Peter Ganza, director of marketing at Magentrix, recently sat down with our resident channel coach, Paul Bird, to answer some of the most common questions individuals have been asking online.
What is the channel management process?
Paul Bird: “The channel management process really depends on the industry and the arrangement that the solution or tech provider and the channel provider have. So it’s in the best interest of that tech provider or service provider that’s working through the channel to make sure that their channel partner is engaged and is selling their products or services in the best light.
So that channel management process really revolves around the ability to communicate with the channel partner, understand what that channel partner is doing in their day-to-day activities, keep them informed of new promotions and new information but it’s really about the relationship process between the company that is manufacturing those products or technology platforms or the provider of service and the person that is connecting them to the end-user.
So that management process is really the relationship and the methodology behind making sure that those companies are engaged.”
Channel partner agreements, the eighth frequently asked channel question on Google, most certainly takes us into grey areas. There’s no one size fits all approach as anything with the words ‘channel’ or ‘partner’ are different not only to industries and geographies but also varies within them.
For example, the bulk of our partner relationship management (PRM) clients are technology companies who mainly develop software products with services wrapped around them. Just looking at two who sell similar solutions, perhaps even through the same partners, it’s easy to see their channel management processes are different.
The partners themselves don’t need to know or even see the difference. They are simply selling another company’s products or services.
Empowering partners with a portal to sell another company’s products through the channel is the easy part. When it comes to the channel management process we have the benefit of working with any existing channel management process while providing additional best practices to improve.
Do you have anything to add to this topic? Feel free to share and comment below. What does your definition of a channel channel management process look like?