ChannelVision September

excess inventory of the same product

at another distributor? Or at a different

branch of the same retailer?

The Rise of CDM

Against this backdrop, channel data

management (CDM) systems have

emerged to offer a fundamental data

management capability, delivered in

the cloud, not only to drive channel

management but also to improve busi-

ness processes that are connected to

channel performance (including sales

and inventory data). Data-driven ben-

efits include predicting channel sales,

calculating accurate rebates and com-

missions, allotting market development

funds (MDF) and regulating financial

budgeting and planning processes.

Zyme, for instance, offers a software-

as-a-service (SaaS) solution, dubbed

Zyme Cloud Platform 3.0, which is an-

chored by a series of powerful engines

and rich content directories. These

algorithms and global databases enable

Zyme’s CDM platform to convert millions

of transactions into channel intelligence.

“A 360-degree view of an organiza-

tion’s end-user customers, a top prior-

ity for most companies, is impossible

without access to channel data,” said

Ramarantnam. “With CDM, organiza-

tions are empowered with insights into

end-user customers, specifically on

how products are performing in com-

parison to competitor products, and

which market segments are success-

ful or unsuccessful. In turn, this critical

insight results in a boost in revenue,

higher ROI from marketing spend and

ultimately improves overall profit.”

CDM also can integrate with PRM

in intelligent ways, such as to en-

able data-exchange interactions with

partners or to provide information on

incentives and rebates calculated.

Similarly, integration with CRM sys-

tems such as

Salesforce.com

lets field

sales and channel account managers

gain visibility into their partners’ per-

formance on a daily or weekly basis.

“In the future, smarter channel

management will integrate CDM to

‘light up’ PRM and CRM systems with

data-enabled insights and analytics,”

said Ramarantnam.

The Time to Market Play

Data-driven approaches also help

solve legacy concerns. For instance,

in coordinating their channel relation-

ships, vendors, providers and master

agents typically struggle with time to

market for promotions and programs.

“Most providers want to run a demo

program to seed the market, or they

might offer discounts for bundles, or

even multivendor bundles,” said Chan-

nel Mechanics’ Fox. “Add in deal reg-

istration, fund management and sales

incentives, and you’re looking at a very

complex set of things to enable.”

As such, the time it typically takes

to get an offer out to channel partners

can be anywhere from eight to 12

weeks, he said.

“When you’re in a competitive situ-

ation, or looking to tap a new market,

that’s a recipe for losing share,” Fox said.

Also, once an offer has launched,

the provider, vendor or master agent

is then faced with the need to ef-

fectively monitor or manage the

program, ensuring that partners

are getting their fair share, that the

right partners are seeing the right

discount, and that things are being

fulfilled through the right distributor.

Also, there’s an interest in avoiding

“gray market” activities brought on by

partners over-stocking in demo pro-

grams or taking advantage of deep

discounts to undercut the market.

Channel Mechanics’ platform

drives automation into most of these

processes. Channel managers gain

real-time data access through dash-

boards and reports. So, for instance,

a product manager can see how an

offer is performing in real time. The

platform also delivers insights on

which partners are looking at the pro-

gram, which ones are actually using it,

and which ones aren’t participating.

“The benefit that we hope to bring

is accelerated time to market, and the

ability for the vendor to be proactive

instead of reactive,” said Fox. “We

prevent program abuse, and ensure

that bundles are able to be created

and managed.”

Channel Mechanics also has spent

a lot of time solving the problem that

vendors have in segmenting and dif-

ferentiating their offers by geography,

product type, vertical and so on, said

Fox, so they can create segmented

and targeted offerings for specific

types of partners, like those that have

a certain certification level.

In other words, Fox continued,

“Providers can get granular and solve

the issue of ‘spray and pray.’”

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