ZINFI Partner Relationship Management Software helps Beamex transform its partner sales process by enabling integration of HubSpot CRM data with the ZINFI platform

Overview

Beamex is a global provider of calibration solutions, including calibrators, calibration software, calibration test benches, and related products and services. More than 12,000 companies in 139 countries currently use Beamex products to calibrate process instruments and manage calibrations in a broad range of verticals, including food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, forestry, chemicals, oil and gas, power and utilities, and more.

Beamex is unique among its competitors in offering both calibration hardware and software, as well as a range of services. In addition to offering its solutions directly through Beamex HQ, subsidiaries and branch offices, the company has an extensive network of independent distributors to market and sell its products across all continents.

Challenges

Until very recently, Beamex has had to manage its global partner network in an information vacuum, with little visibility into the sales funnel among Partner relationship management software organizations. While individual partners were manually entering lead information into HubSpot to keep track of potential customers, the Beamex marketing and sales teams had no way to monitor the progression of those leads through the customer journey, measure partner performance or analyze the results of specific marketing campaigns by region, target audience or other variables.

Beamex recognized that the company had a pressing need to automate lead management and feedback among its partner base by integrating HubSpot CRM data with partner relationship management software. Beamex began a procurement process in which automated lead management and better collaboration and communication with partners were the primary goals, and the ability to integrate with HubSpot CRM data was an absolute requirement.

Solutions

The procurement process led Beamex to ZINFI, an established vendor recognized by Forrester and G2 as an industry leader in through-channel marketing and partner relationship management (PRM) solutions. While the list of prospective vendors claiming to offer HubSpot integration was initially long, Beamex quickly determined that true integration is actually quite rare among PRM vendors. “ZINFI’s ability to integrate is pretty unique,” says Pamela Skytte, Business Development Manager at Beamex. “A lot of other vendors claimed to be able to integrate, but when we saw the demos we realized these weren’t the solutions that we wanted.”

core component of ZINFI’s partner relationship management solution is its web-based partner portal, where OEMs like Beamex can easily engage in two-way communication with their partner base, and where partners can turn to learn about new products and updates, and access co-brandable marketing collateral, product specs, sales slicks and other information that is directly relevant to their efforts to sell Beamex solutions. OEMs can also use the portal to provide individual partners with sales agreements, codes of conduct, marketing analyses and confidential information.

In addition to having the right set of product features, ZINFI’s longevity and stability in a relatively young PRM industry was decisive for Pamela. “We have had other suppliers in automation and AI, but when the pandemic came they weren’t able to manage any longer. It’s important to trust our partners; we need to believe the relationship will last as long as we need it to last.”

Results

A few months after implementing ZINFI’s partner relationship management software, Beamex is already seeing tangible results and significant ROI. Skytte and her team have onboarded approximately 40 partners so far, and Beamex’s lead management capabilities have taken off. Now, when HubSpot leads generated from Beamex’s blog, web pages, newsletters, paid advertisements, social media and other channels reach marketing qualified lead (MQL) status, they are automatically integrated into the ZINFI platform. Partners each have their own accounts in ZINFI, and each qualifies leads according to Beamex criteria through the sales funnel. Sales qualified leads (SQLs) then automatically go back into HubSpot. Beamex is also tracking MQLs by country, including countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America.

Proudly sharing screen shots of bar graphs showing the number of leads at various points in the funnel with individual partners in real time, Pamela notes that “These numbers were zero before. This is a huge step forward in our automation of the MQL process and leads in general, to be able to integrate it, because now we have numbers that quantify the activities of the partners worldwide, which we have not been able to do before…. Now we can follow the leads down the funnel. If we get an MQL that sits there a while, the system will send them a reminder. We can instantly see which companies and which partners have not done their homework.”

Skytte says partners have responded “really positively” upon seeing the portal and learning what it can do and how it can be used to perform CRM functions. Beamex is working to keep them coming by having a lot of fresh material in the portal. “They very much appreciate the things we have been doing for them,” she says, “and they see they can also benefit from this information.” They are incorporating information from ZINFI into their own CRMs, and using the portal to categorize their own customers.

In addition to Pamela, who uses ZINFI daily, approximately 25 employees from Beamex currently use the platform, including admins, sales reps, marketing professionals and an IT employee, among others. “ZINFI has made our jobs easier,” says Pamela. “Now we can see marketing-generated deals in HubSpot, and eventually will be able to see the revenue worldwide.” Down the road, she looks forward to developing more precisely targeted marketing campaigns with information that tells her what actually works. The data integration with HubSpot is already providing valuable insight and enabling data-driven decisions, and will soon make it possible to develop campaigns for specific types of partners. “[The ZINFI platform] gives a lot of information to our marketing team.”