Indirect sales channels have always been attractive to companies seeking to augment their sales force, increase market share, remain competitive, and keep in-house employees focused on product development. The traditional downside was loss of insight into customers, fractured pipelines, missed opportunities, diluted branding, and market share cannibalism.

Contemporary technologies and best practices now allow companies to manage not only their partner relationships but partner operations as well, supporting them with proven go-to-market strategies that increase lead-to-win ratios. Will this technology remove the limitations on successful partner relationships? If so, how quickly will each side be willing to adopt?

To find answers to these questions and see how your experiences in partner relationship management and adoption of best practices and technologies compare with those of your peers, read on.

Avangate has partnered with Aberdeen Group, who is conducting a study on “Partner Relationship Management: Channeling Better Sales Results”.  This study will provide recommendations for channel sales managers and partners to work together to achieve higher top-line revenue and greater market share.

To thank you for taking 15-20 minutes to answer this survey, Aberdeen will provide you with a complimentary copy of the final report, which is expected to be available after February 29th, 2012. Here is the link to the survey: www.aberdeen.com/survey/0403-Avangate/

Do not worry, individual responses will be kept strictly confidential, and data will only be used in aggregate.

The joint Avangate – The VAR City webinar is just what the title says: a 60 minute crash course on channel management – touching on key things about selling through resellers, from what it takes to lay the foundations for a successful reseller network to the latest technologies available for channel management.

Are your products channel ready?

Channel expert Ken Beam @ The VAR City brought in his 25 years of experience in Strategic Partnership Management and Development. Channel readiness quiz aside (assuming you passed it :)), Ken pointed out you need to really understand resellers and what motivates them, what business model they work on (a reseller on a 70/30 model, where 70% of revenue comes from services will obviously be interested in services opportunities).

In a twisted, fortunate kind of way, along with news on the economic crisis, recession, however you want to call it, bombarding us for the past few weeks, there’s also hope and help – a myriad of tips, to do lists, practical advice on how to survive the crisis. You cannot apply everything ad-litteram to your business, but at least it’s a starting point, an idea that generates ideas applicable to your own business. And this is good, it helps disperse panic, it helps you focus on a plan.

One article that I particularly liked was “What the recession means for the software business: five things to think about” by Dan Nunan. Although written back in April, it is so very up-to-date.