Punch-in: partner readiness is not adoption

1. Goal

   A partner goal and a customer goal
2. In parallel:
   Partners

   Readiness green, including a major ERP vendor
3. In parallel:
   Customers

   Self-service and account-managed both well below goal
4. Recovery

   Incentives, staged pilots, partner lead lists, funds tied to adoption
5. Lesson

   Partner readiness is not adoption

Product workflow, shown through the decisions and handoffs.

The diagnosis

Partner readiness was green while customer adoption was well below goal. I shifted to demand-side levers instead of signing more partners.

What I learned

Partner readiness does not equal adoption. The recovery actions shifted effort to demand-side levers instead of signing more partners.

I moved effort to demand-side levers: added Punch-in to the European customer-advisor incentive program; staged pilot activations with a major ERP partner; drove activations through four mid-market procurement partners’ existing lead lists; and tied market-development funds to adoption targets for new partners.

Punch-in lets buyers pull Amazon Business content into their own procurement system. It added sales on top of Punchout. The 2023 goal was to launch with ten new partners, including a major ERP vendor, and onboard 575 customers.

What happened

Partner readiness was green, but customer adoption was well below goal in both self-service and account-managed channels. One major procurement partner paused its rollout for strategic reasons outside my control.