Unlock the potential of your partnership data by eliminating multiple spreadsheets and streamlining it into a single platform.
A Partner Relationship Management (PRM). Is software that helps companies manage their relationships with partners, such as resellers, distributors, and other third-party vendors. PRM systems provide tools for onboarding, training, and managing partners, enabling companies to strengthen and streamline their partnership programs.
A PRM is specifically for partner data. That includes everything you know about your prospective, current, and former partners.
A PRM unifies your partner data for org-wide accessibility. The platform creates a comprehensive, always-accurate source of real-time data that can be fed into all the tools you use for marketing, analytics, sales, support, and more.
You can take a couple of paths as you embark on your quest to build a partnership channel. The right route for you depends on multiple factors, so let's start exploring!
Actionable Data
A PRM transforms disconnected data into actionable intel, making it accessible to teams across your partner team & organization.
Each partner’s profile is a story told through numerous data points. When viewed in isolation, these bits of information can feel disjointed and difficult to interpret. Siloed partner data are just numbers—fragmented pieces that offer only a partial view of the full picture.
A PRM system creates a cohesive narrative from all these scattered details, transforming your partner data into actionable insights. With every aspect of a partner's relationship unified, you can see the entire journey—each partner's attributes, performance, and contributions to your business. Armed with this 360-degree view, teams across your organization can empower partners to refer, collaborate, and close deals more effectively.
Real-time, unified data empowers partner teams to deliver more effective messaging and personalized support to partners.
A PRM system activates this data, allowing teams to build targeted enablement campaigns that increase partner engagement and drive better results. By giving partners the tools and information they need at the right time, your partner network becomes more productive and aligned with your business goals.
Analytics teams dive deep into your partner data to uncover valuable insights that help you measure the impact of your partnership strategies. A PRM system enables them to extract more meaningful insights, shaping future partnership strategies and optimizing performance.
Comprehensive partner insights allow finance teams to make data-driven decisions about allocating resources effectively. A PRM system provides the accurate, big-picture view they need to understand which partnerships are delivering the greatest value and where to invest further.
Your PRM strategy serves as a roadmap for deciding whether to build your own solution or invest in a third-party platform. It also offers guidelines for selecting the right PRM vendor to partner with, ensuring the solution aligns with your goals and helps you manage and grow your partner relationships effectively.
1. Define Your Objectives: Use Cases
The first step is to identify how your teams are currently engaging with partner data and how they plan to use it in the future.
2. Identify Your Key Capabilities
With your use cases defined, assess the essential capabilities you need in a PRM system to achieve your objectives.
3 Assess Your Resources
Evaluate the resources you can allocate for setting up and maintaining your PRM system.
4. Choose Your Partner: Vendors
If you're considering purchasing a PRM system, assess how well potential vendors' solutions align with your objectives and available resources.
Using Existing Tools like Spreadsheets, Slack, ESPs, & Your CRM to Manage Partners
The main appeal of this approach is full control: you can tailor every aspect of your partner management process exactly how you want. Another benefit is cost—using tools you already have, like spreadsheets, Slack, ESPs, and your CRM, can seem like a budget-friendly option. However, the major downside is that information is scattered across multiple platforms, making it difficult for key stakeholders to have full visibility. Additionally, the time and effort required to keep this patchwork solution running can be substantial, as you’ll need to manually maintain and integrate these tools to ensure partners stay engaged and processes remain efficient.
Building a PRM might work well for you if:
- Your engineering team can dedicate at least a year to building the PRM and commit ongoing resources for maintenance.
- Your teams have the expertise to build a system that supports all your use cases.
- Diverting engineering resources to build a PRM won’t slow down your core product’s development velocity.
Existing Expertise
If partner management is already a strength within your organization, building your own PRM might make sense. This could be the right choice if:
- Managing partner relationships is already a core competency across your teams.
- Handling partner data and processes is a competitive advantage for your business.
- Your core product or service offering is closely tied to your partner ecosystem.
Perils of the DIY Pathway
Building your own PRM is resource-intensive for a good reason—it's a challenging and time-consuming process.
In-House Build: Heavy Engineering Lift
Launching a homegrown PRM system is a major undertaking. Your engineering team will need to design and build a system that unifies partner data, manages partner relationships, tracks performance, and integrates with third-party tools. The initial build could take at least a year, and the responsibility for ongoing maintenance, management, and updates will fall entirely on your team.
Composable PRM: Added Costs
If you don’t have the resources to build every PRM component from scratch, you could consider a composable PRM. This involves assembling and configuring a combination of pre-built tools and in-house components to manage your partners. While it reduces the initial engineering burden, your team will still handle maintenance, and the costs of integrating multiple vendor tools can add up, making scalability difficult.
If you're eager to achieve unified, actionable partner data more quickly, buying an existing PRM system will accelerate your path to success. You'll find a variety of options, ranging from general-purpose platforms to solutions tailored for specific business models and industries. Many PRMs are also designed to be customizable, so you won’t have to compromise on flexibility.
Packaged PRM
The key feature of a packaged PRM is how it centralizes your partner data. Data from various sources flows into the system, which stores and organizes it, helping you track and manage partnerships while integrating with your other business tools.
Hybrid PRM
A hybrid PRM combines the pre-built functionality of a packaged PRM with the flexibility of integrating your own data storage, giving you more control over where and how your partner data is stored and managed.
The Benefits of Buying a PRM
Buying a PRM provides a quicker, less resource-intensive route to managing your partners and enhancing collaboration.
Rapid Implementation
A pre-built PRM solution offers a fast track to managing your partners. While building your own PRM could take a year or more, implementing a purchased PRM can take just a few months—or even less—if you have a clear strategy and aligned stakeholders.
Reduced Resource Requirements
Buying a PRM isn’t entirely hands-off—you'll still need to integrate data sources, configure workflows, and set up partner segments, which may require some engineering resources upfront. However, this effort is much less than building a custom solution. Plus, a good PRM vendor will typically provide onboarding support to ease the process.
Ongoing Support
Once your PRM system is up and running, it needs to stay functional and adapt to the evolving technology landscape. With a PRM vendor that offers robust ongoing support and continuously enhances its platform, your teams can focus their energy on growing your partnerships and improving your core product, rather than worrying about maintaining the PRM.
If you don’t choose your PRM vendor wisely, you can derail your partnership strategy by creating a misalignment between the vendor’s capabilities and your company’s evolving needs.
Scalability
Your PRM should grow with your business, accommodating new use cases and expanding partner networks. If your platform can’t scale as much or as quickly as needed, you’ll eventually find yourself stuck with a solution that no longer delivers the value you require.
Vendor Lock-In
A PRM sits at the heart of your partner management ecosystem, and once it’s in place, you’ll likely build other systems and processes around it. This makes it easy to become locked into that vendor, meaning you’re reliant on their product roadmap—which may not always align with your business’s evolving strategy.
Switching Costs
If you choose the wrong PRM or if your needs change significantly, switching platforms can come with a high cost. You’ll have to invest time, effort, and budget into the implementation process all over again, making it crucial to get the decision right the first time.
Unlock the full potential of your partner program with Partner.io. Our scalable platform unifies partner data, streamlines onboarding, and integrates seamlessly with your CRM and payment tools. Features like the partner portal and real-time data integration ensure smooth partner onboarding, boosting efficiency and collaboration across your network.
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