Salesforce portal to link firms’ channel partners

Salesforce.com will today announce a new version of its on-demand service to let firms’ distribution channel partners connect to each other via a portal.

Due to be available on 12 July, the new service is called Partnerforce, Salesforce Partner Edition and is intended to let Salesforce customers share sales and marketing information such as sales leads via a customisable portal with dashboard performance indicators.

“Customers can have a seamless service into their partners to allow the company to extend visibility of leads to partners [and vice versa],” said Chris Boorman, Salesforce European vice-president of marketing. “You can do point-and-click customisation to define workflow, messaging and help systems. It will be an aid to recruiting partners, helping marketing and measuring partners.”

Many firms currently rely on spreadsheets, homegrown programs and point-to-point links to connect partners but the web-based delivery model could provide a more elegant alternative.

“Most salesforce automation systems don’t cater for multi-tier channels and in-house systems are often built to suit direct sales,” said Bob Tarzey of analyst firm Quocirca. “You’re talking about co-operation between a large number of organisations that are physically separate. You could have an inventory system acting as a feed to the partner [via the portal].”

Purchasers must have Salesforce Enterprise Edition or Unlimited Edition and pay an additional $1,500 (£820) per partner, per year to cover up to five partner employees.

A list of URLs registered by Salesforce and posted on the independent Salesforcewatch.com web site suggests possible directions for the fast-growing firm. They include Assetforce.com and Billingforce.com.