DEVELOPING A CHANNEL ROADMAP

In launching an international indirect sales channel it is important for companies to know where they want to go, how they are going to get there, and what they are going to do once they are there.

Professional resellers want to deal with vendors that know what they are doing. After all, they are investing their time, money, people resources and local reputation in launching a vendor’s product in their country. They can not afford to risk doing business with a vendor that does not have a credible sales channel program.

The York Group works with its clients to put in place the processes and documentation that will:

• Determine market priorities and revenue objectives
• Establish pricing and payment policies
• Identify the key components of a marketing support package
• Address all major reseller contract issues
• Provide the typical elements of a reseller manual
• Explain if, when and how to organize reseller conferences
• Assess the need for product localization
• Review technical support requirements
• Discuss various aspects of IP protection
• Develop guidelines for technical and sales training programs
• Define the job description for a channel manager
• Define the profile of ideal partners
• Provide a fully-documented, step-by-step recruitment process
• Establish a comprehensive annual partner review program
• Reduce the likelihood of channel conflict
• Provide sample documents, templates and reporting formats.

The result is a detailed project plan that will give you tremendous credibility in approaching partners anywhere in the world. It will reduce your time-to-market, decrease your costs of recruiting and supporting channel partners, and lessen the burden on your company’s internal resources.

The York Group recognizes the uniqueness of technology companies and their products, and helps each one establish and manage the right overseas distribution network – one that will actually generate international revenues more quickly and with less risk to the vendor.