Partner Relationship Management

What exactly is Partner Relationship Management? The first time I encountered this term, I thought to myself that this must be some real esoteric stuff. What the hell could this word possibly mean? I was tasked to write about it and so I had to do some internet research pronto. However I knew right off the bat that this was some difficult material and that this was not something that could easily be learned.

So there I was doing research. As a literature major, these business terms were very alien to me. The mere sound of them made me feel like I did not want to have anything to do with them at all. But my task was clear. I had to write a couple of business articles that I was going to publish for my friend’s business periodical and so I had to learn all that I could about Partner Relationship Management.

As it turns out, Partner Relationship Management was not so hard to understand at all. My first impression soon faded away, but not that soon of course. At first I was getting lost in all the vocabulary. Well, for those who are in a similar situation as I am, here is a short and sweet list of important vocabulary one needs to know. To understand Partner Relationship Management or also called as PRM.

Partner Relationship Management or PRM is a term used to denote the system of procedures, software tools, and strategies that a vendor will need in order to keep track of its partner channel network which is also called its cloud. This system is sometimes associated with Customer Relationship Management or CRM. The difference between the two is simply the focus on partner instead of customers. Clouds, or channel partners is what one call the intricate network of a parent vendor company’s resellers, marketers, consultants, distributors, etc.