Categories: Cloud & SaaS

Impartner Solves No. 2 Channel Management Problem: Program Compliance Administration

New Impartner Program Compliance Manager first out-of-the-box solution to automate partner tiering, compliance tracking, and tier status and benefit communication to partners

A staggering 60 percent of channel leaders lack confidence partners are segmented into correct tiers; 78 percent of those worry they may be overpaying partners by 20 percent

Nearly 72 percent of companies say compliance administration requires at least three people

Impartner, the world’s most-award winning, most complete channel management platform and Partner Relationship Management (PRM) provider announced a new solution, Impartner Program Compliance Manager, which automates partner tiering and tracking of partners’ progress in complying with tier and program criteria, solving what is widely ranked as a top issue for channel managers – program compliance – second only to deal registration. Once deployed, the solution automates updating partners on their program status, benefits and what is needed to get to the next level and also lets partners check their status in a “frequent flyer” style display.

Until today, a lack of a true, out-of-the-box solution meant program compliance processes for most companies were plagued by heavy, complicated, irregular, generally manual administrative work, making communicating status to partners cumbersome and errors and overpayments a regular and wide-reaching occurrence. On average, a global program compliance study of channel professionals and strategists* showed the scope and scale of the problem:

81 percent of channel programs support multiple attainable tiers, levels or program types with different compliance metrics
72 percent have at least 3 employees who work on evaluating, calculating and determining tier compliance along with sharing that out to partners, with 21 percent reporting at least 6 employees working on compliance specifically
60 percent are not confident their partners are accurately segmented into the correct tiers
Of the channel leaders not confident their partners are tiered properly, 78 percent said they may be overpaying their partners by up to 20 percent, with more than half of those estimating overpayments of up to $100,000 per quarter
Because of the difficulty, 42 percent of vendors evaluate, calculate and determine partner tier placement or audit program compliance only once per year
53 percent present progress to partners in an ad hoc way and then, many only upon request by the partner

“One of the biggest sources of channel friction comes from vendors and partners not being aligned with status and achievements directly affecting commissions and payments that are rife with errors and frustrating for everyone,” said Gary Sabin, Impartner VP of product management. “With a check box, Impartner Program Compliance Manager instantly reduces the administrative burden of channel teams and improves the ROI of their programs by giving them everything they need to automatically tier partners, track partner progress in complying with tier and program requirements, and communicate their status, benefits and what they need to do to progress to the next level – one of the most important tools in motivating partners to move up and to the right.” Following are the feature highlights of the new solution:

A “What If,” sandbox-style feature to try out various scenarios and evaluate the balance of how partners will distribute between tiers before rolling out to partners
The ability to create, edit, delete, configure and manage tier structures (a set of requirements designated for certain partner levels and regions for a given timeframe) – all configurable by channel account managers with no coding required
Auto promotion or demotion of partner accounts based on tier structure rules
Dashboards to allow partners to see where they stand, what their benefits are, and what is required to move to the next level
Native integration into Impartner’s workflow engines, allowing vendors to drive precise communications around tier changes and updates
Tiering and progress reports to show current payment status of program and tier requirements as well as tier history and per period snapshot data for all tracked partner program requirements

Leading IT technology analyst Peter O’Neill issues a dire warning for companies with poor, error-filled program compliance management systems. “Partners’ tolerance of vendors who are hard to do business with and have poor partner management processes such as compensation support, will find themselves rapidly and increasingly behind those with those with platforms that truly support partners through their complete (digital) business cycle – including in commission transactions,” said O’Neill.

“Our technologies have long solved for the No. 1 problem – channel conflict – with our customers reporting globally we reduce that by 80 percent. We couldn’t be more excited to bring Program Compliance Manager to life, to tackle issue No. 2, which together with our recently announced Journey Builder, can help companies worldwide choreograph and motivate partners to follow the optimal, most profitable path for both the partner and the vendor,” said Sabin.