Peak Consulting blogs

What's next for PRM?

Ross Brown — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 13:55:29 -0600

Two recent events and a client engagement have me thinking a lot about PRM solutions and the challenge that technology vendors have in developing portals for their partners. Historically, PRM solutions have been about partner program automation - delivering an interface to help automate the management of partner contracts, levels and program benefits. Increasingly, PRM solutions are about partner opportunity management - managing lead distribution, deal registration and such.

Does SaaS have room for value?

Ross Brown — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 17:12:48 -0500

The Triangle of Profits - Channel Business Models

Ross Brown — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 13:18:10 -0500

I was catching up on my blog reading in my old network of bloggers and saw a thread that is closer to what I am working on now.

Too Old To Rock n' Roll, Too Young to Die...

Ross Brown — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 11:19:56 -0500

I have a good friend from high school who played in a band with my brother and a couple of other friends that I still keep in contact with by email almost daily. Casey is a really talented guy and has a really talented wife and for years, they balanced having a professional life (he as a tech-writer and her as a teacher) with their alter-ego life as musicians trying to make a music career take off in the South Florida music scene.

Built to Win vs. Built for Win/Win

Ross Brown — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 22:08:52 -0500

Dell is certainly very public about their desire to build out a world class partner program and to start working with their channel partners; to be clear, this isn't about them getting into the channel, but formalizing an existing relationship with partners that accounts for over $4b a year in sales for them.

The 5 Reports that Matter

Ross Brown — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:35:46 -0500

I've been thinking about the reports that Channel Chiefs need to do their jobs effectively - reports that help them analyze what is happening to their partner programs, reports that are predictive on the value their channel is going to provide, as well as reports that can provide demonstrable proof on the value the channel brings.

The five key reports are:

A Culture of Reality

Ross Brown — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 19:02:46 -0500

Steve Burke of CRN wrote a good article, asking the question "Why is HP Winning ?" In his analysis, he cites a lot of good and great reasons for why HP is gaining share across their business from the channel in the past 18-24 months, including bringing in outside talent, a good channel program and great messaging and a channel-engaged CEO.

Can the Channel do Agile?

Ross Brown — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 23:13:29 -0500

One of the ongoing debates in the development world for software has to do with how to best fit customer feedback into the development process, ranging from formal mechanisms for gathering and qualifying customer input to anecdotal driven 'Last customer I talked to wanted X' models. The ability to gain good customer input into the development process often results if the largest customers getting the most attention (as sales sees the customer feedback process as another customer touch point) and products inexorably being pulled up into the enteprise feature saturation game.

Distributions Dirty Little Secret

Ross Brown — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 12:53:22 -0500

There is a good article out today by Craig Zarley of CRN talking about CDW undercutting prices VARs get from distribution on HP products, selling products below the VAR cost. The article explores the 10-Q statements from CDW on their pricing and does a good bit of investigative reporting, but it missing the real culprit behind the price issues - the distributors themselves.

When is an incentive a kickback?

Ross Brown — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 22:48:21 -0500

Infoworld has a news report citing the DOJ as filing lawsuit against Sun, HP and Accenture for kickbacks in government contracting. In short, the vendors paid Accenture for winning government business for them by giving Accenture a rebate or stock options in the company as compensation. Unfortunately, under government regulations, any rebates paid to the vendor for business related to government sales is supposed to be passed through to the government, or it is considered a kickback.