Now, more than ever, it is crucial to understand in which markets and channels to play, how to prioritize investments and resources to maximize your revenue opportunity and grow your sales organization and revenue effectively.
Why is Channel Strategy Important?
Successful companies develop channel strategies that provide clear direction on which channels to engage for targeting specific segments in specific markets, how to win in new and existing markets, and how to be competitive at a local level.
Simply duplicating channel strategies from core markets can lead to disappointing results. A well developed and executed channel strategy focuses on understanding the opportunities, business drivers, and structures of different markets, to ensure local resources are focused on delivering products to the right place, at the right price, when customers are making the decision to buy.
The right plan also ensures that profitability is offered throughout the partner ecosystem. A strong channel strategy reflects the key characteristics of complex and varied market environments, whether mature or emerging. It also aligns the significant resources required for supporting channel activities, such as key partner relationships and alliances, account management structures and personnel, demand generation, and field support.
Understanding the financial implications of each channel is fundamental to developing a sustainable channel strategy. Managing through this complexity and developing a channel strategy that maximizes effectiveness and efficiency is critical.
Channel Strategy Template
During your channel strategy and planning sessions, you should be answering the following questions:
- Who are our target customers, and from which channels do they buy?
- Do we have a holistic approach to our channel strategy, which takes into consideration customer, channel, product, and company needs?
- How do our competitors’ channel strategies affect the marketplace and our business?
- Do we understand the expected revenues, costs, and financial risks associated with serving each customer segment through specific channels?
- Do we have the infrastructure (personnel and technological) and resources required to support channel management programs and processes?
- Are our business terms and reward systems designed to ensure channel partners benefit appropriately from their relationships with the company?
- Does our reward system have clear “rules of engagement” to prevent channel conflict and foster optimal channel performance?
The ability to identify, execute, manage, and support national and international resources with quality channel strategies and execution can mean the difference between dominant market share and floundering business performance.
If your business needs advice and support developing a successful channel strategy, talk to Operatix about how we can work together to plan and implement an effective strategy.
