By: Cesilia Faustina & Lotfi Alsarori
Communication providers are not slowing down, far from it, and how to handle this progress is becoming a challenge. That’s where partner management comes in. As demands have progressively increased throughout the years, telecom providers started to utilize business partners in order to get the job done more effectively. What started to be an inefficient and complex process turned into the automatic and dynamic system that we see today. We are getting ahead of ourselves here though, as this article will get into that further. So, let’s get started then!
The concept of partner management system
Let’s start with the definition of such a system. A partner management system is a solution for telecommunication networks that tracks and manages business relationships among communications partners. The process of partners relationship management used to be a tedious one, where one would use several non-integrated systems to keep track of relevant work. Thanks to technological advancements though, partner management systems are now so much more advanced than ever before and can handle various related business scenarios more efficiently.
A partner management system is made to improve an operator’s offerings and services based on customer and market requirements by managing work collaborations among partners. This process could be supported by tracking and managing mutual prospective customers until they make a purchase. Such partner management system can retain prospective leads while still fully managing existing mutual customers, products, and all relevant data and transactions, all of which to be done automatically. This whole process works to create greater efficiency and save cost.
Having a system that can automatically generate updated and accurate data from diverse sources can help to reduce mistakes, which means less expenses due to errors or disputes. In addition, saving cost in partner billing creates a better environment for discounts, which one should emphasize in today’s economic climate. So, and we will see in this article, a partner management system is a software made to reduce complexity among business partners.
Main features
We have been talking a lot about how partner management systems are revolutionizing what it means to conduct a telecom workflow, and for good reason. To understand this admiration though, we should look at some of the core features this partner management system can bring to the table.
Ease with partners
A partner management system is made to enhance the relationship experience with business partners by providing a fast and safe way of allocating resources. As we all know, communication providers may have plenty of partners they would need to work with, and in that partnership, some providers may want to allocate a part of their products/services so that the partners can sell on their behalf. Well, a partner management system helps to accelerate this based on the agreements among partners.
As a result, mutual products and services will be offered to customers. Configuration of partners’ products offered to mutual customers will be based on these business agreements including pricing, promotions, discounts, and associated services. Any service level agreements (SLAs) with customers will be based on the agreements, contracts, and SLAs signed among relevant partners. An advanced partner management system handles all types and details of partnership agreements proficiently. These agreements will also affect customer management, sales, and billing and reconciliation among partners as we will see in the next sections.
Customer relationship management
A wholesale management system can help to expand and support the CRM process by providing various features to track and follow up with mutual customers. The system collects data about customers along with their business needs and requirements to ensure optimal fulfilment and satisfaction. With this in mind, one can even customise the best plan or contract for these specific needs, creating a dynamic and customer-centric solution seamlessly offered through a group of partners. This means greater customer satisfaction and experience. The system enables mutual customer care management of customer issues.
End-to-end sales cycles
A communications provider can also improve their sales process with such a system. By integrating the system with the CSP’s process of lead generation and nurturing, sales can run more efficiently and smoothly. This system helps to build attractive services, provides comprehensive and rich offers, automates customer interactions, facilitates quotations, and automates services fulfilment. Such a process will help make a sales cycle (from leads to fulfilment) into a quick and accurate process, improving customer satisfaction.
Billing & reconciliation
A key part of this comprehensive system is handling all of the processes related to partner billing and settlements. Due to the complexity associated with today’s CSPs product and service offerings often coming from a combination of partners, the billing system processing such demands needs to be state-of-the-art. Partner billing needs to account for the handling of the various business scenarios based on the agreements among partners. This includes calculations of things like product costs, sales commissions, and margins. The system also needs to handle reconciliation, settlements, and invoicing among partners based on their agreements and service contracts. In addition, customer billing will be configured and done based on partners agreements discussed earlier. Therefore, partner management software will be integrated with customer billing systems to enable accurate invoicing of products and services offered by multiple partners to customers.
A handy dashboard
Let’s top off these features with a user-friendly and flexible dashboard too. The system should also create a dashboard that is easy to use and look at to analyse all the collected data; with features like a general search, calendar, notifications, shortcuts, and more to make the viewing experience a more comfortable one. In addition, when I say flexible dashboard, one should be able to customize their dashboards according to their needs and comforts, making workflows even better for users.
Integration abilities
A partner management system would also support seamless integration with other systems. This is a very comprehensive and versatile system that exists in a large ecosystem, so one can only expect proper integration abilities. By providing the ability to integrate, securely through open API systems, with third-party systems relevant, functionalities and features can be more comprehensive and easily managed.
The advantages that follow
I believe the advantages speak for themselves if you look at the features available, mind you, the ones mentioned here are only a few out of many. When used right, systems like this can bring about great benefits like improving customer satisfaction (which is crucial since, let’s admit, dealing with telecom customer services can be such a hassle), augment the sales process, create flexibility for the business and any business planning, and generally, just some peace of mind.
A system such as this can help to expand the workflow of telecom companies by allowing them to plan more accurately in terms of operations and market expansion; and any general business outcome a CSP is trying to achieve through partnering with other vendors. Understanding the customers and other factors that affect them is key, a partner management system gives communication companies these opportunities. So, the benefits that come with such a system could be infinite when used wisely.
With overwhelming demands and people’s dependency on telecom providers, a partner management system can help to handle and manage those demands which means richer offerings and better services for customers and peace of mind for telecom providers and partners. That said, I also understand the risks that come with automation and handling infrastructures, however, as mentioned earlier, demands are not slowing down, especially with COVID, and it is either drown as the business grows or excel by automating processes.
Concluding this information
So, as we wrap up this knowledge of Partner management systems, we can only hope that such forms of automation and digitalization will help businesses grow, and for those in the telecom sector, utilizing the right tools for the right services can get you a long way in today’s economic condition. A partner management system is one of those tools. We can only hope that it is being used to its full potential because there is so much more to learn about this system, and who knows what developments to expect in the years to come.
To find out more about partner management and other telecom systems from ESKADENIA, check out ESKADENIA’s telecom software products.
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