What is a PRM Software?

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In simple words, PRM (Partner Relationship Management) software is a technology solution designed to automate all things partner related. PRM software is used to streamline and optimise the management of external variety of partnerships such as distributors, resellers, and agencies. These partnerships are crucial for businesses to expand their market reach and get more sales, all while significantly driving the CAC (Customer Acquisition Costs) down.

PRM provides a centralised platform for communication, collaboration, and performance tracking, enabling businesses to build more effective relationships with their partners through technology.  

Key functions of PRM software include:

• Partner onboarding: Streamlining the process of recruiting, onboarding, and managing partner profiles up to date. Think of instant updates of the company information, brand guidelines without the need to log in into partner portals to manage the data.
• Communication and collaboration: Facilitating seamless communication and collaboration between internal teams and external partners whether through the key messaging apps or comprehensive built-in features.
• Performance tracking: Measuring partner performance against key metrics and generating reports for data-driven decision-making.
• Sales enablement: Providing sales tools and resources to partners to support their efforts.
• Incentive and commission management: Managing partner compensation programs and ensuring accurate and timely payments.

The benefits of using a PRM software include improved partner relationships, more possibilities of co-selling, better data-driven decision-making, and increased revenue coming from the partner ecosystem.

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Why is PRM Software Important?

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Businesses without a PRM system often struggle with inefficiencies and inconsistencies in their partner relationships. Partner teams, including partner marketing professionals are often working in silos using several tools including project management software, Excel spreadsheets or Google docs. Some teams try to tweak their CRMs and partner portals to enable a more systematic approach to partnerships. 

Sounds messy, doesn’t it? 

Talking to partner teams on a daily basis, we see that these manual processes lead to errors and a lack of visibility into partner performance. Communication breakdowns and misalignment of goals happens more often than not and the overall partner engagement suffers. Partner teams do not reach their full potential and are left without a dedicated tool to manage their everyday work. What’s more, without a centralised platform for sharing leads and tracking performance, it can be difficult to make informed decisions or identify opportunities for growth.

It’s clear that implementing a PRM software can offer significant strategic advantages. Firstly, you can remove silos within your organisation and get your entire GTM team on board to collaborate on deals. Secondly, you can run an end-to-end partner program with commissions and timely partner payouts. Lastly, this software can be a make-or-break tool for delivering exceptional partner experiences and driving significant partner revenue within your ecosystem.

Key Features of a PRM Software

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1. Partner Onboarding

Partner onboarding helps you automate the whole process of signing partner agreements, exchanging brand guidelines and setting up the foundations for joint collaboration between the teams. A well-designed onboarding process empowers partners to grasp their roles, access essential tools, and hit the ground running with partner sales.

Additionally, it provides an opportunity to establish clear expectations and guidelines for ongoing communication and performance management. Without a PRM software, the onboarding process would be significantly more time-consuming and error-prone. Multiple teams would need to coordinate manually, leading to delays (and a lot of frustration among teams!). 

Imagine a scale-up company onboarding several partners simultaneously - too many moving parts can hinder your partners' ability to quickly become productive and start generating revenue.

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2. Lead and Deal Tracking

 A robust PRM system seamlessly integrates with your existing CRM platforms, providing comprehensive visibility into incoming leads and deal statuses. This integration empowers partners to track their progress and performance in real time. It also enables a two-sync between the CRM and PRM platforms, so that you have one source of truth (instant updates in your CRM) on all things partner related. 

With a PRM software, there’s no need to juggle multiple tools or spreadsheets. A PRM system becomes your one-stop shop for lead management. You can send leads to your partners with a click, track their progress in real-time, and easily receive leads from your network. It's like having an additional platform for all your partners’ leads to fuel your sales pipeline without the need to log into several partner portals (you hear me right, these gated portals are still around…). 

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3. Multi-Touch Lead Attribution

Multi-touch lead attribution is a marketing analytics technique that tracks a customer's journey across multiple touchpoints before making a purchase. Unlike single-touch attribution, which assigns credit to the last interaction before conversion, multi-touch attribution models consider the entire customer journey, including interactions with different marketing channels, partner events, campaigns (and others) to determine which touchpoints contributed most to the sale. 

This provides a more accurate and holistic view of partner and partner marketing teams’ effectiveness, enabling businesses to optimise their marketing strategies and allocate resources more effectively. It provides a great insight into your overall partnership teams’ contribution.

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4. Partner Communication 

A PRM system should be your go-to communication hub as partnerships are all about the relationships. Think of it as your ‘virtual water cooler’ in the office, where partners can easily connect, share updates, and collaborate in real-time. But here we’re talking about the technology facilitating this communication. For example, Slack, Google Meets, Teams, and all the other messaging apps. It's like having a personal assistant that keeps everyone in the loop, but gathers data and tracks data through your integrated ecosystem of apps, something messaging apps won’t be able to do.

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5. Partner Collaboration

To effectively implement a partner onboarding strategy, cross-functional teams must collaborate. This includes technology, partner management, and marketing teams working together to develop a comprehensive plan. This plan should outline API connectors for integration, training materials, and enablement resources. Sales teams can contribute by developing joint business plans and sharing insights on potential deals. Partner marketing can support the process by providing marketing collateral and ensuring effective communication. 

As you can see, in partnerships the entire GTM team on both sides is usually engaged in several projects with conflicting deadlines running concurrently. Partner collaboration software can greatly facilitate these efforts by enabling real-time collaboration, sharing of lead information, and coordination of marketing activities. Having cross-company collaboration boards is a game changer for partner teams. What has been known as project management software for internal teams, is now completely revolutionised by bringing in external partners to collaborate on the same projects.

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6. Scaling Partner Programs

To support sustainable business growth, a PRM system must be equipped to handle the expansion of partner networks. This involves features that streamline the onboarding of new partners, efficiently manage larger groups, and adapt to the evolving complexities of partner relationships. A scalable PRM system ensures that organisations can effectively scale their partner programs to meet increased demand and maintain strong partnerships. 

Some examples of features that can help scale your program include: viral network effect (partner invites a partner), the ability to send and receive leads through one platform, communication and collaboration features. Last but not least, a timely payout of commissions is an essential part of a successful partner program - everyone wants to get paid for the work done. How to facilitate global payments to different stakeholders is something that can be only done through a secure platform - a solid PRM software should enable that. 

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7. Analytics (Tracking your programs’ KPIs)

Your partners are giving you their data. What are you giving them in return? How about a clear picture of their performance? With a PRM system in place, you can track key metrics like deal volume, revenue generated, lead conversion rates, and customer satisfaction. This data-driven approach empowers you to optimise your partner programs, reward top performers, and allocate resources effectively. 

For example, if you notice a decline in deal volume from a particular partner, you can investigate the root cause and provide targeted support. By continuously tracking and analysing key metrics, you can build more productive partnerships and generate more partner-driven sales.

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8. Sales Enablement

A PRM system can significantly enhance sales enablement by providing a centralised platform for sharing sales tools, training materials, and best practices. By integrating with existing CRM systems, PRMs can ensure that sales teams have access to the latest information and resources they need to succeed. Additionally, PRMs can help to streamline the onboarding process for new sales reps, providing them with the tools and training they need to quickly become productive. By empowering sales teams with the right information and resources, PRMs can drive increased sales productivity.

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9. Incentive and Commission Management

A PRM system can streamline incentive and commission management by providing a platform for tracking partner performance, calculating commissions, and distributing payments. By automating these processes, PRMs can reduce manual errors and ensure that partners are compensated fairly and accurately. Additionally, PRMs can help to establish easy to understand and transparent incentive programs, while motivating partners to achieve their goals.

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10. AI-driven PRM features

AI is revolutionising PRM by automating routine tasks, improving data analysis, and enhancing personalization. AI-powered tools can automate processes like lead qualification, contract management, and reporting, freeing up valuable time for partner managers. Additionally, AI algorithms can analyse vast amounts of data to identify trends, predict future outcomes, and provide personalised recommendations. This enables PRM teams to make more informed decisions, optimise partner programs, and deliver tailored experiences that meet the specific needs of each partner.

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Benefits of Implementing a PRM Software

Enhanced communication and collaboration among partners, coupled with increased partner satisfaction, drives streamlined sales processes and increased deal velocity. This, in turn, leads to improved sales enablement and partner support, fostering better data-driven decision making through access to real-time data and analytics. By leveraging these insights, organisations can optimise partner performance and increase revenue from partner sales while reducing costs associated with manual processes and errors.

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Choosing the Right PRM Software

Choosing the right PRM software is a critical decision that can significantly impact your organisation's ability to manage partner relationships and drive partner sales. When selecting a PRM solution, it's essential to consider factors such as scalability and flexibility to accommodate future growth, integration with existing systems to streamline workflows, and user-friendliness to ensure easy adoption by your team. It’s also crucial to establish what type of partners PRM can support. Some PRM providers focus only on affiliates only, others can facilitate technology and solution partners altogether. 

Additionally, evaluating the cost and potential return on investment (ROI) is crucial to make a financially sound decision. By carefully considering these key factors, you can select a PRM software that aligns with your specific partner program.

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Journeybee PRM: Co-Pilot for Partnerships 

Journeybee PRM is a powerful platform designed to automate partner relationship management for businesses of all sizes. With its two-way approach to partnerships, it offers a versatile solution that addresses the diverse needs of modern partner programs. From tailored onboarding processes to advanced lead and deal tracking, Journeybee empowers organisations to build stronger, more productive partnerships.

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Key benefits of using Journeybee include the ability to scale your partner sales through active collaboration and engagement. If you can imagine Asana or Monday.com where you get to invite partner, sales and marketing teams from your partner companies to work on joint deals and co-marketing initiatives, this is essentially how Collaboration Boards work. It’s an innovative way of transforming partnerships by bringing cross-company GTM teams together. For decision makers, it is yet another way to track your team's performance and contributions, which is often missed in case of marketing teams whose effort gets unnoticed.

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By providing partners with access to training materials, marketing collateral, and support resources, Journeybee ensures they have the tools needed to succeed. The platform's automated commission tracking guarantees accurate and timely payments, motivating your partners to sign more deals and building trust.  Additionally, Journeybee's scalability allows businesses to grow their partner programs efficiently, supporting seamless onboarding and management of new partners - what’s more - your partners can join Journeybee for free to participate in your partner program.

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