partner research case study
The Client: Veritas Software (now Symantec)
The Requirement
At the time, VERITAS was the leading provider of storage management software with an annual turnover in excess of $1.5 billion (now merged and become Symantec). Over 80% of EMEA revenue was fulfilled through a range of direct and indirect partners including OEM’s, Alliances, System Integrators, volume and enterprise resellers.
VERITAS’ EMEA senior management team wanted to conduct a survey of their partners across the region to find out how satisfied they were with VERITAS and to produce a benchmark to ensure continual service and operations improvement. They needed the feedback to be from as broad and large a group of their EMEA partners as possible and required the results back within a very short timescale.
The Solution
As the survey would have to be carried out in several different languages and the management would need to be able to compare future results directly with past results, Joanne from plan-b-marketing recommended that it was carried out online. This would also enable VERITAS to collect responses quickly from a large number of partners.
Joanne worked with the Vice President (Jacques Sebag) and the Director (Iain Buchan) of EMEA Enterprise Channels & Alliances to ascertain the areas that they wished to measure and to develop a list of questions. The management wanted to cover all areas of the business including Sales and Marketing, Account Management, Presales, Consultancy and Technical Support, Ordering and Fulfillment and Training. They also wanted to get an idea as to how the partners rated VERITAS in relation to the competition.
‘We wanted to cover all areas of our business and Joanne worked closely with us to reduce this to a number of questions that would not deter partners from completing the survey but would still provide useful and measurable feedback’ said Iain.
With the questions finalized and approved by the senior management team, they were translated into five languages for posting onto a stand-alone website (hosted by Plan-B-Marketing). The survey was set up as an online form with very simple tick box rating or yes/no responses for most questions. The questions were divided into each business area which also had a ‘free text’ space for partners to offer more feedback if they wished. To encourage partners to complete the survey, Joanne recommended that an incentive was offered. This was very simply a prize draw for 5 digital cameras and the promise of feedback from the survey.
To ensure as good as response as possible, partners would be notified about the survey in all partner communications so copy was written for e-shots and partner newsletters. This was also translated into 5 different languages (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish). Joanne then loaded the e-shot material into VERITAS e-mail application to enable the local marketing personnel to send it out quickly and easily.
The Success
The survey was completed by over 1500 partners from 39 different countries (300% over the target number).
Joanne then analysed the data and extracted it in different ways with graphs to show how the results changed according to the country or the type of products the partners sold. This highlighted some areas that could be improved and also spotlighted some countries that had exceptionally high levels of partner satisfaction. A total of 16 different PowerPoint presentations were produced with summaries to enable each country or business unit manager to utilize them internally for management purposes.
A summary of the results was also written for VERITAS to release externally and to send to the partners that completed the survey as promised.
‘We’re exceptionally satisfied with the results from this survey’ said Iain, ‘Joanne worked closely with us throughout the project and her recommendations, analysis and clear presentation of the data has enabled us to identify areas on which to focus and has helped guide our management decisions.’
To find out more about us or any of our services please contact us.