Partner Relationship Management
Partner Relationship Software (PRM) is a new breed of software designed to streamline the workflows between you and your channel partners. PRM isn't as much about the technology as recognizing the need to develop better relationships with your sales partners. PRM isn't about micro managing them, or manipulating them to sell more of your products. PRM is about increasing the amount of value you provide to your sales partners, reducing the overhead of working together, and strengthening the bond between your companies. Do that and sales increases will naturally follow.
PRM has three primary goals: 1) Increase Revenues, 2) Decrease the costs of managing your sales partners, and 3) Creating unbreakable partnerships and vendor bias. PRM focuses on 4 functional areas:
- Marketing Automation - creating quality leads and following up on them
- Sales Automation - closing those leads into sales
- Customer Service - resolving pre and post sale customer issues
- eCommerce - making transactions efficient
Like CRM (Customer Relationship Management), many PRM efforts are destined to failure. They can't be undertaken in a vacuum, and they need to be integrated into you and your business partners' operations. We can help you avoid the CRM/PRM quagmire by: facilitating top management support, effective analysis of existing processes, identification of solution options, prioritization of implementation, and introduction & training of your sales partners.
There are many high return, low investment options for PRM. One client saw a 40+% reduction in customer service telephone calls installing an internet based order status system that was up and running in just a couple of weeks for less than $30,000 with a pay back period of less than 6 months for the average $20 million per year manufacturer.
