What Is Partner Relationship Management?

Published: Oct. 29, 2021, 4:37 a.m.

The discipline that embodies the principles and tactics of managing channel partners is called partner relationship management (PRM) or channel relationship management.\nAt the foundation of channel management, you\u2019ll find partners. Partners fuel channel marketing, sales, and service efforts\u2013their success is directly correlated to the overall channel\u2019s success. While finding ways to manage them efficiently can be challenging, it\u2019s a crucial component that can enable your organization to recruit and retain more partners, as well as, increase revenue at a much lower cost of sales and services than a direct sales and service model. \nThe Partner Journey\nThe word journey means it has a roadmap\u2013with a beginning and an end. Regarding partner relationship management, the roadmap is about attaining higher sales velocity and better customer satisfaction at a lower cost of sales and services. The beginning of this journey starts with partner recruitment and it ends with a high-performing channel.\nThe truth is it never ends, because the channel is a living and breathing entity. It\u2019s always changing. So, yes you start with a roadmap and you execute, but there are constant changes, detours, and optimization that you have to do with the new focus. \nA successful and growing organization is always introducing new products, acquiring new partners, realigning their groups and incentives, etc., to achieve a higher level of performance. So, while you don\u2019t want to make changes every ninety days, you certainly don\u2019t want to stick with a stale channel program year after year either.\nThat\u2019s why the notion of a partner journey revolves around a framework, but it\u2019s highly dynamic\u2013not like a Disney roller coaster ride, but more like a seasoned traveler that ventures through dozens of countries with a pre-determined budget to attain certain specific goals. In this case, those goals are to make more revenue at a lower cost with a higher customer satisfaction rate and very few business risks or (legal) exposures.\nWith this said, few things are constant. For a channel-focused organization, partners are always going to be a critical component of any business strategy, whether it\u2019s a vendor just starting or an organization that has been established for years. After all, the productivity of the partners determines the success of the channel. This is where a well-tuned partner relationship management (PRM) software or system can truly help an organization realize its channel strategy and business goals.\nWith this in mind, let\u2019s go through an overall partner journey with a vendor organization\u2013starting with partner recruitment, training, enablement, sales, and ongoing relationship management.\nPartner Recruitment \nThis is the first step in a partner journey\u2013joining a vendor organization or partner recruitment. You can\u2019t expect to scale without adding new channel partners to your organization. There must be an ongoing and proactive effort to build relationships with potential channel partner organizations that can sell and support a vendor\u2019s solution. This includes both outreach and onboarding processes. A well-designed partner relationship management (PRM) platform should allow you to do this well.\nRather than targeting any available partner, outreach efforts should be built around a strategy\u2013one that seeks out channel partners who are likely to perform. But recruiting is only half the battle. Once you\u2019ve signed on the dotted line it\u2019s time to give them all the resources and knowledge they need to begin actively selling as soon as possible. \nPartner Training\nThe goal here is to ensure partners\u2019 functional teams are properly trained on how to market, sell, deploy, and support a specific solution. This means more than just a two-day conference in a hotel. \nTo properly give new partners the tools they need to sell you need to take a more holistic and ongoing approach. By that, we mean offering online courses, including webinars, courses, tracks,