WhiteGold Solutions aims to streamline the channel from the inside out through the introduction of its own lifecycle management system.
Dubbed “Boomerang,” the system is an industry first initiative that signals how a distributor has taken the concept of lifecycle management into its own hands to improve it for everyone involved.
According to WhiteGold managing director, Dominic Whitehand, Boomerang came about when the distributor saw the opportunity to create more revenue from each initial sale, and in the process add more value to its channel.
“Most of the other distributors out there in one way, shape or form have a renewal system and everyone knows the importance of renewals around making the initial sale, subscriptions and hardware contracts,” he said.
“This is a fantastic way to invoice resellers from each sale, as we can then throw forward a number of additional transactions, most of which are customer satisfaction transactions and potential opportunities for services, or they are sales leads.”
Whitehand illustrates how a sales person would often go in, make a sale, and then find out from the end user that within three to six months they are going to grow their user base by approximately 20 per cent.
“So the sales person will think to revist in about six months and update the new licenses that they need,” he said. “
But they’re only human and they forget this kind of information, but the system can track this, queue those transactions, make sure they’re followed up as genuine sales leads and ultimately make more sales.”
WhiteGold is no stranger to lifecycle management, having already used a third party module within its system to perform that function, but the distributor found it “overtly complicated” and “not able to deliver” exactly what it wanted from it.
“So we sat down and started developing it internally and basically found to our delight that we could really tailor the system to exactly how we wanted it,” Whitehand said.
Added functionality was a big component, which was molded around the requirements of both WhiteGold’s vendors and reseller channel.
This was in order to give full visibility into all the business that WhiteGold is running with its channel, both upstream so vendors can see what activities the distributor is carrying out with its resellers, and downstream for its resellers to log into the system and see where their upcoming renewals are going to be happening, what they’re going to be worth and what kind of retention rates they have.
“It kind of plugs the whole supply chain together with a lot more visibility and capability on forecasting upcoming business, looking at new sales leads and generating more revenue from the marketplace,” Whitehand said.
As for the naming of the solution “Boomerang”, Whitehand highlights that it was a symbolic move to convey that “revenue that keeps coming back” with the system.
“Because we’re a home grown Australian organization, we wanted the name to be something that was indigenous to Australia, something iconic, and something the represented that it keeps coming back,” he said.
“With Boomerang, we want that value and revenue to keep coming back to our partners.”
