360insights announced that it had acquired Webinfinity, an ecosystem management platform. It had purchased a minority stake in the company in early 2021. This acquisition fulfills 360insights’ plan to deliver the most powerful tools and most talented people in the Channel Incentives Management landscape.
“Ecosystems have, on average, 10 times more partners than transactional channel programs and require the core elements, such as recruitment, onboarding, incentives, enablement, co-selling, co-marketing, and management, to scale comparatively,” wrote Jay McBain, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research. “Ecosystem leaders are not given 10 times the resources, so channel process automation (CPA) has percolated to the top of the list.” (” What I see Coming for The Channel: 2021”, Jay McBain, Forrester)
Webinfinity’s portal technology and engagement automation solution will be reintegrated fully and will be rebranded as 360ecosystems. 360ecosystems will assist brands to efficiently manage, engage and influence their complex channel ecosystems with an application that enables partner-to-partner collaboration, safe exchange of data between partners, and accessing and tracking every ecosystem participant’s contribution to a deal.
“This is a pinnacle moment for 360insights. After an extensive journey of strategic acquisitions, product development and overall growth, we never lost sight of our goal to be the leading channel engagement and business optimization company globally, With the full integration of Webinfinity’s leading engagement automation engine with 360’s Channel Success Platform, we’re redefining channel engagement and incentives automation through comprehensive ecosystem orchestration.”
Jason Atkins, founder & CEO of 360insights
“We are truly excited to be a part of the 360insights team and are fully aligned on the vision that an enterprise’s biggest growth opportunity is through maximizing its entire ecosystem,” said James Hodgkinson of Webinfinity. “The complete integration of our two companies’ technology and people will create the industry's first end-to-end engagement automation solution, combining next-gen personalized experience with the automated incentives that drive revenue-generating user behavior.”
360ecosystem will create a single pane of glass experience for users and automate engagement at scale. It will include the following channel ecosystem tech-stack components over time:
360 Incentive Automation: Consumer rebates, channel incentives (SPIFs), volume rebates, MDF/CO-OP, sales allowances, points programs, loyalty, and more.
360 Channel Automation: Pricing (CPQ), payments, and channel data management (CDM), including the 360 analytics and data engine
360 Managed Services: Program management, claim processing, risk & compliance, and contact center support
360 Channel Marketing: Spark Your Channel’s video and content personalization and Channel Maven campaigns, event management, print & distribution
Third-Party Integrations: Through its extensibility framework and strategic alliances delivering integrations with CRM, PRM, TCMA, scorecarding, lead management, and more.