I don’t know how aware customers are of this, but Deal Registration programmes can be the most controversial part of any Partner Programme. It’s a constant headache for Re-seller and Vendor alike.
Now, I have never dealt with a Vendor who wasn't committed to their Deal Registration Programme. At the same time, I've never found such a programme that is 100% fair and perfect; it’s difficult and we come across different approaches.
One approach is this:
- A deal can be registered at any time and you have a bunch of fields to fill in. Once that is done, provided no one else has done this first, there you go, you’re protected! You have the support of the vendor. You will probably get access to the best pricing for your customer! Wait what’s that? They’re not your customer? You just spoke to them once and they mentioned they might be looking at some new Security Products? Oh well that’s fine. Because our Deal Registration programme means you now officially own this opportunity, even though it might not actually exist, or someone else may have been working hard on it, scoped it all out and found the right solution for the customer. That’s all irrelevant, you've got DEAL REG baby!
Okay so that’s a bit extreme, but in some cases, it’s not too far from the truth. Here’s another approach to a Deal Registration Programme:
- The fields to fill in on the vendors online portal are quite complex, they ask a lot of questions you don’t know the answers to. You figure it out with the customer then you go back to the form, you fill it in and now the Vendor’s sales person calls you right up. They've been waiting for your call...
...the only problem is, to give you Deal Reg they need to speak to the customer. Only the customer is really only at the first stages of the project and possibly don't want to be talking to specific product vendors at this stage. Quite the pickle. You know you shouldn't register the deal but at what stage should you do it? It’s like a game of Russian Roulette and across the table are the Deal Reg Cowboys (not to be confused with the Dallas Cowboys) waiting to fire that stinging bullet into all of your hard work.
Every Deal Registration programme I've ever come across faces the above problems; too lenient and it turns into a game of ‘Fastest Finger First’; too stringent and your partners don’t know what’s going on and customers wonder why there’s an IDS Vendor calling them before they even figured out what the acronym stands for.
I don’t have the solution, but one thing I would like to impart – Deal Registration, Incumbency Programmes and all other similar initiatives are designed for one purpose, and that is to make sure that the Partner who works closest with the Customer and Vendor should be able to offer the best commercial deal. Nice and neat. Everyone wins. As a customer, this is designed so that YOU can get the best deal and get to work with who YOU want to work with. If this isn't happening, let the vendor know! 9 times out of 10, the Vendor will understand as realistically, they cannot tell you who to buy from (as long as your chosen partner is an official partner). That decision is and should always be yours!
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