By Gloria Kee, Sr. Director, Product Management
If this past year has taught us anything, it is that the world is far more adaptable to change than we ever thought. In a blink of an eye, many businesses across verticals had to transform themselves to cater to commerce, where marketing, education, selling, and buying all became much more virtual. 2020 taught us many things, but this is especially true in the B2B High Tech where we have seen an acceleration of the market, with a stronger focus by vendors to invest in relationships with their partners to create the necessary co-partnerships to navigate the complexities of the landscape.
As the demand for specialized functions within high tech increases, more partners are emerging as experts in domains that were commonly unknown a decade ago. Partners are no longer just customers, but strategic players who can negotiate their relationships with the vendors who play a crucial role in helping the vendor increase revenue growth.
As partners continue to evolve and grow, timely and accurate partner data becomes more important for the manufacturer to be able to strategically analyze and plan their business. According to Forrester Research, “the effective use of real-time channel data improves a vendor’s speed to market…and helps quantify the return on invested capital in the channel.” Manufacturers have long faced hurdles to ensure they have access to information on who is buying their products, where they’re being sold, how much is being bought, and what is being bought. Even though manufacturers agree with partners to send them their data, the process of collecting data can sometimes get lost in lengthy email exchanges, manual file tracking, and lagged communications with the partner.
To ensure partner success, manufacturers are finding value in investing and elevating their partners to become successful in their journey. This shift in the vendor relationship means that vendors are now looking at how they can nurture partner relationships through partner certification and enablement programs while offering their partner’s easy-to-use tools to submit and review their data. Not only does this reduce siloed data reporting, but also increases access to data that manufacturers rely on.
Many vendors are now shifting their models to ensure that the number one customer experience includes providing a one-stop-shop where the partner interaction from data cleansing to incentive tracking is unified. It is important to have the right vendor who partners with customers to create a unified customer experience while supporting the day-to-day channel partner activities solidifies customer success.
Model N’s Channel Data Management is now offering Channel Network to enable partners to log into one portal to access the data they’ve submitted to review, enrich, and/or correct the data they submitted. Partners can now access a dashboard view of their outstanding data and know exactly what requires their attention and make those changes in real-time. The solution provides a quick and easy interface that enables self-service capabilities for the partner, thereby increasing market return and awareness. This functionality provides the insight sought by customers in not only understanding what their customers are doing with their data but ensures that the data they receive is accurate and timely.
To learn more about Model N CDM Channel Network, go here. To speak to a subject matter expert on how you can improve your partner relationships, go here.
