Enhance your Channel by Employing a Robust Channel POS Data Management System
The customer is the most vital aspect of any business. Without customer knowledge, management can only guess how to sell a product. Channel POS data obtained from reporting partners contain crucial and fundamental information regarding transactions, returns, and purchases.
In-depth knowledge of customers and point-of-sale activity are critical aspects of any successful marketing and sales strategy. Having an accurate, up-to-date snapshot of the customer base is especially vital to upselling opportunities.
Managing POS Data With Excel Spreadsheets
Excel spreadsheets for managing POS data or any data can seem like a godsend for average managerial tasks.
They’re easy-to-use, cost-effective, maintain seamless accessibility and pull data from multiple resources into one solidified document.
However, in the intricate realm of the channel industry, Excel spreadsheets can contribute to a series of detrimental pitfalls—and the worst part is—these blunders can be completely unnoticed until it’s too late.
Manufacturers and vendors that utilize Excel spreadsheets to manage POS data and inventory levels risk much more than overpaid claims or miscalculated SKUs—they risk losing clients.
The ultra-competitive b2b environment within the indirect sales funnel is filled with complex information, leaving manufacturers and vendors with very little wiggle room for POS data entry errors or erroneously reviewed claims. Without batting an eyelash, channel partners you once deemed important to your company’s success will terminate the relationship due to managerial incompetence: a common and completely avoidable company gaffe.
If you’re thinking to yourself “I haven’t experienced any issues managing POS data with Excel spreadsheets, and thoroughly believe that it is a reliable resource that completes its intended purpose,” –you’re not alone, and you might be right. But the underlying theme is not knowing whether you are right or wrong. And with the evaluation of channel data becoming an increasingly essential component of a company’s decision-making process, the risk of misinterpreting information is too great to jeopardize.
1.) It Does Not Save Time
To a certain extent, we are all familiar with Excel spreadsheets.
And for in-house marketing managers, auditors, control supervisors, and accounting managers—Excel spreadsheets would appear to be the most logical tool for analyzing channel programs, managing POS data, and/or inventory data management. During the initial set-up of program guidelines, accumulating POS and/or inventory data and the process of partner sign up, Excel spreadsheets seem like a rational way to evaluate the numbers.
But in the long-run, as more incentive programs come into play and more partners are added into your clientele list, the limitations and inflexibility (to modify channel programs and manage POS data) can become tediously time-consuming.
2.) One Dimensional Modification Features
Adding incentives and accepting or denying claims are examples of parallel data storage, in which channel managers can possibly deploy without the need for PRM software. But what happens when you want to add exclusivity of incentives for different partners? What happens when you can’t differentiate duplicate POS data from unique applications? What happens when you can’t oversee inventory stock levels ? or who the end-user is ? or when POS occurred?
The limitations of Excel spreadsheets for managing POS data are vast. Without a robust platform that gathers, stores, cleans, and analyzes data with seamless efficiency and accuracy—you risk the very partnership you worked so hard to establish.
3.) Lacks Visibility
Data insight into the indirect sales funnel is crucial to marketing strategy. Analyzing channel sales data also helps your business’ productivity levels. With an Excel spreadsheet, you have access to only a sliver of the broad data landscape within your industry. Essentially, your Excel binoculars only give you limited vision into the channel. Whereas PRM software vendors, such as Computer Market Research, provides POS data vision as far as the eyes can see.
CMR’s Channel POS Data Management System
CMR’s channel POS data management tool provides manufacturers with enhanced customer relations by providing snapshots of buying patterns to enable more effective customer communications. In addition, Channel POS™ can pinpoint whether resources, both time and people, are being effectively allocated.
The system also assists sales reps in determining what a given customer is buying. As a result, sales reps can identify when and to whom to upsell. This enables you to have a topical conversation with the customer. You can also use the data to target customers who aren’t ordering certain products from you and design a marketing campaign around them.
Channel POS™ can also be used to track rebates, calculate the return on investment of various marketing campaigns and give the sales team a window into the state of their accounts. So, if sales are down for a given representative, Channel POS™ can identify trends in customer orders. By studying these trends sales reps can contact the customer and find out what’s going on. Channel POS™ gives manufacturers a snapshot of customer buying patterns with drill-down capabilities. This functionality, therefore allows management to target their customer communications better.
A Web-Based Channel Data Management Software
Our Channel POS™ web-based software is a state-of-the-art tool that streamlines the collection and processing of reports from multiple reporting partners and creates comprehensive Crystal reports of monthly sales analytics by territory, reseller, product and/or distributor. When distributors send their required POS data in a standardized format to the system, the data is then automatically imported into the CMR’s channel POS data management system from which OLAP cubes and Crystal reports can be extracted. Subsequently, you can export the POS data to Excel for further “on-the-fly” manipulation. Therefore, by enabling reporting partners to provide customer purchase data in an easy-to-use collection and reporting process, manufacturers gain increased business intelligence that translates into increased future revenue. In today’s environment, this can make the difference in keeping storefront doors open or closed.
Accurate, complete and timely channel POS data and partner’s sales records regarding specific aspects of all individual sales, provide the manufacturer with information about who, when, why, where and how the . Yet so many companies struggle to receive complete channel POS data in a timely, usable format.
CMR Channel POS™ provides an affordable optimized solution for collecting data by matching spellings, titles, products, file formats, and more so that the reporting information is accurate and easy to analyze. As a result, business intelligence is generated quickly and timely to provide amazing results for channel enhancement.
Buffalo Technologies and D-Link, among many others, have used CMR for years to receive timely customized reports to meet the unique sales analytics required by their companies. We’ve supported them to achieve respective leadership in their industries. We’ve done it for these companies and can do it for you too!
Automate your Partner’s Channel POS Data Processing
Features and Benefits
Allows Instant and Secure Access, 24/7
via a secure web portal.
Built-in Reminder System
Ensures timeliness among multiple users.
Calculates Commissions Accurately
Matches representatives, territories and product data, making commission processing easy.
Improves Data Quality
Merges and improves POS data quality prior to final reporting. For example, “ABC” is made equivalent to “ABC, Inc.” It also scrubs and matches parts to your current parts list.
Identify New Customer Information
Identify your new resellers and end users and receive comprehensive reseller profiles with contact options.
Features a Report Card Tool
Provides you with information about the accurately collected channel POS data and what areas need improvement.
Reduces Processing Time
CMR can process most file formats for you. We have automated the channel POS data cleansing process.
Helps Maintain Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance
Provides sales and inventory metrics with an .
Schedule a Demo to see our channel POS solution in action