Forecasting Upsell Opportunities with Partner Relationship Management Software

In the medieval times, kings and emperors search for the most powerful prophets and far seers. This is because time and time again, history has proven that: “Knowledge is power”. Having the knowledge of what will happen in the future would grant power for anyone. The kingdom that has the most accurate prophet and far seers will be victorious. In the business industry it is also crucial to have the gift of foresight for a company can somehow predict business turn of events. If a company is able to foresee upcoming business problems they can create counter measure and solution to remedy the imminent problem, which can save the company from profit lost and even bankruptcy. If a manufacturing company can predict upsell and cross selling opportunities, they can capitalize market growth and increase their revenue.

So what is the relationship between accurate forecasting of upsell opportunities and proper management of resellers? A manufacturing company depends on indirect sales channels or distributors to increase their market. However ever since distributors have boomed and became global, it becomes much harder to manage them. This is where the problem snowballs, when a manufacturing company fails to establish a proper communication link between their distributors, chances are both parties are blindly engage in overlapping efforts causing channel conflicts. And with the line between channels and their company broken, certain portions of the market are neglected and are not addressed. With a cloudy visibility of company and their distributor’s pipe lines it is almost impossible to forecast joint sales accurately.

Information such as inventory access, vendor agreement, newly developed marketing strategies do not reach the company’s channel partners if there is no communication between them and their company. Relevant information such as these is vital in the performance of the company’s resellers. On the other side the company is also being cut off from crucial business reports such as customer feedback and competitor tracking which comes from their indirect sales team. Without knowing the feedback of their customers, how can a manufacturing company study the buying pattern of their target market? How can they improve their products or service based on what their customers want and need? With this kind of scenario the company will not be able to accurately forecast upsell opportunities.

An effective partner relationship management software can easily solve the mentioned problems above. By applying the right software the company can easily manage their pipelines and create a bidirectional communication between them and their resellers. A clear pathway for information exchange will be developed when a good communication relationship has been established between the company and their distributors. Companies will also be able to increase the accuracy of their forecasting and sales pipeline reports. If effective partner managing software is applied, it will allow resellers to update, view and even add new sales opportunities. The power to see what lies ahead can bring great opportunities for business companies and this can be achieved by choosing the right channel partner managing software.