PRM: What it is and how it can increase indirect sales revenue

Many companies may be missing out a large chunk of revenue. Most Dynamics 365 users already know what Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is. Without it, most sales organizations would not be able to function, let alone track progress and improve. Just like CRM manages direct sales, Partner Relationship Management (PRM) manages indirect sales. The indirect sales channel includes everything sold by anyone not directly employed by a vendor, including partners, distributors, resellers, and others.

Analyst firm Forrester estimates that up to “70% of global revenue comes from third-party channels.” This is an astronomical number that many organizations have not yet tapped into or are not managing effectively. The organizations that have partners but do not have a PRM system are most likely managing their partners through emails and spreadsheets. This process bogs down indirect sales teams and fills up workdays with administrative tasks instead of enabling a focus on high-level strategy and relationship building.

With a focus on automation, PRM enables indirect sales teams to manage channel partners from start to finish. This means that PRM automates the partner onboarding process, trains partners on the products and processes, registers deals, assigns commission levels, tracks and reports all activities that occur, and much more. To ensure full visibility and data cleanliness, the PRM platform should also integrate well with the CRM platform, whether that is Dynamics 365 CE or any other.

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