Resellers Can Build Their Brands
Salesnet today enhanced its reseller relationship with a new version--Salesnet OEM v.2--of its private labeling solution, meant to simplify the branding process. The company also added more than 50 product enhancements to its flagship on-demand CRM tool for its enterprise customers in preparation for its 25th Anniversary Edition, set for release this winter.
Salesnet OEM v. 2 recognizes the individualized needs of resellers to brand themselves to their customers, even at the expense of Salesnet losing some of its own brand identity. This latest version includes a Partner Branding Template and allows resellers to complete the branding process in minutes, according to the company. It also includes automated email customization so that, for example, requests for login information can be sent from partner@partner.com, instead of support@salesnet.com, thereby giving partners better ownership of their customers and allowing them to use their own name and brand.
"It is critical for our partners to fully own the relationship with their customers and this latest release of our OEM edition empowers them to do just that," said Rich Perkett, Salesnet cofounder and CTO, in a written statement. "[Simplifying] the branding process ultimately allows our partners to focus their efforts on other vital aspects of their business."
Focusing on the resellers' needs could be a key competitive advantage for Salesnet, according to Denis Pombriant, founder and managing principal at Beagle Research Group. While Sage Software has a large reseller channel, its strategy is more focused on its own brand recognition, Pombriant says. "The reseller channel is an important and frequently overlooked part of the market. Salesnet has been very perceptive in recognizing that as a point growth area." Unlike Sage or Salesforce.com, "the strategy Salesnet has embarked upon is to take a low profile and allow the partners to get some daylight. If you're a customer you want to know whoever you're dealing with is fully capable of meeting your demands and concerns."
The focus of Salesnet's other release is to streamline the end-user experience by simplifying configurations and adding more flexibility, according to the company. "These latest product enhancements uphold Salesnet's continuous improvement philosophy in addressing overall system usability, performance, and reliability," said Jonathan Tang, president and cofounder, in a written statement. "It is this philosophy that will also be the impetus for the upcoming Anniversary enhancements...and will represent the most extensive enhancements in the company's history." Key features include:
Deal fields in Communication Manager--Create proposals, quotes, and opportunity summary documents using the Salesnet MS Word integration at four times the speed.
Reporting privileges--Control multiple access levels.
Formulas within formulas--Calculate values based on other fields by using embedded calculated fields within other calculated fields.
Record-to-record relationships--Define record relationships between like objects, such as "parent company" and "subsidiary," and relate one deal to another (for example, cross-/upsell).
Deal Import Wizard--Create and import deal records, round-robin deals to sales groups within the organization, and stagger deal creation across a period of time. Ian Hendry, director of Salesnet partner Entelegen, says Deal Import Wizard is the most significant enhancement for his customers: "[It] simplifies migration from other contact management and CRM systems, broadens the number of deals a sales team can manage, and expedites the sales cycle."
Deal Import Wizard could be critical for preventing overlap, Pombriant, says. "This is a very real problem, especially in larger organizations, where there may be several reps calling a company. [Reps] could be competing with themselves," he says. "As unlikely as it might be in most situations, [companies] have to start looking outward at the other gotchas you have to ensure your software prevents."
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