Why the AWS Partner Multiplier Makes Capability Your Growth Advantage

Every few years a piece of research lands that does more than confirm what we already know. It clarifies what truly drives impact. The latest Omdia AWS Partner Ecosystem Multiplier report is one of those moments.

For vendors, distributors, and cloud providers, this is not just another dataset. It is a blueprint for how partner ecosystems create value and where capability investment delivers the strongest and most dependable returns.

If you are responsible for influencing partner performance, the message is clear. The partners who build stronger, multi-stage capability are generating four to seven times more revenue for every AWS dollar sold.

This is not a theory. It is what the numbers show.

1. The Multiplier Makes One Thing Clear: Capability Equals Revenue

Omdia sorts partners into four categories:

• Focused: 1.26 multiplier

• Multi-category: 3.25

• Progressive: 5.78

• Expert: 7.13

The jump is staggering and it has little to do with how many certifications a partner has collected or how many migrations they have delivered.

The real difference is depth across the lifecycle: Advise, Design, Build, Adopt, Manage.

The partners who join conversations early, stay involved later, and build solutions around customer outcomes are the ones creating real commercial impact. For vendors, this should reshape how we think about enablement.

It is not a cost. It is a revenue multiplier.

2. Marketplace and AI Are No Longer Advanced Plays. They Are the Center of Gravity

Two findings are impossible to ignore:

• Sixty-four percent of partners now use AWS Marketplace as a core GTM mechanism.

• Build services such as AI, IP, and automation represent the largest portion of the multiplier at 26.9 percent.

Partners who can build IP, package services, and land them through Marketplace are becoming the economic engine of the ecosystem.

For vendors, Marketplace readiness is now essential. The partners who can create customer-centric offers, activate CPPO, and co-deliver with AWS see shorter deal cycles and deeper consumption patterns. When partners pair Marketplace with production-ready AI delivery, their multiplier accelerates even further.

3. The Real Revenue Happens After the Deal Closes

The PEM highlights something many programs gloss over. Sixty-one percent of the multiplier is created after the sale.

Year one is implementation.
Years two and three are adoption, optimization, managed services, and scaled AI delivery.

Yet many vendor GTM motions still focus heavily on pre-sales activation. The real unlocks sit in:

• Customer success

• Data-led optimization

• AI moving from PoC to production

• Recurring value operations

• Outcome-based solutioning

• Long-term lifecycle orchestration

Partners who only know how to migrate eventually stall. Partners who know how to drive adoption generate durable growth for themselves and for you.

4. Where Vendors Should Actually Invest

The report makes the investment decision simple. Vendors should back partners who:

• Operate across multiple lifecycle stages

• Build Marketplace-ready IP

• Treat AI as a commercial capability

• Strengthen advisory and value mapping

• Run structured customer success motions

• Align every engagement to business outcomes

And vendors should prioritise capabilities that:

• Help partners create differentiated, customer-first offers

• Improve lifecycle execution

• Strengthen co-sell maturity

• Enable repeatable GTM plays

• Unlock recurring value

• Prepare partners for outcome-based pricing

This is how you turn a partner from jiust present to powerful.

5. How This Connects to the Investible Partner Philosophy

The PEM quantifies a principle I have talked about for years. Investible partners are not defined by certifications. They are defined by their ability to drive business outcomes and influence more cloud.

When vendors invest in the right capability uplift such as messaging, offer design, build motions, Marketplace readiness, adoption frameworks, and success management, they create partners who win more deals, accelerate growth, expand into new workloads, deliver AI beyond PoC, create recurring value, and stay aligned to customer outcomes.

This is exactly what Partner Elevate helps vendors and distributors build. We do not train partners for activity.

We develop the capability that increases their multiplier and increases the ecosystem revenue you capture.

Final Thought: The Data Has Spoken

The AWS PEM validates what leading partner organisations have sensed for some time. Partners do not grow by accident. They grow because vendors intentionally build capability that creates value across the lifecycle.

The vendors who embrace this will build ecosystems filled with highly investible partners. These are the partners customers trust, AWS co-sells with, and the market gravitates toward.

When you build these partners, your ecosystem does not just expand. It compounds.

If you are a vendor aiming to unlock that compounding effect, the PEM gives you the evidence. Partner capability gives you the lever. And the partners who commit to this maturity journey will be the ones driving the next wave of AWS success.