ChannelWave Preps PRM Update With Wireless, Desktop Synch Support

ChannelWave, a pioneer in partner relationship management, is prepping its next major release for late this year with tools to help vendors and partners better deal with co-op advertising and marketing funds.

"This is a $50 billion-plus heartache every year," said Drew Williams, vice president of marketing for ChannelWave, Cambridge, Mass. "It's a disaster trying to figure out co-op in local markets. Typically, for every dollar spent, the vendor will refund, say, 50 cents. This system is ripe for abuse...we'll provide a tool that helps manage that process."

In theory, PRM systems make distribution relationships more efficient by facilitating lead referrals, ordering, invoicing, billing, and even payment, PRM proponents say. These are not bad things in a world of lengthening buying cycles and shrinking IT budgets. Ideally, such systems also alert the vendor to problems in the process, enabling a company to work with partners to remedy failing promotions, for example.

As is true in CRM, the key to PRM is getting people to actually use the technology,to input data and to use the system as both a repository and a resource. Partners will, in fact, use anything that puts money in their pockets, Williams said. "Right now, when a partner files a [co-op claim to, say, IBM, it can take eight to 12 weeks to get the money...this tool will cut that turnaround time," he said.

Also new to ChannelWave 6 will be support for wireless devices and desktop synchronization. "If a partner does a lot of work in Excel, we have to make it easy for him to get that data into the system to avoid double-keying. We'll have tools to very easily export Excel files into the system," Williams said. The company is also working to strengthen metrics and reporting tools.

Williams said the new release will bolster ChannelWave's "dashboard" view on channel activity. "If the vendor can go into the database and see which partners are not doing as well as others--maybe one is doing a great bundling promotion--the vendor can target a campaign to get other partners going. I can fire off an e-mail campaign suggesting actions that might earn a lagging partner an additional five points," he said.

Nik Nesbitt, managing partner with MarketRace, a Denver-based integrator and PRM consultant, says ChannelWave has done a good job motivating partners to use the technology.

"If you use this as your way of communicating with partners, that's where they go to get all their information...we strive to create a partner portal, so if people are required to go through training and certification, they go to that portal, for leads they go to that portal. You get them out of the binders-and-paperclip mentality," Nesbitt said.

Other PRM vendors are not standing still. Comergent, Palo, Alto, Calif., recently updated its PRM lineup with an online price-negotiation tool and updated dashboard. An interactive parts catalog feature lets users view graphical representations of products and drill down to get their pricing/availability. Both Comergent and Channelwave base their modular offerings on J2EE.

It's been an active year in the PRM category. Austin-based Partnerware shut its doors last week in the midst of a difficult product transition. CEO Donna Troy is trying to sell off the company's technology assets See related story.

Earlier this year, CRM vendor Chordiant bought OnDemand for its PRM expertise.

As major software vendors like Siebel and Oracle target PRM, consolidation is on the horizon, observers said. "The question is who will be acquired," said Louis Columbus, senior analyst for AMR Research. "When you really net it out to the customer account, Siebel owns this market. They've got 80 percent of the customers in PRM right now. They're an awfully big fish, the question is when to do they step up and own the order," Columbus said. But, while Siebel is trying to fit PRM into a CRM mold, there remain a bevy of leaner yet tech-savvy PRM competitors including Allegis, Azerity, ChannelWave, Comergent and others, Columbus said.

MarketRace's Nesbitt says Siebel may throw in PRM for free with a $10 million CRM system. "My question to them then is, how much is CRM if PRM is not thrown in?"

Siebel's issue is it comes from a direct-sales and management point of view, Nesbitt said. "It's authoritarian: 'You either sell this or here's a bullet.' In the partner world, you have to approach them from a service standpoint. 'Joe VAR, what can I do to help you improve your business by incorporating my products and technology?' " Nesbitt said.