Saved by the Partner Portal

My friend and I were talking about how channel cooperation worked for us. And as the discussion went on, I noticed that most of our collaborations were only possible because the company we worked for had a partner portal. Somehow having partner portal allows us to do our job in a harmonious and strategic way as compared to how we did our work before.

I remember having trouble over the same prospects and arguing about who would take the target and who would find another prey although basically we were from the same company. When I was still a direct seller for our company, my friend who was somehow part of the managing team of the indirect selling force usually reported to me on our free time that we had the same target. Meaning to say, there was a channel conflict occurring outside of the original arrangement. This also meant that the boss had to change the channel management solution service he just ordered. He was quite furious, more or less.


channel partner strategy

Still, with the company growing by the end of last year’s third quadrant, all of a sudden the company had three additional partners. It was good news the company was growing and having more partners but I would have really like the company to be smaller than it is now. Why? This only means one thing to me: bigger competition with the same tactical performance.

While the number of people who I had to share my work with grew, meaning an easier sell sometimes but not all the time, the number of people who I had to avoid bumping into also grew. Needless to say, we were not managed carefully and precisely. I had several troubles of the same kind I mentioned before until the management thought that if they also shared their processes of management with their partner, perhaps selling different products in the same location would not have been a bother.

In the end, creating a portal which shared management and allocation data and not only sales information proved to be more than effective for our company and its partners. I should really be more appreciative of what technology brings.

The New Trend in Channel Marketing

It was a boring lunch break so my friend in the marketing slash web development section of our company decided to strike a conversation about partner portals.

According to what he has observed in the online marketing scene, social media or the so-called web 2.0 apps changing the consumer’s behavior. Since channel tactics have to adapt in the changing scenarios of the time, this also means that marketing channels have to be dynamic and flexible in order to face whatever circumstance. And nothing makes it easier for companies to acquire, use and rethink their strategies than through partner portals.


partner profiles

I thought, maybe he was right, although I didn’t want to admit too quickly and adamantly since I was a small time manager for marketing channels in my previous company.

It’s been almost a golden rule that marketers like me should always integrate these kinds of technologies in their websites to improve their product development, channel partnership, branding, etc.

It then struck me that there really is nothing permanent in this world. Businessmen like my other friends in the company always talk about what’s going to be obsolete, and how hard for traditional sales techniques, local sales territories and named accounts are playing a digressive role in marketing. Everything’s just going to the internet. You buy, sell, and resell with a flick of the house as fast as a click.

Blogs, Facebook and Twitter accounts can be used by channels to provide additional service to their customers. They can reply almost immediately and at no additional cost if the customers have questions about a certain product and then, in turn, the customers will present a positive appraisal of the product and extra service incorporated. One can say that it’s a virtual word-of-mouth marketing.

I think the most important advantage that social media fashioned is the effortlessness and competence of communication. In every partnership or relationship, be it vendor-partner, partner-customer, or vendor-customer relationship, the most essential characteristic is the capability to communicate problems and solutions to make way for a give and take relationship. After all, not just because the sellers have the product means that they also have control over the selling situation.