True Partnership: Why It’s Time to Rethink the SI/ISV Model
Partnership isn’t just a free sales team.
At Cabiri, we have worked with a huge range of technologies and maintain strong relationships with ISVs across the ecommerce and composable ecosystem. Those partnerships are critical to delivering the right tech for our clients, properly integrated, and at speed.
But despite the message we’ve been broadcasting loud and clear, we still see the same outdated expectation over and over again: partnership = free sales channel for the ISV.
If that’s the model, let’s be blunt – what’s the point of calling it a partnership at all?
The One-Sided Partnership Trap
Two recent examples landed in my inbox, and both followed the exact same script:
Pay for all the certifications (at our expense)
Once you’ve done that, bring us new business
Then, maybe, we can talk about a deeper partnership
That’s not partnership. That’s just pushing the sales and enablement costs onto the SI and hoping they’ll deliver customers without any real skin in the game from the ISV.
Partnership should mean mutual investment, shared risk, and a collaborative go-to-market approach. It should mean ISVs investing in their partners’ success just as much as the SI partners invest in theirs.
What Real SI/ISV Partnerships Look Like
We’ve seen the difference when a partnership actually works – and the results are night and day. Here’s what effective models have in common:
Joint Investment: ISVs co-fund certification programs and put dedicated technical resources into the enablement phase. Both sides invest upfront because both sides benefit when it works.
Collaborative Sales: Joint sales calls, shared lead qualification, and co-created proposals. The ISV isn’t just throwing over a PDF and wishing you luck; they’re sitting at the table helping to close the deal.
Revenue Sharing Beyond Referrals: Proper deal registration with meaningful protection, tiered margins based on partnership depth, and shared risk when going after strategic accounts.
Technical Co-Innovation: Access to fully featured sandboxes, visibility of product roadmaps, early beta programs, and opportunities to co-develop. This lets SIs feed back real client needs into the product direction.
Marketing Partnership: Co-branded content, joint events, and actual shared marketing budgets – not “we have a slot free for your logo on a board at the back of the room, only £10,000”
Dedicated Support: Named contacts, clear escalation paths, and regular business reviews. Partners aren’t just another ticket in a queue; they’re treated as part of the team.
Why This Matters Now
The ecommerce and composable tech landscape is facing tough times, yet conversely moving faster than ever. Clients expect speed, agility, and certainty from their technology stack and their partners. That requires ISVs and SIs to operate as a single, integrated unit and not a vendor and a channel.
When partnerships work the right way, everyone wins:
Clients get better outcomes, faster.
ISVs get their tech implemented by advocates who truly know the platform.
SIs can deliver with confidence, backed by real support and collaboration.
Let’s Do Better
The best partnerships we’ve seen treat SIs as extension teams, not just external vendors. When ISVs genuinely invest in our success, we naturally become their strongest advocates – because we’re in it together.
At Cabiri, this is exactly how we approach partnerships: mutual investment, shared risk, and a focus on delivering better results for clients.