ChannelEyes Launches OPTYX on Salesforce AppExchange, the World's Leading Enterprise Apps Marketplace

Industry’s first sales workflow tool designed for Indirect Channel Account Managers to close more sales, build partner loyalty and drive channel programs.

TROY, NY — January 27, 2016 — ChannelEyes, the leading cloud-based channel sales acceleration and partner enablement company announced today the launch of OPTYX on the Salesforce AppExchange – the leading enterprise app marketplace.

OPTYX is a predictive alerting, scoring and prioritization solution that helps channel organizations accelerate indirect sales by optimizing partner interactions based on data science. Designed as a workflow tool that runs seamlessly with Salesforce and other CRM systems, it automatically and intelligently processes internal and external data signals to help channel sales account managers work smarter, close more deals faster and continuously grow revenue.

OPTYX will deliver a 20 percent increase in rep productivity over managing with spreadsheets and stale reports which is the norm today.

The solution is a first-of-its-kind, self-learning predictive analytics engine that processes massive and complex data sets to create simple alerts and notifications that drive channel partner and alliance sales. OPTYX was developed by a team of top data scientists processing transactional, behavioral and big data sets from hundreds of data signals across dozens of sources.

OPTYX for Salesforce Key Features:

• Alerts and notifications generated from transactional, behavioral and big data sources
• Prioritized action center, driving next best actions for the channel sales rep
• Channel health score – easily understand partner trending and insights
• Partner interaction panel with an agenda of suggested topics, prioritized by importance
• Social climate and sentiment – understand the current universe of partner social feedback

“We are very excited to launch OPTYX on the Salesforce AppExchange,” said Laura Rotter, Director of Product Management at ChannelEyes. “It is the first sales workflow tool purposely designed for channel account managers - replacing stale reports, spreadsheets and antiquated indirect sales processes.”

It brings together the most important information about an indirect partner sales channel, and then uses data science to produce partner insights and visibility a channel seller can act on. OPTYX makes it possible to engage with channel partners and alliances in more productive and meaningful ways.

Internal and external data signals are leveraged to generate alerts and notifications; then OPTYX calculates and prioritizes the optimal order and assigns the workflow. The channel account manager takes action on the prioritized list and is assisted with detailed call agendas and partner report cards.

“OPTYX is modern way to execute the indirect sales process,” said Rotter. “The predictive algorithms and environmental analysis provide channel teams with the definitive knowledge on how to best contact their best partner opportunities. Channel account managers gain one day a week of productivity by not having to chase data for management and partner reporting.”

OPTYX is now available globally for vendors, manufacturers, OEMs and Distributors in all industries.

About Salesforce AppExchange

Salesforce AppExchange is the world’s leading enterprise apps marketplace that empowers companies to sell, service, market and engage for the Internet of Customers. With more than 2,700 partner apps and more than 2.9 million customer installs, it is the most comprehensive source of social, mobile and connected cloud apps for business.

Salesforce, Salesforce1, AppExchange and others are among the trademarks of salesforce.com, inc.

About ChannelEyes Corporation

Founded in 2011, ChannelEyes is a global software company that is reinventing how vendors drive channel partner sales and loyalty. The SaaS platform includes ChannelCandy, the world’s largest mobile-first product for partners, as well as OPTYX, the first indirect sales workflow product to help sellers with predictive analytics and leverage big data science to drive more sales.

ChannelEyes has received numerous accolades for its technology including being named a Cool Vendor by Gartner and one of the fastest growing companies in New York’s Capital Region by the Business Review. Learn more at: http://channeleyes.com/

Additional Resources:

Learn from OPTYX Website: http://channeleyes.com/optyx/

Follow ChannelEyes on Twitter: https://twitter.com/channeleyes

Like ChannelEyes on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/channeleyes

Connect with ChannelEyes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/channeleyes

Watch OPTYX videos at: https://www.youtube.com/OfficialChannelEyes

Media Contact:

Jay McBain
jaym@channeleyes.com
(518) 417-4859

Cali Rose McBain born on December 29, 2015

Michelle and I are truly blessed.

Our fourth little angel, Cali Rose McBain, made her way into the world on December 29, 2015 at 4:57pm. She weighed 8 pounds and 11 ounces and was 20 inches long. She was born at Albany Medical Center in New York.

All of us are in so much love with Cali - she is so beautiful.

Our four beautiful daughters, Danica, Mila, Brooklyn and Cali:

Instead of words - let me tell the story in pictures and video. First chapter in the story was meeting Michelle in Raleigh, North Carolina on October 15, 2010:



I then convinced (tricked) her to move with me to New York.  :-)  She took me skydiving in Long Island for my 40th birthday and I surprised her back with a proposal at 10,000 feet!  Skip ahead to 1:22 if you want to see it:



And, we were officially engaged...

The wedding plans were set into motion and on July 4th, 2013 we were married in New Rochelle, NY with family, friends and furkids:



After the wedding, we set off on a honeymoon of a lifetime - visiting Casablanca Morocco, Cairo and Luxor Egypt, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Mumbai and Delhi India. It was a whirlwind, but we saw 5 world wonders - the Sahara, the Nile, the pyramids, Mount Everest and the Taj Mahal:

This is where the story of Brooklyn began. And a 9 months later we were so excited to meet her...



For Brooklyn's first birthday, we set off on another amazing trip to Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. This is where the story of Cali began:

We soon announced to world that we were expecting Cali (or Schmoo 2 at that time):



And about 20 weeks later, Cali's gender was announced with our friends Fran, Bob & Ben Godgart and family dialed in via Webex:

We couldn't wait to meet Cali...

And then, it was time - December 29, 2015. We arrived at the hospital bright and early and met with Dr. Clark:

As we neared 4pm, Michelle put on her game face:

And just before 5pm, we met Cali Rose for the first time! We were so excited...

We love you Cali!

Five Channel Trends to Plan for in the New Year

With 2016 now in full swing, I am preparing to speak at the 2016 ASAP Global Alliance Summit, “Partnering Everywhere: Expert Leadership for the Ecosystem,” on March 1-4 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C. Here are some of the observations I will share on the ever-changing technology channel.

We are witnessing a changing of the guard from a channel perspective. Fewer companies will fit the traditional reseller or solution provider label, as many have transformed (or born into) a recurring revenue business model around managed services, cloud, SaaS integrations,line-of-business, and vertical specialists.

The channel topped out at roughly 1,000,000 companies worldwide in 2007, employing more than 10 million people. In addition, hundreds of thousands were employed indirectly at vendors, distributors, associations, and media organizations. The deep recession of 2008 had a major impact and hasn’t bounced back the way most of us expected. While the broader economy is trending back up to 2008 levels, the channel continues to slide.

What is happening out there?


1. The channel is shrinking at an alarming rate: Recent reports from CompTIA and IPED show a current North American technology partner base of 160,000 companies (600,000 worldwide). It may sound like a healthy number, but it is down 36 percent since 2008 and continues to face 10 percent to 15 percent annual attrition for the foreseeable future.

Keep in mind the 160,000 includes a much broader audience than just resellers—it includes all kinds of consultants, coaches, etc. A more accurate number, including people who directly influence and resell hardware and software products, is closer to 75,000 (with half of those selling enough product profitably to sustain a business). Your future channel and alliance partners will be smaller in number, but more focused, specialized, and effective.

2. The channel is getting younger—much younger: Todd Thibodeaux, CEO of CompTIA, kicked off his ChannelCon keynote with several pieces of research. First, an estimated 40 percent of the entire channel will retire in the next 10 years. Yes, 4 in 10. Second, those retiring will be replaced by millennials. In fact, in 10 years, 75 percent of the channel demographic will not have been alive when IBM introduced the PC (and the channel as we know it) in 1981.

This generation grew up on computers and will be pursuing different business models than the traditional reseller models we have today. They will look more like vendors, with in-house development teams, software products, and intellectual property. In the future, strategic discussions with partners will be less about incentives and education and more about integrations and co-marketing.

3. The channel is small business, and getting smaller: Much of the attrition that I mentioned above has come from within channel companies. They are doing more with less. The average channel partner has eight employees, and 97 percent of them have fewer than 50.

With the rapid growth of freelancing (think oDesk and Elance), offshoring (Fiverr), and rapid software development (Mechanical Turk), many companies are outsourcing their own functions, such as marketing, operations, finance, and custom development. Vendors are looking at opportunities to help their partners with these functions and keep them focused on (selling and) delivering solutions for end customers.

4. Vendor numbers are exploding: The above trends have an interesting side effect—the number of vendors in the marketplace is growing at a surprising pace.

Channel companies are leveraging their deep industry knowledge with unique integration skills (across dozens of vendors’ APIs) and creating products and specific intellectual property to deliver niche solutions.

At one time it was called “value add,” but today partners are incorporating these ideas into new companies and products and then going to market themselves. These products have narrow addressable markets, and the need to find resellers will continue to grow.

I predict that in 10 years, the number of vendors will outnumber the amount of pure-play resellers. Start thinking about future competitive threats and how to manage co-opetition moving forward.

5. Influencers and connectors are becoming more important: Without naming names, our entire channel ecosystem boils down to a small number of individuals who connect large amounts of like-minded people. You probably know many of them!

For example, the North American IT channel has roughly 100 people that will get you one degree of separation from anyone else. These super-connectors are very different from one another—some are media, some run associations, others are vendors or distributors, others make a living on making connections for you.


Some things are clear...


The amount of noise and clutter will not stop growing. People buy from people they like. Economic scarcity is evolving into information scarcity. The network effect will drive winners and losers in the next 10 years. Start thinking about your network—do you have the right mix of influencers and connectors to drive your channel sales?

Seventy percent of all IT dollars are now being spent outside of IT by people that vendors and channel partners don’t know all that well. Sales, marketing, finance, HR, operations, and development teams are rapidly deploying technology, and it is forcing the channel industry to get smarter.

These trends are reshaping the channel, not replacing it. As with every other threat in the past 30 years, the channel will come out stronger, more nimble, and better able to serve evolving customer needs.

Happy Belated New Year!


- Jay

ASAP Info:

I will be presenting the session “Five Future Channel Trends That You Need To Be Planning For Today” 

http://www.strategic-alliances.org/page/sum16sessions, 

March 1–4, 2016, ASAP Global Alliance Summit “Partnering Everywhere: Expert Leadership for the Ecosystem,” at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland, USA.