PeopleSoft Partner Relationship Management
This chapter discusses:
PeopleSoft Partner Relationship Management (PeopleSoft PRM).
PeopleSoft PRM business processes.
PeopleSoft Partner Relationship Management
This section discusses:
PeopleSoft Lifecycle Management and the Partner Platform.
Partner programs.
Partner profile and administration.
Application security.
Partner recruitment and registration.
Distributed security and self-administration.
Partner Portal and managing transactions.
PeopleSoft Lifecycle Management
PeopleSoft’s Partner Lifecycle Management encompasses four phases:
Definition of partner strategy and programs, including program objectives and membership structures.
Features such as Partner Programs help you define and describe program details for various partner categories and participation levels.
Partner recruitment and acquisition, with tools that include online application forms and dialog recruitment that capture all information in a single repository.
This information is accessible in a comprehensive Partner Profile that provides a single, at-a-glance partner overview.
Engagement of partners in enterprise business processes, including marketing, sales, commerce, service, or any combination of these business processes.
Management of the ongoing partner relationship, including reviewing and rewarding partner performance, and determining which relationships should be invested in and which should be terminated.
The PeopleSoft Partner Platform is the foundation for the PeopleSoft PRM solution. It has a robust security model, comprehensive yet extensible partner data model, and core partner lifecycle management features and functionality. Partner program administrators can easily configure business rules in the dynamic partner security model to only grant partner users access to data that is appropriate, such as select rows of customer data, partner-relevant transactions, and functional actions and prompting capabilities within each of the transactions. Prospective partners can register for specific partner programs via online application forms that are easily configurable by a partner program administrator. Once a partner is approved, enterprise channel managers and enterprise alliance managers can begin to build a centralized repository of profile data on each partner that can be leveraged for lead distribution, partner catalog management, and targeted communications. The Channel Manager will have access to a 360-degree view of partner information for an overview of transactions and interactions associated to the partner. PeopleSoft Partner Management extends an enterprise’s business processes and delivers the tools necessary to execute a successful partner strategy.
In many partner relationship scenarios, a partner or alliances organization may group partners into different programs and categories, each with different requirements, benefits of membership, and so forth. A Partner Program is a new database object and a distinct component. An Enterprise Channel Manager can specify different partner programs and the related requirements, benefits, and fees for each program. Partner companies can apply for partnership and membership in one or more partner programs.
See Creating Partner Programs.
Partner Profile and Administration
Partner profiling captures and maintains detailed partner and relationship information. Critical pieces of information about a partner's business, industry, and operational area should be captured. These pieces of information change from industry to industry and from business to business.
Partner profile information is crucial to lead assignment, territory management, pricing, and other important business functions. PeopleSoft PRM's flexible solution accommodates an unlimited number of partner types, attributes, and relationships. Your organization cannot only capture the characteristics of the partner organization, but also the characteristics of people or objects within that organization. Partner profiles are determined by the relationship with the partner, the role the partner plays, and how the partner interacts with your organization.
See Creating and Maintaining Partner Profiles.
The Application Security Framework has three key elements: who has access, what transactions or rows they can see, and what functions they can perform. PeopleSoft PRM delivers a flexible and dynamic way of creating and defining membership lists that are based on configurable criteria. This feature, the View List, reduces maintenance overhead that is a result of creating multiple roles—one for every possible combination and permutation of permissions and functions. The View List determines what the security membership can access and see, which secures customer data from partners. When a partner CSR logs into the Order Capture application, the customers that he or she can prompt on can be automatically restricted to only the customers that the enterprise allows the partner to see. Finally, the Functional Options concept provides an additional level of granularity and control over what users can do within a PIA page. PeopleSoft PeopleTools allows users to be granted access to specific pages in an application; once the user has access, he or she can access any part of that page. When extending transactions to partner and third-party users, a critical issue is limiting what they can do from a risk management and data security point of view.
See Setting Up Security for Partners.
Partner Recruitment and Registration
When your organization uses partners to penetrate or expand into specific sales territories, it can conduct marketing campaigns to recruit potential partners with specific characteristics that meet the ideal target partner profile. For example, a partner recruiting campaign can have a call to action that brings a prospective partner to an online self-registration or application page. Based on the responses of those campaigns, partners can be further qualified and approved as part of the recruitment process. Prospective partners can register at the web site of the enterprise and apply for partnership.
Once potential partners are identified through prospecting and recruitment campaigns, partner registration allows your enterprise to capture profiling information about the partner company and partner employees. In addition to allowing internal enterprise users to capture partner information, partners themselves have access to online self-service registration for data entry and maintenance of user profile information.
See Setting Up and Managing Partner Registration.
Distributed Security and Self-Administration
Distributed security enables partners to administer access to the PeopleSoft PRM solution for their partner employees. For enterprise channel management personnel, setting up a partner company can be time consuming, but the prospect of setting up and tracking partner employee users is more challenging and time consuming. Such activities should be delegated to the partners to reduce maintenance costs and empower the partners. Partners should be able to create and administer their own personnel records and logins within the confines of the security boundaries defined by the enterprise.
See Setting Up Distributed Security for Partner Users.
Partner Portal and Transaction Management
The PeopleSoft PRM solution delivers a new portal registry specifically for partner users. The Partner Portal exposes only those transactions appropriate for your partner users, and provides a home page that can be configured for each partner user. The partner portal includes pagelets that can contain lists of transactions and, along with the Enterprise Portal, customized news and content.
From the Partner Portal, a partner can access and manage partner user profile information and manage leads, view product catalogs, and manage quotes and orders.
The enterprise can also view and enter partner specific data within the core transactions of lead, opportunity, order, quote, and support case. An agent or sales representative can reference the partner company and contact information for core enterprise transactions. Using the Partner 360-degree view, a channel manager can then view all of a partner's activities with the enterprise.
See Executing Partner Relationship Management Transactions.
PeopleSoft PRM Business ProcessesPeopleSoft PRM consists of four main business processes:
Defining the partner strategy and programs.
Acquiring partners.
Engaging partners in business processes.
Managing the partner relationship.
This diagram illustrates the definition phase of the PeopleSoft PRM business process:
Defining partners
This diagram illustrates the acquisition phase of the PeopleSoft PRM business process:
Acquiring partners
This diagram illustrates the engagement phase of the PeopleSoft PRM business process:
Engaging partners
This diagram illustrates the management phase of the PeopleSoft PRM business process:
Managing partners