What are the questions a reseller should ask in evaluating vendor partner programs?

What are the questions a reseller should ask in evaluating vendor partner programs?

Q: What are the questions a channel partner should ask in evaluating vendor partner programs?

Meet the expert
Angela Vines is co-founder and vice president for partner services at ServiceKey, an independent provider of hardware service and maintenance for mid-range servers, networking and storage equipment based in Norcross, Ga. She has 18 years of channel development and management experience with hardware and services. Download her entire podcast on vendor partner programs.

There are five questions you should ask yourself when evaluating vendor partner programs:

• What are your true resources -- personnel and financial?
• What is the bandwidth of those resources?
• What is your true core competency? Consider creating a self-assessment to see which partner programs align with your business.
• What is the learning curve, and how simply will the new vendor partner program plug into your existing channel environment?
• What are the expenses associated with a successful program launch?

Return to the vendor partner programs FAQ guide and read the rest of Angela's expert responses.


This was first published in March 2008