Drive Your Channel Productivity Globally

If you are selling through the channel, it is probably safe to assume that you have a partner portal. There’s nothing ground-breaking about that. However, this is 2016. Do you know when your partner portal was built and with what technologies? Why does it matter? Well, do you still use a typewriter? I doubt it—typewriters are obsolete. So why would anyone want to use a partner portal built on obsolete software? I’ll have more to say on that later, but before we get into the weeds here, let’s step back for a second and look at the history of partner portals and how they have been built over the years. Past (1985 to 2000) If you were selling through the channel in 1990s, chances are you had an extranet whose purpose was to provide your partners with access to price lists, datasheets, collateral, etc. so that they wouldn’t have to wait for printed materials to arrive. The partner portal software was very basic. Actually, it was essentially a website with external login capabilities connected with some sort of a