Skip Headers

Contents

31 Define Sales Partners

This chapter contains the following:

Define Sales Partners

Manage Partner Accounts and Programs

Manage Default Attributes for Partner Opportunities

Define Sales Partners

Partners in Opportunities: Explained

Managing partners in Oracle Fusion Opportunity Management allows deploying companies to leverage alliances, thereby achieving growth and expansion strategies faster, and to maximize sales through broader territory coverage.

Opportunity Management partner relationship features focus on the following business benefits:

Direct sales force and partners can work collaboratively and share information effectively as a team.
The progress of a partner can be measured quantitatively, and thus compensated fairly based on the partner involvement.
Revenue from partner opportunities can be more accurately forecasted by brand owners.

Using Opportunity Management, sales representatives can add partners to opportunities and revenue lines. Partner users of the application can work individually or with internal sales team members to win opportunities.

How Partners Are Added to Opportunities

Partners typically become involved in opportunities in one of the following ways:

A partner-registered lead is converted to an opportunity: In this case, a partner registers a lead on the brand owner's sales force automation system. An internal resource (usually a channel manager) approves the registered lead, and an opportunity is created based on the registered lead. The partner on the registered lead becomes a part of the opportunity.
Partner is added to an internal opportunity: In this case, an internal opportunity is created, either by a direct sales representative or through a lead-to-opportunity conversion, or any other method. The partner is manually added to the opportunity as the partner becomes engaged in the selling process.

Supported Partner Functionality

Opportunity Management can distinguish between these different scenarios and take the appropriate action with regard to team assignment and credit allocation. Following is a high-level list of supported functionality:

Automatic territory assignment of direct sales representatives and channel managers to opportunities
Manual assignment of partners to opportunities in which they collaborate
Support for a consolidated (for example, partner plus direct sales force) forecast of expected vendor revenue
A territory's forecast includes all, and only, those revenue items that fall into the territory's dimensional boundaries
Channel sales can submit a nonrevenue forecast of partner opportunities, and this can be compared to the quota for channel sales
Territory management analytics can distinguish between direct and indirect revenue by capturing the sales channel at the revenue line level
Tracking of partner relationship contributions to sales opportunities that partners generate and help close
Leads designated as sourced through a partner sales channel are not assigned to direct sales representatives

Internal and External Partner Users and Roles: Overview

The Partner Center enables channel managers of a Vendor or a Brand Owner which deploys the Oracle Fusion Partner Management application, to search for the partner accounts, view and update the details of the partner profile, partner members, partner account team, partner programs, tasks, interactions, leads, and opportunities of the selected partner. The channel managers can only view the performance snapshot and partner contracts of the selected partner. The Partner Management application provides the following internal job roles:

Channel Operations Manager
Channel Account Manager
Channel Sales Manager
Channel Sales Director

A channel manager with any one of the above job roles can search and view the details of partner profile and related information of all partner accounts in Partner Center. Partner tasks, interactions, performance snapshots, leads and opportunities are separately secured child objects of any partner account in Partner Center.

To view and update the partner tasks and interactions of any partner account in Partner Center, the channel manager needs to be a member of the partner account team of the partner account.

To view the partner performance snapshot and contracts of any partner account in Partner Center, the channel manager needs to be a member of the partner account team of the partner account.

Manage Partner Accounts and Programs

Associating a Terms Template to a Program: Worked Example

This example demonstrates how to associate a contract terms template to a program. The following table summarizes key decisions for this scenario:

Decisions to Consider	In This Example
Create a new terms template?	No. Use an existing terms template

Prerequisites

Create a terms template from the Sales Contracts work area.
A program must exist in the draft status.

Associating a Template to a Program

From the Partner Programs page, select a program that is in draft status.
Select Agreements tab and click New under Actions

In the Create Agreement Detail window, complete the fields as shown in the table.

Field	Value
Language	English
Business Unit	Vision Operations
Contract Template	Select an available contract template Note If a contract template is not available, you need to create a contract template from the Oracle Fusion Contracts application
Contract Type	Select a contract type
Contract Owner	Optional. Select a contract owner
Term	1 year
Acceptance	Online
Country	Brazil
Cancellation Reason	Select a cancellation reason
Close Reason	Select a close reason. Note A close reason is required, when a program period has gone beyond the expiry date for the program.

Click OK
Click Save.

Customizing Terms and Conditions Link: Worked Example

During Partner Registration, the terms and conditions content can vary for different sites. You can customize the link to the terms and conditions content. This example demonstrates the steps to customize the Read Terms and Conditions hyperlink.

Customizing the Terms and Conditions Link

Log into Channel Dashboard as channel_partner_portal_administrator
Click on the View Partner Portal Registration Pages in the Tasks region.
This launches the Partner Registration pages
Click on Register Your Company as a New Partner link to access the registration pages
In the Review and Accept Terms page, access Oracle Composer to customize the Read Terms and Conditions link. To enable the link to this task flow, customize the page using Oracle Composer. Select Customize from the Administration menu.
Select the External Customization layer. Click on the Terms and Conditions region
This highlights the corresponding region in the source pane.
Select component panelHeader: Terms and Conditions . Find and select the component Hyperlink Component
To customize the hyperlink destination URL, click Edit or access Edit Component Properties dialog from the Mouse Context menu.
In the Component Properties:Hyperlink dialog select the Display Options tab. Enter the desired Terms and Conditions document URL in the Destinationfield.
Click Ok and then click Close to exit Oracle Composer. Test whether the Read Terms and Conditions link displays the correct document.

Enabling the Link to Register an Existing Account as a Partner: Worked Example

This example demonstrates how to enable the link to register an existing account as a partner. There are two registration task flows available from the partner registration landing page:

Enabling the Links

Login to the Channel Dashboard as channel_partner_portal_administrator
Click View Partner Portal Registration Pages in the Tasks region.
This launches the partner registration pages.
To enable the link to this task flow, customize the page using Oracle Composer using Administration > Customize Page
Select External CustomizationLayer
Click Sign In to the Partner Web Portal region
This highlights the corresponding region in the source pane.
Select component panelHeader: Sign In to the Partner Web Portal
Find and select the component commandlink: Register You Existing Account as Partner.
To enable commandlink: Register You Existing Account as Partner, click Edit toolbar and access Edit from the Mouse Context menu
You can also click Show Component from the Mouse Context menu
In the Edit Properties dialog, access the Display Options tab and click Show Component to enable or display the link.
Exit Oracle Composer and when the page refreshes, the Register Your Existing Account as Partner link now appears in the registration landing page.

Channel Program Manager Territory and Partner Territory : How They Work Together

Channel Program Manager Territory and Partner Territory are some of the sales territories for a vendor. A sales territory is the area of responsibility of a sales representative over a set of accounts, leads and opportunities.

Channel Program Manager Territory

A Channel Program Manager Territory and a Partner Territory will have an area of responsibility defined or bounded by a specific type and share the same data set of dimensions. Once a Channel Program Manager Territory has been created and activated from the Oracle Fusion Territory Management application, the territory can be reviewed in the Eligibility tab in the Program Details page.

Partner Territories

Partner Territories are child territories of Channel Program Manager Territories.

Manage Default Attributes for Partner Opportunities

Partner-Registered Lead Attributes: Explained

For partner-involved opportunities, capturing the lead registration type is vital to driving defaulting behavior within the opportunity for downstream processes of assignment and credit allocations. Supplied, supported lead registration types are Resell, Co-sell, and Referral, though the list can be extended through customization.

Setting Lead Registration Type

Lead registration type can be set during the following events:

When a lead is converted to an opportunity (occurs upon approval of a partner's lead registration). In this case, the lead registration type is carried over from the lead to the opportunity.
When a partner is added manually to an opportunity, and the user can specify the lead registration type for the partner.

Based on a pre-configured setting, the system may set a default sales channel and add the opportunity partner to all the revenue lines based on the value of the lead registration type of the partner. Sales channel is one of the dimensions that drives the territory assignment logic, and the tracking of partner and sales channel at the revenue line is also important for revenue reporting by channel. The defaulting feature eliminates the need for the user to manually manage these attributes and also minimizes data entry errors which can have far-reaching consequences on revenue reporting and territory metrics.

The following table shows the pre-configured settings for lead registration type behavior:

Lead Registration Type	Add Partner to Revenue Lines?	Default Sales Channel for Revenue Lines
Referral	No	Direct
Co-sell	No	Direct
Resell	Yes	Indirect
None	No	Direct

Note

Automatic propagation of the partner to the revenue lines (provided that the Add Partner to Revenue Lines setting is set to Yes) happens only when the first partner of that lead registration type is added to the opportunity. Subsequent additions of partners with a lead registration type that is flagged for partner propagation will not overwrite the first partner that has already been added by default to the lines. During the creation of a new revenue line, the system will also use the previously defaulted partner to populate the new line.