ZINFI Technologies, Inc.

If you manage a distributed network of partners and they are more than just a fulfillment arm for you, then chances are you have considered through-channel marketing automation (TCMA). In this article we will explore one of the core tactics of TCMA—email marketing—and how it can be used as a part of your overall TCMA strategy. While email marketing has been around for a while, it’s not always used...

In today’s business environment, every organization is asking its channel management team to do more with fewer resources. This is a common challenge for any channel organization. It’s not enough just to get busy—the key is to figure out how to drive partner recruitment, enablement, management and sales growth in a focused way. This is where partner relationship management  (PRM) software can...

If your company (or even country) is under a travel ban due to an epidemic like the coronavirus outbreak—or perhaps because of budget restrictions—and you have to cancel your road shows to train and enable your partners, don’t despair. There are multiple ways to enable your partners remotely without meeting face-to-face by leveraging partner relationship management (PRM) software. In this article,...

Channel Management is the strategic, complex process of organizing, motivating, and enabling third-party partners to successfully sell a vendor’s products, a system significantly more intricate than direct sales. Effective management requires ruthlessly prioritizing profitable partners defined as “producers,” eliminating channel conflict, and migrating operations to a virtual collabora...

The word “channel” indicates a passageway through which something flows. Channel management is a discipline in management science in which a vendor organization or “brand” creates, captures and fulfils market demand via another set of organizations who act as channel partners and ecosystem players for the subject vendor.  In this podcast, we will expand on this basic view of channel managemen...

Channel Management is the organized discipline governing how a vendor creates and fulfills market demand by utilizing a network of channel partners or ecosystem players. It is critical because it facilitates sales, service, and support functions indirectly, allowing vendors to reach and serve a significantly larger customer base at a demonstrably lower cost than direct selling alone. Who is this f...

In our earlier articles on lead management , we discussed why it is essential to have the right strategy , structure , staffing and systems . As a part of building the right systems, we talked about aligning channel programs, processes and platforms. In this article, we will dive a little bit deeper into the automation aspect of lead management. Picking the right lead management software is critic...

Most companies selling through an open channel tend to implement deal registration programs. While some deal registration programs are helpful and actually help channel partners close deals and serve their own interests, many programs are inward-looking initiatives that don’t seriously take partners’ core business goals into account. In this article, we will briefly discuss why most deal registrat...

Partner relationship management ( PRM ) is a complex process, but when vendors get it right they can drive truly profitable growth via a network of distributed channel partners. Unfortunately, most companies marketing and selling through the channel tend to rely on their existing customer relationship management (CRM) software infrastructure to manage their partner base instead of using a dedicate...

If you are selling through the channel and wondering how to do more with less and how to drive better performance through partner relationship management , then you are not alone. All of us who have lived and thrived in the channel have had to face this fundamental question, and we continue to face it today across the many clients we serve globally. As I step back and look at the core success fact...

You can effectively streamline partner onboarding by using a robust Partner Relationship Management (PRM) platform. This software automates repetitive tasks and centralizes essential resources for your new partners. A disorganized onboarding process can create a frustrating experience for new channel partners. It often delays their ability to start selling your products and generating revenue. Thi...

Channel marketing management platforms require carefully selected metrics aligned to deployment phases that accurately measure partner adoption, campaign effectiveness and return on investment over time. Organizations that match measurement strategies to launch, ramp and optimize phases achieve sustainable growth through data-driven partner program decisions across global markets. Business metrics...

What is the most important feature for partner portal software ? Hint: No two partner organizations are exactly alike, and that’s something your software must be able to accommodate across a broad range of functions. Partners have different workflows and different needs, and partner portal content should always be relevant to individual partners and specific partner types. Essentially, partners ne...

Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software has been around for about a decade or so, but only a handful of organizations selling through the channel have actually deployed PRM software. The primary reason behind this is that neither the use cases nor the business benefits from such automation are clear to most channel professionals. In this article we will try to provide that missing informati...

Partner Management Software is an essential category of business process automation designed to streamline all activities between a vendor and its channel partners. It is crucial for reducing internal operating costs while substantially increasing both partner satisfaction and overall performance. The unified approach is defined by its three core components: PRM, PMM, and PSM. Who is this for? Par...

Companies selling through the channel, especially in the technology segment, need to make sure that a potential end buyer is not being approached by multiple partners unnecessarily. While competition is healthy, end customer satisfaction is paramount. Therefore, most organizations with a distributed and mature channel deploy deal registration software to protect specific deals for specific partner...

Partner relationship management (PRM) is an important tool. The key question, however, is which application within the PRM tool is the most important. Before we delve into details, it may be helpful to step back for a moment and consider a broader question: “What is the purpose of a channel?” You may be thinking the answer is quite obvious—to sell more of our products and services. Yes, you are ab...

The purpose of a channel is to drive sales, and this is where multi-partner prospecting programs can enable an organization selling through the channel globally to scale quickly. Your partner relationship management (PRM) tool can play a very important role in this effort. In this article, we will explore briefly how a PRM tool can help you recruit partners into a prospecting program, train them w...

Most companies selling through the channel want their partners to generate demand for them. However, now that the world of marketing has gone digital and marketing has evolved into a science, it is quite difficult for most partners to drive marketing activities and generate demand in a consistent fashion. This is where through-partner marketing software (TPM) becomes essential. Through-partner mar...

B2B marketing is fundamentally reshaping how companies engage buyers throughout the entire selling process. Digital transformation has shifted power from sales teams to marketing organizations driving buyer education. Sales should report to marketing because digital engagement now controls the buying journey completely. Key Takeaways B2B marketing now drives the entire buying process through digit...

The entire world is getting digitized—from supply chain to manufacturing to service delivery to customer acquisition—but when it comes to the last mile of product and service delivery via a channel partner network, it is amazing to see that most companies haven’t deployed partner relationship management ( PRM ) automation to any significant degree. This leaves a lot of low-hanging fruit related to...

If your organization has built a patched-up partner management system by adding applications (or objects) to your existing CRM infrastructure, then it’s likely you are investing enormous resources to answer basic business questions. This is where a purpose-built partner relationship management ( PRM ) platform can significantly improve your business performance while reducing cost. How does it wor...

Budget is tight everywhere. Investment dollars in infrastructure are particularly hard to come by, especially when it comes to channel marketing automation investments. Partner relationship management ( PRM ) is a necessary starting point for any organization trying to reduce costs and increase partner productivity and ramp up sales. However, most organizations today are still running on yesterday...

The acronym PRM stands for partner relationship management; CRM stands for customer relationship management. PRM and CRM are quite similar in nature, both architecturally and in terms of their functionality. However, there are some fundamental differences between the two types of platforms. Let’s begin by discussing some of the similarities between PRM and CRM, and then we will discuss the differe...

Partner relationship management (PRM) is an important set of activities in channel management. Over the past decade, multiple SaaS vendors like ZINFI have brought significant innovation to market in the PRM software segment to enable a vendor selling through the channel to automate partner relationship management activities. In this article we will explore some of the basic capabilities that your...