Across industries ranging from technology, insurance, manufacturing, and healthcare to CPG, financial services, pharmaceuticals, and automotive, indirect channels account for the majority of goods and services sold. In many cases, 60% to 90% of revenue flows through partners – including distributors, brokers, agents, retailers, or resellers – rather than direct sales models. Cisco, for example, cites 85 – 90% of revenues flow through the [partner channel. These intermediaries are not just a route to market; they are the market – and it is the partner experience or PX that is the keystone to revenue retention and growth.
Indirect Distribution Networks Dominate
The scale of indirect distribution is often underestimated. In the global technology sector, channel partners drive more than 70% of all IT spending, representing over $3.4 trillion in annual revenue. Mature enterprise technology companies frequently generate 70–90% of their revenue via partners.
Insurance provides a clearer illustration. More than half of all life and P&C insurance premiums are sold through independent agents and brokers. Despite recent interest in direct‑to‑customer and digital commerce, distributors still account for the largest share of industrial and B2B manufacturing sales. Many manufacturers rely on distributors for 40–70% of revenue, particularly in fragmented, technically complex, or geographically dispersed markets.
Why Partner Experience Matters
The experience of partners and intermediaries is critical for a number of reasons.
First, partners have choices and leverage. Unlike end customers, who may only evaluate a product at the moment of purchase, partners continuously decide which suppliers to promote, prioritize/deprioritize, bundle, or discount. Partners rarely have an exclusive relationship with a single supplier. A reseller can recommend one technology platform over another. A broker can steer a client toward one insurance carrier instead of a competitor. A retailer can prioritize one product on the shelf while relegating another to obscurity.
They actively decide where to invest their time, energy, and customer relationships. If working with a company is difficult—if processes are cumbersome, support is lacking, or incentives are unclear—partners will shift their focus elsewhere. A CompTIA study found that 50% of channel partners dropped at least one vendor in the past year due to poor partner experience, citing complexity, lack of support, and misaligned incentives as key drivers. Unlike employees, partners are not captive to a single organization and have a choice.
Second, partners typically own the customer relationship. As the primary interface for product, service, installation, and ongoing support, partners effectively are the face of the brand, and the end customer experience is shaped by the partner. In many models, they are the first point of contact, the most trusted advisor, and the ongoing service provider. The customer may know the brand, but the partner often controls the practical experience — quoting, ordering, onboarding, implementation, after-sales support, and issue resolution. To a large extent, the partner is the company and directly shapes the end-customer experience.
Third, partners amplify—or erode—brand value at scale. When a customer evaluates a solution, it is frequently the partner—not the manufacturer or provider—who frames the options, provides guidance, and delivers the experience. A single supplier decision made by a partner can influence hundreds or thousands of end customers. A force multiplier, a strong partner network expands reach faster and more efficiently than a direct-only model.
Finally, partners absorb complexity. They are expected to understand products, explain value, navigate exceptions, manage expectations, and keep the customer moving. If the company’s systems, incentives, policies, and communications are confusing, the partner becomes the friction point the customer feels.
What Makes for a Strong Partner Experience?
Partner experience (PX) encompasses far more than a portal or incentive program. Research and practitioner experience converge on several consistent drivers:
- Ease of doing business: Simple onboarding, transparent rules of engagement, predictable pricing, and clear processes. This might include simplifying deal registration and automatic approval of discounts within specified parameters. According to channelnomics, nearly three‑quarters of partners cite excessive complexity as a top frustration.
- Enablement and capability building: Training, certification, marketing assets, sales tools, and technical support that help partners win.
- Economic alignment: Incentives, margins, and programs that reward the right behaviors and reflect partners’ cost‑to‑serve and risk. This might include higher commissions on the sale of bundles or solutions that are of strategic importance to the company.
- Operational support: Reliable supply, accurate information, responsive service, and fast issue resolution. How about a “partner success team” that focuses on reducing the operational headaches partners face regarding such issues as inventory and shipping?
- Strategic clarity: Guidance on where to focus, which segments to target, and how the supplier intends to grow the market. This might be as tactical as a target list of prospects or prescriptive as a “how-to” go-to-market playbook.
Recalibrating the Experience Equation
None of this diminishes the importance of the end‑customer experience. End customers ultimately determine demand. But in indirect go‑to‑market models partners mediate the end-customer experience, shaping brand preference, share‑of‑wallet, and customer outcomes long before an end customer survey is completed. Despite their importance, however, the partner experience remains underdeveloped in many organizations. Many companies, moreover, lack even basic mechanisms for gathering partner feedback or measuring partner satisfaction and simply assume that signed contracts equal engagement.
Companies that recognize the centrality of and manage, measure, and invest in the partner ecosystem and experience will be better positioned to grow, compete, and deliver superior outcomes for themselves and both partners and end customers alike. It is time to treat partners as the vital link in the value chain, not simply a middleman. This means recognizing that partners are busy, selective, and economically rational: they promote those suppliers that help them win.