Salesforce today unveiled an updated version of its partner relationship management software that for the first time applies Einstein artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to the management of channel programs.
The goal is to make it possible for channel managers of all experience levels to make more relevant suggestions concerning, for example, which sales lead channel partners should prioritize based on recommendations surfaced by Einstein, says Jason Perocho, director of product marketing for Sales Cloud at Salesforce. It’s now only a matter of time before Salesforce employing those AI capabilities to managing its own channel, adds Perocho.
Other new capabilities being added to Salesforce Partner Relationship Management (PRM) include that ability to allow channel partners to explore and segment and filter reports they create on their own and access to Quip for Salesforce, a suite of collaboration tools that Salesforce makes available along with the rest of its software-as-a-service (SaaS) application portfolio.
Salesforce has been gaining traction in the PRM space because the software it makes available accesses the same customer records that a sales team accesses in the company’s namesake customer relationship management (CRM) software. That makes it possible for internal and external sales teams to securely share sales information without having to rely on application programming interfaces (APIs) to integrate disparate PRM and CRM applications, says Perocho.
That level of integration also enables channel managers to work as full peers with the rest of the sales team.
“A lot of time channel managers are seen as the black sheep of sales,” says Perocho.
It’s unclear to what degree AI coupled with tighter integration between PRM and CRM applications might drive channel partners toward one vendor versus another. However, at a time when vendors are increasingly finding it challenging to differentiate their offerings, the vendor that provides the least path of resistance to closing a deal is likely enjoy a distinct advantage regardless of whether channel partners appreciate how that advantage was achieved.
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