Partner Relations Management: Definition and Advantages

Business is getting more and more interconnected. These are partly the results of globalization and partly the results of the continuous development of new technologies. Since everything is getting more complex, why would businesses not be as complex as well? The relationship between companies, if mapped, would seem like a nest of Byzantine conduits that crisscross one another. And this is the very reason why partner relations management has come into the fore. This is extremely important since many businesses will have a lot of channel partnerships whose output and input needs to be kept track of. PRM contains strategies and software tools that enable businesses to streamline the flow of these relationships. It is usually thought of as a part of CRM or customer relations management. However, its focus is the relationships of one company to another and not of one client with a company.

There are several types of strategies managing channels. There are also a whole lot many tools available in the market that facilitate these types of services. These tools are usually involved in the processes of shipments, deliveries, and distribution of products. These deliveries, shipments, and distributions will of course need to have a strict scheduling. PRM is the organizational principle and software platforms created in order to facilitate the timeliness of such processes. Being late can of course sometimes mean great disaster in a lot of cases. In an extremely busy type of industry, the time window is very small. It is usually just a little above twenty minutes. And there are even smaller time windows. When considering country wide or even global distribution, shipping, and deliveries, it becomes a whole lot more complicated and things become more delicate. Streamlining these processes are not simply a luxury, it is an absolute necessity.

With PRM software tools, such problems of scheduling are minimized. Most of these tools allow access to both sides of the fence. The partner channels will be able to log in all the information of their shipments or deliveries. A direct and uninterrupted line of communication is always necessary for these types of processes. A channel management system connects those who conduct shipments, deliveries, and the manufacturer with utmost reliability and accuracy. It keeps track of the dates, the time of day of deliveries, the shipments themselves, the number, amounts, etc. And the best tools keep track of all these and more at every point of the process from production down to the end users. This information is extremely valuable to the supplier or the company utilizing the partner relations management tool. This is because analysis of this data will enable suppliers to decide how to best allocate their resources and products in a way that would yield the most productive results. This is perhaps the true power of tools used in managing partners.

It also creates a stronger bond between partner companies. With a more reliable business flow, there will be less room for doubts and second guesses. A more honest business atmosphere is created by such data transparence.