Vartopia Tackles Deal-Reg Challenges With Platform Upgrade

The aptly named Vartopia is set to shine the spotlight on its next-generation solution to deal registration that combines multiple vendors and even multivendor solutions into a single platform for VARs.

On Thursday, the company announced availability of version 4.0 for its Deal Registration Network, which offers a single interface used to submit, manage and measure deal registrations for all IT vendors connected to the network.

The company admittedly is not new, having formed in late 2010, but its founders have spent the last few years gaining buy-in from leading vendors (e.g., Cisco, VMware and Dell) and resellers in order to deliver critical mass  the more vendor participants, the more VARs, and the more VARs, the more vendors. While it’s been in stealth mode, Vartopias network has processed more than 175,000 deal registrations worth more than $26.5 billion in total opportunity value.

In addition to deal reg, Vartopia’s platform is expected to address MDF and lead-gen programs  two other critical pain points for VARs, said Vartopia CEO Michael Reilly. For now, Vartopia addresses several problems for VARs in registering and managing deals across their vendor portfolio. Among those challenges are:

• Lack of uniformity across vendor systems that have different interfaces and requirements
• Lack of visibility into the approval process

These challenges are disincentives for VAR sales reps to register deals, said Reilly. As proof, he said while most sales managers assume sales reps are inputting seven to 10 deals per month, real data show the number is less than two.

That might not seem like a big deal, but when you consider the discounts that were not realized on deals that closed but were not registered, it can add up to significant revenue. Reilly cited an example of one VAR that, after using Vartopia’s analytics, discovered that during the previous year, it had left $200,000 in gross profit on the table by not registering deals for only one of its vendors, which incidentally accounted for only 10 percent of its business.

To illustrate this for other VARs, Vartopia offers a 30-day, risk-free trial wherein it pulls in the data from a VAR’s participating vendors so they can run the analytics themselves. They also can set up sales groups with parent-child hierarchies and assign reps to territories to run reports accordingly.

The value of the system can be boosted by integrations with VARs’ CRM systems, e.g. Microsoft Dynamics or Salesforce.com. This way VARs can compare pipelines to deal registrations more easily. It also enables the final deal value to be logged, which normally isn’t done in the vendor deal-registration systems. Deal registrations are error-checked and submitted in real time; vendor updates are pulled in nightly.

We were already headed toward a deal registration best practice, and Vartopia came along,” said John Cook, director, RFP Response Team at Core BTS Inc. Vartopia has really allowed us to accelerate our deal-registration process and execute much faster. Were able to do more registrations, close more deals and make more margin. Weve got deal-registration religion. Now, reps can hardly wait to submit deal registrations. Our process and Vartopia technology have allowed us to drive proper behavior and increase monthly deal registrations by more than 20 percent.”

VARs sign up for Vartopia’s network as a subscription that is priced based on the number of transactions. Reilly said it works out to about $20 per month, per rep on average. 

In addition to seeking more VARs to use the system, Vartopia is looking to connect with additional vendors that have deal-reg systems in place. In January, the company will also offer a deal-reg platform for vendors that don’t have one or have one with limited capabilities.

Depending on the number of programs and forms, vendors pay $10,000-$50,000 for the initial connection and then $12,000-$36,000 annually for maintenance. The new end-to-end platform will cost less, Reilly noted.

Vendors benefit from greater and earlier visibility into partner pipelines with more runway to impact the outcome or grow the deal by providing extra support. Further, vendors that are part of multivendor solutions also can work with Vartopia to get a consolidated view of registrations for these multivendor solutions.