Every year, the biggest consumer electronics and appliances trade show in the world, IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung), is held in Berlin, Germany. By big we mean big-- this year, the show saw 215,000 visitors looking to see the latest cutting-edge consumer products.
What's more, this wasn’t just any normal year of IFA—this was the event’s hundredth anniversary. The show originally started as a trade show for radio technologies, eventually growing into one of the world's biggest scenes for technological innovation.
The 360 Team headed to IFA to learn about some of the latest trends and pain points businesses are talking about in the B2B and B2C space when it comes to partner, reseller and installer engagement. After a century of innovation in this industry, everyone knows you have to have a third-party sales and support engagement strategy. However, it has not always been clear what the best practices are – both in the present and looking ahead to the future.
Here’s some we heard on the floor of the world’s biggest appliances and electronics trade show!
Streamlining Cross-Country Go-to-Market
If you’re a manufacturer, you know that whatever country you’re based in, your products will probably make their way through distributors to resellers to end users across the world. Navigating the global economy is always complex, but it can be especially tricky if you’re running a reseller/installer sales incentive, cashback or consumer rebate program.
For example, every country in Europe alone can have its own rules and regulations around these programs, which can be a real pain point for businesses.
At IFA we spoke with directors from quite a few large companies with global reach that had partnered with multiple local companies in their various markets to manage programs country by country.
The use of local companies to fulfill and manage program operations and compliance across multiple countries is understandable. It can also be challenging to manage multiple different resources, vendors – let alone fund and reward allocations. Implementing one central platform not only eases the burden of managing multi-country service providers but enhances seamless operations, program rollouts and growth to various markets and it can provide cross-country performance reporting to assist holistic analysis and change.
360insights consultancy, software and services are uniquely designed to optimize the running and management of incentives programs in multiple countries for a single company – across different currencies, languages, regulatory laws, rewards portfolio and engagement communications.
Making AI Work for You
Because it’s a major hub for innovation, of course IFA was filled with talk about the recent huge leaps forward in AI in consumer markets. Everything is "smart" now: smartphones, smart appliances, smart homes…. but can it really benefit your business, or is it hype?
Integrating AI into your engagement programs and communication channels gives your partners – be it resellers, dealers, distributors, installers - faster and easier access to information they need. Product information, training and accreditation support, sales incentives and end customer promotions to adopt etc etc. We’ve all had the experience of hunting around a business’s website for a specific piece of information, only to get frustrated when we can’t find what we’re looking for and search elsewhere. That kind of customer experience isn’t exactly great for retention and growth – for anyone and your reselling and support channel are no different. An AI-enabled portal can help with this and aid loyalty to you rather than a competitor manufacturer.
Plus, there’s the other big reason we’re excited about AI: data analytics. We've all heard it a thousand times at this point--data is the new oil, data is the new gold, etc. But knowing that data is important to collect and analyze and actually doing it effectively are different things. AI can be incredibly useful in helping collect and analyze your data to get insights about your partners, resellers and end users that are helpful in growing your business. This in turn enables you to manage and invest in the right initiatives with the right partners.
Educating the channel
While we’re on about AI, it’s also worth noting how increasingly complex the technology behind end-user products is getting. Manufacturers need to make sure their distributor, dealer and retail partners are fully in the know about their products to sell-through effectively, and installers need to know them backwards and forwards for installation and maintenance. Every link in the channel needs to be on the same page about what they’re selling and implementation.
Something we heard over and over again at IFA was the challenge of getting channel partners to engage with and follow through on training programs. Most companies use some kind of LMS (learning management system), but ensuring that dealer, retailer and installation partners engage with them, retain the information, and keep coming back to hear about updates and new products is a bit more difficult.
That's where a channel enablement program comes in. We've got a whole guide on this, but the long and short of it is that there are a lot of ways to incentivize training that most companies aren't doing, so they're a great way to differentiate yourself from the competition.
What's more, a really effective enablement program will build brand loyalty. Getting your selling partners (dealers/retailers/installers) trained on your products isn't just good for your business, it's good for theirs as well, which makes the program feel more like a win-win than a business transaction.
Bringing It All Together
It's easy to focus on a single mechanic at a time by default--a cashback promotion through your retailer to the consumer one quarter, tactical sales incentives into a group of resellers another, an end user email marketing campaign the following month. However, a more connected approach will bring multiple channels together to form a cohesive voice.
The best channel engagement strategies will use what we call a push and pull method. That means both pushing your product to your customer base through reseller and retailer engagement and incentive programs and at the same time pulling the end customers to your brand and products through digital channel awareness and promotions across social media and email marketing.
Conclusion: The Next Hundred Years
Considering IFA’s centenary: looking back on the past century of innovation in the consumer appliances and electronics sector, it's kind of crazy to see how far we've come--from the impressive but limited function of the radio to the incredible power and versatility of smart devices today. It's impossible to predict what the next hundred years will look like but…
Given what we saw and heard at IFA and aligning this to the manufacturing landscape of reseller engagement 360insights sees daily - we’re excited to embrace the new horizons in the electronics and appliance industry.
Want to embrace this too and build some successful and long-lasting channel relationships? Reach out for an exploratory meeting with an expert today!
