7 Reasons Why the PRM is Not Dead

Introduction

We are no stranger to people picking tech camps.

• Apple vs Microsoft
• Nintendo vs Xbox
• Facebook vs MySpace (Sorry, Tom)

Even in the partnership's community, we see our fair share of friendly tech competitions and brand loyalties.

And while there's usually some merit to both sides of these kinds of arguments, there's a recent debate circulating about the value of Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software in partner programs that we want to set straight.

Read on to learn how a PRM Platform will not only support your partnership efforts but amplify them in the long run.

The Current Debate About PRMs 

Before diving into all the ways PRM software is alive, well, and kicking serious butt, let's break down the debate surrounding PRMs.

Naysayers are arguing that PRM Platforms are ineffective and only superficially address the fundamental problem of maintaining and sustaining partner relationships. 

That’s because, in their first evolution, these platforms did not facilitate partners' growth. PRMs initially just provided a password-protected digital area whose main purpose was to give access to nothing more than marketing materials.

This left stakeholders complaining about using PRM solutions that are characterized by poor partner experiences, fragmented and inefficient systems, inferior content management, difficult-to-scale solutions, and a lack of useful KPIs and metrics. 

However, the partner portals of today have evolved to offer more features that not only improve internal efficiency and compliance, but also radically boost transparency and structure for vendors who previously had to manually complete time-consuming tasks and were prone to human error.

In fact, the evolution of PRM has been so great that more businesses are investing in PRM. According to recent data, revenue from the global partner relationship management software market was $521 million in 2021 and is expected to rise to $595 million in 2022, proving that PRM is not dying, but rather increasing rapidly.

7 Reasons Why PRM Software is Not Dead

Despite the current debate, the benefits of PRM software cannot be overstated. Here's how this tech can grow your partnerships: 

Partner Engagement

Engaging with partners is frequently seen as an expensive affair that requires a partner relationship manager to spend a significant amount of time with partners in two-way interactions. As a result, many businesses concentrate their efforts on a small number of high-performing partners while ignoring the less active long-tail partners. 

Companies may now redefine how they engage with partners by enabling them to self-serve information and provide feedback at any time while providing partners shoulder-to-shoulder support when needed. Long-tail partners will also benefit from PRM's low-touch assistance, perhaps bringing in larger agreements and becoming the next revenue drivers.

Partner Enablement

Partner enablement is a critical component of any thriving business. Partners should have the resources they need to succeed because they are an extension of your business. Partner sales reps, just like traditional sales teams, want access to useful content that will help them close deals. Equipping partners with the information and skills they need to be more successful in their roles is at the heart of partner enablement.

A PRM can help you achieve your partner engagement goals, which in turn supports channel enablement. Effective channel enablement helps your partnerships in the following ways:

Channel Building

If you have made the effort to develop an affiliate enablement program, you can get your affiliates up to speed faster so they can start selling sooner. You will not run into major roadblocks when it comes to giving them the tools they need to resell your goods and services.

Higher Profitability

Giving your partners what they need to do their jobs well can help them sell more and make more money. This can lead to higher profitability for you and your partner. Give your partners the resources they need to succeed, and do not assume they already know everything about your goods or services.

Scalability

Scalability becomes a more pressing concern for the leadership team as a company expands. You need to be sure that your partners can control their own growth as you begin to scale your business. If not, your own resources and processes will be unnecessarily strained.

Channel Conflict

Channel partners are an essential part of a company's business, but maintaining channel partnerships is not always easy. Channel conflicts have many causes and are virtually inevitable unless you have a conflict prevention strategy.

Causes

• Undefined roles: In a multi-channel system, if a partner does not know exactly what role to play, it can disrupt your operations and lead to conflict between partners.
• Unaligned goals: Channel conflict occurs when partners have different goals and want to achieve them in different ways.
• Different marketing: You may find that your products are promoted in different ways by two-channel partners, resulting in two conflicting perceptions of the brand in the minds of consumers.
• Resistance to change: Partners may or may not agree with plans to restructure the distribution channel. As a result, there may be disagreement or lack of cooperation.

A PRM allows partners and relationship managers to express clearly who will be doing what on a certain sales opportunity. A PRM gives access to a list of potential referrals, sales support, and opportunity-closing activities at the time of registration. 

It’s also a means to specify which sales activities they want help with and which they plan to handle on their own.

Another way PRM is useful would be the timely reminders of such expectations and clear communication of expectations for the relationship. 

Integrations

Integrations connect your PRM and CRM software, as well as other facets of your tech stack, further enriching your metrics. Your business will be informed when a channel partner registers a lead so that you may inform your sales team, qualify the lead, and collect valuable information that can help close the deal. Additionally, by connecting your processes and data, you can make it simpler to track KPIs.

Metrics

A PRM allows you to easily define and independently monitor your KPIs through a common database system that all partners can access. Customizable dashboards provide all collected data in real time, and reports can be automatically generated and distributed to internal and external stakeholders. 

Team Alignment

The success or failure of your marketing and sales teams may depend on the success or failure of your partners. A PRM can help align your teams by easily reporting and communicating data to different departments. This allows you to show the value of your partner program, making it easier for you to get buy-in at all levels of the organization.

Make it clear to your partners that you are promoting your collaboration when you communicate your partner marketing initiatives. Joint marketing efforts will bind your teams and get them in the flow of working together, just like working together on deals does. 

Go above and above for your partners to demonstrate your dedication to them. Show some consideration for your resellers or partners. Keep in constant contact with important stakeholders. More well-known organizations frequently face difficulties due to high turnover rates or frequent organizational changes. 

Maintain an organizational chart and update it at least every three months to reflect important stakeholders.

Incentive Programs

The foundation of vendor-partner relationships is rewards, benefits, and incentive programs. But setting them up, managing them, and taking part in them can be quite time-consuming. There can also be significant difficulties in ensuring that are distributed equally across all partners. 

PRM can consolidate these incentive programs as well, or even connect to common platforms for accruing "points" and giving out prizes. This enables you to provide partners with greater incentives that are simpler to engage in.

In addition to helping partners manage, measure, and share their goals and objectives, a well-designed PRM will also give them the tools they need to get the job done by incentivizing their hard work.

Conclusion

As you can see, PRM is not dead. In fact, it’s more alive than ever. Implementing a PRM  is a must for developing organizations in the emerging growth stage.

A PRM allows you to boost engagement with your partners, minimize conflicts, measure KPIs, and grow partnerships by putting in place a system specifically intended to manage the unique connections between vendors and their indirect channel partners.

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