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Function documentationChannel Partner Management Locate this document in the navigation structure

 

Channel Partner Management supports you in the following areas:

  • Management of your channel partner relationships throughout the partner life cycle

    This ensures consistent processes for all your channel partners, from recruitment through approval to ramp-up. This ensures that all of your partners are equally well prepared to sell your products effectively.

  • Complete view on your partners

    You see the status of each partner, the product area in which they specialize, and who their customers are.

  • Planning and management of your sales channel strategy as well as support for your partners in selling their products and services

    You can set annual goals and measure your partners' progress against those goals.

  • Providing your partners with reports and analyses relevant to their business

Integration

Function

Description

User Management

The user management allows the partner manager to create additional users for his or her organization.

For more information, see Security Guide SAP CRM 2007, section User Management on SAP Service Marketplace.

Partner and Channel Analytics

Partner and channel analytics capabilities of SAP CRM provide a broad range of standard reports that you can use to determine partner coverage, partner and channel performance, revenue and sales statistics, ROI of partner investments, partner gross margins, and partner utilization. You can also provide your partners with reports and analyses that are relevant to their business.

For more information, see Partner and Channel Analytics.

Access Control Engine

The Access Control Engine ensures that partners can only see data relating to their own company and not data belonging to your other partners.

For more information, see CRM Access Control Engine.

Store Locator

Partner data is available for use in the store locator in the Collaborative Showroom.

For more information, see Collaborative Showroom.

Prerequisites

You have made the settings in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management, by choosing   Partner Channel Management   Channel Partner Management  .

Features

  • Business partner roles in Channel Partner Management

    • Business partner role Channel Partner (PRMP)

      A channel partner is a business partner with the role Channel Partner. When you create a new channel partner within channel partner management in IC WebClient, the system assigns the role Channel Partner to this partner automatically. The same applies to creating a partner automatically using a request for registration.

      If an existing business partner becomes one of your channel partners, you can assign this partner the role Channel Partner manually.

    • Business partner role Partner Contact Person (PRCONT)

      If a partner is created using a request for registration, the system creates a partner contact person at the same time with the role Partner Contact Person. The partner manager or channel manager must manually create all additional contact persons in the system — the role Partner Contact Person is assigned automatically.

      If you make an existing business partner a channel partner and assign them the Channel Partner role, the system does not automatically assign any existing partner contact persons the role Partner Contact Person. The partner manager or channel manager must make this role assignment manually for the contact persons.

    • Business partner role Corporate Channel Partner (CHM001)

      This business partner role is only used in the market development funds scenario. When you assign this business partner role to one of your channel partners, the system automatically creates a corresponding channel partner hierarchy. For more information, see Channel Partner Hierarchy.

      A channel partner does not have to be assigned the business partner role Corporate Channel Partner to be able to participate in a market development funds program. Funds can also be assigned directly to the business partner, without using the channel partner hierarchy.

  • Partner classification

    Partner classifications enable you to model and classify your partners according to your channel management or sales channel strategy. The following partner classifications are available:

    • Channel Partner Type (for example, retailer, reseller, system integrator)

    • Channel Partner Program (for example, gold, silver, bronze, or global, local)

    • Channel Partner Status (for example, accepted, rejected)

    • Since (Year) (the year in which the partner became a member of the partner network)

  • Business partner relationships in partner management

    • Partner contact persons

      Employees in the partner enterprise are the channel manager's contact persons (relationship type "is Contact Person of" between employees and the partner enterprise). Both brand owner and partner employees can edit and manage contact person data.

      Note Note

      Within Channel Partner Management it is not possible to assign a contact person multiple relationships with the type "is contact person of" — however, this is possible in Account Management in CRM Enterprise. If a channel manager mistakenly creates multiple relationships of this type for a partner contact person in Account Management in CRM Enterprise, the channel partner cannot work in the portal until the data inconsistency has been resolved (an error message is displayed when logging on to the portal).

      End of the note.

    • Customer contact persons

      Data on customer contact persons can be edited and managed by both brand owner employees and channel partner employees. Customers of the partner company receive the relationship type "Is End Customer Of" between customer and partner company and customer employees receive the relationship type "Is Contact Person For" between employee and customer company.

    For more information about relationships, see Business Partner Relationships.

  • Interaction history or customer interaction history

    The interaction history contains an overview of business transactions with end customers. In channel partner management, the interaction history contains those transactions where the partner acts as the end customer.

    The customer interaction history contains an overview of business transactions between a partner and an end customer account. It contains the transactions where the partner acts as your channel or service partner.

    For more information, see Interaction History.

  • Request for registration

    Enables prospective partners to apply for a partnership with you, the brand owner, using a Web-based request form on your Web site.

    For more information, see Request for Registration.

  • Partner responsibilities

    You can assign responsibilities on both partner level as well as employee level (for example, responsible for leads with prospects from postal code area 8*). These attributes can also be used during rule-based document distribution (for example, when forwarding leads or opportunities).

    For more information, see Partner Responsibilities.

  • Partner qualification

    If you combine qualifications and certifications with responsibilities, you can ensure that certain documents are only forwarded to partners with certain qualifications during rule-based distribution, for example, only to partners who have attended a training course about your new products.

    For more information, see Partner Qualification and Request for Qualification.

  • Subscribed products

    You can see which products from your product catalog have been subscribed by the partner, in other words, which products the partner is selling in the Collaborative Showroom.

    For more information, see Collaborative Showroom.