Managing Leads / Opportunities / Accounts etc...

We ahve just had CRM installed at work and after two days of trying to work
out how to get the best from the product for our business has left my head
buzzing!! We have a three tier channel model -Distributors - Resellers and
End Users.

Could anyone give me an idea of the best way to link all our channel
information. My first train of though was to set up all our distributors as
parent accounts of our resellers (Sub Accounts??), but then resellers do not
always purchase from the same disty and how do I link the end user data???

My next problem is any product downloads / enquiries which we allocated to
our distributors and then they allocate to resellers, I need to track somehow
and create weekly reports on...... Any thoughts??

I am sure life was easier with my customised excel sheets!

Please help :-(

MattNC
Thu Oct 20 10:04:03 CDT 2005

Who is your MBS partner on this installation? These are the types of project
planning questions you should work out before doing the installation. I know
that's not what you want to hear, but CRM is a complex combination of
software and business processes (as you are discovering). You will get the
most benefit from CRM if you go through the hard work of a complete project
plan, including mapping out your business processes on paper, then
customizing CRM to fit them. The partner that sold you CRM should have taken
you through this process.
--
Matt Wittemann
http://icu-mscrm.blogspot.com


"Claire" wrote:

> We ahve just had CRM installed at work and after two days of trying to work
> out how to get the best from the product for our business has left my head
> buzzing!! We have a three tier channel model -Distributors - Resellers and
> End Users.
>
> Could anyone give me an idea of the best way to link all our channel
> information. My first train of though was to set up all our distributors as
> parent accounts of our resellers (Sub Accounts??), but then resellers do not
> always purchase from the same disty and how do I link the end user data???
>
> My next problem is any product downloads / enquiries which we allocated to
> our distributors and then they allocate to resellers, I need to track somehow
> and create weekly reports on...... Any thoughts??
>
> I am sure life was easier with my customised excel sheets!
>
> Please help :-(

chadbuserncsicc
Thu Oct 20 12:59:01 CDT 2005

Claire, where are you located? Sounds like you are in the need of some
consulting on this project. Feel free to contact me.

"Claire" wrote:

> We ahve just had CRM installed at work and after two days of trying to work
> out how to get the best from the product for our business has left my head
> buzzing!! We have a three tier channel model -Distributors - Resellers and
> End Users.
>
> Could anyone give me an idea of the best way to link all our channel
> information. My first train of though was to set up all our distributors as
> parent accounts of our resellers (Sub Accounts??), but then resellers do not
> always purchase from the same disty and how do I link the end user data???
>
> My next problem is any product downloads / enquiries which we allocated to
> our distributors and then they allocate to resellers, I need to track somehow
> and create weekly reports on...... Any thoughts??
>
> I am sure life was easier with my customised excel sheets!
>
> Please help :-(

Dave
Fri Oct 21 11:40:53 CDT 2005

Claire,
Things will get easier for you in CRM 3.0, when you can create
relationships between accounts (such as Reseller/Distributor). ISVs
offer that functionality on 1.2, but as 3.0 is so close, you're
probably better off waiting. HTH,
Dave

-------------------------------------------------
David L. Carr, President
Visionary Software Consulting, Inc.
Main #: 971-327-6944

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