Partner ecosystems are becoming more important to B2B growth, but measuring whether those ecosystems are actually working remains a major challenge. For decades, channel performance has largely been measured around the transaction. Who sold the product? Who collected the money? Which partner influenced the final sale?
In this episode of Belly2Belly, Bill Kenney speaks with Jay McBain, Chief Analyst at Omdia, about why traditional measurements fail to capture the true impact of partners, how partners influence customers throughout the buying journey, and what the most successful ecosystems are beginning to do differently.
Partner Productivity Is More Complicated Than It Looks
Executives understandably want their partner networks to produce results. The problem is that expectations around productivity can be unrealistic.
Jay points out that experienced channel leaders know that getting two out of ten partners to generate meaningful results can represent success. In reality, partner productivity can be even more concentrated than the familiar 80/20 rule suggests.
At the same time, an individual customer deal has become increasingly complex. Jay describes an environment involving multiple members of the buying committee, multiple vendors, several partners, and numerous interactions before a purchase is made.
Understanding partner performance therefore requires looking beyond which partner ultimately receives credit for a transaction.
The 28 Moments That Shape a Purchase
Jay describes 28 definable and measurable moments within a considered purchase.
These are not simply channel metrics. They reflect the process people naturally follow when making a significant purchasing decision, from initial research and education through consulting, design, selection, implementation, and beyond.
In B2B technology purchases, partners can be present throughout that journey.
A potential customer might encounter educational content created by a partner before the vendor even knows that customer is in the market. Search engines and large language models can also direct buyers toward highly specialized partner content that addresses a particular industry, technology, or business problem.
This means partner influence can begin well before a traditional marketing qualified lead appears.
Why Moment 10 Could Matter More Than Moment 28
One of the most significant opportunities comes around what Jay describes as moment 10.
This is where consulting, advisory, design, and architecture conversations begin to happen.
These interactions are particularly valuable because customers are often already paying partners for that advice. The partner may therefore be helping define what the eventual solution should look like before the vendor has visibility into the opportunity.
As Jay explains:
“You lose those moments and you’ve lost the entire deal. Forget about moment 28. You’ve lost at moment 10.”
For vendors, gaining visibility into these earlier interactions can create a powerful competitive advantage.
Rather than discovering an opportunity when a sales process is already well underway, companies can potentially identify it months earlier and work alongside the partner as the customer shapes its requirements.
Building an Early Warning System for Sales
This creates what Jay describes as an early warning system.
Traditional marketing teams have relied heavily on indicators such as MQLs and SQLs to determine whether a prospect is moving toward a purchase. Partner ecosystems can potentially provide signals even earlier.
If a partner has secured a consulting or advisory engagement with a potential customer, that may provide valuable intelligence about a future opportunity.
With the right systems and partner relationships in place, companies can begin identifying, monitoring, and supporting those opportunities before they appear in the conventional sales pipeline.
Jay argues that earlier visibility can have a major effect on both pipeline and win rates. The earlier an organization understands what is happening within a customer account, the more opportunity it has to influence the eventual outcome.
Moving Beyond the 80/20 Rule
The familiar Pareto principle suggests that 20 percent of partners generate 80 percent of results. Jay argues that the reality of modern technology ecosystems can be considerably more concentrated.
Rather than thinking broadly about an enormous global ecosystem, companies increasingly need to identify the specific partners that already have influence with the customers they want to reach.
The question therefore becomes less about how many partners exist in the program and more about which partners possess the right customer relationships, capabilities, and trust for a particular opportunity.
For AI, for example, Jay points to a relatively concentrated group of partners generating a significant proportion of current revenue.
That makes identifying the right partners far more valuable than simply expanding the size of a partner network.
From Ecosystem Theory to Actionable Partners
Partner strategy has traditionally relied on concepts such as flywheels and Venn diagrams to illustrate how ecosystems work.
Jay believes the industry is now becoming much more specific.
He describes this evolution in terms of “namespaces and places.” Instead of thinking about an ecosystem purely as an abstract network, companies can identify the actual partners they need to work with to win a particular type of deal in a particular market.
Technology is also making those relationships increasingly operational.
Rather than relying on informal conversations to discover what a partner is working on, systems can increasingly share signals between organizations and surface opportunities directly within the tools their teams already use.
The result is a partner ecosystem that becomes measurable and actionable rather than conceptual.
What the Best Ecosystems Do Differently
The strongest partner ecosystems are not simply recruiting more partners or waiting to see which ones eventually generate revenue.
They are developing greater visibility into the customer journey, identifying where partners exert meaningful influence, and building the processes and technology required to support those partners at the right moments.
That represents a significant change in how partnership performance is understood.
Instead of measuring success primarily at the transaction, organizations can begin measuring the many interactions that ultimately determine whether the transaction happens at all.
Final Thoughts
The future of partner performance is not simply about having more partners. It is about identifying the right partners, understanding where they influence the customer journey, and acting on those signals early enough to help win the moments that ultimately decide the deal.
About
MEET helps B2B & B2G companies gain traction and scale in the U.S. through trade shows, events, and strategic connections. Contact Bill Kenney for a no-obligation conversation: bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.