If you want to put someone who works for a Supplier under pressure just ask this question: “why does your Company exist?”. It’s surprising how many people who work for, or even own, a Company can’t instantly answer this question.
For channelcentral, as our Company name denotes, we’re here to help the Channel and Manufacturers work together more seamlessly and efficiently so all organizations drive towards their objectives. We constantly question whether we are achieving that and whether there are opportunities to offer new services.
When CRN recently released its 2017 Vendor Report we were keen to see whether the World’s Top IT Vendors were satisfying the needs of their Channel Partners: CRN Vendor Report
It’s clear from the Report that there’s still opportunity to improve, specifically in the area of Account Management. As channelcentral isn’t offering Account Management services (e.g. out-sourced Call Centers) how can it be helping Vendors improve?
Lessons from iQuote
When channelcentral launched iQuote into the UK back in 2008, even in its basic form, the feedback we got from Pre-Sales staff was normally two-fold:
1. Lots of suggestions for improvement!
2. The #1 benefit is that it allows Product Managers and Pre-Sales Architects to offer self-serve tools to Sales/Customers for run rate volume so that they can concentrate on large or complex deals.
So many Vendor Account Managers are simply dealing with basic Channel enquiries (stock, price, configuration, attach items) that when something more strategic is needed they’re simply too busy with getting the $2k deal out the door, missing the work that generates thousands of $2k deals or many $200k deals.
We believe that if Vendors adopted this “cut from the bottom” approach, deploying Channel Sales Tools that reduce the simple, volume overhead on their Account Managers their scores in the next CRN Vendor Report will start to improve and those Account Managers will be far more satisfied with their jobs.
Services from channelcentral
For HPE we offer iQuote (the #1 used Channel Quotation Tool on Planet Earth).
For HPI we will be delivering a new eCommerce upsell tool from November 1st 2017. Enquire with us.
For Multi-Vendor tools we offer Freebird (CPQ), Smart Finders (Help Me Choose) and Boost! (Accessory Profiling/Demand Shaping).
We also offer custom Development, Product Management and Mobile App Services.
About channelcentral.net Limited
We know Channel:
Directors: Tim Moyle (Info’Products then Computacenter); Mike Jones (Computacenter)
Leadership: Dan Mason (Computacenter), Emma Moyle (Info’Products), Louise Driscoll (RM Education), Terry Knott (Northamber, Tech Data, Merisel/CHS, Computacenter and Ingram Micro), Graham Smith (Info’Products), Greg Starks (Compaq then HPE SMB) and Rob Oliver (various Operational roles).
channelcentral Blog 