Autodesk's partner portal is getting a significant makeover, with new sales and marketing tools, new personalization capabilities and centralized access to training and deal-registration systems.
The new Autodesk Partner Portal replaces the One Team Web site that Autodesk's roughly 1,700 resellers have long used and which Autodesk executives acknowledged was due for an overhaul. While Autodesk has always provided superior support for partners, they said, that wasn't matched by the online experience.
The biggest problem was that the site didn't provide centralized access to many partner applications. "Our partners have had a rather fragmented experience working with us," said Karen Brewer, vice president of customer experience.
Searching for information on the Web site was difficult as well. "One partner said it was like an archeological dig," said Brad Pollack, senior Web product manager who managed development of the new site.
About 85 percent of Autodesk's sales are made through the channel.
The redesign has been in the works for more than a year, and Autodesk spent last week previewing the revamped site to a number of strategic partners. "The consensus is that the site will help partners spend less time searching and more time selling," Pollack said.
"What the new partner portal does is speed up our ability to find the information we need," said Gregory Arkin, vice president at CADD Centers of Florida, an Autodesk solution provider partner based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Resellers, especially in these recessionary times, need quick access to up-to-date information about product pricing and upgrades, he said. "The old portal," he said, "was kind of clunky."
First and foremost, the new site, which went live over the weekend, offers a broad range of sales and marketing tools for resellers of Autodesk's 2-D and 3-D design and engineering applications. The site includes marketing campaign tools, competitive intelligence information, scripts for sales calls, online product demonstrations, and product brochures and product images.
The portal provides a single access point for applications such as the CRM system resellers use to place orders, the deal-registration system and the Autodesk central training site. Partners must still log into these separately, but Pollack said Autodesk plans to eventually provide single sign-on capabilities for those applications.
Partners can customize their view of the portal based on the products they are authorized to sell, Pollack said. The goal, he said, is for partners to find whatever they need with three or clicks or less. The new portal serves channel partners globally and supports 10 languages.
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