Qollabi data analysis shows that partner productivity increases up to 35% for account managers who define what success looks like with their agent or broker vs. those who don’t.

Using spreadsheets to identify all the leading indicators and necessary tasks for joint business plan success has its limitations. Data is not synchronized and becomes siloed; there’s limited automation when you collaborate with partners; and the lack of data aggregation across distribution partners makes using templates a manual, confusing process.

Build mutual success plan templates in Qollabi that you can collaborate with partners on. As you learn what works well and what doesn’t, you can scale mutual success planning, while still having the flexibility to adjust and update plans based on unique OKRs and other factors.

Distribution partner data is often siloed, such as among customer relationship management (CRM) software, business intelligence (BI) platforms, and agent portals.

How can you connect the dots? Use BRM software.

These types of tools, even prominent ones like Salesforce or Microsoft BI, generally involve analyzing end results, i.e., lagging indicators, rather than leading indicators. That’s like looking at your finish time in a race and trying to improve based on that alone, instead of also looking at what led to that result, like your training plan.

Qollabi’s BRM software connects the dots between achieving your end results (lagging indicators) and the status of the KPIs and activities like mutual success planning (leading indicators) needed to achieve the end result.

Communication is key to partner success, but without business relationship management capabilities, it’s hard to keep track of everything that’s happening throughout your partner ecosystem.

Project management tools are great for internal collaboration, but they’re generally not ideal for external collaboration with partners, especially when it comes to complex indirect sales channel agreements or technical partnerships. Assigning tasks to your partners and sending/receiving status updates usually happens over email or in separate tools, making it hard to keep track of progress.

Qollabi’s shared spaces keep everyone literally on the same page in terms of tracking priority items and understanding where joint business plans need extra attention.

You can have a great strategy and OKR plan, but in the end, it all comes down to execution. This means making sure the right things are done in the right way, and on time.

It’s already hard to keep track of all the tasks you and your team members need to complete, let alone all the tasks you agreed on with your distribution partners. Task management and project management tools tend to work better for internal to-dos, rather than keeping you in the loop on mutual success plans.

Qollabi’s BRM software makes managing your partner ecosystem less stressful by keeping everyone up-to-date. Your partners and team members will get reminders about important tasks and milestones so they stay on target, and partnership managers will get notifications about task progress and OKR plan achievements.

If you want successful, committed partnerships, your business needs to measure if you’re meeting mutually agreed upon goals.

Managing your partner ecosystem is a niche area that most analytics platforms aren’t designed for. You want software that specializes in business relationship management.

Get on the same page as your distribution partners and maintain momentum by sharing OKR plan progress. If you need to course correct, having clear data to share makes that easier.