Deal Registration Programs Back on Agenda

by Steve Charles, Co-founder and Executive Vice President

OEMs and channel partners are constantly asking questions about what passes muster in federal as acceptable practice for rewarding partners who help OEM’s make sales.The issue invariably leads to detailed conversations about what constitutes anything of value to induce a sale under the Anti-Kickback Act, or what constitutes price fixing under the Sherman Anti-trust Act, and finally what constitutes unequal treatment of similarly situated partners under the Robinson-Patman Act.

The good thing for OEMs is that they get to structure their channel programs as they see fit, and increasingly in all sectors, deal registration is the way to reward partners for performing programmatic activities needed by the OEM to address certain market segments. This is especially true at the Enterprise sales level and conversely, is practically irrelevant in the commoditized SMB channel.

We have found that the more precisely channel partner is defined relative to the OEMs sales process, the more valuable a granular deal registration can be to the OEM’s sales force. It also helps channel partners understand where they provide value upstream in the channel, to then be able to provide greater value to their customers downstream.

Please participate in the Government Channel Leadership Council’s anonymous State of Public Sector Deal Registration 2015 survey by Friday, February 13 (it will take you less than 10 minutes!). This survey aims to help OEMs and channel partners improve deal or opportunity registration programs within the public sector IT marketplace. The tabulation of results will be available this spring as a formal report. And survey participants will be entered to WIN $100!