Best Practices in Channel Management
Sponsored by:

The indirect sales channel for telecom services is transitioning from building to optimizing, according to the results of new channel-management research from PHONE+ and sponsored by BLUEROADS. Conducted in winter 2008, the survey polled more than 100 suppliers about their channel-management practices. The results paint a picture of a growing and evolving indirect sales channel, but point to some significant areas for improvement in channel management compared to other channel-friendly industries.

The findings offer suppliers an opportunity to benchmark their channel-management performance against peers and also to identify gaps and ways to fill them. They also offer indirect sales channel partners a glimpse into the best practices that their existing and prospective vendors could adopt to better support the indirect sales efforts.

Table of Contents

SURVEY: ON THE ROAD TO CHANNEL OPTIMIZATION
2008 Channel Management Survey Results and Analysis
The indirect sales channel for telecom services is transitioning from building to optimizing, according to the results of new channel-management research conducted by PHONE+ and sponsored by BLUEROADS. The research shows telecom suppliers are poised to move beyond administrating the partner relationship to driving revenue through the indirect sales channel in systemic ways.

CHANNEL COACH: IS YOUR PARTNER PROGRAM UP TO PAR?
Throughout our consulting practice, much is often said about having a great indirect sales channel program. But what does having a great indirect sales program mean? PHONE+ Channel Coach Bill Taylor offers some advice to telecom suppliers about key characteristics of successful partner programs.

ROUNDTABLE: DRIVING CHANNEL PERFORMANCE
Executives from leading communications industry vendors, including Avaya, Level 3 Communications, XO Communications, share insights about their experiences managing and growing their indirect sales channels.

ADVERTORIAL: OPTIMIZING CHANNEL PERFORMANCE
As oft-noted, the "build it and they will come” approach has been proven ineffective in most scenarios where it has been applied. Creating and growing an indirect sales channel is no exception. To find out more about how communications service providers can improve the success of their indirect sales channels, PHONE+ spoke to Charles Watson, a 20-years sales and marketing veteran and senior vice president of marketing and sales for BLUEROADS, a software and services firm specializing in opportunity-management programs for suppliers using indirect sales channels.