Partner Portals: The Most Basic Element for Managing Your Channel

Hi, I am Jennifer Kula, vice president of business development for RelayWare, Inc. With nearly 20 years of channel, alliance and business development experience, I look forward to bringing you some of the real world stories and requirements I am hearing from channel partners as it relates to their participation in partner programs and partner portals.

With so much competition in the market today to secure and maintain quality, producing channel partners, it is no wonder that the VAR community is inundated with requests to join vendor programs that require frequent login to the partner portal to conduct basic business. Partner portals are the most basic of elements today for managing your channel. The question is, what are the vendors offering to the partners to make the experience a mutually beneficial one?

Sales collateral downloads and deal registration functionality do not commonly fall into the ‘value add’ benefits for VARs. While these are required to conduct business with the vendor, it does nothing to build loyalty within the channel or recruit top quality new partners. Many new technologies and value-added services are coming to the market that integrate with portals’ full Partner Relationship Management functionality including on-line training and certification, MDF management, incentive programs, through partner marketing, integrated CRM,  private community environments for personalized communication with vendors and more.

During the next several weeks, I will be taking a look at some of the new functionalities available to partner portals and explore the real benefits these can bring to both the vendor and more importantly to the VARs themselves.

Please stay tuned and I look forward to your comments, feedback and ideas for inclusion in this exploration.

¶ Posted August 23rd, 2010 † Ken § Uncategorized ‡ 1 Comment |