Channel Consulting and Strategy Development

There are numerous channel decisions a company must address when bringing a new product or service to market or when trying to repair a broken sales or partner program. Without careful channel marketing, planning and consideration, your new offering could be left sitting on the shelf. Does your new offering require you to enter a new channel that you are unfamiliar with or, will you be using your existing channel partners? What are you doing to educate your targeted or existing channel on your new offerings?

The ICN Group has been helping clients deal with a variety of channel marketing decisions for over 25 years. From the rise of big-box retailers to the evolution of the Internet, we have the skills and knowledge to help our clients develop channel marketing programs that can improve their growth and support their profit goals.

We begin by working with our clients to uncover their key end user segments, buying process and sales preferences. We then explore appropriate options and identify each individual process, support capabilities, existing supplier base and willingness to consider new partners. Once all of these variables are determined, our team recommend an appropriate mix and work with each client to design a framework that delivers the right growth results.

Whether our clients employ direct or indirect sales paths, e-commerce or a hybrid combination, we advise them on the design and implementation of actionable go to market strategies including:

Web Event and Training Services

The ICN Group has partnered with one of the world’s leading resources to provide clients with best in class web events, web seminars, web training and education capabilities. In these tough economic times there is no more valuable and measurable to provide these services.

Corvent was founded by industry pioneers, whose accomplishments include building the original Event Services Bureau for web seminars at EnvoyGlobal in 1995. The Event Services Bureau was later sold to PlaceWare and exists today as Microsoft Office Live Meeting’s Event Services Division. With over 40 combined years in the web events, collaboration and enterprise deployment industries, Corvent’s expertise and commitment to excellence delivers measurable business value to web seminars and unified communications.

Corvent’s founders and principal architects recognized an opportunity to provide better management and reporting for web-based events. Using a unique blend of people, processes, and technologies, Corvent produces dynamic web seminars and event campaigns with platform-independent professional services and comprehensive, real-time registration and reporting tools. The ICN Group works with leading organizations to successfully deploy Unified Communications solutions, including Live Meeting, Office Communications Server, Sharepoint, and more with Corvent's global team of consultants. The combination of technology, expertise and proven methodologies guarantees:

Master Representation

The ICN Group’s “master representation group” was started out of the difficulty and frustration that manufacturers encounter in attempting to recruit a commissioned based sales force globally.
As our global economy becomes more interconnected; small, medium, and large manufacturers are looking to expand their sales distribution channels into new territories and need an effective way to attract quality sales representatives in their targeted geographic areas. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for manufacturers to successfully introduce their product offerings in a new domestic or foreign territory without the assistance of knowledgeable representatives from their specific targeted markets. Establishing key relationships, with representatives that are knowledgeable of the potential customers and their buying needs, is the main challenge facing any sales expansion effort.
Our historical business experience and extensive contacts collectively form a formidable force which provides our clients a tremendous advantage in today’s competitive retail and manufacturing environments.

From the back-end logistics to the front-end presentation, our management team can guide you through potential pitfalls and develop a turnkey distribution solution that will achieve your goals and objectives.

Research and Insights

The ICN Group designs channel and consumer insight and research programs that can be used to enhance our clients' channel and consumer marketing and sales programs based on market shifts, market segments, product testing, buyer behavior, and other business influencers. By working closely with our clients from the start to define the goals and methods, the ICN Group gets answers to the significant questions that impact success for product marketing, sales and business development teams.

The ICN Group’s will deliver the input, feedback and results that can save our clients significant time and money. Consider using our research and insight teams when testing channel programs, determining trends and partner needs, product rollouts, competitive activity and more.