Challenges of Measuring Partner Performance
When companies neglect to establish and measure Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for their channel partners, they also pass up the opportunity to develop channel expectations and set up a system of “carrots and sticks” to encourage certain partner behavior. Without an automated solution, which continuously tracks and analyzes partner performance along a variety of parameters, it becomes next to impossible for companies to proactively manage, measure and reward performance.
To improve the management of partner performance, companies need to:
- Establish the KPIs on which to evaluate partners and then communicate this to the channel.
- Automate channel data collection and reporting processes (POS, inventory, claims).
- Analyze and measure partner performance against KPIs to ensure that goals are met.
- Share results with channel partners and take corrective action, if needed.
Improve Partner Performance with cCRM
Entomo’s cCRM solution for partner performance management collects channel statistics and calculations compiled via POS, inventory, incentive management and opportunity tracking modules. The partner scorecard module then analyzes the collected statistics to produce a balanced scorecard, which can be configured into channel control dashboards for a 360-degree view of partner performance.
Performance can be measured against any number of KPIs established by the company and each KPI can be weighted according to the company’s priorities. Examples of KPIs are:
- Data completeness and reporting accuracy
- Sales performance
- Inventory performance
- Inventory variance rate
- Invalid claim rate
Using the partner portal, partners can view their own scorecard and see how they rank compared to, for example, unnamed regional peers and top performers. To eliminate subjective and anecdotal measures, partners can not only view their scorecards, but they can also drill down to see the components and details of how their score was calculated.
