Build technology partnerships around a customer workflow that crosses products. A partner earns a place when the connection removes work for shared customers and gives both teams a reason to keep working together. An integration alone does not make a partnership.1 The work should follow this order: prove the use case, check how the companies sell and support the workflow, agree on the joint motion, then build and expose the integration where buyers look.
Find the shared workflow
Let customer usage drive the target list. Start with the products your customers already use and value, then look for the companies behind them. An organization should identify other products its customers use and see value in, then seek partnerships with those companies.2
An integration partnership connects products through an app so customers get a smoother experience across the technologies.3 Customers can move data between products more easily without taxing their developers or engaging an agency or another third party.4
The integration still needs a strong product use case that customers want and that gives them a positive experience, whatever the go to market activity.5 It can solve a customer problem without building a new solution or product feature from the ground up, which saves time and money.6
Ask:
- Which products already sit in the customer's workflow?
- Where does information get copied, reentered, or stranded?
- What action should the integration make easier?
- Which shared customer would feel the improvement first?
Continue when you can describe the customer workflow in plain language and explain why the connection improves it.
Qualify the partner
Fit goes beyond technical compatibility. Check how the companies work and sell, and whether the partner can help with the customer problem you identified.
Before a call, a salesperson in the data ecosystem may contact technology partners7 and ask, "What was that process like?"8 Use the answer to learn who owned the work, how the customer entered the process, and where the previous motion slowed down.
Choose the relationship the workflow needs. Technology and OEM partners embed your product in theirs, or theirs in yours.9 An ecosystem of implementation and integration partners can help address product gaps.10
Build a short target list, then reach out through networking, introductions, cold emails, or forms on partner websites when the partner has high value for your customers.11 In the first conversation, ask:
- Which shared customers have asked for this connection?
- Who would own the technical work on your side?
- How do customers discover, buy, and get help with your product?
- Where would our products meet in the customer's workflow?
Continue when the partner can name a customer problem, a workable contact on its side, and a reason to keep the relationship active after the integration ships.
Agree the joint motion
The build needs a business path before either team commits engineering time. Write down how the partnership will help customers and how each company will participate.
Integration partnerships can support mutual customer success and create co selling opportunities.12 Use that as the working brief. Set out who supplies product information, who handles technical questions, how shared opportunities are introduced, and where the integration will be presented.
Ask the partner:
- Which customer outcome will we pursue together?
- How will a customer find the connection?
- Who explains the combined workflow during a sale?
- What happens when a customer needs implementation help?
Keep the answers specific to the workflow. Continue when both sides can describe the customer path from discovery through use and name the next action each side owns.
Build and publish
Technical work should make the agreed workflow easy to adopt. Treat the listing, account flow, and customer handoff as part of the integration.
If you have multiple app integrations, you can publish them together in one app listing.13 The documented setup for adding multiple integrations emphasizes a shared Google Cloud project.14 Enable and configure the Google Workspace Marketplace SDK with information for all the integrations, and explain in the description that the app includes multiple integrations.15 Add information about the new integration to the App Configuration and Store Listing pages.16
The listing should describe the partner's product and the value of the integration.17 Write the description around the customer workflow you qualified earlier. A buyer should be able to see what connects, what changes in the work, and why the connection belongs in the existing stack.
For a Cloud Marketplace purchase flow, integrate with the Partner Procurement API to create customer accounts and link them to marketplace purchases.18 Provide a sign up page for new customers who purchase through Cloud Marketplace.19 The same API also handles linked account creation and updates about user accounts.20
Continue when a customer can find the integration, complete the account path, and understand the first useful action without a custom explanation from your team.
Use the partnership in sales
Once the connection exists, make it part of the buyer's view of the solution. The integration should explain how the products work together in the customer's environment.
Early in a sale, show customers the integrations, partners, partner ecosystem, and use cases available to them.21 Describe the user experience in the context of the other tools buyers use.22 A valuable integration in the large tier can encourage buyers to consider multiple products so they maximize that value.23
Use the partner's language for the shared workflow when it is clearer to the buyer. Bring the integration into the conversation when the buyer describes the systems involved, then ask what they would want the connected workflow to do first.
Listen for a concrete customer path. When the buyer can explain which products are involved and what the connection would change, move to the agreed next action with the partner.
What not to do
Partnerships can move at different speeds, especially when the relationship crosses different kinds of organizations. Check the working process before you promise a delivery date.
- Do not assume a university partner will match your product development pace, since companies can find universities too slow and bureaucratic to be good partners.24
Screen each candidate against a shared workflow, a workable operating process, and a clear customer path. Ask for the partner's version of the sales process before you commit engineering time, then make the joint use case visible in the listing and sales motion.