Deal Registration has become irrelevant, and few vendors will include it in their partner program going forward. Those were the predictions around three years ago. There’s content out there from 2017 which explains the thinking. Because channel partners are focused more and more on value added services, then Deal Registration, which rewards partners for reselling, is no longer important.
Yet Deal Registration not only didn’t die out in the last three years, it’s become the mainstay of many partner programs, for both larger and smaller vendors. Why is that? Why is Deal Registration alive and kicking?
Just to be sure, here’s what we mean by Deal Registration. A channel partner identifies a customer opportunity. They ‘register’ the opportunity - usually in an on line tool - which alerts the vendor. The vendor reviews the opportunity and if it meets certain criteria, then they work the deal with the registering partner, providing pre-sales resources. Other partners don’t get the deal support. In some cases additional financial incentives are available to the registering partner.
The benefits to the registering partner are clear. Being recognized as ‘first in’ with a customer opportunity triggers vendor support and potential commercial advantages. But why would a vendor offer Deal Registration?
The reason is pipeline visibility. Deal Registration gives the vendor visibility of customer opportunities through indirect channel that otherwise they don’t see. Which means they can do a number of things, they can:
- Ensure that the partner is qualified to win and deliver the deal, which is good for end customer experience.
- Provide the registered partner with access to tools and resources that will increase the likelihood of a win, which is good for revenue.
- Link sales opportunities to demand generation investment, tracking how customers respond to campaigns, which is good for marketing.
- Gain insight on opportunity conversion rates in the channel, by solution and partner type, then take appropriate action, which is good for planning.
These reasons were so compelling for vendors, who had previously had little insight into partner-generated customer sales pipeline, that Deal Registration become an essential program element. In the five years to 2015 most partner programs included or added Deal Registration. Then the doubts set in.
Deal Registration became essential as part of a resell model, where partners bought and resold hardware or software licenses. And as such it seemed to be less relevant to the emerging service-led role of partners, and to the provisioning models of born-in-the-cloud vendors. Let’s explore those two things a little more.
Increasingly the services role of a channel partner is eclipsing their importance to end customers, and to vendors, as resell agents. Hardware for example, can be bought through a wide range of channels, and the differentiator for a modern partner in a customer deal is unlikely to be the price of the box. The differentiator is going to be the value of experience and expertise that the partner brings, the services they wrap around the deal. And Deal Registration doesn’t seem relevant to that.
Then we have the cloud provisioning model. When software is part of the deal then the vendor might transact directly with the customer to provide access to cloud-based solution. So in fact customer visibility is no longer a challenge for vendors. They have a direct customer relationship, alongside the partner. Again, Deal Registration is irrelevant.
Or is it?
It’s been interesting to note that the term Deal Registration is sometimes hard to come to terms with as part of modern partner programs. Because it feels like a throwback to the old resell model. So vendors sometimes call it ‘Opportunity Registration’ or ‘Sales Lead Registration’. But it’s the same thing. And it’s as important to programs today as it ever was. Possibly more important. How can that be?
As with many things channel, the first mover was Microsoft. In 2018 Microsoft announced a program called the ‘Cosell Program’. It’s been a big hit with partners worldwide, it’s now an established part of the Microsoft program, and is a major contributor to Microsoft channel revenues.
Microsoft realised that channel partners who lead on services have pre-sales support requirements that vary deal by deal. Some partners in some deals need simply to be endorsed by Microsoft as a partner with the right skills and experience to deliver. Other partners need help to demonstrate that the proposed solution works for the customer, perhaps in a test environment. In very large deals there might be a requirement to align the activities of Microsoft’s own sales teams with those of the channel partner, so clarity of role is required.
How is this done? The partner registers the opportunity in the Cosell Portal. The deal is reviewed by Microsoft to ensure that it’s real and current, and what level of support is required to close it. If the Cosell registration is approved
then Microsoft will work with the approved partner to close the deal, and not with other partners.
This is, or course, Deal Registration. It turns out that registering deals with vendors, and allowing the vendor to support the ‘first in’ channel partner, is as relevant with modern partner programs as it was ten years ago. And for the same reasons. It allows the vendor to ensure that the right partner is supported with the right resources to win the deal. And in these days where Customer Experience is moving quickly up the agenda, that’s an essential need.
Deal Registration, the tool that gave vendors visibility of sales pipeline in the resell model, is now protecting customer experience in the services model. And few leading vendors would contemplate a partner engagement model without this process embedded in it.