Communication is essential to effective partnerships, so we sought to find out how channel companies and their vendors informed one another, how often, and how satisfied they are with the process. Consider the following findings:
- Online portals and partner relationship management tools, customized email, mass market email/newsletter, vendor events/conferences and channel account managers comprise the primary ways vendors communicated with their partners in last year.
- Two thirds of respondents described the state of channel-vendor communications as either “very close” or “exactly” where it should be.
- The communications tool considered most essential to overall partnering success is 24/7 telephone support.
- In past year, more than half of vendors have used social media tools for partner recruitment and to share info on incentives and sales promotions.
Social tools are clearly growing as a means of communication between parties. The data indicate that, on average, upwards of four in 10 channel companies of all revenue levels, years in business and status within partner programs cited social media tools as the most common way they receive information from their vendor partners.
In terms of general program participation, four in 10 channel companies reported a net gain in the number of vendor-based partner programs they joined in the last 12 months, while a quarter experienced a net drop. That’s fairly consistent with participation levels from last year. In aggregate, the average number of vendor programs that channel companies belong to last year was eight, which mirrors the results from a year ago.
Participation is not the best barometer for assessing partnerships, however. It’s also important to measure the level of involvement channel firms have within individual partner programs. Not every partnership is strategic, either by choice or because the difficulty or cost involved in attaining an upper tier within a vendor program is prohibitive.
Why does level of involvement in programs matter? The data show that the farther up the partner program rung channel companies climb correlates directly to levels of satisfaction with the partnerships. Just more than a third of firms in the study said they had attained the highest program level with their primary vendors in last year, while 60 percent are at a mid-tier level. Among more than 15 individual program elements assessed in the study, such as deal registration and pre-sales support, fully managed partners (those in the highest tier) described being highly satisfied nearly three times as often as mid-tier partners did. In just one example, a full 42 percent of fully managed partners said they were “very satisfied” with the margin points offered by their vendors, compared with just 10 percent of mid-tier partners.
This common gap in satisfaction across program elements reflects the added attention and accelerated level of benefits afforded channel firms that reach the top tier in vendor programs. These companies often represent the largest shares of wallet for vendors.
The disparity in benefits is no secret in the channel. In fact, the study found that one third of channel firms say they swap information about vendors, including details about pricing, discounts, rebates and other program benefits on a regular, formal basis with their peers, while more than half are doing so on an informal basis. That’s fairly extraordinary transparency given the competitive environment between solution providers, but would suggest a growing trend toward more peer-to-peer collaboration.
The practice also underscores that effective communication extends beyond simply vendor to channel company, but between solution providers themselves.
Look for the full report from the second annual State of Channel Partner Programs study in May in the research section of at www.comptia.org.
