Executive Summary
Fifty years ago, there was no fuel gauge in the Volkswagen Beetle... so drivers actually had to stop and
use a dipstick to nd out how much gas they had left in the tank. Then they had to guess, or hope,
they had enough fuel to make it to the next gas station.
Cars have come a long way in 50 years. Today we take our dashboards for granted. Sensors can tell us
if a single tire is under-in ated, and our GSP systems guide us through every corner precisely to our
destination.
But when it comes to sales data, many technology vendors are still operating like a VW driver from 50
years ago: missing important feedback on channel sales, and relying on guesswork—or sheer
hope—that they have enough product or enough sales to make it to the end of the quarter.
For a vendor, the more you know about how your products are selling, the better you can allocate
your nite sales and marketing resources. And the faster you can ramp up to supply follow-ups,
add-ons, or new versions of your most popular products.
For example, the following eight sales metrics provide essential feedback:
This white paper describes each of these metrics, why they are so vital, and how to
use them to drive your business to better success in the channel.
Do your POS reports from distributors and resellers clearly show all these metrics? Or are they just
data dumps that demand days of ddling to reveal any patterns? Or do you see any reports at all from
your channel partners?
In today’s volatile market, channel and sales executives need an automated system to extract these
metrics from raw POS reports, and display them on an easy-to-scan dashboard. When all eight of
these sales metrics are quickly visible, the top challenges and opportunities leap out at you immedi-
ately... and the road to better channel success becomes clear.
• Total Monthly Sales
• Total Sales by SKU
• Monthly Sales by Reseller
• Monthly Sales by Reseller Segment
• Monthly Sales by Reseller by SKU
• Monthly Sales by Product Category
• Invent