Many channel managers have had vivid, personal experiences of partner websites which have failed to deliver! Many companies have blown millions on such projects over the last few years.

Yet some supplier websites are buzzing. Software vendor Oracle, for instance, claims that 67% of its 6,300 partners worldwide, visit its new supersite at least three times a week. Car maker BMW reckons that all its UK motor dealers visit its site at least once a day. Some visit a dozen times daily.

These web-based solutions offer some obvious benefits. Partners can select the tools and programmes they want to use. And suppliers can easily monitor traffic and identify which programmes work best.

How can we reconcile these two views? What can PRM deliver? And how can suppliers avoid the pitfalls? But, first, what functions are really encompassed by PRM? And who is doing what online?

Simon Wallace-Jones is chief executive of Foundation Network, a UK-based PRM supplier. For him, PRM encompasses everything you would want to do with your partner online. This could mean online profiles of partners, with the ability to search for partners with particular skills. It could mean the ability to handle leads, artwork and promotions online. It could mean the ability to purchase products online. It could mean online training. Or it could be the online booking of seminars and conferences. Or simply telling partners about products and services.

The RTMA talked to half a dozen senior channel managers in the IT and motor industry about their experience. Most see PRM as a way of helping partners through the sales process. They say that PRM can free up staff for frontline sales and face-to-face meetings.

They are emphatic, however, that PRM solutions can not replace proactive account management. And do not expect your partners to surf your site proactively. The manager of one big software company said: "Your website won't influence partners. Just like the web itself, it is a depository of information and a reference source." How you deploy PRM depends on your position in the market, the types of partners you work with and how close they are to you as a supplier.

Put simply, a supplier whose products are a breadwinner for its partners and who sells them directly to its partners, will get a lot of traffic. A secondary supplier whose product doesn't represent more than 5% of its partners income, and who sells through wholesalers, may see very little traffic indeed.

Wallace-Jones reckons PRM has potential in any industry which is selling products at $5,000 and upwards through multi-tiered channels. Note that the closer the link between supplier and intermediary, the more likely PRM is to succeed.

It is perhaps no surprise then that the motor industry, where dealers are tied to manufacturers, has some of the most advanced systems.

"If I simply told partners to go to the homepage, many would forget their passwords!"

But it all depends on your partners needs. In the computer industry, developers, who depend for their livelihood on a particular software platform, have big information needs. Keith Harris, head of European operations at software vendor Filemaker, says: "We have a really active developer section of the site. Novices go there to get advice and solutions from more experienced programmers. If I posted something saying that prices were rising, I would get 30 to 40 emails and 20 calls that day." He reckons this part of the site works because these people's businesses are 30% to 100% dependent on the Filemaker product.