Internationalization provides various benefits for growing companies. Especially software companies with close-to-zero replication and logistics costs benefit from global markets. Because having a sales organization in all target markets is neither economical nor feasible, companies prefer to use marketing channels to market and distribute their products. The purpose of this study is to find effective ways how a software company can successfully choose and manage resellers.

This study analyzes results of various researches about marketing channel. These results are combined with unique features of software products and business to create a theoretical framework for choosing and managing software resellers. 

This study contains an empirical research. The used research method, semi structured interview, revealed many interesting factors about software marketing channel and provided insights for managing it.

The results of the study provide a practical guide for software companies to choose and manage their resellers effectively. A step by step process includes all the phases from locating a reseller to possible termination of the partnership. The study revealed the importance of passive search, which provides software companies potential and interested reseller prospects with small amount of effort. Also the importance of detailed technical documentation was discovered. Detailed technical documentation can provide more channel revenue and release technical support resources if well implemented.

Results of the study raised many interesting topics for further research. Comparing European resellers to other continents’ resellers would provide information about the generalizability of the results. Analyzing channels, their products and features would reveal if one channel could also be used with other vertical software products.

Software companies can use the results of this study to improve their channel performance. The findings of the study can provide a valuable insight for both companies just starting their internationalization process and for companies who are already global