Openpath
"Since launch, we have signed on 100s of partners. Our portal has quickly become a competitive advantage for Openpath in the industry."
Ann Arwin, Director of Partner Alliances and Channels for Openpath, discusses Openpath’s reasons for choosing and implementing Channeltivity to build a successful, competitive channel program.
Overview
Openpath is a young, fast-growing entrant into the corporate physical security market and sells its groundbreaking technology 100% through certified and trained integration partners. Openpath started selling Access Control, its flagship product, and other offerings in the summer of 2018. Ann came in December 2018 knowing at the heart of their new channel program would be a partner portal.
Priorities
“I would absolutely recommend Channeltivity. The support is beyond phenomenal.” — Ann Arwin
“We sell 100% through certified and trained integration partners. It was critical for us to ensure our new integration partners have around the clock access to all the tools and skills needed to be most effective at selling and implementing the Openpath solution. We knew a partner portal was the most efficient way to offer that to them.
When choosing a partner portal we first prioritized what our goals were. We wanted our resellers to be the experts, to have the skills to resell and install our solutions as seamlessly as possible.
- Our Training and Certification program was a top priority. We wanted any new partner that we bring to have easy access to training and certification.
- In addition, sales training and technical training were important elements.
- For Technical training, we created a certification program where partners can share on social media that they have completed, and are now a certified Openpath reseller.”
Why Channeltivity?
“We researched several PRM options from the many on the market. This decision was critical because we knew it would be the first impression to resellers in the marketplace and we wanted to put our best foot forward.
Channeltivity had competitive pricing and all the value-added resources to roll out a comprehensive integration portal. With Channeltivity it felt like it was a personal experience, unlike other PRM options I was looking at where it felt like it would be more a “buy it and it’s up to you to get it across the finish line” experience. Those few weeks up to launch date are extremely involved and, as expected, the team at Channeltivity was really there for me.
We now depend on Channeltivity for our channel program. In addition to the Training and Certification module, we use:
We use lead distribution through the portal. We send and track everything to resellers through Channeltivity for shared visibility into the business we’re sending their way. It’s a big competitive advantage and huge benefit being able to see that within Channeltivity.
With the Channeltivity portal, we have the ability to track who is taking advantage of what marketing content, which gives us important actionable insight into our resellers.
With the portal, we can track any calls that come in against registered deals to make sure we don’t accidentally give a lead to a competitive implementor.”
Results
“Since launch, we have signed on 100s of partners and have gotten 100s of partners trained and certified through Channeltivity. Channeltivity has really enabled us to create a positive first impression. Our portal has quickly become a competitive advantage for Openpath in the industry.
When we launched, the response from customers was ‘this is unlike any other resource we’ve ever gotten from any manufacturing partners’. They haven’t seen any partner portal like ours.
Hearing this feedback really confirms all the work and planning we put in to build what we did.
We originally planned to use Channeltivity only for the integration partners that resell our products, but now have come to realize that our end-user customers have seen a lot of value in the portal as well. It has taken some of the load off our tech support team and is also giving end users a chance to come back to us and reconnect to us. It’s a resource value-add that separates us from the competition.
I would absolutely recommend Channeltivity. I would say the support is beyond phenomenal. I feel like we have a personalized support person, one point of contact that was super responsive. I wasn’t building this in a vacuum.
It’s not often that you buy a software product and you create a relationship with the people that are within that company. We have several software products and we don’t know any of the names of the people there or on their support team. With Channeltivity we do and we have sound trust in the Channeltivity system because of our relationship with their team.