The traditional partner model, built on high-volume, pricesensitive transactions, is losing its significance. In an AI-driven and hybrid-cloud economy, margin competition is not sustainable. The way forward is for partnerships that are built on the principle of harmony: mutual value creation founded on trust, speed and measurable outcomes. AI is reshaping expectations across the organization. According to the State of Data Infrastructure Global Report, the average large company today manages 150 petabytes of data, and that amount is expected to exceed 300 petabytes by 2026. That doubling in less than two years is more than a matter of capacity. It introduces new concerns around data quality, infrastructure robustness and the ability to manage AI workloads that require both high-performance processing and strict governance. The report also found that three out of four IT executives polled have already passed the stage of partial AI adoption, and more than one-third report that AI has become essential to their business. This transition calls for more than evolutionary changes to partner strategies. It necessitates closer coordination on the business and technical levels, so that partnerships can provide secure, scalable and sustainable solutions. Consumers are becoming more “data sovereignty” and “cybersecurity” conscious. Regulations are growing in number and breadth. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has reported a steady rise in data localization laws across major economies and has documented the consistent increase in data localization regulations in major economies, which is transforming the way in which multinational organizations design their data flows. Coupled with the rising cost of public cloud consumption, most organizations are revisiting their infrastructure blend, with hybrid approaches becoming the de facto standard for achieving a balance between agility and control. Three Principles for Building Partnership Harmony 1. Define Shared Success Metrics Partnerships last when both parties are on the same page about what success is. These metrics need to extend from quarterly revenue expectations to mutually agreed-upon KPIs such as speed of deployment, customer satisfaction and sustainability effect. For example, when partners align early on sustainability goals and deployment KPIs, they can accelerate AI adoption while reducing operational costs. Research from the World Economic Forum underscores the importance of this approach. Partnerships that embed outcome-based metrics into their governance models are 1.5 times more likely to achieve sustained growth compared to purely transactional relationships. This alignment creates a shared language for decision-making and keeps both parties accountable for delivering on promises. 2. Right-Size the Partner Ecosystem In a time when customers’ needs are complicated and rapidly evolving, stretching resources too thinly over a bloated partner ecosystem can dissipate concentration. When too many suppliers vie for the same opportunity, pursuits too often degenerate into price wars that destroy value for all parties. Selective ecosystems promote closer cooperation and motivate collective investment in capability building. They also bring clarity to customers, who appreciate knowing that their solution providers have the mandate and the ability to see it through. By requiring each partner to play to its strengths and be mapped to well-defined roles, organizations can provide a more predictable and high-quality experience. 3. Integrate Technology Roadmaps Early AI adoption cycles are speeding up, and the opportunity window to grasp emerging possibilities is decreasing. Synchronizing roadmaps ahead of time enables partners to co-create offerings that are inherently integrated, which simplifies their management, accelerates deployment and makes them more responsive to market fluctuations. Imagine if storage, compute and networking technologies were aligned from the beginning to serve hybrid AI workloads. Such forward-looking integration eliminates duplicate effort, simplifies support models and enhances collective credibility in front of clients. This also opens the door to co-innovation, where partners jointly create new offerings or intellectual property that neither could deliver alone. Early alignment also prepares the way for future regulations or industry-specific demands, minimizing expensive rework down the road. The Operational Benefits of Harmony Harmony is not merely philosophical. It is functional. Partnerships founded upon a common approach to processes, tools and integration points Beyond Transactions Building ‘partnership harmony’ in the AI age By Dennis Frank 40 CHANNELVISION | FALL 2025 CHANNEL MANAGEMENT
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