You're struggling to manage your partnership's data. How can you keep it organized?

Utilize partner relationship management (PRM) and Ecosystem Business Management (EBM) platforms the connects to each to manage all aspects of partnerships data. PRM includes content management, lead distribution, deal registration, marketing development, promotions, pricing and sales analytics. PRM apps also support customization, so companies can personalize their software for specific partners. EBM manages the influence, transaction, and retention throughout the customer buying journey. It supports recruitment, attribution, mapping, enablement, collaboration, and integrations for ecosystem management, encompassing all partners, whether transacting or non-transacting, traditional or nontraditional.

Effectively managing partnership data involves categorizing information, implementing governance policies, and establishing a centralized repository with version control. To do it effectively- 1. Enforce access controls, regularly back up data, and prioritize security measures such as encryption and cybersecurity training. 2. Standardize naming conventions and utilize tagging/metadata for easy identification. Conduct regular data quality checks, educate users on best practices, and collaborate with IT professionals for optimal data management tools. 3. Documenting workflows and adapting practices over time ensures a robust and organized approach to partnership data management.

Any data strategy will have the challenge that Partnership data will normally reside in multiple locations within a business. CRM, PRM, LMS, MDF, and Incentives data should all feature in building a comprehensive view of a partner and their performance. Accessing these may be cross-departmental, creating friction in assembling an initial data set. The challenge then becomes matching these data sources to build a singular view of the partner. Data integrity is essential to any strategy, and we've built a platform to do this called EdisonAI.

You will never have any (real) influence over a partner's culture. But you certainly should seek to for your own team. And when doing so, be sure and remember 'garbage in, garbage out'. Do not let an over-reliance on executive dashboards - if they aren't built on top of valid and accurate CRM data - get you off to the wrong start.

Partnerships data does not have a singular home in a business. A PRM would claim to hold enough partnership data to drive business with partners. Still, they have not traditionally been great at making this data usable for analysis or predictive modelling. There is no doubt that access to partnership data is growing in importance in 2024.