CCC RECAP: How Channel Data Management Can Remedy Poor Data Hygiene

Few IT vendors have the systems, processes, and discipline to collect, manage, and analyze data properly.

By T.C. Doyle

Given the amount of data at their fingertips, technology vendors should have all the information they need to develop more effective go-to-market strategies. But many still struggle to make informed decisions on a regular basis.

On June’s Channelnomics Community Call, we examined why in an engaging conversation on channel data management (CDM). In our discussion, Channelnomics COO Cindy Herndon zeroed in on what prevents top leaders from leveraging their data more effectively: poor data hygiene.

“To run an effective channel partner program, channel leaders need accurate and up-to-date information,” Herndon said. “The trouble is that few IT vendors have the systems, processes, and discipline to collect, manage, and analyze data from their various sales channels, such as distributors, resellers, and master agents. As a result, their leadership may make decisions based on incomplete or — worse — bad data.”

Channelnomics believes vendors must aggressively invest in better CDM. Doing so isn’t cheap or easy, Herndon noted. One reason? Data growth today is exploding. The global datasphere, which includes all the data created, captured, and replicated across the world, is expected to reach 181 zettabytes by 2025. This is more than five times the amount of data created in 2018.

Given the sheer volume of data that technology companies collect from sales, marketing, manufacturing, and customer experiences, many are overwhelmed and thus have poor data hygiene. What they lack is a formal and rigorous process for collecting and managing data properly. CDM is such a process, enabling companies to collect point-of sale (POS) data, inventory data, and sales-in data from channel partners, and then transform it all into a channel intelligence system that can be used to better put the information to work.

Channelnomics believes proper CDM involves defined processes for data cleansing, data validation, data standardization, deduplication, data protection, and, finally, ongoing data governance. These steps are summarized below:

• Data cleansing: The first step toward improved data hygiene involves identifying and correcting or removing errors, inaccuracies, duplicates, and inconsistencies in your data.
• Data validation: Next, vendors must verify the accuracy and reliability of data by comparing it against predefined rules, constraints, or external sources.
• Data standardization: After validation, vendors should establish consistent formats, structures, and naming conventions for data elements. Standardization helps to improve data consistency and compatibility across different systems and applications.
• Data deduplication: This step involves identifying and eliminating duplicate records within a dataset. Removing duplicates helps to improve data accuracy, eliminate redundancy, and prevent errors or confusion when processing or analyzing the data.
• Data protection: One of the most import steps is developing protocols for protecting sensitive or confidential data from unauthorized access, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations, and implementing security controls to prevent data breaches or data loss.
• Data governance: Finally, vendor organizations must develop policies, procedures, and controls that govern the management, usage, and quality of data within an organization. This ensures accountability, establishes data ownership, and defines roles and responsibilities for maintaining data hygiene.

With improved CDM, technology vendors can easily review channel partner performance, add new reporting partners, and grow sales. What’s more, CDM-created data can be integrated into a vendor’s business intelligence systems to create real-time channel performance data for executive leadership, finance, sales, and even channel partners.

If you’re interested in learning more on how to put CDM to work for your organization, please reach out to Cindy Herndon at cherndon@channelnomics.com. She can walk you through our Channel Fiscal Optimizer (CFO) service, which provides channel leaders with the tools and strategies to work cooperatively with finance leaders in an organization to effectively measure, model, and report the impact of the channel on a company’s profits, investments, and expenses.

WHAT’S NEW AT CHANNELNOMICS

• Analyst Note: Why Incentives Fail: Technology vendors devise sophisticated back-end rewards but often trip over common stumbling blocks.
• Changing Channels: HPE’s Paul Hunter on Transitioning Channels to ‘as-a-Service’: The managing director of North America at HPE joins Changing Channels’ Larry Walsh to discuss the traditional data center hardware company’s transition to the Everything-as-a-Service model and what it meant to its channel program.
• In the Margins: Distribution Evolving to Tackle Ecosystem Orchestration: Larry Walsh and Channelnomics Head of Industry Alliances and Senior Analyst Bryn Nettesheim discuss how distribution is evolving to tackle ecosystem orchestration.

COMING SOON: Watch for new content from Channelnomics.

• REPORT — Sustainability Initiatives Take Root in the IT Channel: How tech vendors are extending corporate sustainability efforts to their partner networks and programs.
• ANALYST NOTE — How AI is reshaping tech support in the channel: AI is having a significant impact on the way technology vendors and channel partners are approaching tech support delivery.
• PRIMER — Getting renewals right: Vendors are struggling with subscription renewals. Many think partners don’t deserve the compensation they expect. But what are they missing? This primer aims to help vendors understand how to structure their renewal policies in such a way that all parties — customers, partners, and vendors — will thrive.
• ASK CHANNELNOMICS: What’s the proper ratio of CAMs to partners? Advice for staffing your team effectively.

Finally, be sure to join us on July 18 for our next Channelnomics Community Call. The topic: getting renewals right.

Channelnomics Community Calls, which usually take place on the third Tuesday of each month, are open to any channel professional and practitioner. Meanwhile, if you’re a Channelnomics iQ subscriber looking to request your monthly one-on-one call or schedule your annual channel program review, send an e-mail to Laura Maziejka at info@channelnomics.com.

NOTE: Based on attendee feedback, Channelnomics will be moving its monthly community call to the first Thursday of every month in August. We will also move to a new time, 2 p.m. ET.