Patent ID: 8260627

Claim:
A method of graphing by computer a partnership value of a partnership between a partner and a company, comprising: creating a partner management index, wherein the index comprises a plurality of groups, each group comprises a plurality of categories, and each category comprises a plurality of criteria to be rated during an evaluation of at least one of the partner or the company; assigning a weight to the index and to each group, category, and criteria so that the index is associated with an index weight, and each group is associated with a group weight, each category is associated with a category weight, and each criteria is associated with a criteria weight, wherein the weights indicate an importance of the index, group, category, and criteria to at least one of the company or the partner; rating the criteria in each category during a first evaluation of at least one of the company or the partner at a first time, whereby each criteria in a category is associated with a criteria rating; multiplying each criteria rating with the associated criteria weight to generate a plurality of criteria scores, whereby each criteria in the category is associated with a criteria score; summing the associated criteria scores in each category of criteria to generate a plurality of criteria score totals, whereby each category is associated with a criteria score total; in a computer, multiplying each criteria score total of each category with the associated category weight to generate a plurality of category scores, whereby each category is associated with a category score; summing the associated category scores in each group of the index to generate a plurality of category score totals, whereby each group is associated with a category score total; multiplying the associated category score total with the associated group weight to generate a plurality of group scores, whereby each group is associated with a group score; summing the associated group scores to generate a value for the partner management index; and graphing by a computer a first value of the partner management index, wherein the first value is the value for the partner management index at the first time, and the first value indicates a partnership value of the partnership between the partner and the company at the first time.