According to CRN, Salesforce’s new channel chief Phil Samenuk made a striking admission: “We will not be a successful consumption company without our ecosystem and partners.” Samenuk, who became senior vice president of global alliances and channel revenue in February, oversees Salesforce’s 16,000-plus partner ecosystem. The company is targeting $60 billion in revenue by its 2030 fiscal year, up from about $41 billion expected in the current fiscal year. Partners like Perficient, which has done over 3,000 Salesforce implementations, are seeing massive opportunities in post-implementation work and consumption pricing. Salesforce’s Agentforce 360 agentic AI platform became generally available last month, creating new implementation needs. The previous channel chief Steve Corfield moved to a different role earlier this year leading strategic partners’ go-to-market and integration.
<h2 id="salesforce-partner-shift”>The Consumption Pricing Revolution
Here’s the thing that really stands out: Salesforce is basically admitting their traditional seat-based pricing model isn’t enough anymore. They’re pushing into consumption pricing, which is a completely different ball game. And they’re saying flat-out they can’t make it work without partners.
Think about what that means. Seat pricing is relatively straightforward – you count heads, you charge accordingly. But consumption pricing? That requires constant optimization, monitoring, and helping customers actually use what they’re paying for. It’s ongoing work that Salesforce’s direct sales team simply can’t scale. Partners become essential not just for implementation, but for making sure customers actually consume and see value from what they’ve bought.
The AI Implementation Gold Rush
Now with Agentforce 360 in market, we’re looking at what might be the biggest partner opportunity since Salesforce first launched. AI implementation isn’t like dropping in a standard CRM. It’s complex, it requires deep customization, and honestly, most customers don’t even know what’s possible yet.
Look at what Perficient’s doing – they’re positioning themselves as that “large system integrator with small boutique feel.” That’s smart because AI implementation feels intensely personal to each company. You can’t just follow a playbook. So partners who can bridge that gap between Salesforce’s platform capabilities and actual business outcomes? They’re sitting on a potential gold mine.
New Leadership, New Priorities
The timing of Samenuk taking over as channel chief is interesting. He’s been at Salesforce for over 14 years, so he knows the company inside and out. But moving the previous channel chief to focus specifically on strategic partners’ go-to-market suggests they’re getting serious about making this partner-led consumption model actually work.
Basically, they’re not just talking about partner importance – they’re restructuring around it. When you combine that with their $60 billion revenue target, the math becomes pretty clear. They need partners to deliver a huge chunk of that growth. The question is whether the enablement and resources Samenuk promised will actually materialize quickly enough.
What This Means for Partners
For solution providers, this is both an enormous opportunity and a significant challenge. The opportunity? Becoming essential to Salesforce’s future revenue model. The challenge? You need to build completely new capabilities around AI implementation and consumption optimization.
Partners who can help customers navigate this new world – where pricing is based on actual usage rather than seats – will become incredibly valuable. But it requires moving beyond just implementation to becoming ongoing value partners. And that’s a different business model altogether.
So is this the moment Salesforce truly becomes a channel-first company? Maybe not entirely, but it’s definitely the moment they admit they can’t hit their ambitious goals without the channel carrying a much heavier load. The pressure’s on both sides to make this work.
