Channel Champions: How a Salesforce-connected PRM Helps 11:11 Systems' Channel Partners
11:11 Systems Takes Their Partners to the Next Level with Magentrix PRM
Founded in 1995, iland Internet Solutions (now acquired by 11:11 Systems) is a global cloud service provider of secure and compliant hosting for infrastructure (IaaS), disaster recovery (DRaaS), and backup as a service (BaaS).
As a 25-year-old company, iland had a long history of working with channel partners.
*Please note: This case study was written about iland prior to its acquisition by 11:11 Systems. From hereon forth, iland will be referred to as 11:11 Systems in this case study.
The Challenge
Outgrowing a home-grown partner portal & need for a PRM to enable partner program scale
Managing an increasing number of partners with evolving needs was becoming challenging.
Manual processes and homegrown systems can only take one so far before organizations realize there has to be a better way.
“Create once and distribute to many. That’s the mentality we needed when moving beyond our homegrown partner portal. My mentality was to move from the current reactive approach to proactive and eventually a predictive model for our channel partners. We needed a real partner portal platform for Salesforce.” Koorosh Khashayar, VP of Global Channels at 11:11 Systems.
Requirements for the PRM system
11:11 Systems' team knew what they needed to provide in order to drive successful relationships.
The following were four of the main requirements for them when investigating partner relationship management (PRM) portal options:
- Channel partner self-registration
- opportunity registration
- qualification questions
- a central repository to consume content
Business case to add a PRM tool to the techstack
The business case to executive management was straightforward: using Salesforce as their system of engagement had already provided the ability to move at lightning speed with direct customers. They needed to look at their indirect channel partners the exact same way using a PRM.
Why Magentrix PRM won over the competition
While multiple products evaluated had solid point solutions, none of them had the advanced Salesforce integration, digestible pricing models or the expertise to know how to manage our scaling channel partner program - this was something that only Magentrix offered.
Khashayar describes the scenario while evaluating PRM solutions,
“Our business case was simple in that we wanted every partner to be able to securely log in to a portal and consume content when and how they wanted. Magentrix stood above the pack not only for their market leading integration with Salesforce and existing customer references but more importantly their expertise in understanding how best to implement advanced channel management systems.”
Channel partners self-service: Self-registration for the partner onboarding process
11:11 Systems' channel partners can now self-register with a simple and dynamic form that can take them down one of two paths:
- If their organization is already an approved partner in Salesforce, they simply fill out a few fields and gain access to the portal.
- If the company is new then they are presented with a detailed form to fill out more details and enter the existing approval process.
Once logged into the portal the key elements to enable channel partners are front and center.
Partners staying updated with the Newsfeed
A news feed provides at-a-glance updates for what 11:11 Systems is doing around a particular product, solution or relevant press releases.
Partner Enablement: Sales & Marketing Resources and News
Content is king and one of the mainstays of a true channel partner management system is not only how it is presented but also how easily updates are communicated.
Relevant sales and marketing resources such as handouts or data sheets are organized by common categories such as stages of educating and nurturing prospects or by product and solution.
Having a central repository is only as good as the last update and partners love that they can count on the latest and greatest content being presented to them in a news feed or with a notification.
LMS for channel partner training
Modern channel partners need to be on top of their game when it comes to product knowledge and differentiators. Training and certification in a consumable way serves as a solid foundation for 11:11 Systems' indirect channel partners who compete in a quickly changing market against some mature and much larger competitors.
Based on 1 of 4 tiers, channel partners can go through individual or paths of learning modules and need to complete courses with tests to reach certification criteria.
Deal Registration for Channel Partners
At the end of the day partners want to register valid opportunities.
11:11 Systems has taken a modern approach to this by building out a series of qualification questions. In order for opportunities to be approved, a partner must fill out qualifying questions for 11:11 Systems to review and approve, all within Salesforce (and keeping interfaces familiar without putting in additional barriers is key to digital transformation initiatives).
11:11 Systems can continue to work in Salesforce and their channel partners can work with a modern, 24/7, self-service portal.
“Investing in any product is only half the journey. The journey to it, as well as the service and support are what make for partners you want to do business with. Listening to our customers is 11:11 Systems' number one differentiator and Magentrix’s team demonstrated patience throughout our journey along with stellar service and support throughout,” – Khashayar.
