Software Channel Survey Results - download now!

As you know, we’ve done a survey on how the crisis is impacting the channel distribution in the software industry. We’ve looked at the results and – although not statistically representative (survey conducted on the internet on a self-selected sample)-, they make an interesting reading, showing some trends and providing tips & solutions for channel challenges.

Frankly, I was (pleasantly) surprised to see how much weight both ISVs and resellers give to joint marketing programs, measuring, efficiency, communication…  obviously no one can afford to pay lip service to these actions, they are for real.

Encouragingly enough, vendors and resellers acknowledge the same top channel challenges and consider similar solutions for tackling problems.

What do affiliates mainly need? I think you’ll agree with me that this is a question with many possible responses. But, as you will see, there’s one thing it really matters to affiliates and that is the involvement of the software vendors.

In April 2009 we did our annual Avangate Affiliate Survey and we got interesting feedback from our affiliates. Here are the main conclusions that stand out from the survey from the publishers’ point of view:

• The affiliates think that more discount coupons from the software vendors would help them sell more;
• They find it rather difficult to cope with the fact that some of the software vendors aren’t more helpful – offering unattractive affiliate commissions, lack of marketing materials, no commissioning schemes to stimulate competition.

The Intel® Business Exchange Software Store in Europe has just been launched, bringing a new sales channel for selling software to European countries – with localized sites for the UK, Germany,  and France (official launch to follow by the end of the month). Good news.

We are, of course, proud to boast that Avangate provides the hosting, billing and process execution of the new market place… that the Avangate eCommerce platform is the core engine of the European Intel® Business Exchange… More good news.

Focused on SMBs
Yes, indeed, Intel ® BX is focused on SMBs – providing an advantage for this market. Why was there a need for this? Because SMBs often struggle to find technology products, services and support that fit their particular budgets and needs. The Intel ® BX Software Store helps them quickly and efficiently find the software solution they need to help implement business solutions. That’s why the store features extensive product details and facilitates customer ratings and reviews.

A recession is a good time to sit back and analyze your go to market strategy and, part of this, to think about going international, online or through a reseller network. You may be already selling internationally in same language markets/through a few reseller partners – now is a good time to expand.

So why is it good to go international NOW?

• Spread risk (don’t put all eggs in one basket).
• Increase market base (there’s a variety of markets out there, from small to large software markets in both established and emerging economies. Not to mention that an increasing online population makes it easier than ever before to sell software online).
• Increase revenue.

Let’s dwell on this last point for a bit. When it comes to building a partner network, you need to start right about now to be fully up to speed when the recession is over and things start booming again. It doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t get anything out of your channel during the recession (that’s not a promise either), but in general you have to be ready to support it for at least 6 months without seeing much return.

No more than 20 questions :) and you will receive a full copy of the survey report.

I won’t lie to you: at the beginning of the month we had no intention of doing a survey on channel distribution in the software industry. Now we are.  More than that, we have put more and more effort into it as we were designing the questionnaire and it’s grown into this wonderful piece of research … It  became my baby project.

How has this all started? From a discussion about an ad we had to do for a reseller newsletter. We wanted to produce something different, not just a boring ad… but rather à la @Neil Davidson in his interruption marketing post. Well, we didn’t quite match Napoleon & the Hemorrhoids, nevertheless we did come up with something we believe is very useful and interesting to share with the world.