Your sales forecast should be predictable. But predictability comes from visibility; from seeing accurate data on pipelines and deals in progress, which is extremely difficult for companies selling through channel partners. And that’s a problem.
Your growth is directly tied to how well you can forecast sales. After all, accurate forecasts are pretty much a requirement for planning how much inventory to have on hand, where to focus your time, attention and investments, and to fix issues before they become truly troublesome.
But many leaders are struggling with this: data suggests that only 43 % make estimates that are +- 10 % accurate, and the problem is way bigger if we only look at companies selling through channel partners. Because they lack visibility into the pipelines of their partners. And because they don’t know what partners actually spend their time on, and have to rely on what channel partners choose to tell them.
How visibility boosts forecast predictability
This means that the problem is one of visibility. It also means that, if you could see, in real time, what partners are working on, and get a transparent view of deals in progress, you would be able to do things like:
- Match future inventory to future needs
- Make informed investments in the right markets or geographies
- Fix problems before they become really bad
- Establish a channel-sales process that gets better, not worse, as time goes by.
And one way to do that is to have a shared environment between your partners and your organization. An environment that makes their activities as transparent as those of your direct teams. Which, of course, is where SP_CE comes in.
How SP CE brings visibility – and with that forecast predictability
In SP_CE, every partner gets their own, personal space with everything they need. We’re talking training, content, ticket management, and, yes, deal management. With that, partners will be able to manage deals in an environment they share with you and your team – and everything will be synced to your CRM.
How pipeline visibility can look in practice
One of our amazing customers, Germitec, has experienced this in practice. They needed a platform that could “create accountability with…channel partners” and give “complete visibility into their actions”. And the result? Their leadership is now fully informed of everything going on on the partners’ side, and can make decisions based on accurate data.
