Press Release

Impartner Fall ’17 Release Ushers in New Era of Precision in Channel Management: Enables Vendors to Optimize Performance of All Partners

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Smart segmentation automation and asset delivery functions ensure no partner gets ‘lost in the shuffle,’ regardless of size, geography, partner type or business model
Analyst firm SiriusDecisions stresses that vendors have accumulated many channel partner types, yet few have the resources to engage effectively with all of them — until now

LONDON, SIRIUSDECISIONS SUMMIT — OCTOBER 5, 2017 — Impartner, the world’s largest and fastest-growing pure-play Partner Relationship Management (PRM) company, today announced the Fall ’17 release of its multi-award winning Impartner PRM software, which ushers in a new era of precision in partner management that allows vendors to surgically deliver the exact “care and feeding” each partner in their system needs to optimize their performance. With the new release, the Impartner segmentation engine, Impartner SegmentAI, segments vendors’ partners automatically and intelligently by attributes like tier, region or type of partner (referral, MSP, etc.). Plus, the company’s new asset management system, Impartner SmartContent, means vendors can get exactly the right content to exactly the right partner at exactly the right time, based on their segmentation.

“In 2017, partner programs that only utilize one type of partner are an anomaly,” said SiriusDecisions Channel Sales Strategies Services Director Chris Cleary, a topic that was recently covered in the SiriusDecisions Channel Partner Segmentation Matrix core strategy report, downloadable here. “Most B-2-B suppliers have developed relationships with many types of channel partners, yet few have the resources to engage effectively with all of them. As a result, suppliers tend to focus on top producers, the top 10 percent to 20 percent of the partner ecosystem and miss the opportunity to nurture other types of partners — the other 80 percent. We see tremendous opportunity for suppliers to optimize performance by implementing proven frameworks, processes and tools. Until today, those tools have been missing.”

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Impartner Senior Director of Product Management Gary Sabin echoes this need in the market. “One of the most common issues prospects raise in our sales conversations is their inability to provide the right kind of care, of every kind of partner, beyond just the big guys,” Sabin said. “Inevitably, the performance of their channel suffers because they just don’t have the organizational bandwidth to truly service the broader range of partner types in their network. With our Fall ’17 release, we bring the full power of partner program segmentation and asset delivery, ensuring each partner essentially gets a customized partner experience that is laser focused on helping their business accelerate performance—regardless of partner type.”

Following is a full summary of the key features of the Fall ’17 release:

1. Segmentation Engine, Impartner SegmentAI: The segmentation engine in the Impartner ’17 Fall Release, Impartner SegmentAI, is the first of its kind in the market and makes it easy for companies to automate the segmentation of their partner programs based on completely configurable set of machine filters, which takes the need for human interaction out of the process. The feature assures that vendors can easily optimize the partner experience for any type of partner program. Now, whether vendors have a host of referral partners, a blend of traditional and born in the cloud partners, or all of the above, they can have confidence they have a personalized “front door” and partner experience for all of them.
2. Asset Automation Engine, Impartner SmartContent: With Impartner’s Asset Automation engine, Impartner SmartContent, vendors can automatically ensure that the right partner gets the right asset at the right time, based on their segmentation. The criticality of an ever-improving content management solution is highlighted by a recent global study of Impartner customers, showing that with the right sales enablement materials, their partners are 56 percent more profitable. Full highlights of the asset engine include:
   • Impartner’s Channel Flow workflow engine means that channel teams, with clicks, not code, can continually refine the workflow of any partner, to make sure the system automatically gives them access to the information and assets they need.
   • Vendors can provide content in multiple versions, meaning it’s easy to serve up documents in the right language and archive past versions of technical documents.
   • Channel managers can schedule content publication and expiration dates to coordinate in synch with a launch, a seminar, etc.—avoiding a scramble on the busy days before those kinds of events.
   • Partners can easily preview and download the content, and it’s easy for them to share with end users—on email or even through social media.
   • The content is searchable by title and metadata, making it easier than ever for users to find what they’re looking for.
   • Full analytics are available, making it easy to see what’s popular and not, what’s making an impact, and what’s being shared most on social media.
3. Point of Sale Data Capture: Right now, many PRMs give vendors visibility into closed, registered deals. However, there is no visibility into the sales that aren’t part of the deal registration process. Especially for companies whose main products have an average sale of just a few thousand dollars, this could represent a significant portion, if not the majority, of channel sales, as most small sales are not registered. With Point of Sale (POS) Data Capture, Impartner now gives vendors the ability to load in POS data to be able to see all channel sales, registered or not. This provides a better line of site to total channels sales, plus a better idea of which verticals and actual markets companies are selling into and insight into their actual end users. Most important, because vendors have actual POS data, they can make sure they have the data they need to verify and true up rebates to partners. Finally, they have a full line of sight to all channel sales, whether the deal was registered or not.
4. Enhanced Data Import Functionality: With this release, Impartner continues to make data importing even easier by taking time and complexity out of the process while further reducing errors. Now, users can import related items in one pass. An analogy would be the screen printing process, where multiple colors could be printed in a single pass, rather than layering on color by color to get the full effect.

To learn more about Impartner’s full suite of functionality and how Impartner PRM helps deliver a 31 percent increase in revenue and a 23 percent decrease in administrative costs, sign up for a demo here.