Win Business and Add Value to your Channel Partners with the right Deal Registration Program
Deal registration is fundamental to running any channel program. However, it’s often problematic when manually maintained on excel spreadsheets and databases. Many vendors think that because they have a CRM system in place, they don’t need to maintain a deal registration program. But this is in fact a common misconception. Because the level of communication and data being collected, along with the timeliness of a deal reg, can mean the difference between a mediocre partner program and a world class partner program.
Visibility becomes lost when channel partners fail to register deals early in the sales cycle. This in turn allows competitors to discover opportunities, and even worse, win business away from the vendor. A formal and automated/integrated deal registration system that is easy to use helps lock-in deals for vendors . It also ensures that specific channel partners have the rights to sell specific products to specific markets/geographies. By having visibility to these deals, tailored pricing can also be implemented.
Channel Automation
A good deal registration program has visibility for both the vendor and the channel partner. However, if not automated and integrated with other systems, it can become difficult and time-consuming to manage. By automating the system, vendors can control which products, partners and geographies have access to a particular deal with online acceptance of program terms and conditions. Partners too benefit by tracing specific sales programs back to leads. Approvals for specific products or for specific geographies can be made in real time and this accelerates the sales process by removing delays for approvals.
From a partner perspective, deals along with any discounts, rebates or applicable incentives, get locked in. Sales forecasting is an often-unforeseen benefit of a good deal registration system. When a partner registers a deal, the vendor get greater visibility into demand. Thereby reducing the risk of overestimating or underestimating demand.
Despite the obvious benefits of running a deal registration program, many vendors either don’t implement one or continue to limp along with the old spreadsheet/email based approach. Reasons for this include the lack of time and resources to improve the existing system or to implement a new one. In some cases, vendors may think their current CRM system is adequate. But in many cases, this level of sophistication simply isn’t designed into the program.
A Good Deal Registration Program:
- Allows vendors to configure deal registration programs in terms of which partners can utilize the program and in which geographies
- Moreover it customizes deal registration request forms to capture deal information, end customer details, decision makers, timings and attach supporting documentation
- Simplifies requests for approval, informs workflows and tracking
- Offers real-time reporting to monitor program progress at either a program, product or partner level to see what opportunities partners are actively working on
- And finally, it integrates directly with a CRM (SalesForce etc.) to partner lead registrations
Bottom line – Having a partner register a deal early leads to increased win rates as early deal registration allows for enhanced support on qualifying deals. Thereby, for finding and winning new customers, partners receive a reward. Or for finding incremental opportunities within existing customers. Registering a deal also helps protect partners who invest resources in bringing in new customers from partners who cannot bring the same value to that customer.
Cloud Technology
Fortunately, the advent of cloud technology has brought ways to automate the entire deal reg process at much lower costs. Bringing efficiency and all the associated benefits of deal registration together is now well within reach for vendors.
The Channel Mechanics channel enablement platform gives vendors the tools to design, launch, manage and measure deal registration programs, in real time with our automated system. For more information on our deal registration software, visit our registerIT page, or contact the team to organize a demo.