Collaborate Remotely with Your Channel Partners Using PRM Software
If your company (or even country) is under a travel ban due to an epidemic like the coronavirus outbreak\u2014or perhaps because of budget restrictions\u2014and you have to cancel your road shows to train and enable your partners, don\u2019t despair. There are multiple ways to enable your partners remotely without meeting face-to-face by leveraging partner relationship management (PRM) software. In this article, I will explore how you can deploy a set of pragmatic PRM channel automation tools to enable your partners in a few easy step.\nThere are essentially two types of enablement involving collaboration with channel partners using PRM software: tactical and strategic. Let\u2019s briefly address both.\n\n \tTactical enablement: Tactical enablement includes activities like pushing a promotion through the channel, rolling out sales incentives for partner sales reps to sign up for and execute on, or creating programs to train partners on new product launches. Within 4\u20136 weeks you can easily deploy a partner relationship management (PRM) platform with built-in tools that allow you to effectively collaborate with your partners remotely on these and other tactical initiatives. We will discuss these tools in a bit more detail later on.\n\n\n \tStrategic enablement: This is about driving systematic improvements like sales reach and lead generation from greenfield opportunities as well as building technical or solution competencies for certain strategic product or services rollouts. These activities can also be performed using PRM software, but to do so effectively you will need to carefully consider your overall channel programs, policies, promotions and key performance management metrics. An appropriate PRM platform will allow you to set up advanced training by product categories and other criteria, but if you lack an overall integrated strategy, much of this work will turn out to be tactical, rather than strategic, enablement.\n\nWith this as a framework, it\u2019s time to consider some of the PRM software tools that can be used for both strategic and tactical enablement. These tools can address a broad range of activities related to partner life cycle management, including partner recruitment, partner onboarding, partner enablement, demand generation and partner management. In each of these areas, we can apply\xa0 both tactical and strategic approaches by using various PRM tools.\n\nNow we\u2019re ready to consider some of the PRM software tools that can help us with each of these activities and allow us to collaborate remotely:\n\n \tPartner recruitment \u2013 In this age of digital content and media\u2014especially when partners may be working from home, from the office or another location\u2014they are very likely connected to their mobile and other computing devices. \u201cMarketing to\u201d the partner is a core activity, and PRM modules created specifically for social marketing, email, Google AdWords, microsites, events (online live and on demand) all enable core tactics that can be deployed for both tactical and strategic engagement.\n \tPartner onboarding \u2013 Onboarding a newly recruited partner with a step-by-step onboarding process is critical, and this is where PRM automation can help a lot. Your PRM software should allow you to quickly set up various partner onboarding programs and establish tracks within those programs to move the partner automatically from one stage to another. Laborious process steps like contract signing, business planning and more can be highly automated.\n \tPartner enablement \u2013 One of the most common facets of partner enablement is partner training, which, if it cannot be done face-to-face, can easily be carried out using SCORM-compliant learning management systems (LMSs). When you are selecting a PRM tool, make sure the LMS module is SCORM-compliant so you can easily and build effective step-by-step training courses.\n \tDemand generation \u2013 Partner enablement also includes demand generation, which should include a set of integrated tools and campaign content that partner...