ALLIANTIST

With the advent of the internet information has never been more easily accessible. At the click of a few buttons you can get thousands of results – but isn't that a problem as well? As the costs of collaboration have dropped through the lowering costs of search, there are increasing opportunities costs of distilling the information and getting underneath the data to find out what's behind the glossy websites in a cost effective fashion.

In addition some organizations also have an existing portfolio of partners and these should normally be used for certain activities. But for a large organization with busy professionals who just want to do their day job they might not have time to trawl through corporate intranets and chase down hundreds of potential partners that are managed by another part of the business. It's no surprise then that a common response to the question about partner search for these busy people is 'I asked the person I sit next to who they used last time'. This invariably means that the individual may not have secured the best partner from their existing portfolio and will have potentially damaged their chances of achieving the best results from their alliance opportunity, which could well affect the organization reputation and results.

A good example of how we addressed this is for BT Global Services (BTGS) in creating a partner opportunity search tool (POST) within our PAM software. BTGS has a portfolio of existing technology and services sales partners managed by the Global Partners sector. With some 4000 sales professionals globally who focus on their own customers the sales staff can't be expected to know all about the partners in the portfolio who can complement BTGS offerings. Despite having a corporate intranet with some partner information it was too difficult for sales staff to navigate the portfolio and this often meant reduced win chances from picking the wrong partners, ultimately losing important sales opportunities. With POST the sales staff are now able to do a very quick search from the portfolio and with just 3 clicks of a mouse, match a long list of partners, including BTGS internal delivery services to their opportunity before taking them in to a more detailed short list selection exercise (if relevant). In addition to the efficient and effective search of existing partners we also integrated POST with the BTGS internal intelligence sources and can do the same with external information providers making the search process even easier and more effective.

To learn more about partner search and PAM as a solution to meet your needs contact us now on either +44 (0)1273 704500 or email enquiries@alliantist.com