Close Communication Eases Global Growing Pains

Many businesses in the new economy are growing at warp speed. Mighty growing pains may accompany that growth, particularly when it's coming from overseas. But some of those aches can be avoided by fostering close communication between vendor and solution provider.

In 1999, Interact Commerce, formerly SalesLogix, was a small software business that provided interactive selling networks to some 1,500 customers in a handful of countries. Now, it has expanded to 53 countries with more than 11,000 customers.

"We've gone from a small company to a large company very quickly, and we needed to provide the same services at the same level, if not better," says Michael Simpson, director of marketing for Interact Commerce.

The 5-year-old company now has a closely monitored channel of 419 solution providers to promote and sell its software, including the SalesLogix 2000 e-CRM product. Interact Commerce relies heavily on its reselling partners, as solution providers account for 80 percent of the company's overall revenue and 100 percent of the revenue outside the United States. Just 11 of the company's 500 employees make up Interact Commerce's direct sales force worldwide, while the rest of the sales team focuses solely on the integrators by tracking sales and helping to close deals.

The tightly knit channel has helped Interact Commerce gain $25.2 million in revenue for the second quarter, up 207 percent from one year ago.

"Other businesses that have tried to build a channel [but] failed...looked at the solution providers as a separate entity," Simpson says. "They treat them as this external entity to their company rather than saying, 'You are my company.'"