High-Tech Company Uses Decision-Grade Data to Drive Channel Performance

• Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
• Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
• Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Visualization

• Consumer Goods
• Software

• Business Operation
• Sales & Marketing

• Inventory Management
• Supply Chain Visibility

• Data Science Services
• System Integration
• Training

Historically, the company relied on its sales and operations teams to get information about customers and routes to market. However, with the substantial global growth of the company’s distributor and reseller network and rapid changes in customer preferences, capturing timely channel data from every country of operation became challenging. As one of the company’s leaders remarked, “Our network of distributors and resellers has grown over time. As a result, we recognized that we needed more frequent, reliable and accurate channel sales data in order to track the success of our products around the world.” Instead, the company only received distributor and reseller data monthly, and only from some of its Tier-1 partners. Often, the company’s operations teams struggled to convince partners to share any data at all. The data they did receive was in different formats with varying degrees of completeness and accuracy, and there was simply too much to manually scrub in a timely manner. Given the ever-increasing volumes of partner data the company expected in the future, manual data management was out of the question. The business simply did not have the right specialized tools and skills—much less time—to consistently collect and process actionable data. In addition, the company’s leaders desired to expand outside the consumer space into the business-to-business (B2B) sector and was looking for ways to identify suitable partners that could take them there. To address the data issues and achieve stable, consistent growth and expansion into B2B markets, they knew they would have to engage experts and find a reliable software solution.

This well-established, multi-billion-dollar organization creates digital consumer products for the modern world. The company has harnessed its strengths in innovation, design and engineering to create a broad and expanding portfolio of music, gaming, video and computing products that are now sold in over 150 countries and encompass multiple brands. The business reaches end consumers through a complex channel with multiple tiers of distribution. Partners, such as resellers and retailers, source the company’s products both directly and indirectly from distributors, wholesalers and even other resellers and larger retailers. Indirect channel partnerships have been essential in allowing the high-tech business to maintain a leadership position and worldwide presence in many of its target markets and product segments. The secret to its success is the unwavering commitment to a deep understanding of what resonates with customers and how channel partners source and sell in highly competitive markets. These insights drive the company’s marketing, go-to-market approach and product development roadmap, ensuring that every innovation delivers additional value and demand stays strong.

Following a thorough market analysis and a successful pilot project for its operations in India, the company’s leaders selected e2open to help resolve their channel data challenges. The decision was based on proven functional capabilities and depth of channel expertise. Through the pilot, e2open clearly demonstrated the ability to collect channel data automatically and securely while meeting the company’s tight requirements for accuracy. Another significant factor in the decision was the methodology for gaining partners’ trust and interacting with them to quickly resolve any missing or inaccurate data. The unrivaled scale of e2open’s network of onboarded channel partners was compelling evidence that the data the company needed was within reach. It was also a strong indicator that, as the business continued to grow and expand into new commercial opportunities, the technology would be able to scale with them. The goal of the new technology was to provide visibility into channel activity with a depth, frequency, reliability and accuracy that manual efforts simply could not deliver. The business was relying on this data to enable sales, finance and supply chain managers to monitor revenue worldwide and improve forecasting, planning and on-shelf availability. They also aimed to enhance new product launches and category management. To accomplish all these goals, it was vital for the company to identify partners and products correctly and have accurate channel sales and inventory data at every tier in the channel.

• Increased reporting frequency combined with automated data processing and better-quality data gives the business fast access to the broad and deep channel information required to drive continual innovation and leadership in consumer and B2B markets.
• The organization can now confirm which partner is selling specific products to certain consumer groups and make data-driven, strategic decisions about rebates, commissions and claims assigned to each reseller.
• The accurate, curated channel data enables the company to make significant operational improvements such as reducing overpayments and finding and fixing the root cause of stock irregularities.

• The company’s leadership now has visibility into over 2 million cleansed, standardized and validated channel transactions from 174 countries every week.