6 Effective Partnership Management Strategies

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6 Effective Partnership Management Strategies
Only some businesses have realized that
partnership is the key to upscaling their
business in this competitive landscape. But
when it comes to partnership management, its
essential to know that not all strategies can
spur impact or get the desired result that you
may be working to achieve. Effective partnership
relationship management is crucial for promoting
products and building strong relationships.
Many successful brands, including Microsoft,
Hubspot, and Salesforce, have achieved
tremendous results via channel sales and PRM.
Amazon Web Services is one of the leading
examples of having strong partnership management
skills. Another brand that outshined with
channel partnership was
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Zoom. They reported that channel partners in
Japan contributed to 40 percent of their
Japanese business. 70 percent of their US
Federal Government business was due to channel
partners. So how do you think all this was
possible? The answer is strategic partnership
management. Businesses have realized that
implementing partner management strategies has
enabled them to reduce potential communication
breakdowns, which ultimately leads to poor
performance and affects brand reputation. As a
business owner with multiple partners, you may
have challenges managing your partners. With
this being said, here are six ways you can
build better long-term relationships with your
partners and propel your business to the next
level using a PRM portal. Steps to Strategize
Partnership Management Successful partnerships
are the result of proper nurturing, transparent
communication, effective tools, accountability,
and the willingness to change if needed. If
implemented correctly, it can help partnerships
thrive and achieve expected results. 1.
Establish Clear Foundation Discuss common goals.
Because in strategic alliances, businesses often
assume that being in the same department
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means everyone is on the same page. That
increases stress on partnerships and reduces the
odds of success. Your work?ow and processes
should meet both your and your partners needs.
Your negotiations, plans, and strategies should
be transparent. Include all the individuals
involved in the day-to-day lead operations. A
partnership relationship management portal
provides a centralized interface to track and
manage the pipeline. It gives your partners and
internal staff a uni?ed platform to share ideas
and insights and view progress. It helps them
identify loopholes. For instance, when
registering deals, everyone has visibility of
the possibility of the lead at every stage.
Besides, partners can easily ?nd all the
information they need to approach a client along
with numbers like win/loss opportunities,
customer requirements, special pricing offers
based on manufacturers and developers, etc. A PRM
portal built on CRM lays a strong foundation for
relationship management. Partners have access to
every data they need objectives,
leads/opportunities, pro?t/loss, and more.
2. Provide Comprehensive Onboarding and Training
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• Ensure that partners get all the training and
  support to promote products and services. There
  should be a program for new product orientation,
  marketing strategies, and support. Creating a
  repository of articles, documents, videos,
  manuals, and marketing plans is essential to
  success.
• A partnership management portal automates the
  onboarding process with triggered work?ows. Plus,
  it provides easy access to all the learning
  materials, including datasheets, manuals,
  work?ows, blogs, etc. It helps personalize
  training and achieve training milestones by
  giving partners a chance to self-learn, earn
  incentives, certi?cations, and rewards, and
  experiment at their own pace.
• Heres what kind of process and training you can
  expect from PRM platforms
• Filtering applications based on the de?ned
  parameters. Sorting it on their performance and
  other metrics. This way, businesses only have to
  go through the eligible candidates.
• Organizational training explaining basic safety
  protocols, customer service, company policies,
  and so on.

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• Product training including features, work?ows,
  technical speci?cations (if required).
• General training includes engagement,
  communication, and collaboration methods.
• Training to understand market demand, grab
  business opportunities, develop marketing
  strategies, competitive pricing, and lead
  generation.
• 3. Nurture Relationships
• Every business that starts successfully can erode
  due to communication and collaboration issues.
  Hence, one of the partnership management
  strategies is to connect with partners.
  Understand them, their skills, interests, etc.
  It helps enhance communication and
  collaboration.
• A community feature makes it possible. It helps
  everyone on the team partners and members to
  connect despite the geographical constraints.
  They can discuss ideas, interests, challenges,
  and more with fellow mates. Transparency and
  data visibility further helps recognize each
  others

achievements. It strengthens businesses create m
ore
capabilities, culture, and relationships and he
lps opportunities.
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4. Invest in Tools, Technologies, and
Processes Bringing in partners from different
regions can be
challenging as they may have different
expectations. Even their way of working
styles and may differ.
Providing multiple channels of communication can
frustrate them. A partner relationship
management portal provides a uni?ed interface
where all the partners can communicate together.
They can share ?nancial reports, converse with
leads, learn about products and services, manage
their transactions and internal work?ows,
etc. You, as a business owner, can track their
activities, de?ne key performance metrics, and
evaluate their performance. The best thing is
that you dont have to manage everything
manually. A partner portal helps automate the
work?ows. For instance, partners can track their
lead count and other updates. Triggered emails
and messages can be sent wherever required in
the lead pipeline. It also allows third-party
integrations to ensure that businesses and
partners can access all the required tools and
techniques in one place. 5. Emphasize
Accountability with Data No process is risk
worthy unless you have the numbers to justify
it. Hence, businesses should de?ne the key
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• metrics/targets that partners should hit to
  succeed. What should be the average lead count
  for partners to earn certain rewards? And so
  on.
• A PRM platform helps businesses track their
  channel partners activity and gathers data to
  provide valuable insights such as
• Total traf?c generated from different channels
• Transcripts of customer interaction and how they
  respond to a particular action or marketing
  campaign. What steps were taken to resolve their
  queries, etc.?
• Performance overview of partners communication,
  leads generated, customers turned, and more.
• Real-time data of internal processes and
  strategies yielding results or need revision
• Capturing ideas and feedback that can help
  improve marketing and sales initiatives
• 6. Provide Dynamic Partnership
• Along with digitalization, partners also expect
  ?exibility at the negotiation stage and the
  stages above. A few reasons are local
  challenges, integration norms, and compliance
  policies. So, for strategic partnership
  management, its crucial that you provide
  partners with the ?exibility to grow and request
  changes as per the changing market trends.

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They can ask for sharing services, expanding
business, shifting to different
products/services, etc. You should, in fact,
encourage them to change as per the changing
customer expectations. They should have the
freedom to negotiate on ?nancial aspects too. In
short, give them the ?exibility to shape
themselves to be bene?cial for both them and
the business. Partnership management is a
collaborative approach, and only with the right
tools and suitable partners, its possible to
get the most out of partnership management
strategies. Learn how you can help your channel
partners with a PRM portal. If you are looking
to build a partner portal from scratch, you can
always contact CRMJetty to develop a tailored
solution for your business. We take pride in
having the best industry experts in our team to
help you ?gure out what will best for your
business. Get in touch with us today to know
more! Request Consultation
Source https/ www.crmjetty.com/blog/6-effective-
partnership- management-strategies/
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