A number of vendors out there talk about portals as the "be all end all" to partner support structures. But with the right understanding it can be so much more. The portal needs to become an environment that allows the features of CRM, ERP, SCM, PLM and e-Commerce to come together in one interactive view. Companies need a system that is driven by roles, responsibilities, automation, interaction and approvals. It also needs an environment that is secure but open to its partners and one that the partners can use so they have visibility into the processes that govern the relationship.

An environment that is customizable per partner where processes and access are based on NDA, revenue sharing agreements and channel objectives. It needs to natively support real-time sharing and collaboration. It also needs to drive process improvement and have the ability to be managed and edited by the business user without IT involvement. If a relationship changes the business development/alliance/supplier manager should have the ability to change the roles and permissions through a user interface instead of depending on an application developer.

This environment should have all the features and integration points necessary to share the right information, in the right light with all partners. Providing one view of the customer or partner to all parties. And even provide one view from the partners to inside the company. The environment should include:

• CRM Features: An environment needs to be able to handle and delegate Joint Sales Lead Development, Recruitment Management, Joint Marketing Plans, In-Portal Communication Tools, Training Capability and Tracking, Performance Measurements, Qualification Measures, Triggers, Reminders, Escalations and Alerts
• ERP Features: An environment needs to provide appropriate details for Manufacturing Data, Order Entry History, Accounts Receivable and Payable, General Ledger, Purchasing, Warehousing, Transportation and Employees involved in the partnership
• SCM Features: An environment needs to provide insight into the status and timing of materials and products from manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer
• PLM Features: An environment needs to be able to coordinate all aspects of a joint product from initial concept, approval stages to its eventual retirement including the requirements phase, analysis and design stages, manufacturing, product launch, distribution, quality assurance, maintenance and spare parts provisions
• e-Commerce Features: An environment needs to support doing business over the web. Be it setting up a shared marketing budget, supporting shared revenue or royalty payments or integrating the sale of joint offerings.
• More: There is always more. The Plasma FUSION^TM environment can provide all this and more. Since FUSION is web based you can develop your community the way you want too with all the web technologies at your disposal. FUSION can also supplement the connection of systems to building a front end to replacement of legacy systems completely.