Partnership holds great prospects for enhancing the value you deliver to your customers. It also opens the door to significant growth opportunities for the business. However, choosing the right partners that will enhance your value proposition and drive incremental growth for the business is easier said than done.
Our client, a Fortune 500 distributor of technology products and services, established a partner program with the hopes of delivering greater value to end customers and driving incremental growth. However, shortly after the inception of its channel partner program, they quickly realized that the new indirect channel to market was not living up to its promise. They perceived the challenges to be two-fold (1) they didn’t have enough of the right partners (2) they needed a clear game plan on how to attract and “on-board” more of the right partners.
We first worked with client to help them establish a clear and accurate picture of the channel partner landscape. After profiling thousands of prospective channel partners we established a channel partner segmentation which provided the platform to prioritize and make decision about where to focus. The channel partner segmentation identified the segments of prospective partners that represented significant value both in terms of value and incremental revenue opportunity.
After the channel partner segmentation was complete, we worked with the client prioritize the specific segments that represented the most significant opportunity. We then developed a detailed marketing plan that provided a clear and concise roadmap on “who” to target, “how” to recruit as well as on board the channel partners. In addition, we developed a detailed business plan for the channel partner program that provided the client with a line of site to achieving their goals and objectives.
Ultimately, the partner segmentation, marketing and business plan enabled the client to realize both greater top line revenue and bottom line profits from its channel partner program as well as established the foundation to scale the program to new levels.
