Partner Management Software

Software Applications for Partner Management

As a growing company, have you wondered how to effectively manage partner relationships in order to scale your business to new levels?

Partner management software helps channel sales managers and channel marketers from a company connect with third-party vendors (typically referred to as partners) and automate several parts of the partner management process. Partner management applications function as a centralized platform to serve partners by optimizing product information sharing, marketing materials, and other key parts of partner communication and collaboration processes.

This guide will help you understand what partner management software is, as well as the various factors that must be considered when choosing a partner management software solution.

Here’s what we'll cover:

• What is partner management software?
• Common features of partner management software
• What type of buyer are you?
• Benefits of partner management software
• Key considerations
• Market trends

What is partner management software?

Partner management software is a system of business processes and features that enable channel marketers to communicate and engage with their partners.

With a partner management application, sales marketers can effectively manage and automate their reseller pipeline on an online portal that can offer partners insight on leads, progress, and future opportunities. Partner management solutions also help sales companies create custom partner portals, reward their sales teams, track sales leads, manage deal registration, and more.

Common features of sales performance management software

While features vary from product to product, partner management software typically offers some or all of the following functionality:

What type of buyer are you?

• Startups and small businesses: These buyers often have limited budgets and tend to register their leads via spreadsheets. This method of sales tracking and monitoring tends to be prone to errors and can result in an unmanageable pipeline as business speeds up. Adopting a partner management system will enable startups and small businesses to better manage and maintain partner relationships as their business grows by automating various parts of partner interactions, such as lead tracking efforts and deal management processes.
• Midsize enterprises and large businesses: These buyers usually have a vast collection of partners that they need help managing. Midsize enterprises and large businesses are looking for a reliable, secure partner management software solution to help them effectively track and monitor a large number of partner relationships. With the help of a partner management system, these buyers will be able to increase channel manager productivity by automating vendor-partner communications and enabling partner self-servicing.

Benefits of sales performance management software

• Enables the scaling of partnerships: Considering that most sales businesses work with a large number of third-party vendors, it can seem impossible for channel managers to delegate ample time to each individual partner. Partner management software encourages smaller partners to seek the information they need independently, allowing the sales company’s channel managers to focus their attention on larger, more strategic partnerships.
• Streamlines ordering and distribution: Ordering products for partner distribution is a time-consuming process for channel managers. Implementing a partner management system allows partners to efficiently order parts on their own, helping channel managers to focus on other tasks.
• Fosters collaborative vendor relationships: Partners often have feedback, questions, and concerns that they expect the supplier companies they partner with to appropriately address in a timely manner. Partner management software enables partners to contribute new ideas, raise concerns, and address pressing topics as soon as they come up. On the other hand, sales companies are able to view and respond to partner communications via a user-friendly portal.
• Enables marketing and brand management: By implementing guidelines on your partner management software solution of choice, your channel managers can ensure that all partners have access to the most recent version of your materials, encouraging brand compliance.

Key considerations for purchasing a partner management software

• Data sharing limits between multiple partners: Partner management software requires users to build custom channels for each individual partner, which means your sales team will have to build and maintain a new channel for each partner your company obtains. For sales teams that wish to share data with unlimited partners, partner management software may add more frustrations to partner relationship processes than necessary.
• Lack of partner acceptance: It is possible for your company's partners to feel unenthusiastic about using a partner management system. This mostly occurs when a vendor company implements the partner management software with no clear action plan or discussion of how the software operates. When this happens, partners become uninspired and veer away from actually using the platform to communicate with channel sales managers. It's crucial to arouse partner excitement and inform partners of the software implementation ahead of time to avoid a lack of partner support.

Market trends to understand

When seeking out a partner management solution for your business, be sure to consider the following market trend:

Emergence of Chief Ecosystem Officer positions: Since partner ecosystems are growing more complex by the day, it will become increasingly important to strategically plan sales channel development efforts and forge long-lasting relationships with current and potential partners. In light of this, a new position will emerge within the sales industry, titled Chief Ecosystem Officer, whose responsibilities will include making sales projections, setting budgets, and achieving company sales goals. In the future, your organization will most likely need to employ a Chief Ecosystem Officer to ultimately be responsible for connecting the partner management system and sales managers with the goals of the rest of the company’s ecosystem, including the product development, marketing, and customer service sectors.