ABM Group

There is no question that Partner Relationship Management (PRM) is truly becoming a necessary strategy for countless of businesses everywhere, and it mainly owes it popularity to its positive effects on income generation and partner productivity, especially during trying times of the recession in the United States.

When it comes it PRM, segmenting partners is an exercise that is useful to help a company review and improve their business methods, thus increasing the clarity and ease of strategy execution. It helps in determining where and where not to spend precious resources, or identify the ones who perform best, and at the same time hold them accountable for their results.

Marketing departments use segmentation based on high and low propensities to buy, infrequent customers, repeat customers and key opinion leaders. The grounds for applying segmentation in PRM are the following: (1) rate them on their capabilities and achievements; (2) feed more high-quality leads to the best-performing channels; (3) match them with partners based on customer needs, kind of deal, experience, organization size and certifications; (3) avoid wasting resources on those who do not perform well and; (4) save more money and close more deals.

Segmentation helps control the flow of leads to partners. If they are left to make decisions on their own, it is most likely that the results will not be advantageous or optimal for the business. An example is when they requested for all leads, both good and bad, and the company shared them, the OEM was not able to receive feedback on the leady quality which is necessary to refine lead-generation techniques and to ensure that high-quality lead are passed to different segments. Upon investigation, it turns out that the partners who requested for the leads are mainly defensive strategies to box out others from having any of the them. This means that partners need to be controlled and provide feedback on quality.

However, even the pipelines must be held accountable for the development of any information that are shared, or the provision of feedback about excellent or poor quality sales list of potential customers. Such accountability should not be a one-way street, but a process that is interactive and transparent.

The application of segmentation in PRM helps control channels who play vital roles in channel distribution by significantly increasing partner productivity, thus increasing the revenue generation of a company. The success of a Partner Relationship Management program heavily depends on respective marketing departments of the different companies that utilize it. This is why it is imperative for these departments to focus on the segmentation of pipelines to find out which ones are performing exceptionally, and create a system that focuses on their accountability for their tasks and performances.

The trends in marketing in business change constantly in response to the economic climate of global markets. It is the responsibility of business owners and managers to keep up with these trends, in order to be updated on the latest and most updated strategies for business growth and development, and ensure the success of their companies. PRM may be the trend now, but in the coming months or years, there might be certain additions or changes that would require attention.