6 Insights For How To Use Smart Data To Grow Channel Sales

© 2013 Channelinsight Proprietary & Confidential © 2015 Proprietary & Confidential 1

2014 Channel Data Management Survey Results Overview

Presented by


Today’s Presenters

Owen McKeeDirector of Sales

Rod BaptiePresident Baptie &

Co.


2014 CDM Survey Results Overview

During this 45 minute webinar, Rod and I will share our insights on the results of the 2014 CDM Survey and also share our expertise on how vendors and manufacturers can grow channel sales with the right channel data management systems.

This webinar presents a high-level overview of the recent survey conducted with 85 respondents from key manufacturers who provided their insights on critical challenges associated with using channel data to manage partner programs and grow channel sales.


2014 CDM Survey Results Overview

During this webinar, we will cover:

• How to increase visibility into channel performance and measure ROI accurately.

• Why overpayments and errors associated with incentive payments cost vendors millions of dollars.

• How to access accurate and insightful channel data, and improve data management processes for analytics.

• Why Integrating channel data in CRM and PRM systems is critical to maintaining desired levels of visibility into channel operations.

• Why data quality is still a concern to vendors even when channel partners comply with data submission and reporting requests.

• How to improve the data management process through automated POS data processing.


Please rate how important it is to you to do the following using channel data:

1 = Not Important / 5 = Extremely Important

Answer Options 1 2 3 4 5

Report Channel Performance Visibility 4% 20% 5% 14% 57%

Calculate Sales Commissions 16% 6% 34% 10% 35%

Calculate Partner Incentive Rebates 12% 9% 33% 10% 37%

Calculate Channel Program ROI 5% 7% 15% 36% 36%

Calculate Partner Discount Claims 33% 10% 19% 15% 23%

Determine Partner Inventory Levels 45% 7% 15% 14% 19%

Load Channel Data into CRM or PRM 6% 23% 15% 20% 36%


Please select your top 3 challenges with channel data management and rank them accordingly:

Challenges

Answer Options

Getting partners to submit POS

data

Getting partners to

submit inventory data

Automating the collection

of POS or inventory data from partner

Cleansing the submitted

channel data for end

customer name

Cleansing the submitted

channel data for product

SKU

Enhancing POS with

discounted pricing

Loading the cleansed

channel data into your data

warehouse

Analyzing the channel data

using dashboards

Loading channel data

into your CRM system

Cleaning the submitted

channel data for reseller

name

1 13% 2% 12% 38% 1% 2% 4% 15% 6% 6%

2 6% 4% 24% 13% 7% 2% 6% 12% 12% 12%

3 9% 4% 8% 26% 3% 12% 6% 17% 9% 8%


Answer OptionsResponse Percent

Internal manual process 36.1%

Internal developed automated system 14.5%

3rd Party Data Management Company 42.2%

We don’t cleanse our channel data – we use what we get

7.2%

How do you currently cleanse your channel data?


Do you have channel sales data visibility in your CRM or PRM system?

Answer Options Response Percent

Yes 59.8%

No 40.2%


What is your average turnaround time for processing incentive claims to partners?

(This is the amount of time it takes you from when a claim is submitted to when payment is issued.)


1 week or less 6.2%

Between 1 and 2 weeks 34.6%

Between 2 weeks and 1 month

28.4%

Over 1 month 30.9%



0 to 1% 17.1%

Between 1% and 5% 32.9%



Over 15% 2.4%

What do you estimate the error rate to be that is associated with your incentive payments?


Two consistent themes surfaced:

• Manufacturers would like more detailed end customer data.

• Others commented that the data was sufficient, but that cleaning, aggregating and analyzing it was the larger issue.

Vendors generally wish to achieve two critical channel data management capabilities:

• Access to accurate and insightful channel data.

• Improved data management processes for analytics and higher level market intelligence.

What channel data do you wish you had, that you don’t currently have? (Open ended question)


SUPPLY

DEMAND

Automated High-QualityData Process

FinanceIncentive Provisions

SalesQuarterly

Targets

MarketingSuccess of Programs

Supply ChainStock Outs

Over Stocking

Improve accuracy and time to pay

Increase Sales Bookings 10 to 12+% Improve target attainment

Grow Addressable Markets $3 ROI for every $1 spent

Increase stock turn and inventory utilisation

What that means to Sales, Marketing, Finance and Supply Chain operations

Data Consumers Results


Key Take Aways Summary

• Vendors need better visibility into channel performance to be able to measure ROI performance accurately.

• Overpayments and errors associated with incentive payments cost vendors millions of dollars and average between 5-11 percent.

• Most manufacturers are not satisfied with their ability to access and process channel data. They need to implement an effective channel data management solution to realize improvements in this area.

• Integrating channel data in CRM and PRM systems is critical to maintaining desired levels of visibility into channel operations, thus increasing revenue.

• Data quality remains a concern to many vendors even when channel partners comply with data submission and reporting requests.

• Automation in incentive claims processing ensures efficient and accurate claims payment, which leads to improved cash flow for both vendors and channel partners, resulting in better partner relationships and increased sales.


If you have further questions about the results

of the 2014 Channel Data Management Survey

or would like to have a better understanding of

how your company compares to the industry in

general, please contact Owen McKee at:

[email protected]

Thank You

mailto:[email protected]


Q&ALearn More:

Web: www.channelinsight.com

Blog: http://channelinsight.com/blog

LinkedIN: http://www.linkedin.com/company/channelinsight

Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Channelinsight

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Channelinsight

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http://channelinsight.com/blog

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Appendix


Who is ?Channelinsight’s offers a cloud-based Channel Data Management application and enablement services that provide manufacturers with visibility into every distributor, reseller, and end-customer in every transaction, with real time channel information to anticipate changing channel business needs & requirements.

We collect “raw” POS and inventory data from tens of thousands of channel partners globally 7x24x365, process over $120 billion in actionable channel information annually, and deliver critical key performance indicators (KPIs) to customers for: available markets, price erosion, real-time channel sales visibility and operational cost reductions.


Who is Baptie & Company?Baptie & Co specializes in community management and social business, with a proven track record stretching back to 2005 running online communities. We have a unique understanding of what it takes to drive a community forward and have developed the resources required to build run and manage B2B communities.

The Channel Focus Community is the is the World’s largest and most successful community dedicated to channel professionals in the key vendors in the IT and Telecom industry. http://channelfocuscommunity.net

http://channelfocuscommunity.net/




#1 Please rate how IMPORTANT it is to you to do the following using channel data:


What Stands Out:

With nearly 60% of respondents rating it extremely important, visibility into channel performance ranked highest. Measuring channel program ROI is secondary, but still ranks high, with 71% of respondents ranking it highly or extremely important. Also highly ranked is calculating sales commissions and partner incentive rebates, ranked extremely important by 34% and 37% of respondents respectively.

Key Take Away:

Essentially, manufacturers want to know what products are selling, to whom, at what price and in what quantities—the same kind of information they have about their direct sales operations. With this information they can make better informed decisions regarding the channel.

#1 Please rate how IMPORTANT it is to you to do the following using channel data:


#2 Please rate how SATISFIED you are with your ability to process channel data to do the following:

45%

29%


What Stands Out:Satisfaction with calculating channel program ROI (45%) and sales commissions (31%) ranked lowest among respondents. Respondents were only moderately satisfied with their ability to process incentive rebates, with 63% expressing low to moderate satisfaction.

Key Take Away:Few respondents expressed extreme satisfaction with their ability to process data in any of these categories, which suggests room for improvement.

#2 Please rate how SATISFIED you are with your ability to process channel data to do the following:


#3 Please select your top 3 challenges with channel data management and rank them accordingly:


What Stands Out:

The top 3 challenges all have to do with data collection and analysis:– Cleansing the submitted channel data for end customer name– Automating the data collection process– Getting partners to submit POS data

Analyzing the channel data using dashboards shows up as another significant challenge.

Key Take Away:Automated CDM (Channel Data Management) solutions that can effectively gather partner POS data, cleanse it, and make it available for analysis using dashboards would go a long way toward addressing these major challenges.

#3 Please select your top 3 challenges with channel data management and rank them accordingly:


#4 How many total resources (employees) globally and regionally are involved in collecting and validating your channel data?


What Stands Out:Approximately 60% of respondents devote from 2-5 employees to this task. Another 28% devote more than 5 employees.

Key Take Away:Manufacturers should consider how many of these human resources could be reassigned to more important tasks if the relatively mundane job of collecting and validating data could be automated using a 3rd-party enterprise CDM solution.

#4 How many total resources (employees) globally and regionally are involved in collecting and validating your channel data?


#5 What percent of your partners currently submit the following channel data?


What Stands Out:

Respondents reported that all their partners (100%) reported inventory data, and nearly all (98.4%) reported POS data.

Key Take Away:Getting the data reported isn’t an issue. However, automating the process, then cleansing and analyzing the data for effective channel management remains a challenging process.

This trend is significantly different from last year as seen in the same survey conducted in 2013, which found that only one third of channel partners were supplying POS and Inventory information to vendors.

#5 What percent of your partners currently submit the following channel data?


#6 How satisfied are you with the data your partners currently submit?


What Stands Out:

Most respondents were neutral on this question, with none reporting that they were "very satisfied."

Key Take Away:There's lots of room for improvement in terms of the kind and quality of data submitted by partners. If you can’t get quality data directly from your partners, consider using a 3rd party CDM solution that will automatically standardized and enhance your channel data, allowing you to optimize your channel operations and increase sales.

#6 How satisfied are you with the data your partners currently submit?


#7 How do you currently cleanse your channel data?


What Stands Out:

Half the respondents’ process channel data internally, either via a manual process (35.4%) or an automated system (14.6%). Less than half (42.7%) use a third party data management company.

Key Take Away:Manual processing is resource intensive, slow, cumbersome, and prone to error. Internal automated systems are difficult to build and maintain.

3rd party cloud-based data cleansing solutions remain a viable option when considering the cost advantages and ease of maintenance.

#7 How do you currently cleanse your channel data?


#8 Do you have channel sales data visibility in your CRM or PRM system?


What Stands Out:

60% of respondents reported having channel sales visibility in their CRM or PRM systems.

Key Take Away:3rd party channel data management solutions generally are capable of integrating partner data into these systems, which improves the accuracy of assigning sales transactions to the right partner. Doing so ensures that sales commissions and incentive payments are correctly allocated and paid on a timely basis.

#8 Do you have channel sales data visibility in your CRM or PRM system?


#9 What types of Partner Incentives Programs do you run?


What Stands Out:

MDF/Co-op incentive programs topped the list, with 71.6% of respondents indicating that they ran this type of program. More than half of respondents also ran other types of programs, including Special Pricing, Product-Based, and Sales Goal Attainment. Ship and Debit programs were the least popular, run by less than 25% of respondents.

Key Take Away:With the majority of manufacturers running MDF/Co-op programs, the low level of satisfaction with calculating program ROI and processing incentive rebates takes on greater significance.

#9 What types of Partner Incentives Programs do you run?


#10 Which program do you find most difficult to calculate and validate payments for? (Pick one)


What Stands Out:

Product-based programs were the most difficult to calculate and validate payments for, according to nearly half the respondents.

Key Take Away:These types of programs typically require more complex calculations to determine rebate payouts, so timely and accurate transactional data is vitally important. Use of an automated process should be highly considered if accuracy and timeliness are extremely important.

#10 Which program do you find most difficult to calculate and validate payments for? (Pick one)


#11 What is your average turnaround time for processing incentive claims to partners? (This is the amount of time it takes you from when a claim is submitted to when payment is issued.)


What Stands Out:

Approximately 40% of respondents processed incentive claims to partners within two weeks. However, nearly a third took over a month to process these claims.

Key Take Away:To partners, cash flow is critical. Prompt incentive claim payments go a long way toward building better partner relationships. Automated claim processing, especially paperless processing, is more accurate, avoids overpayments, and pleases partners. It’s one of the benefits gained from using a 3rd party channel data management company.

#11 What is your average turnaround time for processing incentive claims to partners? (This is the amount of time it takes you from when a claim is submitted to when payment is issued.)


#12 What do you estimate the error rate to be that is associated with your incentive payments?


What Stands Out:

More than one-third of respondents indicated error rates in the range of 5-10%. The cost of running channel incentive programs consumes an average of 11% of annual channel revenue, according to one study.1

Key Take Away:

Overpayments strike a serious blow to the ROI of the channel marketing effort. Ensuring accurate and timely incentive payments is a must for making a positive impact on revenue and profit.

Affordable subscription-based channel data management solutions enable vendors to reduce these losses with accurate calculations and management of incentive payments that leads to long-term partner satisfaction while reducing the incurred losses.

1. Silicon Valley Research Group, 2012

#12 What do you estimate the error rate to be that is associated with your incentive payments?


What Stands Out:

Two consistent themes surfaced. Several manufacturers commented that they would like more detailed end customer data. Several others commented that the data was sufficient, but that cleaning, aggregating and analyzing it was the larger issue.

Key Take Away:Vendors generally wish to achieve two critical channel data management capabilities: access to accurate and insightful channel data, and improved data management processes for analytics.

#13 What channel data do you wish you had, that you don’t currently have?

Software

6 Insights For How To Use Smart Data To Grow Channel Sales