B0219: Channel Conflict Mediation SOP

Context

Context: balancing direct and partner sales often exposes disagreements about channel margin, conflict incidents, and partner share and the reliability of territory rules, incentive design, and customer overlap. Without a shared frame, the partner growth vs direct control remains implicit and accountability erodes across reviews. A structured record is needed to keep decisions consistent as market conditions change.

Options

• Option A: Keep the current approach to minimize disruption while accepting limited improvement.
• Option B: Pilot a phased change, validate against agreed metrics, and scale once thresholds are met.
• Option C: Redesign the approach end to end to pursue larger gains with higher execution risk.

Decision

Decision: Choose Option B. Validate channel margin, conflict incidents, and partner share early, confirm territory rules, incentive design, and customer overlap assumptions, and pause if the partner growth vs direct control no longer holds. Document owners, constraints, and review dates.

Rationale

Rationale: Option B balances partner growth vs direct control while preserving flexibility. It tests whether channel margin, conflict incidents, and partner share respond as expected to changes in territory rules, incentive design, and customer overlap before committing to a full rollout. This reduces the risk of locking in a costly path based on weak evidence and improves governance confidence.

Risks

• Weak data quality can hide shifts in channel margin, conflict incidents, and partner share and delay corrective action.
• Slow execution can magnify the downside of partner growth vs direct control and reduce credibility in reviews.

Next

Next: Assign owners for channel margin, conflict incidents, and partner share and territory rules, incentive design, and customer overlap, finalize baseline values, and publish the trigger thresholds. Schedule the first review checkpoint and define stop conditions so the decision can be revised quickly.