TRANSFORMING

THE MANUFACTURING
PARTNER EXPERIENCE
A guide for manufacturers that go to market
through dealers, distributors and more
Let’s start with what we can all agree on: No man(ufacturer) is an Partner By Any
island. As a manufacturer, you rely on dealers, distributors, and
Other Name
partners to attract, acquire, and serve your end customer. That
means your success and revenue growth are very dependent on For the purpose of this paper,
the success of your partner network. we are using the term Partner to
generically stand in for terms like:
With so much at stake, how can you ensure that your partners are
• dealer
successful? The good news: Partner performance is very much
• distributor
within your control. Improving how your partners interact with • reseller
you is often the key to successfully, and profitably, growing your • sales partner
business. In this guide, Salesforce and 7Summits have teamed up • service partner
to shed light on how manufacturers like you can unlock the value • consultancy
of your partnerships today. • channel partner
• franchise

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Historically, manufacturers have merely maintained partner relationships. Providing
partner support meant manual processes and one-way pushes of information
“ The majority of
(translation: lots of email). organizations manage
More recently, manufacturers have started adopting digital portals — a more
their indirect channel or
organized hub for information. While these portals are a step up from manual partner activities with
support, too many are still a one-way flow of communication designed to benefit
the manufacturer, not the partner. As a result, many portals suffer from poor partner
a mixture of outdated
adoption. When partners bypass portals in favor of manual support, the portals never and homegrown
achieve the value they were meant to provide. And all too often, that poor experience
trickles down to customers.
applications
(driven primarily by
While some will always be slow to adopt, it’s time for the rest of us — the most
innovative among us — to fast-forward. It’s time for you to enable your partners
spreadsheets) and
to build your business for you. customized and
Today’s most successful manufacturers are not just
inflexible legacy
maintaining partner relationships; they are delivering systems.”
a partner-centered experience.
The transformation of your partner experience takes three steps, all laid out in this guide: - Gartner 2018

1 Stand in Their Shoes to Build Empathy: First things first, understand what a
great partner experience looks like — from a partner’s point of view.

2 Assess Your Current State to Identify Opportunities: Reflect on where you’re

delivering on your partners’ expectations and where you’re falling short.

3 Map Out Key Elements to Take Action: Lay the groundwork to enhance your
digital partner experience for the benefit of partners and customers alike.

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STEP ONE:
Stand in Their Shoes
to Build Empathy
So, you’ve decided you want to graduate from merely
maintaining partner relationships to delivering a partner-
centered experience. Way to go! The first step is to recognize
that your partners have needs and expectations that are
likely not aligned with your processes.

Let’s walk through the manufacturing partner experience.

We’ll identify what partners expect in each section.
While reading, ask yourself: Is your company succeeding
at putting the partner at the center of the experience?

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ONBOARDING
& EDUCATION
Identifying, registering,
onboarding, and
educating partners
The partner experience begins long before your partners start
working on deals. Equally important is the way a manufacturer
recruits new partners and brings them up to speed.
It’s not enough to provide a list of resources for partners to
skill up on your company and products; partners want curated,
personalized learning journeys that they can track their progress
against. Manufacturers that do this well guide partners through
onboarding by creating role-specific tasks and timelines for each
partner program and level.
Finally, the best digital partner experiences embrace ongoing
education. After all, manufacturers are constantly innovating and
improving their products, and partners need to be enabled with
the latest information. Built-in learning management systems (LMS)
allow manufacturers to create, assign, and track learning activities
so that partners stay current and have a clear path
toward certification.
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MARKETING
& ENABLEMENT
Marketing to partners the resources,
tools and programs to build
awareness and drive demand
Partners don’t want to reinvent the wheel as they generate
awareness and demand for your offerings; they expect to plug into a
robust, practiced system for amplifying your marketing message.
The most successful manufacturers proactively enable partners by
extending pre-built, cross-channel marketing campaigns. Partners are
then able to customize these journeys, enroll leads, and track results
to easily build demand — all while staying true to the manufacturer’s
brand, which is great news for you.
And when it comes to co-marketing, partners want real-time visibility
into market development funds (MDF). Top manufacturers create
seamless processes for requests, claims, and delivering funds, so
partners spend less time tracking down status updates and more
time driving business.
SALES
OPERATIONS
Enabling partners to create
and process profitable orders
Manufacturers rely on partners to help them grow at scale.
Partners in turn expect customer data at their fingertips and
automated processes to help accelerate the sales cycle.
Above all, partners want unfettered access to the right leads.
To prevent any channel conflict, top manufacturers use
a seamless deal registration workflow to grant exclusivity
to partner-sourced opportunities. They also manage lead
distribution by intelligently routing leads to match partners’
expertise.
In order to close as many deals as possible, partners desire
a 360-degree view of the prospect or customer — including
account details, previous orders, service requests, and more.
But it doesn’t stop there. Partners want to be intelligently guided
through the best actions, with tedious tasks automated. They
also want the power to configure products, generate co-branded
proposals, and quote quickly and accurately, with discounts
built in.
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SERVICE
& SUPPORT
Supporting partners with
self-service enablement and
manual assistance
To improve customer satisfaction and minimize revenue leakage,
manufacturers want partners to provide the best customer service
experience possible — through warranties, cases, field service
management, and more. In the same way, partners want to be on
the receiving end of a streamlined service experience.
Partners want their questions to be answered on-demand, through
easy access to trending articles, relevant documentation, and FAQs.
Unlimited access empowers partners to solve their own issues on
their own schedules.
Better yet, as partners become advocates working within the
partner network, they want to share their wisdom or flag a concern
with the broader partner ecosystem, benefiting all. If a partner is
not able to find what they need, they expect the manufacturer to
address their unanswered issues in an open forum or private case.
PERFORMANCE
MANAGEMENT
Tracking and measuring
partner performance
Even for manufacturers that have embraced transformation,
managing, and measuring partner performance is perceived as
one of the most challenging tasks. But, at its most fundamental,
it’s about aligning on goals and empowering partners to measure
their achievement of those goals. See, not that complicated!
Partners don’t want to wait for a quarterly business review to
know where they stand. A truly partner-centered experience
gives partners the right dashboards to understand their
individual performance, as well as where they are in the context
of the partner program (e.g. partner segments, tiers, categories).
As a best practice, top manufacturers enable partners to track
partner activity, lead flow, conversion rates, and every part of the
sales pipeline. They surface insights and suggested actions to
help partners grow their business.
ENGAGEMENT
& IMPROVEMENT
Building awareness of product and
industry news, trends, and events
to drive partner engagement and
ideas for improvement
In more transactional manufacturer-partner relationships,
manufacturers communicate news, product updates, and
events. But in a transformed partner experience, partners have
an important voice and are empowered to use it.
Top manufacturers see partners as a strategic asset, and turn to
them for insights that drive innovation throughout the value chain.
When partners give feedback, share ideas, and provide competitive
and market input, everyone wins.
Successful manufacturers also enable team collaboration and
access to subject matter experts as a part of the partner experience.
Partners and employees benefit from working jointly on deals,
co-creating marketing assets, tackling service escalations, and
engaging in advocacy groups. A robust digital partner experience
makes direct access to resources across the community scalable.

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STEP TWO:
Assess Your Current
State to Identify DIRECTIONS
Opportunities
Now that you've seen the level of 1 Using a scale of 1 (lowest impact on partner performance) to
5 (highest impact on partner performance) rate each of the Functional
experience you can create for your and Technical Enablers.

partners, it's time to reflect on where

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you're excelling and where you stand to Using a Red/Yellow/Green ranking, indicate how you believe a partner
improve. Use the tool on the next page would rate your current ability to deliver each of the Functional and
to identify which enablers have the Technical Enablers.

greatest impact on your own

business's channel performance.
3 Assess your gaps by analyzing your current readiness (Red/Yellow/
Green) against the highest impact (4s and 5s). These should be your
primary areas of focus as you design your new partnership experience.

Hint: Quick wins would be Yellow 5s — tackle those early and launch
them quickly!

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 MANUFACTURING PARTNER EXPERIENCE

Onboarding & Marketing & Sales Service & Performance Engagement &
Education Enablement Operations Support Management Improvement

FUNCTIONAL ENABLERS
Partner Registration/ Partner Support & Case Partner Tiering / Partner
Marketing Programs Lead Distribution
Application Management Scorecarding Communications

Partner Recruitment & Market Development Deal Registration /

Dispute Management Business Planning News / Events
Onboarding Funds Management Project Request

Agreement / Contract Joint Marketing / Self Service / Information Partner Incentives/

Joint Account Planning Partner Satisfaction
Management Planning Access Loyalty Programs

Partner Contact Marketing Event Mgt / Opportunity Mgt & Deal Partner Forecast / Pipeline
Knowledge Management Partner Ideation
Management Sponsorship Collaboration Analysis

Partner Training & Content Configure / Price / Quote Forums & Discussion
Warranty Management Partner Compensation
Certification Management (CPQ) Boards

Partner Locator / Product / Inventory Partner Performance

Gamification Returns Management Community Analytics
Solution Directory Availability (ATP) Analysis

TECHNICAL ENABLERS
Identity Monitoring & Application Workflow &
Mobility Branding Search Approvals
Management Encryption Security Business Logic

Data Quality Multi-Language Multi-Currency Business Decision

Collaboration Integration Live Message Activity Tracking
Management Support Support Engine (ML)

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STEP THREE:
Map Out Elements
to Take Action
So far, we have laid out partner
expectations of manufacturers, and
you took stock of how well you’re
delivering on those expectations.
Ready to close those gaps? As you
design your digital partner experience,
you’ll want to map out and understand:
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WHO
will be the key users of your partner experience
WHAT
business processes and rules will be integrated
into the partner experience
WHICH
technology will be used to create the partner experience
HOW
information will be captured, organized, and structured
WHO
Personal Analysis
Each partner program has different internal and external stakeholders. Before all else, identify the unique needs and friction points of
your key stakeholders. Only from there can you uncover the value drivers that your partner experience must address. Journey maps are an
effective way of uncovering not only what stakeholders are doing, but also what they are thinking, feeling, and needing.

WHAT
Business Process Analysis
Consider the business processes that fuel your company’s success, and ensure your partner program aligns with them. Engineering user
flows for basic partner processes is important, but building those flows, data needs, and business rules into your partner experience
is only the beginning. Think about how you will incent your partners to engage, and how you will guide them to the right content, the
most relevant information, and the best insights to drive their overall performance. When built with business processes in mind, the
partner experience becomes indispensable to their success and yours.

WHICH
Enabling Technologies
Your partners expect a comprehensive digital experience, so the technology supporting that experience must be designed to deliver. Niche partner
relationship management solutions are often inflexible, limited to desktops and laptops, and lack the integration and customization manufacturers
need to transform the full partner experience. In contrast, a complete, end-to-end PRM platform gives manufacturers one single system of record
and engagement that works on every device. In other words, you get complete visibility into partner activities and performance.

HOW
Data Architecture
Last but not least, there’s no shortage of data structures underpinning partner programs–customer classifications, partner segments,
relationships between different partners, elements like territory assignments, authentication rights, permissions, and more. For that exact reason,
delivering a thoughtful partner experience requires a well-defined approach to data management and architecture. Manufacturers need to clearly
spell out data structures and hierarchies, centralize master data cleansing, and make sure the right models, processeses, and owners are established to
manage and maintain the data over time.

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Don’t just maintain partner The partner experience is about driving partner
performance and creating business value. The most

relationships. Deliver a successful manufacturers do this by:

partner-centered experience. 1 Deeply understanding the partner experience from

the viewpoint of the partner

Manufacturers today are reliant on partners to grow profitably. But as

partners have higher expectations and more options than ever before,
it is time for manufacturers to rise to the occasion. The digital partner
2 Continually re-assessing the key enablers that
directly impact partner performance

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experience you deliver will directly impact partner retention, loyalty Delivering a digital partner experience that supports
and growth. those key enablers as they evolve

It’s time for the most innovative manufacturers to get

the most out of their partner programs. Embracing
a partner-centered experience will get you there.

How will you know if you’re Serving partners relevant and impactful information
moving from maintaining Enabling partners to more effectively sell, serve and grow their customers

partner relationships to Providing a unified way to engage with the manufacturer

delivering a partner-centered Keeping partners informed about their leads, opportunities and their business
Driving productivity by eliminating waste and streamlining key business processes
experience? When you are…
Fostering long-term partner relationships based on mutual success

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About
SALESFORCE
Salesforce is the world’s #1 customer relationship management
(CRM) platform. Over 150,000 companies, both big and small,
are growing their business with Salesforce’s cloud-based Customer
Success Platform — including applications for marketing, sales,
commerce, service, and more.
With our Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution, you
can optimize and personalize the entire partner experience, get
visibility into your partners’ activities and performance, and set
them up for success with the right content, tools, and data. Ready
to connect to your customers and partners in a whole new way?
LEARN MORE ABOUT SALEFORCE
WATCH OUR PRM DEMO
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About
7Summits
7Summits is the leader in community-driven digital transformation
solutions that enable partners, empower customers, and unleash
employees. Our proven approach combines strategic consulting,
user-centered experience design, and deep technical expertise
to improve clients’ business processes through collaboration and
automation.
Our Salesforce Lightning Accreditation recognizes our suite of
solution accelerators, including Community Lightning Bolts and
Lightning Components. These proprietary tools help clients
implement high-quality solutions faster.
7Summits is a Salesforce Platinum-level Consulting Partner, a
two-time recipient of Salesforce Venture funding, and is recognized
by industry analysts and observers as a standout digital
solutions provider.
LEARN MORE ABOUT 7SUMMITS
WATCH OUR PRM CASE STUDY WEBINAR
THANK YOU.