Saving channel programs from lead generation and escalation to the development of multi-channel management-based order capture and pricing systems takes a new focus that many of managers and directors championing these programs have not had to deal with: cost reduction and long-term expense reduction.
Now this cost reduction mindset is against the DNA of many of the professionals who champion channel management, marketing, sales, pricing and service in their companies. But to save any channel management program in this environment it’s time to fight for your projects using cost reduction as the new weapon. Keeping sales constant is a major victory.
CFO: Friend or Foe? Depends on Killing Costly Mistakes and Proving It
IT projects have historically been some of the easiest for a CFO to kill.
To make sure your channel management strategies survive you have to get deep into the customer- and channel-facing strategies that have cost your company so much lost business in the past.
Lacking solid ROI analysis and often only accentuating top-line revenue growth, channel management programs only have looked at the upside and therefore lacked accountability. No more – to save your channel management, order capture, order management, pricing or service lifecycle management programs, it’s time to get deep into the processes these systems are aimed at automating and quantify how they can help your company make less costly mistakes.
Keeping channel management strategies intact today requires an entirely new mindset.
Go after the cost reductions made possible from tearing apart the customer processes that have gotten in the way of your company closing business in the past. Instead of relying on ball-park estimates, get into each step of any given processes that has cost you business in the past and really get to the heart of how fixing it can save on costs. Lost business from a broken order capture system lost sales due to an antiquated lead management system, or lack of wins on special pricing requests – all are great areas to quantify how spending on channel management programs can save on costs.
Bottom Line: Get accountable, save a channel management project. Commit to aggressively pursue the knowledge to understand where the disconnects are in your channel management processes and measure those both in daily operating costs and lost sales. Get that into a scorecard, even a dashboard fed by XML links if you can automate it. That’s key to getting your CFO’s support and saving your program too.
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