Case Study
Channel Visibility
Challenges
• Time lag for Account
Managers to receive accurate,
actionable sales data
• Limited usefulness of data
for partner conversations due
to accuracy and formatting
issues
• Lost productivity as field sales
resolve data exceptions
• Difficulty identifying Accounts
and markets to prioritize
Plantronics’ Goals
• Improve partner performance
management
• Improve sales and inventory
visibility in EMEA region
• Streamline systems usage for
sales people by integrating
sales data with Salesforce
CRM
• Improve sales productivity
• Improve data timeliness and
accuracy
Realized Benefits
• Improved partner
performance management
• Better tracking of marketing
ROI, by product and partner
• More precise tracking of sales
by product mix
• Better identification of
“up-and-coming” accounts
• Improved channel
development in developed
and emerging markets
Company Background
Plantronics delivers simply smarter communications with innovative design
and technology. From unified communication solutions to Bluetooth headsets,
Plantronics is a world leader in personal audio communications for professionals
and consumers.
Plantronics’ Challenge
Plantronics’ partner sales teams work with more than 70 distributors and resellers
across Europe. The company wanted to:
• Manage and measure partner performance on a weekly basis
• Get a timely, accurate view of sales activity
• Integrate channel sales data with Salesforce CRM so the sales team did not
have to access multiple systems
• Improve sales team productivity
To track sales at a given partner, Account Managers typically needed to request
the information from Plantronics’ internal systems and organizations. Due to the
timing of partner data collection, it could take anywhere from a week to a month
to receive the relevant data. Once Account Managers received the data, they were
reluctant to share with partners, due to accuracy and format issues.
The visibility challenge was compounded by the fact that Plantronics was receiving
more than 150 sales-out and inventory files per month, representing over 50,000
monthly transactions. Sales people spent valuable time tracking down missing data
and resolving exceptions—valuable time in which they could have been selling instead.
Solution Implementation
To improve the quality of the underlying channel data and provide the necessary
analytics, Plantronics first selected Zyme’s TrueData solution. Additionally,
Plantronics chose Zyme’s ChannelView for Salesforce solution, which enables
Account Managers to see accurate, up-to-date sales and inventory data for
channel partners worldwide within Salesforce CRM.
Case Study—Plantronics ChannelView
Figure 1: How ChannelView works
POS Data
Account, Product
and Opportunity
Information
Channel Data Matched with
Salesforce CRM Accounts and
Opportunities
ChannelView
 Data Aggregation
 Data Quality Validations
 Partner Identification
 Link POS to Accounts
and Opportunities
Global Channel Directory
powered by
ISO 27001-certified environment; SAS 70 Type-II compliant
ChannelView Workflow

Plantronics ChannelView Case Study
CS-CV-09082012-250Copyright © 2012 Zyme. All rights reserved.
In just 4 weeks and with minimal involvement of the Plantronics’ IT department,
ChannelView was up and running. Plantronics’ Account Managers now have part-
ner sales data at their fingertips in Salesforce CRM when they need it. Account
planning meetings and quarterly business reviews are based on a single set of data
that partners and Account Managers can reference. Additionally, Plantronics has
created reports to provide the in-depth knowledge required for effective channel
development, including sales by product, partner, and geography.
Account Manager Leaderboard
Account Owner:
Full Name
Sum of YTD
POS
Kevin James $5.5M
Mary Dawson $4.8M
Bob Smith $4.6M
Tim Kelly $4.2M
Sally Nolan $3.9M
Realized Benefits
Effective partner performance management—With ready access to current and
historical sales data, Account Managers are able to set realistic partner sales tar-
gets, track progress toward targets, and raise issues appropriately during regular
meetings and quarterly business reviews.
Improved sales productivity—Field sales teams spend more time analyzing part-
ner data and less time on internal queries for weekly partner sales performance
data. Additionally, new Accounts can be easily identified and added in just a click.
Ability to track channel marketing ROI by partner or product—Plantronics is
now able to view sales by product, geography, region and partner, enabling them
to more accurately track and adjust marketing spend.
Improved identification of up-and-coming partners—ChannelView has enabled
Plantronics to identify partners with high sales volumes that were not being tracked
as Accounts. Ultimately, this better visibility has led to increased sales.
Better market penetration and channel development—Plantronics has been
able to populate Salesforce CRM with prospective partner data for countries such
as Poland and South Africa. This knowledge has improved channel development
efforts in these countries.
Zyme is the leading provider of channel data solutions for global technology companies.
We offer cloud-based SaaS applications and managed services for multi-tier channel
visibility, which seamlessly integrate with CRM and ERP systems such as Salesforce,
SAP and Oracle. Zyme supports customers with verified channel sales and inventory data
from distributors, retailers and resellers in 180 countries to better manage mission-critical
business processes, including revenue recognition, incentive payments, partner network
management, sales commissioning, and supply chain planning. For more information,
contact Zyme at 1-877-262-8993 (US) or www.zyme.com.
“With ChannelView, it
feels like we just installed
a Ferrari engine in
Salesforce CRM…”
—Sr. Manager
EMEA Partner Programs
Plantronics
ChannelView Features
• View POS data by:
–– Partner or Tier-1 distributor
–– Bill-to/sold-to party
–– Ship-to or SKU
• View Inventory data by:
–– Tier-1 distributor
–– SKU
–– On-hand quantity
–– Weeks-of-Inventory
• Link sales transactions to
Opportunities
• Identify new Tier-2 partners
• Create new Accounts
• Channel analytics
• Leverages Zyme Global
Channel Directory (GCD)
–– 400K+ high-tech resellers,
distributors and retailers
–– Coverage of 180 countries
Any sales or inventory data presented in
this demo area is fictitious and used for
demonstration purposes only. The names
of any actual business entities are used
purely for illustrative purposes and do not
imply any business relationship with Zyme,
or any actual knowledge of their business
activity. This demo/presentation and its
contents are confidential and are Zyme’s
intellectual property.
$0.00 $1.00 $2.00 $3.00 $4.00
Parther J
Reseller I
Partner H
Reseller G
Partner F
Reseller E
Reseller D
E-tailer C
Reseller B
E-tailer A
Sum of Ext Price (Millions)
Soldto:AccountName
Top 10 Resellers—Sales
Figure 2: ChannelView dashboards