Brand-licensing partnerships are the lifeblood of a lot of as we speak’s greatest enterprise manufacturers. They’ve develop into a enterprise crucial for any enterprise trying to broaden its model attain and a novel strategy to join with customers. From motion pictures (product placements) to sports activities occasions (sponsorships) to well-known characters, manufacturers usually have tons of—generally hundreds—of licensing partnerships that account for a good portion of their revenues.
While licensing is massive enterprise—in line with Amazon the licensing business is poised to develop to $1 trillion by the top of this decade—the method is basically archaic and extremely fragmented. Each relationship a model has with a merchandiser represents a wholly separate income stream, every with its personal set of knowledge, particular person departments and stakeholders and complicated workflows and processes.
The end result: Most enterprise manufacturers lack the information and perception to reply primary questions, akin to: Which partnership is performing the perfect? Which ought to we rethink? On which of them ought to we double down? How lengthy does it take for a product to get to market? How a lot am I owed in royalties? Where are my merchandise being offered?
The backside line is that this lack of visibility is costing manufacturers billions in missed alternatives, together with the potential to speed up merchandise to market, to tell new product traces and extra. But what you’ll be able to’t see, you’ll be able to’t maximize. That’s why enterprise manufacturers want a centralized view into the efficiency of their brand-licensing partnerships as a way to drive and maximize brand-partnership revenues, and a CRM (buyer relationship administration) system to granularly handle each step of the partnership lifecycle; each interplay; each relationship; and each income stream.
In this eWEEK Data Points article, Kalle Torma, CEO of Flowhaven, makes use of business data to share 5 methods knowledge and automation are modernizing the brand-licensing course of.
Data Point No. 1: Break down communication silos.
Any expertise answer deployed to handle the brand-licensing settlement course of should leverage knowledge and automation to supply strong centralized, and accessible content material administration. This ensures that your licensing departments can entry data, exercise and efficiency metrics. Licensing staff alignment is very vital for organizations that need to set up and repair partnerships. The system ought to make it simple to create and share new studies to enhance collaboration and communication between companions.
Data Point No. 2: Maximize revenues by gaining granular visibility.
Any expertise answer deployed to enhance the brand-licensing course of should carry collectively data from completely different groups and departments to supply a holistic view of every associate in actual time. Seeing all the things without delay provides customer-facing workers who work in gross sales, account administration, product approvals and royalty administration superpowers with regards to making fast and knowledgeable choices on all the things from figuring out new alternatives to enhancing the standard of communication and responsiveness.
Data Point No. 3: Strengthen associate and buyer relationships.
Managing your organization’s relationships with those that purchase and use your organization’s services and products has by no means been extra vital. Simply put, your companions need good instruments that make working with you simple. They additionally need to really feel such as you’re hyper-obsessed with assembly your targets. But establishing good licensing relationships requires extra than simply arduous work. Companies want to make use of trendy applied sciences and instruments to get probably the most out of their relationships. Smart methods supply a single software the place you, your staff and your companions can spend…