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The Evolution of a Partner Portal



By Karyn MacKie
Director, Partner Operations

Virtually every vendor today has a partner portal because they think they need to offer one, but many aren’t very compelling or even useful. Ideally a partner portal or extranet should provide one-stop shopping for all the information and tools partners need to effectively sell a vendor’s products- ultimately making it easier to do business with the vendor. The tool or site should be the primary entry point to all partner program and contact information, product and technical materials, critical status information (like orders, marketing funds, and deal registration), and marketing and sales tools.

Partner portals usually evolve over time offering a continuum of functionality and effectiveness. This evolution can be separated into 3 phases:

  • Basic - the site is a content framework and a list of links. This phase offers little ROI. For example, a client we worked with had a site that consisted of a few static pages with out of date information. They recognized it offered no value to their partners so they made the right decision and took it down. Something isn’t always better than nothing.

  • Integrated - portal includes integration with key processes like ordering and licensing, and other sales-related processes.

  • Next Generation - portal becomes more collaborative through chat or web conferencing capabilities and there is integration to key business processes through third party applications such as training systems and CRM solutions via open standards. These portals align business processes with end users and ROI is realized much more rapidly.
To read the rest of this brief, download here.


SOLUTION SPOTLIGHT







By providing sales, technical, and marketing materials to your partners through a comprehensive Resource Center you empower them with 24x7 access to the information and tools they need to effectively promote, sell, and support your solutions.

It is easy to engage partners, drive awareness and increase brand recognition with our Resource Center solution which adopts your company’s branding guidelines and style sheets. Since the application’s design is customized to your company’s look-and-feel the partners are engaged with your company and feel part of the organization. Content can be presented by a partner’s tier, type or role and can be easily administrated internally through our Dynamic Content Administrator tool.

To view an on-demand tour of the PartnerPortal & Resource Center, click here.

To view the a datasheet on this solution, download here.

For more information on all available PartnerPath solutions, go to www.partner-path.com

Go to our BLOG - The Current to read our wrap up of channel highlights from 2006










Q1 INDUSTRY EVENTS



Amazon Consulting at The A.S.A.P Summit

February 7 - 9, 2007
Burlingame, CA.

Discover how companies large and small are meeting the challenge of the global economy by creating strong allies and alliances, with special emphasis on leveraging and penetrating Pacific Rim markets including North America, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan and Singapore.

For conference information, visit the event here.


UPCOMING WEBINAR

2007 State of Partner Programs

Thursday, Jan. 18, 2007
11am - 12noon Pacific Time

Don't miss this informative web seminar based on the findings from our landmark 2007 State of Partner Programs Survey. You will hear how your colleagues responded on topics such as:

- The least and most important initiatives in their overall partnering strategies for the coming year

- What they see as the biggest partnering challenges and opportunities of 2007

- How some of the channel's most innovative companies plan to invest their budget and resources over the next 12 months

Register today for this live event.


RECENT CLIENTS



PartnerPath Implementation
Partner portal build-out included: Partner profiling, partner management, resource/content posting, partner profiling, enhanced software download requests and management system

Portal was enhanced to support multi-language platform

To download client spotlight, click here.


Go-to-Market Model for AMDLIVE!
Evaluated consumer education and influence patterns. Assessed where, how, and if AMD could leverage specific channels to create awareness and demand for their new digital home offering.


Launch Plan & Execution Services
Created partner program launch plan, developed messaging to build channel brand and created enhanced program materials. Provided outsourced partner marketing resources to drive consistent and compelling communication to the channel and increase partner engagement.