From: Sunil Kenth – Director, Qlik, Global Partner Success and Enablement, Dubai, UAE
Qlik is a leader in the Data Integration and Analytics space and has over 40,000 customers. A key go-to-market strategy for Qlik is through its extensive partner network. The key to a successful partner network is to continually review the ideal partner profile and to recruit new partners against that. This is a decentralized activity that requires cross-functional collaboration, and at the time partner recruitment was managed on Excel spreadsheets. The Partner Account Managers had a target of 400 companies worldwide to qualify and recruit. The Partner Account Managers were responsible for the outreach, qualification, and sign-up of new partners, and the Global Partner Organisation and the regional leaders were responsible for tracking and reporting the progress – much like a sales process.
The challenge of using Excel for this activity was that several people were filtering and updating the Excel spreadsheet at the same time. This caused frustration and resistance to update the spreadsheet amongst the Partner Account Managers, as data that they entered would get overwritten or filtered views would be overwritten by other users. This caused issues when reporting on progress as there was insufficient information, and the reports presented a dim picture of partner recruitment despite the Partner Account Mangers doing the necessary work.
To recruit Partners, the Partner Account Managers required systems that were centrally accessible, with access to shared data that would not be overwritten, easy to use, and collaborative. Partner Account Managers required the ability to filter the data and update progress easily and quickly.
Molnify was selected because the solution was quick to implement, and the ability to leverage the existing Excel model without coding meant that the adoption of the new solution was quick and easy.
Molnify was embedded into Qlik Sense as it is a web-based application, which enabled a centralized solution for data entry and reporting all in one place.
Partner Account Managers were happy to update the latest status in the Molnify app as it was easy to use and they could do the updates directly from their mobile phones. The ROI and value were evident as it immediately improved the users’ experience from the Partner Account Managers’ perspective, which meant that up-to-date information was readily available for reporting to the executive team and the board.