Initial Market Analysis
Your initial market analysis section should set the tone for your business plan by painting a picture for whoever is reading. Describe the relevant business landscape right now that makes your partner program make sense.
Explore recent business activities and industry trends that support your efforts. This is an important place to include statistics and studies as well as anticipated upcoming trends. In addition, this section should briefly discuss the profile of your ideal partners as well as the customers you’ll serve through these partnerships.
Operational and Management Strategies
In this section, you’ll dig into your team and resource needs for accomplishing the plan. It’s essential to include this early on as it’s a vital part of the “ask” involved in a channel partner business proposal. Highlight any new hires, such as a designated CAM to grow the channel.
Specify what involvement you will need from other teams, such as new resource development from Marketing or prospecting calls from Sales. This section should also dig into different resources you anticipate using, such as PRM software to streamline and scale management demands as the channel grows.
Goals & Objectives
This section is all about what you’re hoping to achieve. First, describe the KPIs and OKRs associated with your program. These should be specific and realistic enough to attain. Don’t include stretch goals just to impress your leadership team — focus on achievable milestones that future efforts will build on.
Ladder the program’s goals to broader sales initiatives to demonstrate how partners can effectively help the company enter new markets, promote new products, and more. This is an important strategy for ensuring cross-functional buy-in and improving collaboration as each team will know exactly how they’re contributing to broader company objectives.
5-year Projections
Explore what the next five years of the program will look like. The early stages should be more specific, with the latter stages having broader goals. Your projections should include potential team growth, resource requirements, needs from other functional areas, and anticipated ecosystem growth.