Strength of Channel Portfolios

In general, a channel strategy is based on management of a portfolio of channels, each providing a portion of the customer coverage and capabilities that are necessary to reach the broadest portion of your available market. Managing a portfolio to a desired yield (of revenue, units and margins) requires the ability to create elements of your business proposition that satisfy the needs of the various channel types in your portfolio. This implies flexibility of sales coverages, channel programs, services options and even product offerings. To better understand the requirements as well as the costs, consequences and opportunities in developing such a channel portfolio, sophisticated modeling is critical.

The dynamic modeling approach inherent in our Channel Dynamics Simulator (CDS) provides this kind of flexible modeling platform, allowing you to investigate the approaches and requirements of various channel portfolio options on your desired results. By defining your desired overall performance, and then driving the modeling process to attempt achievement of those results, the likelihood of your goals can be reviewed and the feasibility of a given channel mix can be determined, before you commit resources to implementation. In this way, various options can be investigated, and confidence in projected results can be increased.

Such confidence in outcomes, and the associated timing of expected results, is very important in sustaining the course of channel strategy implementations. CDS is unique in its ability to provide this kind of vision to channel portfolio optimization.