What's the most important attribute of a channel manager?

Nick Sheehan, chief executive, EFEX Group

My initial answer is flexibility. Businesses these days are trying to stand out and as technology commoditises itself there are limited ways resellers and dealers can stand out. One way is by being agile and doing things that others can’t. Some of that is dictated by channel managers – if you’re in a deal and there is an opportunity to provide a service that someone else can’t provide, it’s generally because those people are giving you something that’s a bit out of the box as well.

Channel manager flexibility allows you to be flexible with end users – the people who matter the most. One example is a large education deal we’ve just done. Because of its size, warehousing was a concern. But the distributor was able to warehouse stock for us and send it in a drip fashion, which made our life much easier. They did it without affecting our price or terms structures, which was a huge help. It allowed us to navigate the presales part of that deal with a lot more ease.

John McVicker, managing director, Best IT Engineering

The core attribute I would consider is your motivation and whether you have a strong sense of purpose. For us, that is about helping create success for our target community. Number two is your communication skills and your ability to understand a partners’ environment, because like all good salespeople your job is to find and solve problems. So if you have that real ability to listen and understand, you need to combine it with a real desire to create success.

The third quality I would look for is your level of creativity and if you can find fresh solutions to your partners’ problems. We are in a shifting environment where people are trying to find equilibrium or even a toehold in what is a vastly changing market. The same strategies that were employed even two years ago may now be irrelevant. Partners face these challenges and channel managers need a high level of creativity to overcome them.

Brett Lodge, general manager, Subnet

As a smaller South Australian reseller, Subnet has dealt with many approaches to channel management with our vendors. It is most effective when our channel manager has two key attributes – collaboration and enablement. Having a channel manager that wants to work with you to develop a market segment equally and retains open and honest communication delivers the best results.

There also needs to be active engagement and accountability on both sides to continue developing the relationship.

Where the engagement didn’t work, the channel was managed through sporadic phone calls asking for a monthly number, lack of follow up on actions or no real substantive desire to work together on the partnership.

Luckily at Subnet we have found and developed fantastic relationships with our core partners, which continues to benefit both sides.