Many channel managers have had vivid, personal experiences of partner websites which have failed to deliver! Many companies have blown millions on such projects over the last few years.

Yet some supplier websites are buzzing. Software vendor Oracle, for instance, claims that 67% of its 6,300 partners worldwide, visit its new supersite at least three times a week. Car maker BMW reckons that all its UK motor dealers visit its site at least once a day. Some visit a dozen times daily.

These web-based solutions offer some obvious benefits. Partners can select the tools and programmes they want to use. And suppliers can easily monitor traffic and identify which programmes work best.

How can we reconcile these two views? What can PRM deliver? And how can suppliers avoid the pitfalls? But, first, what functions are really encompassed by PRM? And who is doing what online?

Simon Wallace-Jones is chief executive of Foundation Network, a UK-based PRM supplier. For him, PRM encompasses everything you would want to do with your partner online. This could mean online profiles of partners, with the ability to search for partners with particular skills. It could mean the ability to handle leads, artwork and promotions online. It could mean the ability to purchase products online. It could mean online training. Or it could be the online booking of seminars and conferences. Or simply telling partners about products and services.

The RTMA talked to half a dozen senior channel managers in the IT and motor industry about their experience. Most see PRM as a way of helping partners through the sales process. They say that PRM can free up staff for frontline sales and face-to-face meetings.

They are emphatic, however, that PRM solutions can not replace proactive account management. And do not expect your partners to surf your site proactively. The manager of one big software company said: "Your website won't influence partners. Just like the web itself, it is a depository of information and a reference source." How you deploy PRM depends on your position in the market, the types of partners you work with and how close they are to you as a supplier.

Put simply, a supplier whose products are a breadwinner for its partners and who sells them directly to its partners, will get a lot of traffic. A secondary supplier whose product doesn't represent more than 5% of its partners income, and who sells through wholesalers, may see very little traffic indeed.

Wallace-Jones reckons PRM has potential in any industry which is selling products at $5,000 and upwards through multi-tiered channels. Note that the closer the link between supplier and intermediary, the more likely PRM is to succeed.

It is perhaps no surprise then that the motor industry, where dealers are tied to manufacturers, has some of the most advanced systems.

"If I simply told partners to go to the homepage, many would forget their passwords!"

But it all depends on your partners needs. In the computer industry, developers, who depend for their livelihood on a particular software platform, have big information needs. Keith Harris, head of European operations at software vendor Filemaker, says: "We have a really active developer section of the site. Novices go there to get advice and solutions from more experienced programmers. If I posted something saying that prices were rising, I would get 30 to 40 emails and 20 calls that day." He reckons this part of the site works because these people's businesses are 30% to 100% dependent on the Filemaker product.

But Harris says that resellers who occasionally sell his product are most unlikely to use the site at all. "We find they simply aren't interested." And he notes: "Our biggest partners, the top 20 or 30 in a country, may well use the website extensively, but they are very sensitive to being always told to go to the web. You have to integrate the site with face-to-face and telesales."

Wallace-Jones at FNL reckons PRM can help persuade a large number of small partners to sell more. "A PRM solution should make it easier for partners to go to market," he claims. But even major suppliers may face huge resistance getting partners to the site.

Wendy McKenzie, EMEA partner programme director at software vendor BMC said: "We have monthly meetings where we get a bunch of partners together. I always ask them how many of you have seen our website? And I am always surprised how few have. You have to show them where to find specific information. So we send out emails inviting them to click through on a link to see our pricing page. If I simply told them to go to the homepage, many would forget their passwords!"

Wallace-Jones agrees. "Leads management systems work best where leads are dispatched by email. Otherwise, many partners will simply fail to go the website to pick up the leads."

He adds: "Not all tools fit all partners. Some people buy into tools which give them an extra discount if they replace a competitors product. Some want to do online training. You have to put a broad spectrum of tools out there."

Ultimately, he says: "PRM systems will fail unless the partners can see a clear benefit from using them. And the supplier has to be prepared to send out a stream of new initiatives to get partners to visit the site."

Duncan Forrester is in charge of communications with dealers at BMW. He believes that, historically, many suppliers have failed to understand the information needs of their partners. Previously, companies published elaborate brochures and assumed they were read. The web has allowed them to measure real response and the results are sobering.

One obvious way of getting buy in from dealers is to ensure that the information is relevant, not just to the partner, but also to the job title of employees inside the partner. Both FNL and Oracle give different information cuts, depending on the viewer's job title.

If partners buy direct from their supplier, there is little doubt that electronic ordering can save time and money. McKenzie says: "Online ordering had really worked. It enables us to cut through all the bureaucracy and ship product much faster."

A major promise of PRM is the ability to carry online profiles of your partners, updated by them. In theory, this should save your time and money, and also ensure that information on partners is always up-to-date. It is very much in the partners interest to update his profile, as this will affect the prices he pays, and the leads he gets. Harris at Filemaker said: "Self-profiling works with those companies who feel their relationship with you is important, which is good - because those are the ones you will do most with anyway."

Others are unconvinced. Steve Dunn, European channel manager at Sybase says: "In my experience if you let partners self-profile, they exaggerate their skills and size. It is much harder to detect these problems if you don't fill out the information yourself." But Wallace-Jones at FNL argues: "People who lie will lie face-to-face and on the phone, why should they lie more online?"

Everyone agrees that it is vital that such PRM databases feed into the company's wider customer relationship management solution. McKenzie at BMC says: "The database allows our direct salesforce to see who our resellers are and what skills they can offer."

The next twist on from self-profiling is build a locator, a search mechanism allowing end-users to identify which of your partners offers the solution they need. McKenzie at BMC says this works well for Oracle.

"Solutionsmarketplace.oracle.com is a great way to find the solution which is specific to your needs and your industry. It is very well-used indeed."

However, setting up such systems brings its own trials and tribulations. For instance, many suppliers' products and partners are undifferentiated. Partners are very jealous of any indication that a vendor is pushing other partners solutions. Turf wars are a real danger. Dunn at Sybase says: "You also risk introducing all your partners' customers to their competitors!"

But Wallace-Jones maintains that many people have yet to wake up to the power of locators. And he argues that, for such systems to work, companies have to provide end-users with a series of prompts to help them define what they are looking for.

Whilst Oracle has decided to plum for a massive new partner site, many suppliers have actually cut back.

Harris at Filemaker says its national end-user sites across Europe dropped from an average of 900 pages to just 300 pages this spring. One vendor said they had effectively scaled back their PRM site in the same way. 'We found that most partners wanted very simple information on prices and products. So we have built a kind of bubble site with this data on top of our main partner site.'

Dunn argues: "It is easy to be swept away and go for complexity. You really have to keep it simple, stupid."

Forrester at BMW reckons that what dealers need, above all else, is quick access to information. BMW's latest initiative is a content management system which will enable dealers to ask on a daily basis "what is new on the site." "We want them to be able to dash in, see what is new and quit."

This all begs the question of what motivates companies to create some of these sites in the first place.

"You have to look for specific things you can automate successfully."

One manager said: "Frankly, we created a complex partner website mainly because senior managers inside our company wanted to see one. So a lot of it was internal public relations."

But Wallace-Jones argues that PRM can and does show returns on investment. "When you design these systems you have to ask yourself how is this going to reduce our costs? How is this going to increase our sales? You have to look for specific things you can automate successfully."

Our Analysis:

1) There have been plenty of expensive past failures. Often this was because companies ignored the golden rule - ask your partners what they want first. Above all, partners want to get to information as fast as possible.

2) In our winter issue we showed how the web worked best when suppliers used it to automate existing business processes. It is when you launch completely new business processes over the web that things start to go badly wrong. PRM is a perfect example of this. Why send artwork through the mail when you can send it online? Why not have a system which systematically logs all leads referred to partners? Perhaps suppliers should spend more time working out which components should be automated and less getting carried away with an all-embracing web vision.

3) Technology doesn't stand still. The ability to personalize your partner portal, to make the information, job and partner relevant, is impressive. PRM will become critical to success.

4) We think that a lot of the failures were one-off systems developed internally. A PRM vendor can provide modular solutions which have a proven track-record. They can get such systems running in weeks or months, not years.

Via has published a detailed white paper on PRM systems, which is available on 020 75 85 33 99 or at viaint.com

Common Mistakes

1. Failing to understand the real information needs of your partners. It is easy to go into a rosy glow and make a lot of false assumptions. Generations of corporate brochure writers were able to get away with this as they had no way of monitoring readership levels. The web swiftly disabuses the complacent!

2. Underestimating what you will need to do to pull people into the site. As one manager put it: "There are a few sad gits who have nothing better to do with their lives than browse your site. Most need to be chivvied." How many visitors you get will also depend on your commercial importance to your partners.

3. Failing to get management buy in. A full-blown PRM solution will change the way everyone - from sales administrators to sales directors - do their jobs.

4. Underestimating the effort it will take to maintain a live site. Will you really update the information?

5. Trying to integrate your PRM site with the wider end-user site. Interestingly, Oracle has now completely separated its PRM site from its end-user sites. Partners find it much easier to find the data they need on a dedicated partner site.

6. Making false assumptions about how your company really handles sales and marketing. One manager said: "The trouble with leads handling systems is that I have never worked for a supplier who genuinely handed over qualified leads to its partners. They all keep them for themselves." If this is true of your company, then a leads handling system is not going to work!

7. Be cautious of making sweeping changes. Forrester at BMW says: "Your site is judged on the latest initiaitive. If people feel it is irrelevant, and has wasted their time, they switch off." BMW always tries out ideas on a small guinea pig audience beforehand.