Strategic partnerships with SIs can be a game-changer for SaaS revenue growth. Bloomreach's Rachel Fefer shares important lessons for getting it right.
Name: Rachel Fefer
Title: Head of Channel Sales
Company: Bloomreach
Industry: E-commerce
Rachel Fefer leads channel sales at Bloomreach, an e-commerce experience platform that unifies real-time customer and product data. As SaaS companies weigh the costs and benefits of providing direct implementation services versus working closely with SI partners to deliver software, Rachel’s organization has invested in channel partner relationships to double partner-sourced revenue in two years. Here, she shares 10 principles of how to do it right so everyone wins.
One of my favorite parts of my role as a channel leader is driving partnerships with systems integrators (SIs) for partner implementations, or delivering software with partners rather than with internal professional services. I’ve had the great fortune of doing this a number of times — at Maxymiser, Magento, Marketo, and now at Bloomreach — and I’m excited to share my top 10 lessons with you. If you are embarking on this journey, and looking to increase your partner-sourced revenue, read on!
Treat SIs as partners, not vendors
When SIs are seen merely as extra capacity, they’re undervalued and are often treated more like vendors than partners. To foster a genuine partnership, your SIs need client exposure and the ability to upsell their services. When SIs are only subcontracted, they have limited control over scoping and pricing — and can take further hits on margin as the SaaS companies take their own cut for issuing on their paper and taking on the risk. This is demotivating and makes SIs less invested in the success of the SaaS solution.
One former employer had fairly straightforward “rinse and repeat” implementations and chose to prime delivery and farm out implementations to a few trusted partners. Their new clients would purchase both the software license and the delivery with one contract, “one throat to choke,” simplifying the contracting process so that the client didn’t need to review two separate purchase orders. What happened? The partners were frustrated because not only were they unable to build a relationship with the end client, the SaaS company would take their cut and eat into the already small service opportunity. To make matters worse, when pipeline and new bookings went south and capacity for internal services increased, the outsourced business was the first to get cut. This does not encourage the partners to want to invest for the long term to build a flourishing practice around the SaaS co.
A successful partner of this company once told me that their business transformed when they were (finally) included early in the sales cycle, positioned as the primary implementer, and given customer access. This approach allowed them to convert over 30% of customers into long-term contracts, establishing them as a strategic partner rather than a mere service provider.
Get executive leadership buy-in
Change management is critical in shifting to a partner-led delivery model. This transition requires the support of executive leadership across all departments. Leadership must prioritize building an ecosystem over immediate service revenue, empowering the channel team and aligning the entire organization with this strategic vision.
The process takes effort from nearly every aspect of the business and cannot be owned by the channel team alone. If the channel team jumps in to drive change without the support of executive leadership, it is unlikely to succeed. It is critical that leadership has a firm conviction that partners should lead delivery and that they invest and influence that change across the GTM org: within sales and sales consulting, account management, professional services, enablement, academy, finance, legal, etc.
Executive leadership leans in when they are not afraid of the impact on their own professional services team. They know that the Pro Serv team serves as a bedrock that will power up the partner motion because they have the knowledge, experience and best practices to help the partner succeed. A strong internal professional services team is key to enabling partners to deliver successfully (more on this below).
Leadership must prioritize building an ecosystem over immediate service revenue, empowering the channel team and aligning the entire organization with this strategic vision.
What if leadership is not onboard? How can you change their perception? One way you can influence change is to show data on companies who have successfully made the transition, and the impact to their bottom line. Salesforce, Adobe, Workday, ServiceNow, Hubspot, Adobe, Microsoft Dynamics, and Dell are all partner first and have thriving partner communities. Also, ask to start small with a focused area (e.g., one product, one market segment, one market) and grow from there. Finally, consistently show data on win rates, average contract size, and time to close with partner-sourced deals as compared to non-partner-sourced.
Mandate the transition
To overcome organizational inertia, a mandate is recommended. A mandate is an executive leadership directive that forces sales leadership to push X percentage of deliveries to partners in a specified time frame. Start with a modest target and gradually increase it.
As mentioned above, change management is the hardest part of moving to a partner-led motion. If you wait for it to happen gradually or “naturally,” it will take a very long time because so many teams need to get onboard at the same time. When there’s no choice, it happens!
Remove services quota for AEs
Sales teams are coin-operated and if they earn dollars off selling services, they will! If Account Executives (AEs) earn commissions on services, they will prioritize selling them. Removing these incentives is crucial to align the sales team's efforts with a partner-first strategy.
I’ve often heard, “the compensation plan of 2% commission on Professional Services won’t impact the AE’s desire to bring in a partner.” I beg to differ! On a $10k implementation this is $200 — certainly enough for dinner for two. Who wouldn’t want this check? Further, the pro serv commission is a company statement to the sales reps that to me says, “we are not partner-first.” If anything, the AE’s need incentives to face the headwinds and sell with partners and not the reverse.
The Pro Serv team serves as a bedrock that will power up the partner motion because they have the knowledge, experience and best practices to help the partner succeed. A strong internal professional services team is key to enabling partners to deliver successfully
Start small before scaling
At Bloomreach, we initially tried to scale our implementation efforts too quickly. We underestimated the effort required in training new partners, delivering support, aligning partners to sales and solutions consultants (SCs), exposing our scoping process, and more.
The challenge was we were building the plane while flying it, and it was only in flight that we realized all the varieties of planes available!
Ultimately, we stopped and took the time to really look at the different options for partner implementation, and chose what we knew would give us and our partners the greatest opportunity for success. Now that we’ve identified the commercial model, have a clear sales process, have a solution design document, and the teams are aligned on how we sell with partners, we’re able to scale up our chosen process. And we now also know who to invest time with, as we build deeper relationships, trust, and ultimately stronger sales and delivery competency together.
Enable partners and internal teams
I recommend starting with four audiences who require initial and then ongoing enablement: Partners, Account Executives, Account Managers and Services teams.
Partners: Train them on the product, how to scope, how to implement, and how to align and communicate with field teams and services teams. Provide access to free sandbox accounts so that they can get hands-on experience.
AEs: Teach them who the partners are, how to bring them into the sales cycle, and what to say or not say to prospects about partners. I’ve found the hardest part of AE enablement is showing why to bring in partners early on to help sell the value of your solution and not just when they are ready to discuss implementation.
Tip: If you are selling against a competitor, bring in a delivery partner who knows that competitor well. They know “where the bodies are buried” and can effectively help the AEs position landmines.
If an incumbent agency is already working with your prospect, they may also have a higher access to power than the AE does.
Educate the AEs on how to navigate pricing discussions: When partners deliver, AEs should never discuss specific delivery pricing — that’s a subject only the partner should deliver.
AMs & Services teams: Avoid landmines between SIs and AMs/Services teams when implementation goes sideways. Often there’s an assumption that because X agency was supporting a client and they messed up using our tech, that they stink and therefore all partners must be inferior to using internal services.
If an incumbent agency is already working with your prospect, they may also have a higher access to power than the AE does.
However the true reason these SIs ‘stink’ is because they were never treated as partners, onboarded properly, or enabled properly on the tech. Once the switch happens, those incumbent SIs go from foes to friends, and collaborate with SaaS teams to drive customer success. Show AMs and Services teams what successful implementation stories look like, and even better, how a strong partner can turn an account from Red status to Green.
Offer free training
When launching a new implementation model, expect to build up your ecosystem clout. Think of all of the ways you can build up trust and excitement — offering partners free training, for example, can incentivize them to invest their time in learning your product. This can include virtual on-demand courses and sandboxes for hands-on practice.
Expose your detailed scoping process
Transitioning to external implementation requires a detailed scoping process and documentation. This ensures partners can accurately scope projects, preventing scope creep and ensuring mutual clients have clear expectations.
We want partners to scope themselves as accurately as possible, and ensure that our mutual clients don’t get any unforeseen surprises in delivery.
Show AMs and Services teams what successful implementation stories look like, and even better, how a strong partner can turn an account from Red status to Green.
Align deal and delivery stakeholders
Having a strong relationship between Channel and Professional Services is key to ensure pipeline delivery coverage and smooth collaboration. At Bloomreach, we launched a Monday morning “Weekly Partner Implementation Sync” to bring the SC, professional services and channel leaders together to review late stage opportunities. It is critical to stay on top of who will deliver what solution and discuss the delivery commercial model. The sync ensures all partners are aligned and in agreement.
Establish a partner success team
Consider establishing a Partner Success team to support partners post-launch. This team can help partners build their practices, connect them with the right internal subject matter experts, and ensure client satisfaction. This approach allows the channel team to focus on field activities while providing partners with the necessary support.
By following these lessons, SaaS organizations can successfully transition to a partner-led delivery model, fostering stronger relationships with system integrators and driving mutual growth.
Rachel Fefer is an alliance leader with over a decade managing resellers, ISVs, agencies, and SI partners. Rachel is currently leading Channel Sales at Bloomreach, where she is helping to transform the company into a partner-first motion. Prior to Bloomreach, Rachel led partner teams at Gorgias and Adobe (Magento and Marketo), and supported partners at Oracle (Maxymiser) and LivePerson. Rachel has an MBA from Bar Ilan University in Israel and a BA from Syracuse University's Newhouse School.
