Channel Intelligence or the Intelligent Channel ?

As our company embarks upon it’s 10th year in business, we often look back at the many engagements we have undertaken during the course of our history.   The most successful engagements have been those where we have helped shape channels where the entire ecosystem was working in an “intelligent” manner:  strategy was focused, meaningful metrics were being managed and observed, and smart processes geared toward internal and external productivity were put in place.  We pride ourselves in striving for these outcomes for every client, but what we noticed was that those clients who really excelled placed a premium on constantly striving to not only gather the right information from their channel (“channel intelligence”), but proactively and continuously striving to do better and be smarter (“intelligent channel”) with their channel.   For instance, the reasons we stress things like the importance in onboarding partners, and the processes around such, is because those companies that can proactively help their partners get up to speed quicker are those companies that will win more business in the end.  It’s simple.  But, look at it further.  By putting processes in place that help partners get up to speed quicker, you also are able to gather information on what’s working and what’s not working a lot quicker.  What happens then is a really interesting circle of intelligence that occurs.  Keep rinsing and repeating with everything around the channel and soon enough you are well ahead of the competition.