Abstract:
A system and method for managing business partner qualifications. According to one embodiment, an application receives a request by an external business partner to assign a qualification to an entity associated with the external business partner, determines whether the qualification is authorized for direct assignment by the external business partner, and assigns the qualification to the entity if the qualification is determined to be authorized for direct assignment by the external business partner. According to another embodiment, an application receives a request to search qualification data associated with an entity associated with an external business partner, executes a search for the qualification data in response to the request, and provides results of the search. According to yet another embodiment, a data structure comprises one or more data elements identifying a qualification type associated with an external business partner and one or more data elements associating a qualification value with the qualification type.

Description:
COPYRIGHT NOTICE  
       [0001]     A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.  
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0002]     Current channel management solutions (such as mySAP CRM Channel Management) allow brand owners to manage their indirect partner channel—i.e., independently operating channel partners that market, sell and/or service the brand owner&#39;s products. For those business partners, a partner portal provides access to data and processes of the brand owner&#39;s Customer Relationship Management (“CRM”) system.  
         [0003]     Prior to the present invention, however, it has not been possible to store information about a channel partner&#39;s skill set and competencies. Because of this, brand owners have not been able to find the best-fit channel partner and partner employee for a “job” (e.g., processing a forwarded sales lead or opportunity), nor plan necessary trainings and programs for its business partners.  
         [0004]     Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a system and method for managing business partner qualifications. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0005]      FIG. 1  is a process flow diagram that depicts the management of a qualification assignment request in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0006]      FIG. 2  is a process flow diagram that depicts the management of another qualification assignment request in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0007]      FIGS. 3A through 3E  are block diagrams that depict data structures associated with qualification assignments in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0008]      FIG. 4  is a screenshot that depicts a company profile screen from which a request for a qualification may be launched in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0009]      FIG. 5  is a screenshot that depicts a contact persons screen from which a request for a qualification may be launched in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0010]      FIG. 6  is a screenshot that depicts an input screen for a qualification assignment request in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0011]      FIG. 7  is a process flow diagram that depicts the management of a qualification search request in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0012]      FIG. 8  is a screenshot that depicts a contact persons screen from which a qualification search request may be launched in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0013]      FIG. 9  is a screenshot that depicts an input screen in which a qualifications catalog search request may be launched in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0014]      FIG. 10  is a block diagram that depicts a computing device in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0015]     The present invention addresses the current drawbacks in channel management by providing for the assignment of qualifications (e.g., a skill, knowledge, or ability of a business partner, such as “consulting experienced and their corresponding proficiencies (e.g., describing the level of qualification, such as “advanced”) to business partners and their employees. Unlike the existing concept of qualifications, which up to now was exclusively utilized to model internal employees of a company, the present invention greatly enhances the management of channel partners by extending this concept to external business partners.  
         [0016]     In order for a brand owner to know about its channel partners&#39; qualifications, the present invention enables the channel partners themselves to request the assignment of qualifications pertaining to their company and/or their employees, as illustrated in  FIG. 1 . In this embodiment, a channel partner utilizes channel partner client  100  to submit a qualification assignment request to channel management server  110 , which is operated by a brand owner (step  120 ). Server  110  determines whether the qualification is authorized for direct assignment by the channel partner (step  130 ), and if so, proceeds with the assignment (step  140 ). The assignment may include changing a proficiency of a qualification previously assigned to an entity (e.g., data structure) associated with the external business partner.  
         [0017]     Since it may not be desired for a brand owner to grant unrestricted access to all qualifications in the brand owner&#39;s system, the present invention enables the brand owner to require a certain subset of qualifications to be explicitly approved or rejected by an internal channel manager. For example, a channel manager of a brand owner may want to differentiate between qualifications that a channel partner should be able to assign without the channel manager&#39;s explicit approval (e.g., “Spanish language knowledge”) as opposed to qualifications that should require the channel manager&#39;s explicit approval (e.g., “certified CRM consultants.  
         [0018]     This embodiment is illustrated in  FIG. 2 , in which steps  210 ,  220  and  2230  are identical to steps  120 ,  130  and  140  of  FIG. 1 . However, if server  110  determines that a qualification is not authorized for direct assignment by the channel partner, it forwards the request to channel manager client  200  (operated, e.g., by an internal channel manager of the brand owner) for approval or rejection (step  240 ). If the request is approved, server  110  assigns the qualification (step  250 ). Server  110  notifies channel partner client  100  of the channel manager&#39;s decision (step  260 ), which is displayed at client  100  (step  270 ).  
         [0019]      FIGS. 3A-3E  depict data structures that may be utilized in the implementation of partner qualification management in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. For instance,  FIG. 3A  illustrates a profile (data structure  300 ) in which qualification information ( 320 ) may be associated with a channel partner ( 310 ). This association enables server  110  to implement the qualification assignments in steps  140  and  250 , and the searching functionality to be discussed below in reference to  FIGS. 7-9 .  
         [0020]     As shown in  FIG. 3B , partner  310  may include a partner type ( 315 ) that identifies whether the partner entity represents the business partner at a company level or at an employee level.  
         [0021]     As shown in  FIG. 3C , qualification  320  may include a qualification type ( 325 ) that identifies the nature of the qualification (e.g., “Spanish language knowledge”), a qualification group ( 330 ) that identifies a classification for grouping similar qualifications together (e.g., “language knowledge”), a start date ( 335 ) and end date ( 340 ) that identifies a temporal limitation associated with the qualification (e.g., when a certification must be renewed), a rating ( 345 ) that identifies a proficiency level associated with the qualification (e.g., “advanced”), and a scale ( 350 ) that identifies proficiency levels associated with the rating.  
         [0022]     A qualification group ( 330 ) may simply comprise a grouping of one or more qualifications ( 320 A 1  . . . AN), as illustrated in  FIG. 3D .  
         [0023]      FIG. 3E  illustrates a data structure ( 360 ) that may be allow a channel manager, for example, to customize which qualifications (or, more specifically in this embodiment, which groups of qualifications) are to be maintained by a channel partner (thus not requiring explicit approval by the channel manager) as opposed to which qualifications require explicit approval by the channel manager. The customizing data structure ( 360 ) may include a qualification group ( 330 ), partner type ( 315 ), a field ( 365 ) that identifies if the partner maintains the qualification information, and a field ( 370 ) that identifies if the partner must request the qualification information from a channel manager. This data structure ( 360 ) enables server  110  to implement the authorization determination in steps  130  and  220 .  
         [0024]      FIG. 4  depicts a company profile screen from which a request for a qualification may be launched in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. If a channel partner desires to assign a qualification at the company level, the channel partner could click on the “Request for Qualification” button in the toolbar and an input screen for a qualification assignment request may be exposed as illustrated in  FIG. 6 . This input screen would enable the channel partner to enter a qualification, proficiency level and other information desired to be associated with the company associated with the channel partner. If the channel partner desires to assign a qualification at the employee level, the channel partner could click on the “Request for Qualification” button in the toolbar of the contact persons profile screen shown in  FIG. 5 , and enter the desired qualification information into the subsequently exposed assignment request form of  FIG. 6 .  
         [0025]     In order for a channel manager to gain the full benefit of the channel partner qualification information (e.g., processing a forwarded sales lead or opportunity), the present invention enables the channel manager to search the qualification information as illustrated in  FIG. 7 . In this embodiment, channel manager client  200  submits search parameters based on partner qualification information (step  700 ). Server  110  performs the search (step  710 ) by querying the qualification information for any matches, and displays the results on channel manager client (step  720 ).  
         [0026]      FIG. 8  depicts a contact persons screen from which a qualification search request may be launched in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, the searchable fields include the qualification ( 320 ) and proficiency ( 345 ).  FIG. 9  depicts an input screen in which a qualifications catalog search request may be launched in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, the searchable fields include the qualification ( 320 ), qualification group ( 330 ), scale ( 350 ) and valid date (falling within start date  335  and end date  340 ).  
         [0027]      FIG. 10  illustrates the components of a basic computing device in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, which may include client  100 , server  110  and client  200 . The computing device may be a personal computer, workstation, handheld personal digital assistant (“PDA”), or any other type of microprocessor-based device. The computing device may include one or more of processor  1010 , input device  1020 , output device  1030 , storage  1040 , and communication device  1060 .  
         [0028]     Input device  1020  may include a keyboard, mouse, pen-operated touch screen or monitor, voice-recognition device, or any other device that provides input. Output device  1030  may include a monitor, printer, disk drive, speakers, or any other device that provides output.  
         [0029]     Storage  1040  may include volatile and nonvolatile data storage, including one or more electrical, magnetic or optical memories such as a RAM, cache, hard drive, CD-ROM drive, tape drive or removable storage disk. Communication device  1060  may include a modem, network interface card, or any other device capable of transmitting and receiving signals over a network. The components of the computing device may be connected via an electrical bus or wirelessly.  
         [0030]     Software  1050 , which may be stored in storage  1040  and executed by processor  1010 , may include, for example, the application programming that embodies the functionality of the present invention (e.g., as embodied in mySAP CRM 5.0). Software  1050  may include a combination of enterprise servers such as an application server and a database server.  
         [0031]     Network  105  may include any type of interconnected communication system, which may implement any communications protocol, which may be secured by any security protocol. The corresponding network links may include telephone lines, DSL, cable networks, T1 or T3 lines, wireless network connections, or any other arrangement that implements the transmission and reception of network signals.  
         [0032]     The computing device may implement any operating system, such as Windows or UNIX. Software  1050  may be written in any programming language, such as ABAP, C, C++, Java or Visual Basic. In various embodiments, application software embodying the functionality of the present invention may be deployed on a standalone machine, in a client/server arrangement or through a Web browser as a Web-based application or Web service, for example.  
         [0033]     Several embodiments of the invention are specifically illustrated and/or described herein. However, it will be appreciated that modifications and variations of the invention are covered by the above teachings and within the purview of the appended claims without departing from the spirit and intended scope of the invention. For example, the data structures that implement the present invention can take many different forms yet still provide the same functionality.