The Perfect Blend - How CoffeeBean Tech Brewed Stronger Partnerships

Interview with:

Douglas Rondon | Head of Product

Gustavo Betcher | Sales Engineer

What happens when a great business idea grows faster than the tools you use to manage it? That was the exact challenge facing CoffeeBean Tech.

Founded in 2008, the company developed its innovative Identity and Access Platform from scratch and built a smart business plan around it: work with partners. This strategy of teaming up with experts—from global integrators in the USA and Germany to specialised companies near their development center in Brazil—was a huge success.

Challenges

This strategy worked great, until it worked too well. As their global partner network got bigger, the manual, day-to-day work of managing everyone became a huge headache.

The team was wrestling with a series of interconnected challenges that were consuming time, and creating friction. The major pain point was inefficient document sharing with critical sales materials, marketing collateral, and product updates distributed via email.

"We had a lot of problems sharing documents with our partners," explains Gustavo. "These documents were mostly sent via email, which could result in unseen emails or the need to send a new email for each update to a document." This often meant partners were working with outdated materials, a critical flaw when they needed the most current information, which resulted in opportunities being lost or even taking a long time to respond to them.

The second challenge was a leaky lead registration process. Opportunities were submitted through a simple Google Form, which triggered an email notification to the sales team. With dozens of partners actively generating leads, this created a chaotic system.

“As our partner network grew globally, one of the biggest challenges we faced was effectively managing and tracking the various stages of each partner's journey within the program. We were relying on spreadsheets, but it became increasingly difficult to maintain accuracy and keep up with the growing number of partners.” shares Douglas.

The Solution

The CoffeeBean Tech team knew they needed a centralised platform. Their criteria were clear: the solution had to be easy to use for both internal teams and external partners, support multiple languages to serve their global ecosystem, and, most importantly, fit the budget of a growing company.

"Most solutions on the market are focused on very large companies, and therefore it is not viable for small and medium-sized companies to implement such expensive solutions," Betcher notes. After a thorough search, CoffeeBean Tech chose Journeybee. "That is why Journeybee was the best choice for us, because it offers the same features as expensive solutions, but at a price that fits our budget."

The move to a unified platform yielded significant results by solving CoffeeBean Tech's most pressing inefficiencies. First, the platform's resource library completely eliminated the challenges of document sharing. It created a centralised repository that guaranteed partners always had the latest information.

"Journeybee's resource library has become our main feature; it directly addressed our biggest pain point," confirms Gustavo.

The team gained powerful new tools for partner management. Using features like partner stages and tags, the sales team could now monitor onboarding progress and gain deeper context on each partner. This ability to segment and track allows for more personalised support and strategic engagement across their entire ecosystem.

The Impact

The implementation of Journeybee delivered immediate results. The onboarding process was remarkably fast and straightforward, allowing the team to see value almost instantly.

"The onboarding process was smooth and quick," says Douglas. "We were able to set up the core features in just a couple of days. Throughout the process, the Journeybee team provided excellent support, responding promptly to any questions or adjustments we needed."

Today, Journeybee is central to CoffeeBean Tech's daily partner operations. "Our team uses Journeybee primarily to provide a centralised partner portal where all our partners can access the resources and information they need about CoffeeBean, available in both English and Portuguese," Douglas explains. Partners now have a single source of truth for all sales and marketing materials, ensuring they always have the latest information at their fingertips. This simple change eliminated a major point of friction, empowering partners to be more self-sufficient.

While the team is phasing in its full activation, the new system ensures opportunities are accurately tracked and responded to with greater speed. "Our next step is to activate the deal registration feature, which will help us manage deals more efficiently and gain better control over the process," Douglas notes.

Results

For CoffeeBean Tech's internal team, the results were clear. The dramatic reduction in manual administrative tasks freed up valuable hours. By automating the previously manual processes, the risk of human error was virtually eliminated, leading to a more professional and reliable experience for their entire partner network.

Most importantly, the partners themselves felt the positive change immediately. "Since implementing Journeybee, we've seen an improvement in partner experience," confirms Douglas. "Partners have provided positive feedback about the new portal, which has made accessing resources much easier. The centralised platform has also allowed us to share materials with all partners at once, saving time."

"The investment in Journeybee is incredibly rewarding because it makes work easier for both our company and our partners. For us, it has become a necessity for managing our dynamic and extensive reseller network across the Americas and Europe."

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Want to be part of CoffeeBean Tech Partner Program?

CoffeeBean Technology teams up with technology and solution providers to understand the customer’s needs and to bundle the Identity and Access Platform with their services in order to offer a comprehensive solution. If you're interested in joining CoffeeBean’s partner program and work with one the top IAM platforms in the world, reach out to the CoffeeBean Tech team to learn more about becoming a partner.