Distributor evaluation that shows which partners can grow with you.

Distributor evaluation is an assessment of each channel partner's capability and motivation to grow a brand's business, scored on infrastructure, team capacity, financial resilience and territory reach. Those four measures act as the distributor selection criteria, and the evaluation looks past last year's sales to show which partners can scale and which need corrective action. Nextyn scores every partner on the same measures plus motivation, from field visits and interviews with the partners and the customers they serve.

A Nextyn distributor evaluation measures performance through three outputs: a scorecard for every partner, the partners ranked by readiness to grow, and a list of investment and corrective action priorities. Each output rests on field visits and interviews, and every partner is judged on the same measures instead of last year's sales:

• Partner scorecard: infrastructure, team capacity, financial resilience, territory reach and motivation
• Growth readiness ranking: every partner on one scale
• Priorities: where to invest, and where corrective action comes first

Nextyn gathers evidence from three groups for a distributor evaluation: the distributors themselves, the dealers and trade customers they serve, and the client's own channel managers. Field researchers visit each partner's premises, and interviews test what the partner says against what its customers see:

• Distributor owners, managers and sales staff
• Dealers, sub-dealers and trade customers who buy from each partner
• The client's channel and sales managers who work with the network

Nextyn runs distributor evaluations in the United States, Canada and Germany, among other markets, with field presence in 85 countries and 50+ languages in-house. The scope is set at the start, from a full partner network to the partners in one priority market. Recent Nextyn channel work includes interviews with importers, distributors and installers across the United States, Canada and Germany, and with distributors and retailers in Canada, Brazil and Mexico.

Nextyn recommends commissioning a distributor evaluation before the annual partner plan, while investment, targets and contract renewals are still open. At that stage the scores decide where support goes, instead of explaining afterwards why it went to partners unable to use it. An evaluation also earns its cost at three other moments: entering a new market, consolidating a partner network, and a partner whose sales stall while the market grows.

A Nextyn distributor evaluation runs in four steps, from brief to read-out, and nothing is commissioned until the client approves the plan. The client sees the sample, method and price before any fieldwork, and reads every interview with the Nextyn team at the end.

1. Submit the brief: the partners, the markets and the decisions the evaluation must inform.
2. Receive a plan within 48 hours: which partners and customers Nextyn will visit and interview, how, and what the work costs.
3. Approve the plan: fieldwork starts only after sign-off.
4. Review the read-out: every interview read together, showing where partners and customers agree, where they conflict and what is still open.

Nextyn sends a research plan within 48 hours of receiving the brief, stating which partners and customers will be visited and interviewed, how, and what the work costs. The plan sets the fieldwork length for the partners and markets in scope, so a single-market review and a full network evaluation each get their own timeline. Nothing is commissioned, and no fieldwork starts, until the client approves the plan.

Nextyn's distributor evaluation scores each partner's capability and motivation to grow, while a sales performance review ranks partners on what they sold last year. Past sales show who performed under old conditions, and the evaluation shows who can carry the next phase of growth.