ChannelWave Makes a Splash with PRM

The six-year-old software company expects to turn a profit this quarter after making significant strides this year with its new ChannelWave 5 PRM product, which has drawn some blue-chip clients such as Cable and Wireless and McData. ChannelWave, which has raised nearly $60 million in funding, has emerged as one of the early leaders in the PRM software space. Chris Heidelberger, president and CEO of ChannelWave, sees the company as having the right philosophy at the right time. Distribution and reseller channels have become more extensive and complex recently, Heidelberger believes, and businesses need advanced extranet systems and networks to better manage partners.

"Five years ago, you didn't have some of the technological and business challenges you have today in running a channel," he says. "We have to change the way people think about selling and distributing."

ChannelWave 5, released last year, is a Java-based platform designed to increase channel efficiency and lower costs through a comprehensive PRM network. The Web-based platform consists of solutions for collaborative partner recruiting and marketing, lead management, product ordering, pre- and post-sales support, and other components. The platform also offers a flexible architecture that is easily integrated with existing customer and partner applications.

"Not having a unified partner network will cost you thousands of dollars a day," Heidelberger says.

Despite the recession and IT spending drop, ChannelWave takes a selective approach to signing customers, targeting clients that have a serious commitment to building the proper channel infrastructure and a focus on return on investment.

"No customer buys ChannelWave without going through the ROI model first because if they're not focused on ROI, then they're not a good prospect for us," Heidelberger says.

Cable and Wireless was deemed a worthy customer. The telecomm giant selected ChannelWave last year after testing competing products for more than a month. Cable &Wireless had decided to expand its indirect channel and needed a system that was more advanced than simple e-mail and spreadsheets.

"We asked people from all over the company what they thought our PRM system should be, and we got a lot of different requests," says Neil Cohen, PRM project manager at Cable and Wireless. "We then relayed all those requests to the four competing vendors, and ChannelWave was the only one that could meet those needs."

Starting last November, ChannelWave installed the first phase of Cable and Wireless' PRM system, which features lead management capabilities and partner profiles. The fourth and final phase is scheduled to be completed next month and will bring new joint marketing and training capabilities to the network. The seemingly lengthy process of installing the ChannelWave PRM system is deceiving, however. Cohen says the company decided to slowly phase in the new system so that business partners could adapt to it.

"ChannelWave isn't software that needs to be installed like client server software," Cohen says. "It's a Web-based system that's easy to use and deploy."

The PRM software maker now has more than 40 customers and is working on building its own partner program, concentrating on bringing board smaller integrators and regional solution providers. As for the competition, Heidelberger says companies like Siebel Systems have their roots in CRM, not PRM. Plus, many enterprise software vendors eyeing the PRM space still rely on client server software, which Heidelberger believes will give ChannelWave and its Web-based products a substantial advantage.

"The Big Five are going to keep pushing the client server model, working with companies like Siebel, Oracle and SAP, because they specialize in software that is highly expensive and difficult to deploy" he says. "But the whole model is shifting and soon no one is going to buy $20 million worth of software than takes 16 months to install and ends up not working the way it should."