Partner Operations: What Is It, and Is It Still Relevant in B2B?

In a relationship-driven team like partnerships, the focus is primarily on people: prospects, customers, and partners — as it should be. But when everyone’s account mapping, coselling, working the conference circuit, and pulling together last-minute decks, who’s running everything in the background? Partner operations teams.

They’re the ones streamlining handoffs, building enablement paths, monitoring SLAs, and implementing the tooling that makes relationships scale. And they’re still a very much needed resource, even with all the AI tools out there.

Yes, AI can surface anomalies, automate some of the more tedious processes going on behind the scenes, and help draft QBR slides. But it can’t:

• Align incentives across two companies
• Fix a mismatched revenue-share model
• Rebuild trust after a missed SLA
• Prioritize trade-offs when everything feels urgent

Below, we talk more about how crucial this role is, how AI changes the work (and how it doesn’t), and what to look for in your first partner operations hire.

What’s Partner Operations?

Partner operations is the person or team in charge of the entire back office of your program — they keep everything running smoothly, for your team, tangential teams (sales, marketing, finance, product), and partners.

As Raegan Wilson, who consults top partner teams at Spur Reply, puts it:

“If I had to sum it up, a partner operations manager or team puts a structure around your program and holds people accountable to it. They’ve got i’s dotted and t’s crossed on every business process that touches partnerships and make improvements to those processes over time, and work cross-functionally to make sure things are running smoothly.”

What Partner Operations Handles

Often, they take care of PRM implementation and maintenance, which comes with a whole host of duties:

• Getting alignment from the partner team on how they want onboarding and enablement workflows to work, building those flows out, then testing them.
• Integrating the PRM with the company’s CRM and working with the admin to make sure channel account managers and partners are seeing what they’re supposed to see.
• Uploading content to the resource library or co-branded collateral modules, which requires close collaboration with marketing (or partner marketing).
• Streamlining partner onboarding and explaining program rules to new partners. This could involve live webinars, training and certification, videos or rules displayed in the portal, office hours, and/or excellent documentation.
• Ensuring contracts are signed and each partner has a business plan so partners start off on the right foot and the business stays compliant.
• Continuously checking on partner health via reports and dashboards. If each partner manager has a large number of partners to manage, partner operations may notify them of partners who are slipping or move partners into new tiers as soon as they meet the necessary requirements.
• Manage the referral and deal pipeline. If a lead or opportunity has been sitting in a status for too long or hasn’t had much activity, they flag it and help get the right people to nudge it along. They also forecast partner revenue on a monthly or quarterly basis.
• Ensuring partners receive payment for qualified referrals, closed deals, or MDF.
• Identifying and offboarding partners who aren’t meeting expectations.

But That’s Not All

Though most of their work involves managing the nuts and bolts of a partner program, partner operations also play a valuable role in something else: partner strategy.

A fantastic partner operations specialist not only observes everything that’s currently happening in the program, but zooms out to see where it’s headed in the next year or two — and whether that direction aligns with their company’s overall goals.

They bring fresh ideas to leadership about how things could be done differently or what they could try in the next month or quarter (and try to back it up with as much data as possible).

Do You Need a Partner Operations Team?

If you’ve got a small team or you’re thinking about launching a partner program, it’s easy to think you might not need a whole FTE dedicated to partner ops. But that would be a mistake.

“The truth,” Raegan says, “is that you always need to have someone thinking about this. You can’t execute well without partner ops. And if you can’t afford to hire a new person, you need someone on the team to very intentionally carve time out of their day to work on it.”

But that’s the hard part.

Partner managers are fully focused on recruiting new partners, nurturing relationships, and getting deals over the finish line. They don’t have time to pull reports, look for signs of partner churn, keep bad actors from joining the program, or monitor payouts — let alone consider where the ecosystem is headed and how to be a key player. Trying to spread those duties across one or two people’s already full plates is a recipe for disaster.

“I’d go so far as to say a program without partner ops is a partner program in name only,” Raegan emphasizes.

What to Do Before Hiring a Partner Ops Person

Though having partner ops in place from the get-go is ideal, the reality is that most companies end up bringing on a partner operations person when they’re already underwater. They’ve just purchased a PRM, they need someone to set it up, and they’ve been asked by leadership to prove the value of partnerships. So they rush to get someone on board.

“I see it over and over again,” says Aaron Howerton at Go Nimbly, “Companies hire reactively, not strategically. That ends up being rough on the new hire because they were brought on to fix one problem, which means they don’t actually have a job, they have a project.”

To avoid this, Aaron recommends:

Take a Hard Look at Your Partner Program As It Stands (Before Things Get Too Out of Control)

If you’re hiring for reseller or revenue-based programs, you’re going to need someone with different skills and talent than if your program is heavy on tech partners, which come with integrations and referrals.

“Write the bullets in your JD based on what to operationalize and the experience that person actually needs,” says Aaron. For example:

• If you need someone who can manage integrations → Look for a more technical background. These people need to be able to speak comfortably with both GTM and engineering peers (internally and externally).
• If you just need someone to keep the program running → Look for an organized project manager who knows their way around systems and can wrangle other teams. Previous work in the channel isn’t a must (that part can be taught).
• If you need someone who is comfortable advocating for and representing partnerships cross-functionally → Look for someone with more experience in the channel, who’s held more strategic revops positions before. If they won’t have a whole team behind them, they need to still be willing to delve into the details when needed.

Figure Out Who Partner Ops Reports To 

“This can make a big difference in what gets done and what doesn’t,” Aaron explains.

In his mind, the best-case scenario is partner ops reports to someone in the revops team, with a thick dotted line to partnerships — especially if the company isn’t fully bought into partnerships yet.

“The partner ops person is going to play a big role in selling the team internally. And if they report directly into partnerships, they don’t have as much leverage and can’t balance their work as much against company priorities.”

Create a Path to Leadership

Candidates want to see a clear way to level up in the company, so you need to think through that future for them.

“Though we’re seeing more and more leadership positions pop up, partner ops roles typically cap out at Director. Show candidates how they can get there, but also give them opportunities to pivot into other revops roles.”

A good way to ensure they have some support? Connect them to a community outside of work. “Operators are heads-down all the time. But they need professional investment in communities just like sales ops does, just like enablement does,” Aaron shares.

PartnerOps Partner, Aaron’s newsletter, job board, and Slack group, is a great place to start. Partnership Leaders has excellent resources as well.

4 Qualities of a Top-Notch Partner Ops Specialist

If you can make the case for a partner ops manager or team, it’s worth it. Here’s the catch — your leadership wants to see proof of their value. People who tend to succeed quickly:

1. Are systems thinkers

These people see the partner motion as a connected system: people process, data, and tools.

To that end, they know their way around a CRM, PRM, and account mapping tool. They’ve worked closely with system admins and may even make their own changes to settings, fields, workflows, and permissions on the fly so that everything is working smoothly.

If it’s not, they not only fix the problem (and any downstream impacts) as quickly as they can, but rebuild the process to prevent issues from cropping up again. Then, they document the change and train internal teams and partners on the new process.

For instance, Phil Portman at Textdrip, picked a partner operations person based on the fact that they had experience using CRM tools to track multi-touch partner engagement. “To me, that showed they understood processes, scale, and how to align multiple departments behind a single initiative. That mix of curiosity and tech comfort made a big difference.”

Someone who can take vague instructions and turn them into a repeatable process is an excellent candidate for partner ops. Per Aaron, previous product owners have those skills. 

“These people view systems and tools from a GTM perspective as a product. They create stories and requirements around a user experience, use their knowledge about the current architecture to turn that into solid processes, and have the project management skills to get it in production.”

2. Are numbers-driven

If partner ops folks are process first, they’re data second. And, if they’re doing it right, the data they collect and analyze informs better process.

Hiren Shah at Anstrex reveals, “When we were hiring, we looked for someone with an analytical skillset. They had to be able to take a mountain of spreadsheets and turn it into a partner engine. Bonus points if they had an obsessive inclination to process map.”

People who come from other numbers-heavy backgrounds — think analysts, deal desk, project managers — tend to do well in this role. They’ve had to build and present charts and graphs to all levels of the business, so they know what every audience is looking for and how to communicate it:

• For partners: clear deal reg, referral, lead, and training & certification dashboards
• For partner managers: high level view of partner performance and activity, flagging partners who are struggling
• For leadership: time to revenue, partner deal close rate (and cycle time), partner churn rate

3. Aren’t afraid to push back

Partnership operations is not for the weak. When you’re in charge of the data that impacts peoples’ paychecks, you’re in for some tough conversations. The best partner ops managers are confident in their data and their processes because they know them inside and out.

That makes them well-poised to:

• Manage internal politics. It’s much easier if you have the receipts in front of you.
• Hold the line on definitions (sourced vs. influenced deals, partner of record) so comp and partner credit stays clean.
• Ask “Why do we do it this way?” and get buy-in for a newly designed process.
• Push back on vanity metrics and replace them with KPIs tied directly to partner activity.
• Require proof-of-performance for MDF and claw back when it isn’t met.

It’s hard to tell if someone has this skill in an interview. Situational questions like, “Tell me about a time you said no,” can help you figure out if they have what it takes. Clear, specific answers are a strong signal.

4. Are cross-functional by default

These people understand how all the moving parts of the business work together and the role that partnership plays in the company. They know who is responsible for what and who to talk to to get things done. They also know how to play the game — and get the partner team the respect and insights they deserve.

As Raegan points out, “In most orgs, channel is not the only route to market. Partner operations should be looking for ways to get and give information to other teams.”

This skill doesn’t have to come from a channel background. David Hunt at Versys Media hired a partner ops specialist because of her track record of taming growth-stage chaos.

He explains, “What stood out about her was her experience solving operational problems combined with legit interpersonal tact. She could not only build out structured workflows, but also manage the complexity of different personalities across geos and verticals. That combination of operational discipline and high EQ was key.”

For Orest Chaykivskyy at Forbytes, an ideal partner ops specialist had a consulting background. “Our best hire came from consulting, not tech. She’s exceptional at building trust across stakeholders and keeping everyone moving in the same direction without needing constant escalation.”

How is Partner Ops Changing With AI

AI has made life for partner operations teams a whole lot easier. Now there are tools that can automatically:

• Surface underperforming partners based on specific engagement data (portal logins, training completion, deal reg velocity)
• Ping partner managers about a partner’s missed goals or deteriorating performance
• Spot overlapping registrations and suggest next steps to avoid channel conflict
• Offer more personalized onboarding and learning paths via chatbots
• Run A/B tests on co-branded landing pages

But, as Phil puts it so eloquently, “AI helps with the ‘what happened’ but not always the ‘what now’ and ‘how do we fix it.’ That’s still very much a human task.”

The partner operations teams that continue to do well in this environment will learn when and how to use AI to their advantage — and when to use their other soft skills instead. Raegan advises, “If you have access to a tool, try to optimize your daily tasks one by one, starting with the most monotonous ones. I’m looking forward to a time where AI can do things for partners, but that really depends a lot on your PRM data quality.”

Yes, Partner Ops is Still Relevant, But They Need Data to Do Their Jobs

Top-tier partner operations teams run on clean, connected data. And without a strong foundation to work from, they’re going to be nose deep in spreadsheets.

An enterprise-ready PRM ensures consistent, reliable data. Per Raegan, “You can blow a lot of things apart later by creating bad data from the start. Data governance is huge, so look for a PRM with some of it already baked in.”

Channeltivity, for example:

• Unifies training, channel marketing, and channel sales data, making it easy to pull and assess partner activity. It also allows you to enforce required fields and save specific views for quicker and more accurate reporting.
• Has partner-facing dashboards and email notifications so partners (and their partner managers) know exactly where they stand — whether an agreement needs to be signed or a deal registration is about to expire.
• Has native integrations with Salesforce and HubSpot for two-way sync of partners, leads, referrals, and opportunities, so channel account managers and AEs are always working from the same truth.

When partner ops teams have reliable data, they can do the work that AI can’t — pinpointing what to automate, foreseeing (and eliminating) friction, and anticipating where the program should go in the future.

Want to see how Channeltivity can equip your partner operations team to deliver the best partner experience?

Schedule a demo today.