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Most Channel Sales Executives Lack Information to do Their Jobs Properly

By Tracey E. Schelmetic
TMCnet Contributor

Sales channel solutions management provider Channelinsight is releasing the results of new research that underscores how a lack of information available to channel sales executives can result in lost revenue and opportunity.

To conduct the research, Channelinsight and its partner the Baptie Channel Focus Community surveyed 112 sales, marketing and channel operations professionals in large and mid-sized companies in the high-tech and software industries. The research focused on two distinct areas: incentive program performance and partner and end-customer identification and segmentation information.

The survey found that only 33 percent of survey respondents are “somewhat” or “very” satisfied with their sales incentive program performance. There were a number of reasons cited for the high dissatisfaction with sales incentive programs. First, many incentive payments are inaccurate (on average respondents believe they overpay on incentive programs by six percent, which for a $600M company translates into over $2M), and there is a lack of a simple, automated system for managing incentives (only 40 percent of respondents indicate their channel incentives are calculated and processed automatically), reported Channelinsight. Dissatisfied respondents also reported that incentives are rarely paid quickly, with only seven percent paying rebates in less than 14 days and 78 percent paying in 30 days or more.

“In any industry, information and insight are keys to success, but when it comes to channel sales, information is at a premium. Without quick, accurate sales data, companies experience lost revenues, overpayments and ineffective incentive programs,” said Mark Geene, CEO of Channelinsight. “Today's survey results validate the need for greater visibility into channel sales and demonstrate that companies need new tools to help them attain this information.”

The Channelinsight survey also found something of a disconnect between companies and their partners. While a majority of companies reporting knowing their partners (87 percent say they can “always” or “usually” segment their channel revenue by partner type), only a little over one-half – 54 percent – said they cannot identify partner market segments. And while 68 percent of respondents say they can “usually” or “always” identify the end-customer in their indirect sales, but only half of those respondents say they can “usually” or “always” identify the end-customer market segmentation.

What does it all mean? That only a little over one-third of respondents – 34 percent – have actionable end-customer data.

Other highlights of the survey include:

• 57 percent of respondents rely on internal team research as a primary source for end-customer segmentation information with just 28 percent using a third-party service.
• 66 percent believe it is important, or very important to use partner and end-customer data in planning and decision-making.
• Only 39 percent of respondents are somewhat or very satisfied with the customer and partner data available.

For more detailed information about the survey, visit http://www.channelinsight.com/.

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