The Partner Advocacy Program (PAP) rewards IBM sellers when partner solutions include IBM technology. Partners register deals through the PAP portal, which links partner sales with IBM product orders to calculate commissions.
However, the process relied heavily on manual emails, fragmented systems, and complex calculations. Our goal was to redesign the experience and integrate PAP into IBM’s Partner Portal to simplify workflows, improve transparency, and support IBM’s co-sell strategy with partners.
The existing PAP experience created friction for sellers and partners. Processes were manual, systems were fragmented, and incentive calculations lacked transparency.
I led experience design for the new PAP workflows, aligning stakeholders and simplifying the end-to-end process for partner deals and seller incentives.
Facilitated workshops to map the full lifecycle of partner deals and seller incentives.
Redesigned workflows for opportunity registration, order linking, and incentive tracking.
Presented design concepts to leadership and cross-functional teams.
Designed the experience to integrate PAP with IBM’s Partner Portal.
We conducted service blueprinting workshops with stakeholders and subject matter experts to understand the entire lifecycle of partner deals and commission payouts.
🎯 Design challenge: simplify the experience while integrating complex backend systems for orders, opportunities, and incentive calculations.
Reduce manual steps and unify fragmented tools.
Provide visibility into incentive calculations and partner orders.
Replace manual validation with automated integrations.
Early wireframes explored simplified workflows for opportunity registration, order linking, and incentive tracking.
I reviewed these wireframes with stakeholders to validate the workflows before moving into high-fidelity design. This step also allowed the development team to assess feasibility and align early on technical constraints.
After validating flows with stakeholders and engineering, I designed the final experience that would help our partner to rewards sellers in the portal and allow us to sunset the old tool.
🎯 This redesign transformed PAP from a manual incentive process into a scalable platform supporting IBM’s global partner ecosystem.