MediaBUZZ - ePublisher of Asian Channels and Asian eMarketing

Article 2 of a 6 part series by ChannelCorp

ChannelCorp is a leading consulting and executive education firm on IT channel economics, partner finance and channel partner growth and survival. We are pleased to be working with the Asian Channels team to bring you a six-issue series on what you need to do in your businesses to help your channel survive, sustain and then grow.

2009 is a big year for product marketing and product marketing-related friction. The product marketing function contains three key sources of friction that appeared many times in the Fire Tests that we conducted:

• Huge numbers of new products need to be/or will be launched in 2009 by vendors who in 2008 did not appear to have any idea of the potential impact on the financial health/investment behavior of the channel partners that will need to market/sell/support the new offerings
• After their 2008/2009 experience, channel partners are concerned about the fundamental quality of products (hardware/software) that will be shipped/released by vendors in 2009 and the impact that poor quality will have on their profitability and customer relationships
• A large number of the products launched in 2008/2009 were not channel-ready . . . with more products and services being launched in 2009 and no clear Product Marketing-driven solution to the channel readiness problem at the industry level, the product readiness problems to partners will likely be worse in 2010 than it will be in 2009

Making sure that products and services are “ready” for the intended channels and markets is a critical challenge for vendors in 2009. The channel readiness checklist below, is designed as a very basic first step to developing channel-ready offerings and eliminating obvious sources of friction. This checklist should be used by product marketers, channel marketers, channel managers and even channel partners to understand the levels of channel readiness in your organization. Look at your 2008 and 2009 launches from a partner perspective and ask whether or not the offerings are excellent, acceptable or unacceptable. Are your products/solutions ready for the channel? If not, why not?

If your organization scored unacceptable on any issue, this is a source of friction and you will have trouble as a result of it. At a minimum, every product or service that you launch must be acceptable with four or five excellent attributes to be successful in the channel.

By Bruce Stuart, president, ChannelCorp

Part 1 of Partner Intelligence – ‘Strategic, Architectural and Coverage Friction’ was featured in Asian Channels May 2009 issue. To download the article, please click here: http://www.mediabuzz.com.sg/asian-channels/may-2009/473-strategic-architectural-and-coverage-friction

ChannelCorp ( http://www.channelcorp.com/) is an IT world leading channel economics, partner finance and channel growth consulting and executive education firm. Founded in 1989 by Bruce and Margaret Stuart, the channel firm is trusted the world over by vendor, distributor and partner management. Material from this article has been extracted from the company’s Reseller Management Handbook available at http://www.channelcorp.com/. Bruce R. Stuart, CMC, president of ChannelCorp can be reached at 604 263 6811 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .