Vendor Management Features
 

Managing all the associates in your sales process is a time-consuming process. Whether you work with marketing partners or distributors and resellers, keeping accurate numbers for performance measurement and commission calculation can be a challenge. At the same time, your vendors will be able to better serve you if there is a quick and clear communication process. The NetSuite Suite of products extends to your partners and vendors many of the same advantages in productivity and integration that your company will enjoy.

 

Partners

Leads, prospects, and customers that your partners send to your business can be tracked with a code for each partner. These leads are stored as records just like those created via your direct sales process, but they are tagged with a partner code to make them easy to identify. Two benefits of this code are eliminating channel conflict and measuring partner performance.

Eliminate Channel Conflict
If your reseller partners close their own leads, then your sales team will know from the partner code not to call partner leads. Even if these leads contact your sales team, for example by calling your toll-free number, your own sales reps can immediately see if calls should be redirected to the reseller partners. All information about leads stored in their records can be shared between you and the partners since everyone is working with the same records. For example, if you handle post-sale customer care directly, support cases are entered in partners' customer records. As they continue to work with their customers, partners stay aware of issues and can always as appear as knowledgeable as your own sales team.

 

Measure Partner Performance
Whether your sales team closes leads your partners bring to you or your partners close leads themselves, the affiliate tagging of the lead records is extremely valuable for partner performance measurement. In addition to the partner code that identifies who customers belong to, a promotion code can also be assigned to a lead record. For example, if you have agreed to spend marketing co-op dollars on an activity with a partner, you can sub-segment those leads with a promotion code to measure the success of that promotional activity.

 

Measure Partner Performance
As each lead becomes a customer, all information gathered through the process is recorded, including the sales transaction. Partners can log in to theNetSuite Suite of products' Partner Center, a secure area where they can see this information just for their own leads and customers.

 

Since they see the same information you do, no one can dispute performance measurement. They can run their own reports on leads and sales for any given time period, in total or by promotion code. And you, as a manager, can view all the same reports by each of your direct sales and partner channels so that you can evaluate each one to determine the best course of action to give you the best sales results.

To learn more about reports, see our Reporting overview.

Each partner can also be assigned a different discount level on purchases of your product; so, whether they order off your Web site, over the phone or fax, they always get the correct price. Volume purchase discount rules can also be created and given to partners so they have an incentive to purchase and resell in larger quantities. Each partner can use the Customer Center to view their orders and order history, to make payment and to view the status of their orders the same way that end-user customers can.

The partner code can also be used to set up particular customer support rules for them. For example, their customers can automatically be assigned to a specific support team who has unique knowledge about that partner or be given a higher priority in the assignment rules so your response time to their needs is as short as possible.

 

Vendors

The NetSuite Suite of products' Vendor Center extends its integrated capabilities to your suppliers. Purchase requests or system notifications of low stock on hand automatically become purchase orders to your preferred vendor for each particular item.

 

 

As soon as you approve these purchase orders, vendors are notified by e-mail so they can immediately log into the Vendor Center to retrieve their orders. When you Receive the orders and your shipping clerk confirms receipt, inventory levels are automatically updated. At the same time, the accounting department is notified that they have a bill to pay. Automatic reminders can be preset to maintain the best cash flow, and bills can be paid by check or by using our Online Bill Pay feature.

To learn more about bill payment, see our Accounting overview.
 

Conclusion
The NetSuite Suite of products Partner Center and Vendor Center allow you to extend the capabilities of the Suite so that partners can participate as a key component in your sales strategy and so that vendors can process your orders quickly. The self-service capability that each gets allows all of you to operate more productively and without error.

Next Steps
The Features list tab gives you a summary list of all the Vendor / Partner Management features which you can print out for easy reference. Don't forget you can experience these Vendor / Partner Management features for yourself! Start a free Trial of the sNetSuite Suite of products using the employee and customer roles we have pre-defined. Or schedule a live demo and a representative can guide you through the areas of the Suite that interest you most. Finally, you can have one of our representatives contact you to answer any questions you might have.

 


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