By Larry Walsh
For decades, the tech industry has judged vendors and their relationships with partners using a few simple terms: channel first, denoting that going to market with partners is the primary motion; channel friendly, meaning a vendor embraces partnerships and works to make the most of them; and channel apathetic (implied), referring to vendors with no real affinity for working with partners.
Each label speaks to a vendor’s preference for working with partners, not its effectiveness or fairness in doing so. It’s entirely possible for a vendor to prefer working with partners while simultaneously creating conditions that put those partners at a disadvantage in the go-to-market relationship.
Vendors — particularly non-channel leadership — are inherently skeptical of indirect-sales models. It’s not that they don’t understand them; rather, they don’t trust partners to always act in a vendor’s best interest. They worry about surrendering too much compensation relative to perceived effort and are often biased toward believing their own sales and technical teams are superior to those of their partners.
Winning in the channel is frequently framed as partners winning — but not more than the vendor. This creates a zero-sum dynamic, where one party’s success is assumed to come at another’s expense. In practice, this thinking is counterproductive and often results in lower returns for both vendors and partners.
It’s time for a change. At Channelnomics, we believe the channel needs more positivity.
Channel positivity isn’t about good intentions or about optimistic narratives around growth and partnership. The channel needs positive thinking and math. It requires a philosophy holding that all parties in indirect go-to-market relationships are meant to achieve positive outcomes from their collective efforts in serving shared end customers.
Channelnomics believes partnerships work best when they operate with a clear mission and assigned responsibilities, with each participant having a defined role and value proposition. When an entity — whether a person or a company — lacks a useful purpose, it inevitably drifts to the sidelines. Productive partnerships are those in which the value received is proportional to the contributions made.
Too often, technology vendors treat channel partners as purely transactional, focusing almost exclusively on the revenue those partners generate. Partnership programs and agreements are drafted too tightly, driven by the fear of giving away too much in discounts, incentives, or rewards. Vendors frequently view incremental partner compensation as waste, rather than as an investment in growth.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Channelnomics has developed and adopted a number of methodologies based on game theory, the study of how rational actors make decisions under conditions of interdependence. In this context, outcomes are shaped not only by one party’s choices but also by the anticipated actions and reactions of others.
“Channel Positive” isn’t a moral argument about fairness or goodwill; it’s a deliberately designed positive-sum system that aligns incentives, attribution, and rewards so that all participants benefit in proportion to their contributions.
In game theory, a zero-sum game describes a scenario in which one party’s gain requires another party’s loss. In these environments, compromise is limited and relationships become transactional: “You give me something of value, and I’ll give you something back — at a value I determine.” For partners, success is often conditional, based on extra effort outside the standard go-to-market process — the familiar and often ill-defined “value-add.”
Zero-sum channel models carry inherent risk. A vendor may appear to win, but the partner loses marginally, which erodes trust, commitment, and long-term performance. This is precisely why the channel needs a more positive framework.
In a positive-sum channel, vendors recognize that all participants contribute to a shared mission and that outcomes should be rewarded equitably, in proportion to inputs. Expectations are established up-front. There’s no haggling over value after the fact. Return on Partnership Investment (ROPI) — the partner’s return on its investment in the vendor relationship — becomes predictable, while Return on Channel Investment (ROCI) — the vendor’s return on investment in partners and programs — becomes measurable and defensible.
For much of the channel’s history, vendors have described themselves as “channel friendly” or “channel first,” signaling consideration for partners in product design, strategy, and go-to-market execution. Too often, however, these signals fail to translate into equitable value or consistent outcomes.
Vendors frequently fall short because they fail to connect partnership activities and contributions to ROCI. They assume that meaningful value creation happens internally and that partners provide only ancillary support. Without end-to-end attribution linking investment to partner activity, contribution, vendor success, and ultimately market valuation, partner value remains invisible — and therefore easy to discount.
Sales culture further reinforces this imbalance. Revenue credit is often treated as a zero-sum contest, and sales teams are penalized when partners influence deals outside their immediate awareness. As a result, partners are viewed less as collaborators and more as competitors.
A positive-channel philosophy is grounded in economics. By designing for shared success, vendors and partners can create go-to-market relationships with clearly defined, positive outcomes. While results are never guaranteed, a positive-sum approach allows participants to succeed without undermining others in the ecosystem. This represents a meaningful departure from models where vendors and partners compete for advantage or where partners must fight for access to the resources required to perform.
Adopting a positive-channel model requires a deeper understanding of partnership economics. Partnerships demand investment, and both vendors and partners expect returns. For partners, this return is often measured as Total Economic Impact (TEI) — the overall financial value generated through the relationship. By explicitly linking ROCI and TEI through disciplined go-to-market attribution, vendors can design strategies that are more likely to deliver sustained, mutual value.
In a positive-channel model, channel managers, partners, and executive leadership operate from a shared economic framework and a common set of performance metrics. Conversations move beyond market development funds, event planning, and technician head count to focus on annual and monthly recurring revenue, gross retained revenue, average deal size, sales-cycle duration, and funnel conversion rates. Attribution becomes fact-driven, alignment becomes structural, and revenue disputes largely disappear. Planning, execution, and outcomes improve as a result.
Success in the next-generation channel — increasingly shaped by marketplaces and ecosystems — will require vendors to be transparent about who contributes to growth and to abandon the assumption that someone else’s success comes at their expense. The measure of success becomes balance: income, contribution, and outcomes aligned.
That’s what a more positive channel looks like. That’s the future of the channel — and Channelnomics has the roadmap forward.
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Larry Walsh is the CEO, chief analyst, and founder of Channelnomics. He’s an expert on the development and execution of channel programs, disruptive sales models, and growth strategies for companies worldwide. Frank Rauch, Channelnomics Expert in Residence, contributed to this blog.