In the fast-paced landscape of B2B SaaS partnerships, saving time isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a competitive necessity. With the expectation to accelerate growth with leaner resources and teams than ever before, businesses have turned to partner tech to streamline manual processes and time consuming workflows. Partner tech has revolutionized the B2B landscape, enabling savvy partner managers to extend their capacity to manage hundreds of partners and launch multiple programs simultaneously.
Over the last year, we’ve interviewed multiple PartnerStack customers who have shared how they’ve utilized partner tech to save valuable hours that they’ve reinvested into successfully growing their partner programs. We’ve rounded up five case studies to showcase how partner pros across the industry are leveraging partner tech to save time, enhance their workflows and propel their businesses forward.
What is partner tech?
Partner tech, also known as partner technology, refers to tools, software and platforms that successfully enable collaboration between partners and their respective vendors. It encompasses a wide range of technologies designed to automate workflows, improve efficiency and enhance productivity in partner relationships.
Partner tech includes:
- Project management software
- Customer relationship management (CRM) systems
- Collaboration tools
- Communication platforms
- Document sharing platforms
- …and more
The core objective of partner tech is to simplify and automate tasks that partners need to perform, such as project planning, referral code tracking, automating payouts and analytical reporting. It eliminates the need for tedious manual processes, reduces human error and enables partners and vendors to focus on more strategic activities that drive growth and revenue.
Partner tech is especially beneficial in complex B2B ecosystems where startups are expected to launch multiple partner programs at record speeds with limited resources. By leveraging partner tech, businesses can shortcut their way to launching and managing multiple partner programs with significant revenue impact.
Related: Here’s how automation saves you time and money.
How does partner tech save time?
Partner tech acts as an extension of your partnerships team, adding to your capacity to finish more tasks faster with specialized tools and solutions. This can make or break partner program efforts in the B2B startup space, with lean teams typically having a single partnerships manager who manages multiple partner programs. Some of the key ways partner tech saves partner program managers crucial time is by:
- Streamlining communication and collaboration within platform to reduce lengthy email chains and meetings
- Automating payouts to avoid manual processes, financial discrepancies and strain on internal finance teams
- Connecting businesses to high-quality partners instantly through internal partnerships networks
- Streamlining project completion and identifying bottlenecks through project management functionalities
- Automating reporting and analytics to enable data-driven decision making
Case studies: Examples of partner tech in action
Below are five great examples of partner pros who have successfully utilized partner tech, and PartnerStack specifically, to save time and improve their efficiency. PartnerStack is an all-in-one partner tech ecosystem that helps B2B businesses recruit, engage and scale their partner programs. Not only do these examples shine light on smart use of partner tech, but they also further highlight how partner pros transform those valuable hours saved with PartnerStack into scaling their partner programs.
See more: The essential guide to igniting ecosystem success through partner activations.
Sofija Aleksejeva, Affiliate Marketing Manager, Printify
Aleksejeva was looking for a way to streamline time consuming and manual partner workflows. One of their biggest timesinks came from having to manually pay out partners every month. PartnerStack’s built-in automated payouts, in addition to the partner communication feature, enabled Printify to save an average of over 10 hours every month that they reinvested back into growing their program.
Madelyn Wing, Director of Partnerships, CallRail
Before turning to partner tech, CallRail was managing all aspects of their partner program manually. Beyond just payouts, they were also manually managing reporting, contract agreements and partner communication. This laborious process meant that CallRail was just treading water, unable to effectively scale their partner program.
Wing explains that after being referred to PartnerStack, CallRail was immediately able to automate things that were “no-brainers that we have to do”, which finally gave them the time to think more strategically and grow their partner channels to five active partner programs.
“It was taking us between 40 hours and three people to calculate revenue share every month, and we’ve got that down to two hours with one person,” she shares.
Watch CallRail’s video case study.
Anitha Sridhar, Affiliate Partnerships & Growth Manager, Freshworks
Freshworks had an extensive suite of products and solutions it was eager to market with an affiliate program. The only challenge? Getting it up and running as quickly as possible. Without partner tech, launching an affiliate program requires a significant time and financial investment.
The solution was PartnerStack, and the results quickly rolled in. Freshworks was able to grow 30 per cent YoY in affiliate-sourced MRR thanks to the built-in features that allowed them to save time onboarding, tracking and paying partners.
Eric Semon, Partner Development Manager, BreezyHR
BreezyHR was looking for a piece of partner tech that could facilitate their partner program and drive partners to join. In an effort to streamline their partner program and do more with less time, they needed help finding partners and getting them up and running with minimal back and forth. And they needed it all within one tool.
With the PartnerStack’s Marketplace, BreezyHR was able to drive a slew of new partners into their program and directly into their partner dashboard. PartnerStack’s dashboard allowed them to create incentives and quickly get their partner program to market.
Jennifer Rhima, Director of Partnerships, Apollo.io
Apollo.io was struggling to allocate enough resources to grow their partnership program. Jennifer Rhima, now Director of Partnerships, was hired to grow the partnership program as a one-person team.
Manually onboarding, tracking, and educating partners would potentially require hundreds of hours, well beyond the scope of a single person. Thanks to PartnerStack’s built-in features saving time by automating and enabling a majority of the manual work, Rhima was able to scale the program without additional hiring. “I’ve been in roles where I did everything manually. Seeing how PartnerStack solves everything I was doing manually is very valuable,” she shares.
Read Apollo.io’s full-length case study.
In the world of B2B SaaS, partner tech has become the norm — and for good reason. Partner tech is the most effective way to quickly scale partner programs with minimal resources. From automating payouts to everyday administration, partner tech should be in the running for your next partnership team hire.
