What Works For You?

I am a hopeless mess when it comes to keeping all my various online account information straight. I constantly have to request either my account name or password. Granted, I changed my name legally after I married a couple of years ago, but it’s embarrassing nonetheless. And those are just the accounts I remember that I’ve forgotten.

HEATHER CLANCY Can be reached via e-mail at hclancy@cmp.com.

That’s why I feel sorry for solution providers that find themselves juggling an ever-increasing array of partner Web sites and relationship management portals through which they’re supposed to handle their communications. There’s a ton of money being spent on the development of these things, and while I’m a believer in automation, at least some of that spending certainly is misguided.

Don’t get me wrong, creating predictable business processes for the vendor-partner dynamic is an important evolution. Technology and Web services that promise to speed the rebate-reimbursement and deal-registration processes or that allow a solution provider to run configuration scenarios are vitally important to the future of the channel. But why is every single high-tech company out there building its own variation of the same theme?

Think about it: If you’re a broad business solution provider that also happens to have a couple of specialties, say storage and security, you could spend your life feeding information into more Web sites than I can count on both hands. By the way, that doesn’t include the systems your distributors might require you to use.

Maybe this is quicker than the manual process of the past. Maybe it will result in a more predictable cash flow. Both scenarios are positive. But it seems to me the vendor that truly recognizes solution providers sell solutions, not just one set of products, and that simplifies its partner-facing systems just might have an edge.

In fact, as more and more solution providers adopt their own systems to help with project management, it would be constructive to focus on ways vendor partner portals could give solution providers a more logical view. Is this too much to expect?

Talk to me. HEATHER CLANCY, Editor at CRN, appreciates your letters, comments and feedback at hclancy@cmp.com.