Addressing Barriers to Technology Partner Engagement and Enablement

Building and Managing Tech Partner Programs Under Product Leadership

In this discussion, Rachel Collie from Unanet shares her experience transforming a technology partner program through organizational realignment and process optimization. With 15 years in partnerships and 5 years specifically in technology partnerships, Rachel provides tactical guidance on overcoming barriers to partner engagement, the benefits of reporting to product leadership, and why custom workflows often outperform traditional partner portals for tech partnerships.

Overcoming Barriers to Tech Partner Engagement

Unanet operates three distinct product lines acquired over time: a government contractor ERP, a project-based engineering ERP, and a construction CRM. This structure created significant barriers for technology partners seeking to build integrations—different processes for obtaining sandboxes, varying API maturity levels, and multiple points of contact across product lines.

Rachel's team focused on streamlining these processes by creating unified access points, such as a single email distribution list covering all three product lines, and standardizing sandbox provisioning. The goal was removing obstacles and creating cleaner processes, which Rachel describes as fundamental to technology partnerships work.

The Case for Reporting to Product Leadership

Rachel transitioned from reporting under the Chief Revenue Officer to the Chief Product Officer, a move she initiated by drafting a formal proposal. The rationale centered on how sales and product leaders evaluate technology partners differently.

Sales leaders evaluate tech partnerships through the lens of lead generation and referrals. This led to mistakes where partners were brought on because they could drive leads, but their core functionality competed with features Unanet had released or planned to release.

Under product leadership, the evaluation criteria shifted to functionality expansion, customer delight, and integration stickiness—factors that ultimately drive retention rather than just new revenue. Reporting directly to the CPO gave Rachel a seat at strategic conversations, allowing her to intervene before engineering teams built functionality that an existing partner already provided.

Why Traditional Partner Portals Fall Short for Tech Partnerships

Rachel argues that partner portals designed for referral and channel partners don't fit technology partnership workflows. The processes are fundamentally different: tech partnerships focus on integration onboarding, enablement, and go-to-market execution rather than referral tracking and co-branded marketing materials.

Rather than forcing existing portal solutions to work, Unanet built custom workflows using Monday.com. The platform handles integration development tracking, ticket submission for API questions, and dashboards that roll up partner status across product lines. Partners receive read or edit access depending on engagement level, and the system integrates with Slack for real-time notifications.

Measuring Tech Partnership Success

Unanet launched their Connect marketplace platform in July 2020 and spent the first two years focused on building out integrations and establishing processes. While revenue tracking exists, the primary KPIs center on usage metrics: integrations per customer, active usage rates, and adoption trends.

Revenue is great, but we're really focused on the usage and how many integrations our customers are using. Anecdotally, we all know the more integrations your customers are using, the less likely they are to lift and shift.

The strategy draws from Procore's approach of correlating retention with integration adoption. Rather than measuring partnership value purely in dollars, the team tracks progress toward goals like ensuring every customer has at least one integration, then working toward two or three.

Collaborating with Product on Integration Development

Unanet uses a two-track approach for identifying integrations. Table-stakes integrations—like the 14 payroll platform connections essential for ERPs—are prioritized regardless of specific customer requests. For other integrations, internal and external portals collect suggestions, and the product team investigates when requests reach critical mass.

When evaluating inbound partner requests, the team uses Crossbeam for account mapping to identify existing customer overlap. Product managers participate in partner conversations to ensure proposed integrations don't compete with existing or roadmapped functionality.

We want to have really deep conversations with a potential partner to make sure what they are doing does not compete with functionality we already have or what's coming down the pike.

Preventing Poor Integration Experiences

Rachel emphasizes continuous collaboration over handoff-based development. Partners building integrations are encouraged to hold bi-weekly or weekly sync calls with product teams throughout the process, not just at the beginning and end.

This approach prevents partners from building in silos and releasing integrations that miss customer needs. Rachel notes that adding functionality to their Workato iPaaS connector requires coordination across three teams—product development, API creation, and connector updates—each with their own sprint cycles. Early identification of gaps is critical to managing those timelines.

Guidance for Tech Partnership Managers

Rachel's closing advice focuses on the importance of saying no to potential partners when the timing or fit isn't right. The fear of missing a "what-if" opportunity leads to problematic partnerships. Partners who are turned down at the wrong time often return when circumstances improve, typically within six to nine months.

Executive buy-in remains the foundation for successful tech partnership programs. Without support from leadership—in this case, a Chief Product Officer who understands the value of tech partnerships—process improvements and organizational alignment become significantly harder to achieve.

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This podcast is hosted by Pandium, the only embedded integration platform that facilitates faster code-first development of integrations, allowing B2B SaaS companies to launch integrations at scale without sacrificing customization and control.

Learn more about Pandium here: https://www.pandium.com/

To access more resources and content on technology partnerships, integrations, and APIs, check out our blog and resources page below.

Blog: https://www.pandium.com/blog

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