If you rely on indirect sales channels to drive growth, you’re not alone. These partnerships have long been foundational to scaling revenue, but too many companies still judge partner performance by a single metric: sales volume. In today’s subscription-based economy, that simply isn’t enough.

You need a more accurate, comprehensive way to measure the value your partners bring—one that reflects not just what they sell, but how they support your customers and contribute to long-term success.

That’s why TSIA is developing the Channel Partner Success Score—a data-driven framework that gives you a clearer picture of partner performance. This score goes beyond transactional metrics to measure how partners:

• Engage with customers.
• Contribute to outcomes and retention.
• Deliver sustained value over time.

This score helps you make smarter investments, compare partner types consistently, and prove the value of your ecosystem. Without it, you risk flying blind—misallocating resources, overlooking weak spots, and missing key opportunities.

At TSIA, we asked a crucial question: How can you effectively measure and optimize partner success beyond traditional sales metrics?

This Research Journey explores the answer. You’ll gain insight into the risks of ignoring this issue, learn about our research methodology, and follow along as we build a framework you can apply in your own business.

So jump in as we:

• Define the Problem: Get clarity on the challenge you’re facing.
• Launch Discovery: We dig into the data through surveys, polls, and interviews.
• Develop the Theory: Our analysts shape the findings into actionable frameworks.
• Guide the Industry: We share insights to help you and your peers build high-impact partner programs.

By following this journey you’ll not only stay informed, but you’ll help shape the future of partner performance measurement. To view every phase of the research and access related resources, explore the full TSIA’s Research Journey on Channel Partner Success Score: Measure and Optimize Performance in the TSIA Portal.

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Define the Problem: Why Measuring Partner Performance Is Still So Difficult

You’ve likely been measuring your partners the same way for years: through the lens of revenue. And while top-line numbers are easy to track, they don’t tell the whole story—especially if you’re operating in a subscription-based or XaaS model.

Revenue alone doesn’t capture how your partners contribute across the customer life cycle. It overlooks vital actions that influence your long-term success, such as:

• Driving product adoption.
• Supporting customer expansion and retention.
• Delivering technical expertise and proactive engagement.
• Contributing to customer success outcomes.

By focusing too narrowly on sales, you may be missing out on the bigger picture—and undervaluing the very partners helping your customers succeed post-sale.

Suppose you’re responsible for building or optimizing your partner strategy. In that case, whether you're a vendor, an executive, or a department leader overseeing channel programs, this gap in measurement could be costing you.

The core issue comes from over-reliance on outdated metrics; for years, sales figures have been the default indicator of partner performance. In today’s complex partner ecosystems, this one-size-fits-all approach no longer holds up.

The consequences may have you:

• Allocating resources inefficiently.
• Struggling to identify underperforming partners.
• Missing opportunities for growth.
• Seeing negative impacts on customer experience and partner trust.
• Lacking the data you need to guide and support your partners effectively.

As your reliance on partner networks increases, so does the need for better standards. You need a more intelligent, holistic scoring system that reflects everything your partners bring to the table.

That’s precisely what this Research Journey is here to solve. It’s time to close the gap between what you measure and what actually drives value.

Related: Introducing the TSIA Research Journey: Partner Success Score

How This Research Journey Works

If you're ready to rethink how you measure partner performance, you're in the right place. This Research Journey is designed to go beyond surface-level metrics and give you the tools, insights, and data you need to build a smarter, more comprehensive approach. You won’t just observe the research—you’ll help shape it.

Our approach is both rigorous and collaborative in nature. Here’s how we’ll gather insights and keep you involved throughout:

• Quick Polls: Two short, targeted polls will serve as the foundation for data collection, helping us capture real-world experiences and immediate insights into partner performance.
• Ongoing engagement: You’ll get access to findings throughout the journey, delivered through research briefs and papers, webinars, expert interviews, and a final reveal at our upcoming TSIA World conference. You can also expect three to six detailed research publications by the end of this journey, offering practical insights you can apply within your partner programs.

Related: Channel Partner Success Score: Measure and Optimize Performance

Why You Should Join the Journey

When you participate in this Research Journey, you're not just filling out a poll. You're helping to shape an industry-wide shift in how partner success is measured.

Here’s what you’ll walk away with:

• Thematic insights: Understand the key factors driving (and hindering) partner success across the industry. Learn what’s working, what’s not, and what trends are emerging.
• Proactive guidance: Get actionable advice for implementing and improving your use of Partner Success Scores.
• Strategic empowerment: Gain the knowledge you need to quantify and optimize partner performance more effectively.

This isn’t just research—it’s a movement toward redefining partner performance. By engaging with us, you're taking an active role in building a more accurate, data-driven approach to evaluating partner impact. Let’s work together to raise the bar on partner success.

Related: Partner Success Score: Creating a Standard for Measuring Partner Performance