launched and managed new channel and communications strategies around the globe. www.channelmavenconsulting.com
To learn more about Reseller View partner relationship management, see Reseller View resources.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
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]]>The post TreeHouse Interactive Sees Exponential Growth in 2014 appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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Company Surpasses All-Time 2013 Highs by Growing Total Annual Revenue by 49%, Realizing a 98% Annual Revenue Increase for Its Industry-Leading Reseller View PRM Platform
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — JANUARY 27, 2015 — TreeHouse Interactive™ (www.treehousei.com), the technology leader in SaaS-based partner relationship management (PRM) and marketing automation platform (MAP) solutions, announced today it closed 2014 with significant growth in total and Reseller View PRM Platform revenue. Total revenue for the company rose 49 percent over 2013, while its Reseller View PRM platform revenue grew a staggering 98 percent, even after growing 87 percent the previous year. The number of partners supported by Reseller View surpassed the previous all-time high, reaching more than 160,000 worldwide. TreeHouse expects the number of partners supported by its robust PRM solution to nearly double in 2015.
Partner Relationship Management and TreeHouse Reseller View PRM
TreeHouse Reseller View PRM–the most complete, compatible, and customizable PRM solution available–provides the features organizations require to properly support their partner networks. The solution helps reduce the costs of managing partner networks by automating key workflows and seamlessly integrating with major CRM platforms. It helps increase revenue by providing partners the training, tools, and information needed to successfully sell, service, and support vendor products. TreeHouse achieved many milestones with Reseller View in 2014:
2014 Reseller View PRM Milestones
- Many TreeHouse clients who use Reseller View PRM to help lead their channel partner programs have been consistently recognized by CRN, the industry standard channel publication, for their partner programs and channel leadership, demonstrating that Reseller View is a key component in developing successful partner programs. The number of Reseller View users who were included in CRN’s 2014 Partner Program Guide increased more than 65 percent over 2013. More than half of those clients earned a 5-Star Award ranking, an elite subset of the Partner Program Guide. And the number of Reseller View clients named as CRN Channel Chiefs increased by 140 percent.
- Customer successes include:
- SGI, which saw 25 percent growth in channel partner deal registrations after implementing Reseller View
- ViaWest, which experienced a 30 percent increase in new partners within the first six weeks of launching TreeHouse’s PRM solution
- National Instruments, which increased revenue growth over 90 percent since 2010 using Reseller View
- Sungard Availability Services, which saw a 20 percent increase in partner leads after implementing Reseller View
- Announced two new AppExchange PRM marketing applications designed to integrate with Salesforce Communities™, expected in Q3 2015:
- Partner Marketplace Communities Edition™ – gives companies an extremely advanced partner locator or directory branded to their exact specifications
- Co-branded Collateral Communities Edition™ – provides partners with an on-demand and automated way to create professional co-branded collateral such as data sheets, case studies, white papers, direct mail, and web banners
- Pioneered the industry’s first secure search for PRM by launching the enterprise-class Reseller View Secure Search™ module. The new module enables partners to easily search volumes of rich content and receive instant search results, without having to choose between inadequate standard tools to search within protected website portals, or build a cost-prohibitive advanced search engine to offer a custom Google-class search.
- Introduced Enhanced Administration, User Roles, and Permissions for Reseller View to allow companies to increase control over who can approve, access, edit, change, or integrate with data stored in different Reseller View objects. The new functionality gives Reseller View customers greater flexibility to create new roles providing different levels of access to data and features to suit different end user positions and needs.
The Customer View
- “Reseller View made it easier for our partners to do business with us, for example, enabling them to easily register and track opportunities, and receive compensation,” said Sean McCaffery, vice president of channel sales for ViaWest. “Having a consistent and transparent way to manage partner accounts in a single portal was another important requirement that, together with the other capabilities we were looking for, helped drive greater success for both ViaWest and our partners.”
- “TreeHouse has everything a channel program needs under one roof,” said Jim Schwartz, senior director of channel operations for Sungard Availability Services. “With the ability to create co-branded documents, process partner leads, seamlessly integrate with Salesforce, and provide sales tools to our partners, we get everything we need from one vendor–all while controlling costs and achieving scalability.”
Marketing Automation and TreeHouse Marketing View
TreeHouse Marketing View™ has been an innovator in the Marketing Automation space since 1998. The product has introduced industry-leading features in areas such as landing page automation technology, contact management and targeting, social media integration, multi-layered logic for lead nurturing, online retail marketing automation, company and individual behavioral scoring, web analytics integration, ROI reporting and, most recently, a completely dedicated web content marketing module. It provides companies the marketing automation tools needed to create more effective marketing campaigns faster and more easily, which drives the incremental revenue needed for businesses to grow.
2014 Marketing View Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) Enhancements
In 2014, TreeHouse Interactive unveiled enhancements to Marketing View™, designed to give marketing professionals the improved ability to group, compare, and drill down into campaign performance data and more effectively evaluate campaign outcomes. With a clearer view of campaign results, marketers can optimize campaigns in real-time and duplicate campaigns that lead to higher levels of revenue.
“2014 was another groundbreaking year for TreeHouse Interactive in terms of revenue growth and in particular, the exponential growth of Reseller View PRM,” said Erich Flynn, CEO, TreeHouse Interactive. “The exciting milestones reached this year with Reseller View and Marketing View demonstrate our continued ability to innovate solutions based on customer demand, and execute with a rapidly growing client base that includes industry-leading companies such as National Instruments, SGI, Sungard AS and ViaWest. The growth we are experiencing clearly shows there is an untapped market demand for our solutions, particularly for PRM.”
To learn more about Reseller View partner relationship management, see Reseller View resources and customer reviews on the Salesforce AppExchange. To learn more about Marketing View marketing automation see Marketing View resources.
About Impartner
Impartner delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based Partner Relationship Management solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM is the industry’s most award-winning PRM technology and one of the industry’s only turnkey solutions that can deploy a world-class Partner Portal in as few as 14 days, using the company’s highly engineered Velocity™ onboarding process, which is guided by an individually customized Customer Success Portal. For more information on Impartner, which is based in Utah’s tech hotbed, the Silicon Slopes, visit www.impartner.com or in the United States call +1 801 501 7000, for EMEA general call +33 1 40 90 31 20, for London call +44 0 20 3283 4465, and for LATAM call +1 954 364 7883.
The post TreeHouse Interactive Sees Exponential Growth in 2014 appeared first on Impartner PRM.
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