 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
| ||||
|
| | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
With more than 70 percent of Vendors relying on indirect sales channels to distribute their products and capture market share, there is an increasing need for accurate, useful and continuous channel information. It's a key priority for channel sales, marketing, operations and financial management, but without streamlined processes in place, manufacturers lose many of the benefits of channel partnerships. This need not be the case. Gaining insight into channel sales activities and performance can often be as simple as "mining the gold" in your POS and inventory data through a consistent and sequential business process such as this:
While this process may seem obvious, many vendors have not created a benchmark to measure the reliability of the data submitted by their channel partners at the onset. So while the vital data may be readily available, it often resides in disparate partners, formats, locations and IT systems. This lack of quality and consistent data is often the root cause of a whole host of issues that directly affect the bottom line. One of the main issues is that a considerable amount of unproductive time is spent in manually consolidating and reconciling data. In discussions with vendors throughout North America, it's obvious that too many senior managers are spending too much time collecting, validating and processing data; leaving little time for analysis, planning, and implementation of support decisions. Yet, it is on the basis of this data that decisions such as resource allocation, inventory management, production planning or marketing initiatives are made. Information at its Best Technology products and services exist today that streamline and automate data collection, validation, processing and reporting so management can evolve their role from processing to one of a higher value-add. These solutions support large amounts of data, in various formats, from different channel partners through a systematic process to equip channel managers with key performance indicators. With a clearer picture, vendors can react faster to market changes, develop a deeper understanding of their existing channel structure, and better manage their channel relationships. Accurate and timely channel sales, inventory and customer data is invaluable in planning marketing strategies and supporting channel programs, with direct impact on ROI by:
With channel partners contributing anywhere from 40 to 90 percent of total sales revenue, vendors must be able to measure channel sales activities and performance to effectively manage their programs and resource allocations. This is an executive function. Channel managers are tired of waiting for IT or finance departments to provide timely, accurate and quality sales, inventory and customer data that they need to manage programs and revenue attainment. Manufacturers are spending time manually reconciling data while decisions need to be made that directly impact ROI. There are effective tools available today to turn raw channel data into powerful business intelligence. You can streamline the collection and processing of point-of-sale data from multiple resellers and distributors by territory, partner, and product for use in sales and marketing analysis, commission reporting, sales forecasting, and monitoring returns, promotions and rebates. When evaluating these solutions, look for secure, on-demand hosted applications that produce real-time, actionable information. Start the New Year by taking the guesswork out of the channel information management process and continue to benefit from your existing channel structure, while aiming for maximum channel profitability. To learn more on the best practices used by some of NASBA's partners or to discuss the current research on the topic, please call me at 949-729-2259 x225 or email robert@nasba.com. Robert Danese, NASBA's Executive Director, is NASBA's public voice within the technology community. NASBA - the Association of Channel Resellers - serves as the channel advocate for the single largest IT sales channel in North America with over 14,000 member companies and more than 45 industry partners.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
home | feedback | printer friendly version | email this article
©2008 Integrated mar.com Corporation | 1.800.465.2059 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
