‘Channels’ have become a significant part of most organizations go-to-market strategies. CSE lays the foundation of language, process and understanding upon which channel revenue growth depends.

Channel Success Essentials is a foundation program workshop for an organization’s management and extended partnering team.

• Those new to channels and alliances will acquire: (i) an overall understanding of how and why partnering fits into a broader corporate strategy, and (ii) a common base of language required to work productively as part of an extended partnering team.
• Experienced channel and alliance marketing and sales executives benefit from a step-by-step strategic approach to partnering success that removes guesswork and enhances productivity and repeatability.
• Key stakeholders from all other parts of the organization, such as Customer Support, Marketing, Finance and Administration, Human Resources and Education, gain: (i) a better understanding of the keys to Channel and Alliance success, and (ii) a knowledge of how to align their functional areas with Partner Program objectives.

CSE is often conducted as either: (i) an executive workshop in which executive stakeholders from multiple departments work together to develop common channel strategies, or (ii) as a large group workshop to increase interdepartmental channel alignment and understanding.

Workshop Content

Channel Success Essentials introduces Channel Enablers ChannelPRO™ methodology, a framework of industry best practice key performance areas specifically developed to establish and evaluate effective partnering programs and strategies. The ChannelPRO™ framework is used to lead participants through a series of short workshop exercises in which participants evaluate their companies’ partnering programs, processes and skills against industry best practices, and better understand how each person can contribute to their company’s partnering success.

Workshop exercises and topics include:

• an understanding of the ‘economics’ of partnering
• how partnership requirements change over time
• target market selection and assessment
• an understanding of the contribution partners make to the ‘whole-product’ solution throughout the end-user customer buying process
• how vendors and partners work together to achieve customer satisfaction and competitiveness
• partner incentives, training and compensation
• partner selection and recruitment
• channel enablement
• channel and alliance relationship management and productivity
• internal alignment

Workshop Benefits

Channels impact on all parts of a vendor organization; CSE helps to establish the common foundation of process and language required to bring organizations into alignment, increase channel revenue and expand market share. The two day session is highly interactive and is organized to:

• clarify channel objectives and programs
• prioritize activities and allocate resources
• define vendor and partner roles and responsibilities
• set realistic expectations for channel performance
• improve communication about channel issues
• alert your company to mistakes that must be avoided
• identify hidden issues impacting channel performance

Workshop Format and Media

Channel Success Essentials is normally conducted as a two day customized workshop for 10 to 20 participants. Each person receives a comprehensive workbook containing foundation theory and a series of practical tools and workshop exercises that are applied during, and after the program.