Witnessing the Reinvention of Partner Relationship Management: Impartner

Companies nowadays must constantly adapt to remain competitive and creating strong relations with key stakeholders and partners are critical. According to analysts from Frost & Sullivan, businesses with professionally developed and managed portals with powerful Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software stand to capture an incremental $8 to $9 million in additional revenue from their indirect channel. Although PRM is not a new industry, it has only just recently gained widespread awayness, given 86 percent of partners base their partnership decisions on the portal presentation. Partner Relationship Management solutions are therefore fast becoming one of the single most important investments you can make in your channel program to truly harness the power of your partner network.

With nearly two decades of experience in accelerating indirect sales, Impartner Software is the largest pure-play PRM vendor in the world. It delivers the industry’s most advanced SaaS-based PRM solution, helping companies worldwide manage their partner relationships and accelerate revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner provides the industry’s only out-of-the-box solution that can deploy an enterprise-class Partner Portal in as few as 30 days, using the company’s highly engineered, multi-award winning, three-step Velocity onboarding process. It has won numerous global awards for its technology from both channel and tech organizations including the Stevie Awards, Frost and Sullivan and Channel Vision.

The company was founded in 1997 by Craig Flynn and has been profitable every quarter since. In March, 2015, Kennet Partners and co-investor Joe Wang acquired TreeHouse Interactive and announced plans for expansive growth. Wang, formerly president and CEO of LANDesk Software, leads the company as the new chairman and CEO.

Better management of partners
Partner Relationship Management solutions help companies manage the relationship with their partners in order to drive more revenue and profitability through indirect sales channels. Impartner PRM provides an enterprise-class web portal for partner management, onboarding, deal registration and analytics.

The Competitive advantage

Hybrid-Tenancy Architecture: Like Salesforce, Oracle and other top companies, Impartner features multi-tenant technology to ensure all customers instantly get critical security patches and product upgrades. However, unlike other PRM vendors, Impartner’s hybrid-tenancy model also includes single-tenant functionality, making it possible to tailor updates for users with instances that are customized to address highly complex vendor networks.

Salesforce AppExchange Managed Package: Impartner is the only PRM listed on the Salesforce AppExchange and as an approved managed package, it means a simple installation into the Salesforce platform and quick integration with existing SF objects.

Powerful, Integrated Marketing Automation Platform: Impartner actually started as a Marketing Automation Platform, and it’s in the DNA in a way no other vendor can touch. It offers the industry’s most complete Marketing Automation Platform, allowing even vendors’ smallest partners to market like pros.

Channel Flow Workflow Engine: Channel Flow workflow engine puts the power in the hands of channel teams to manage the flow of their channel operations in real time. With clicks and not code, the workflow engine is engineered to make it easy for channel teams, not IT developers, to instantly tailor their PRM solution to match their business processes, respond to system events and evolve with their business needs.

Unmatched Depth: Behind the scenes, Impartner is engineered at the highest levels to make the hardest tasks easy to use, so channel teams, not IT pros can make changes and manage work flows in real time without causing security risks and coding errors. Plus, several levels of sandboxing give IT teams confidence they can get their instance up and running safely and make sure all systems are go before pushing live.

Plotting the future
The company is set for the continued expansion of the existing geographies and ultimately into APAC. In EMEA and LATAM, the primary go-to-market is through channels and it is also building out its own channel in the US.

It’s all about customers anyway!

National Instruments: After years of stagnation at 600 partners, the company implemented the Impartner PRM solution and saw a 120 percent growth in the revenue of their channel program, their partner base climb to more than 1,000 and the net promoter score for their channel program climb 30 points. They have truly harnessed the power of their channel program so much so that it is now a key differentiator for the company and a key revenue driver.

Asigra: When global cloud-based data protection software provider Asigra, Inc. wanted to transform the customer experience they provided to their network of more than 500 partners worldwide through their online Partner Portal, they turned to Impartner’s SaaS PRM. Asigra wanted to provide partners with more access to marketing materials in the form of a self-service, 24/7 content hub that could service them across multiple time zones with everything they need to do business with them. Since launching, Asigra’s new portal has delivered on those needs and had tremendous partner response, causing an influx of new partners who have shifted to Asigra from other technologies due to the company’s robust partner program. The Partner Portal participation rate has climbed to more than 40 percent and the company has received an ongoing series of awards for its channel program.

Meet the Master

Joe Wang, CEO: Wang joined Impartner in 2015 when he, along with $700M growth equity firm Kennet Partners, acquired a majority ownership of the company, then known as TreeHouse Interactive. Mr. Wang’s record includes 25 years of growing high-tech businesses and generating tremendous returns for his investors.

As CEO at WatchGuard Technologies, he successfully turned around the declining business, creating a profitable and growing company with vastly improved technology and market position. Prior to WatchGuard, Wang made his mark in the Utah high-tech community as CEO of local software powerhouse LANDesk Software, an Intel spin-off, where he grew the company by 150% in four years. He successfully sold LANDesk Software for over $400M, generating 11x return for shareholders. Before LANDesk, Wang was vice president and general manager of Symantec’s Enterprise Administration Division, a business unit with $230M in annual sales. Wang holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Peking University, a master’s degree in managed information systems from Renmin University of China, and a master’s degree in communications management from the University of Southern California.

“With Impartner PRM, you have all the tools you need to succeed hosted in a world-class, secure and scalable environment.”