To get a better view of its partner relationships, display products provider ViewSonic has implemented NetSuite for partner relationship management.
PRM+, a new tool from NetSuite, San Mateo, CA, let ViewSonic create a partner portal at www.partnerview.com that allows thousands of partners and tens of thousands of users to access a centralized self-service portal for all their channel sales needs. ViewSonic uses PRM+ as part of NetSuite’s flagship NetSuite product.
“We use PRM+ as a way to reach out to our 42,000 resellers in our database and our 10,000-plus resellers who are signed up in our best-in-class reseller program called ViewSonic Access,” said Steve Woo, vice president of channel marketing and sales operations for ViewSonic Americas in Walnut, CA.
Channel partners account for 90 percent of ViewSonic’s multibillion-dollar sales.
ViewSonic’s partner companies use the portal to track priors and claims submitted by ViewSonic sales reps on behalf of partners. A prior is a request for marketing budget approval for product campaigns or promotional events. A claim consists of the dollar amount and supporting documents such as receipts, invoices, checks, etc. These transactions are tracked in NetSuite for visibility across the organization via dashboards as well as the extended enterprise of the partner company.
All partners also now have access to sales tools including product pricing, promotions, announcements and collateral via the centralized partner portal. Monthly partner training Webinars aimed at enhancing partner revenue generation and profitability are deployed and shared via the portal. ViewSonic standardized its partner relationship management on NetSuite to make its partners even more successful, Mr. Woo said.
PRM+ integrates PRM and CRM with a back-office transactional system critical to seamless partner management and partner business processes, NetSuite said.
“It’s important to combine CRM and PRM functions to eliminate redundant data entry or complex integrations and enable forecast insight via the channel,” said Mini Peiris, vice president of product management at NetSuite. “In addition, channel conflict is eliminated since everyone is working off one set of registered leads rather than have two disparate systems.”
Combining CRM and PRM functions also can improve direct marketing programs, Ms. Peiris said.
“Channel partners can use the same marketing materials and programs as those developed for direct sales and execute marketing campaigns using template materials provided by the vendor they represent via their partner self-service portal,” she said.
For example, the vendor organization could put together a promotional offer for 10 percent off a new product offering and build an e-mail marketing template driving the call to action to the vendor Web site. The organization can provide an area so partners can co-brand this e-mail template piece and use NetSuite’s partner self-service portal to send this campaign out to their registered leads.
Ms. Peiris said candidates for this type of single solution are industries where partner relationships are used to assist the sales and marketing efforts.
“For instance, software companies, professional service companies and wholesaler/distributors with referral partner or reseller partner channels would benefit greatly,” she said.
