Partner Program Launch

Partner program launch expands PC manufacturer’s sales strategy

The Challenge

How do I build a partner program from the ground up in less than five months?

For many years, the client company had been the leader in direct PC sales. While the trend of direct sales remained healthy, the client company was seeing its total market share decline. In the last year, they had slipped from being the worldwide market-share leader to the number two slot. Their chairman and CEO realized they needed to win business by serving a new clientele – those that purchased PCs through solution providers. So he publicly committed to launch a partner program by year-end.

The company had recently hired a vice president with worldwide channel responsibilities. He had less than six months to launch the new program – and he faced a set of tough challenges. Solution providers didn’t trust the company. The sales force was structured to compete with the channel. The company’s systems didn’t support the planned model. The vice president needed to fix this and change a corporate climate that focused on competing rather than partnering with the channel.

Touch was engaged to:

  • Build a partner program in under five months in order to deliver on the CEO’s public commitment
  • Offer recommended internal changes needed to support the program
  • Establish and implement key program elements in preparation for launch

The Approach

Apply deep channel management expertise and leverage best practices to accelerate partner program development

  • Defined the requirements, structure and benefits of a new scalable partner program
  • Designed a deal registration system
  • Coordinated communications and operational requirements across multiple departments
  • Changed the internal culture to support partners as a strategic effort
  • Developed a partnering framework that provided global consistency with regional execution flexibility
  • Recommended changes to field sales compensation that set clear rules of engagement, sales credit and incentive payments without creating undue channel conflict
  • Architected a partner data structure that could be implemented across multiple systems in different divisions

The Result

Successfully launched a new partner program in less than 5 months

  • Developed and launched worldwide partner program in less than five months
  • Demonstrated client company’s commitment to solution providers
  • Enabled client company to capture new revenue streams from channel sales that were previously unaddressed
  • Surpassed public commitments on both launch date and initial number of participating solution providers

“Touch helped us successfully implement a major shift in sales strategy. The partner program Touch developed provided us the flexibility to offer scaled relationships across multiple targeted partner types in a measured and predictable manner.”