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The partner portal is possibly the single most important tool for a vendor selling through channel. While channel programs, policies and people are all very important ingredients for partner relationship management, in our digital world a properly built, state-of-the-art partner portal can make the difference between a successful channel program and one that fails. However, the majority of partner portals today never realize their full potential of serving the needs of the channel partners and enabling a vendor to scale its business globally. Why is that? Let’s examine some of the primary reasons behind this failure. Portals are not localized. Most companies that are selling globally today may have some localized web content, but typically the user interface of the partner portal is not localized. As a result, partners that are more comfortable doing business in English are absolutely fine, but in countries where English is a secondary language or where partners are simply not comfortable using English, those partners can be very hesitant to use the partner portal. At ZINFI, we have observed that localizing the portal consistently increases utilization by 30% to 40% on a worldwide basis. Lack of mobile responsiveness. We know most partners are out and about seeing their customers. While some of the technical staff may be using the partner portal via the web on a desktop computer, most individuals at partner organizations today access the partner portal via a mobile application. Therefore, the partner portal needs to be—at the very least—mobile responsive. Ideally, vendors will provide a mobile app that delivers some core functionalities tied to things like partner onboarding, training, lead management, deal registration, incentives management and some basic reports. While the goal is not necessarily to replicate the entire partner portal in mobile form—an unrealistic and ultimately be overwhelming objective—there are several core features and functionality that it makes sense to deliver via a dedicated mobile app. Confusing content distribution. A typical vendor that generates a few hundred million dollars in revenue selling through a partner base may carry anywhere from ten to several hundred product lines. Each product or solution is associated with specific content in the form of product data sheets, service sheets, pricing guidelines, competitive positioning, and so on. How is this content actually categorized, tagged and distributed? That’s an incredibly important variable. Another crucial consideration is how new content within the partner portal is tagged and separated from older, less immediately relevant material. For example, if there’s a new launch of a specific product or service, all of the content related to that should be promoted through the partner portal so it’s easy for partners to find as soon as they log in, and is both web responsive and mobile responsive. Lack of robust search capabilities. When partners come to your partner portal, they are already busy. They are carrying multiple product lines and are likely accessing multiple partner portals. When it comes to the partner portal, they do so with a specific purpose in mind. Our data shows that the number one reason a partner logs in to the partner portal is related to customer support: Either they’re creating tickets or checking the status of their tickets because they want to monitor how they’re doing in helping their customers. Other common reasons for logging in include learning about different products and services offered by the vendor, and accessing marketing and sales materials. In each of these scenarios, the partner is thinking of a specific purpose and a specific solution. The partner portal is rich with content, but if specific content is not easy to find via a quick keyword search, it defeats the purpose of having the content and the partners get frustrated and leave. That’s why having great search capabilities within the partner...