According to a recent Forrester report, 22% of global marketers consider managing their channel partners to be one of their greatest challenges.* Also, Channel Executive Magazine states that vendors often complain that they frequently have unspent MDF funds at the end of every year. They simply can’t get their partners to use enough of them.

It’s not surprising. These programs are run in diverse, highly fragmented environments. As a vendor, you’re expected to track and manage a wide range of incentives that might include volume rebates, new customer bonuses, SPIFs, MDFs, and newly emerging incentives like nonmonetary rewards, micropayments and gamification. It’s constantly changing, and it’s getting more complex.

Managing dozens—or hundreds—of programs in real-time can feel like a monumental task.

Here are five keys to getting full value from your vendor incentive programs.

You need single source of truth for all vendor incentives
Prioritize incentives that deliver the best ROI
Focus your limited resources on the right programs at the right time
Communicate the goals clearly to your teams
Hold your teams accountable.

It’s nearly impossible to manage complex incentives that are constantly changing in a dynamic environment with spreadsheets.

At Q2E, we can help. Our Vendor Incentive Management solution gives you a global, dynamic view of all your vendor programs, so you can make real-time decisions about where to focus your sales efforts. With it, you’ll hit critical funding targets, volume price thresholds and incentive-based acceleration programs, every time.

Stop juggling and start maximizing your ROI.

*Now Tech: Channel Incentives and Program Management, Q1, 2019, Forrester. March, 2019