I had the pleasure of participating in the Learn How to Drive Revenue and Channel Alignment with Cambium Networks Ron Ryan, SVP of Global Channels. Ron brought his vast channel leadership experience and success with building indirect global sales channels to the discussion. With over 80 partners in 30 countries, Cambium has grown a productive channel utilizing Model N.
While there were many highlights, I heard three key takeaways that channel leaders in high tech manufacturing should review and consider.
First, Your Organization and Partners Require More Transparency and Trust – While we’d all agree that more transparency and trust are needed with channel partners, Ron shared, “Down markets drive companies to new ideas and you have to look at the business through a different lens.” Having the visibility into what’s really happening in your channel and knowing the data is reliable allows companies to seize new opportunities. Utilizing Model N, Cambium was able to “create three new separate verticals not previously in their indirect channel.”
Second, Break Fixing Channel Data Isn’t Your Partners Role – Ron discussed before Model N, his team “Spent more time trying to fix the data than using the data” and they wanted “distributors to focus on selling and not managing data.” Further he shared, “Cambium needed to do things to grow the business and not focus on data issues.” To eliminate unnecessary partner communications associated with channel data problems and improve its data quality to 99%, Cambium used Model N to automate all mundane internal sales operational and external channel partner tasks. “Today, we take native partner data – in any format, anytime and it’s a push button action” shared Ryan. Additionally they were able to automate data cleansing and normalization eliminating most manual intervention from their partners and their internal operations.
Third, Educating Senior Management is Key. Ryan shared, “When you have solid, empirical data to communicate with Finance and senior executives, it makes it easier to communicate where you want to go. Naturally, you don’t get a lot of high-level interest in channel data unless the CEO sees value.” At Model N we agree that most companies don’t realize the true value and return on investment until leadership sees firsthand the real results. We have numerous customers who provide their senior executives with weekly insights into key areas such as geographical partner revenue, vertical marketing program success, and global inventory flow. This guides trusted business decisions with real channel data.
If your organization and channel sales could benefit from these three takeaways, you can learn more about Model N Channel Data Management by clicking here.
