Mar 25th, 2011

By Kgabo Badimo, MD of Spescom DataVoice

The relationship a vendor fosters with its channel partners’ will often determine the success of the product in the market. Spescom DataVoice believes ongoing dialogue with technology partners, resellers, channel partners — and customers – is the right recipe for success and is planning on expanding its reach through its channels.

For a vendor that produces a specialised product, it’s important to determine a channel strategy that will give it the greatest reach and return. If the product can be used for various applications and across industry sectors, it’s important to create relationships with solution providers and resellers that offer services to those segments.

A vital bit of the puzzle is ensuring that channel partners understand the capabilities and functionalities of the product, know how to implement and commission it, as well as provide basic levels of support and maintenance to the end-user. A sure way of achieving this is putting in place training and certification that gives the channel partner or reseller a firm grounding in terms of the installation and operation of the product – as well as a means to refresh that knowledge regularly, either through product roadshows, product updates or annual re-examination.

In order for the above channel approach to be successful, constant communication to channel partners is necessary. Communication is a powerful tool for managing channel partners and its value is second only to that of financial incentives. This communication assists to ensure channel partners understand exactly what the vendor requires from them and their customers.

Clear, focused communications ensure channel partners are able to effectively position the vendor’s products and solutions in line with their strategy. In addition, providing the partner with product material is essential as it ensures the vendor brand and product is ‘top of mind’.

It may also be important to have a dedicated channel manager per industry sector, product or geography that will be able to assist channel partners and resellers to correctly spec, price, implement and advise clients – or troubleshoot in the case of system or other challenges emerging.

Where the product undergoes continual R&D and upgrades, and is capable of being customised for large or specialised customers, it’s essential that channel partners have access to vendor expertise. The vendor therefore needs to make third and fourth level support available as a service to channel partners to cover (back-to-back) SLA agreements they have with end user customers. This significantly improves the service that the end user customer experiences – and a happy customer is a loyal customer.

For the product house, ongoing product development often relies heavily on feedback, with channel input on changing technology and customer requirements. While it is intrinsic to the field of technology development to always ensure your product is able to integrate with other relevant technologies and operate in an optimised fashion, acquiring insight into the changing needs of customers can be difficult, especially where the vendor/channel partner relationship is not well structured, or the channel partner is not focussed on the needs of the customer adequately.

A myriad of scenarios may play out – if the customer upgrades or replaces another part of its system, this may impact the performance of the vendor product in question; or perhaps the customer requires better response times if business volumes pick up; or requires an upgrade to make use of new functionality. Having a ‘direct touch’ model in place mitigates this challenge.  The ‘direct touch’ model adds value to the end customer, the channel partner and the vendor. It’s a three-way relationship that builds trust in each direction: the customer feels ‘looked after’, the channel partner does more business, and the vendor not only gains a better understanding of how to differentiate its product but enhances the loyalty of the customer.

Its win-win all around when the ideal vendor/channel partner relationship prevails. When it does not, it’s important to be flexible, identify the shortcomings in the cycle and rectify them by putting the right structures, checks and balances in place. The quality and competitiveness of the product is critical but as products commoditise, it is service and support – really caring that the end customer receives value – that will drive loyalty and market share.

Spescom DataVoice believes the following components are instrumental in building positive, productive and profitable relationships with channel
partners:

.    Access. Having a marketing department that is well equipped to take the vendor’s offerings to market, and readily includes the channels in relevant initiatives – keeping them part of the campaigns.
.    Big Picture. A Business Plan and Product Roadmap outlines the vendor’s future and growth.  Channel partners should be a core component of that vision and plan.
.    Independence. While the importance of channel partner management is emphasised time and time again channel partners should be allowed to sell how they see fit, rather than forcing a prescribed approach and plan.

Providing them with the chance to grow without hindrance from us and it is a good way of ensuring development for both parties.

The connection between a vendor and its channel partners are crucial.

Vendors must ‘connect’ with their channel partners in order to promote their products and services better and if the channel partner believes in the product, they are more inclined to promote and sell the product.  Not all relationships with vendors and their channel partners are equal but most importantly, the relationship must be built on trust and respect – just like any other relationship.