--- title: "Your AWS SCA Is Signed. Now Operationalize It" url: https://www.suger.io/resources/blog/aws-sca-operating-plan/ canonical: https://www.suger.io/resources/blog/aws-sca-operating-plan/ type: Blog description: "An AWS Strategic Collaboration Agreement is a multi-year plan with targets. How to turn one into an operating cadence instead of a press release." --- # Your AWS SCA Is Signed. Now Operationalize It > Canonical HTML version: https://www.suger.io/resources/blog/aws-sca-operating-plan/ 1. [Home](/) 2. / 3. [Resources](/resources/) 4. / 5. [Blog](/resources/blog/) 6. / 7. Your AWS SCA Is Signed. Now Operationalize It # Your AWS SCA Is Signed. Now Operationalize It The signing is the easy part. An SCA is a multi-year plan with numbers in it, and the numbers only mean something if somebody can see them before the quarterly review. [![Sabrina Xie](/authors/sabrina-xie.jpg)](/resources/blog/author/sabrina-xie/) [Sabrina Xie](/resources/blog/author/sabrina-xie/) Aug 16, 2026 ![Your AWS SCA Is Signed. Now Operationalize It](/images/blog/aws-sca-operating-plan/hero.png) Explore AI Summary [![](/logos/company/openai.svg)](https://chat.openai.com/?q=Read%20and%20summarize%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suger.io%2Fresources%2Fblog%2Faws-sca-operating-plan%2F%2C%20then%20cite%20the%20source.%20Focus%20on%20what%20it%20says%20about%20Co-Sell%2C%20AWS. "Summarize with ChatGPT")[![](/logos/company/anthropic.svg) ](https://claude.ai/new?q=Read%20and%20summarize%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.suger.io%2Fresources%2Fblog%2Faws-sca-operating-plan%2F%2C%20then%20cite%20the%20source.%20Focus%20on%20what%20it%20says%20about%20Co-Sell%2C%20AWS. 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"Summarize with Perplexity") Table of Contents - [What is an AWS Strategic Collaboration Agreement?](#what-is-an-aws-strategic-collaboration-agreement) - [Why the momentum disappears](#why-the-momentum-disappears) - [What good execution looks like](#what-good-execution-looks-like) - [Decompose the commitments into things a system emits](#decompose-the-commitments-into-things-a-system-emits) - [The cadence that keeps it alive](#the-cadence-that-keeps-it-alive) - [Where the funding sits](#where-the-funding-sits) - [Frequently asked questions](#frequently-asked-questions) - [Takeaways](#takeaways) _An AWS Strategic Collaboration Agreement is a multi-year business plan between an ISV and AWS, carrying joint goals, agreed investment, and dates. It is not a badge and it is not a tier. The reason so many go quiet after the announcement is that nothing in the signing produces the weekly evidence the plan is built on._ * * * The pattern is familiar enough to be a joke. The agreement takes months. Legal closes it, the press release goes out, two logos appear on a slide, and the alliances lead gets congratulated. Then nine months pass, the first serious review arrives, and somebody has to answer what the partnership actually produced. The scramble that follows — exporting referrals, reconciling marketplace reports, asking three teams what they remember — is the tell. Not that the work did not happen, but that nobody could see it happening. An SCA does not fail at signature. It fails in the gap between what the plan promises and what any system can currently show. * * * ## **What is an AWS Strategic Collaboration Agreement?** **An SCA is a multi-year, jointly agreed business plan between a partner and AWS, backed by investment on both sides.** AWS’s own framing is direct: SCAs “are underpinned by multi-year business plans and investments through which AWS equips partners with the resources, support, and funding needed to thrive in the competitive cloud market and to scale their business globally.” What AWS brings is a list of concrete things rather than goodwill — “training and enablement, strategic guidance, go-to-market support, joint marketing campaigns, co-sell motions, participation in AWS events and strategic investments.” And it is explicitly a measured arrangement. AWS describes SCAs as driving “enterprise transformation through structured execution with defined metrics and milestones.” Read that last phrase as the operating requirement it is. Defined metrics and milestones are not a reporting nicety bolted on afterwards; they are the substance of what was signed. * * * ## **Why the momentum disappears** Three things go wrong, and none of them is a lack of commitment. **The plan lives in a document nobody opens.** The targets sit in a deck or a signed PDF. The work happens in a CRM, AWS Partner Central, and a marketplace console. Nothing connects the two, so progress has to be assembled by hand — which means it gets assembled just before a review, and only then. **The commitments were never decomposed.** “Grow co-sell pipeline” is not a target anyone can act on this week. The teams who could move it — an AE, a partner manager, a deal desk — need it expressed as referrals submitted, opportunities accepted, transactions closed through the marketplace. **Ownership is collective.** An SCA is signed by executives and executed by people who were not in the room. If no named person owns each commitment, the plan is owned by whoever remembers it, which is the alliances lead, which is one person. * * * ## **What good execution looks like** AWS’s Cloud Adoption Framework describes the top of this maturity curve plainly: “At the highest level of strategic partnership, with AWS or otherwise, is a clearly defined plan with a roadmap of strategic initiatives corresponding to specific business outcomes and **owners**.” It notes such partnerships “often include a longer-term commitment (two-three years+) and require significant resource investment from each of you,” and recommends “a framework you can both agree on for goals, key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics.” The partners who get value from an SCA run it as a management system. One published example structures it as define, organize, execute, measure — with “monthly KPI reviews track achievements and remove obstacles” and “quarterly, half-yearly, and annual business reviews guide data-driven decisions at leadership level.” The important detail is the **monthly** layer. A quarterly review can only report; a monthly one can still correct. If your first look at the numbers is the QBR, the quarter is already spent. * * * ## **Decompose the commitments into things a system emits** Every SCA goal has to resolve to a record some system already creates. If it does not, it cannot be tracked, and it will be reconstructed by hand forever. The commitment says The record that proves it Where it comes from Joint pipeline Referrals submitted and accepted AWS Partner Central (ACE) Co-sell engagement Opportunities with an AWS seller attached ACE status transitions Marketplace revenue Closed agreements and disbursements AWS Marketplace seller reports Migrations or launches Private offers accepted Marketplace agreements Funded activity Approved funding claims AWS funding programs Enablement Certifications and accreditations AWS Partner Central Two rules make this hold up. **Pick the record, not the number.** A target of “$X of marketplace revenue” is ambiguous until you say whether it counts bookings, billed revenue, or disbursement — three different numbers with three different dates. Agree which one at planning time, in writing, with AWS. [What a marketplace dollar actually costs you](/resources/blog/what-a-marketplace-dollar-costs-you/) covers why those figures diverge. **Instrument before you need it.** The referral your AE submits in month two is the evidence in month eleven, but only if it was submitted through the channel that counts. A deal worked informally with an AWS rep and never entered into ACE contributes nothing to the plan, however real it was. [How co-sell works](/resources/blog/how-co-sell-works/) covers the mechanics per cloud, and the [ACE guide for ISV sellers](/resources/blog/aws-ace-guide-for-isv-sellers/) covers what AWS requires of a submission. * * * ## **The cadence that keeps it alive** **Weekly, at team level.** Referrals submitted, referrals stuck, offers out. Small enough that nobody prepares for it. **Monthly, against the plan.** Each commitment, its current number, its trajectory, and the named owner. This is the meeting where a target that is drifting can still be rescued, and the one most teams skip. **Quarterly, with AWS.** What is working, what is not, and what either side should change. AWS’s own guidance frames the partnership review as exactly that question — “What is currently working in the partnership, and what is not working?” The cadence is only sustainable if producing the numbers is close to free. If the monthly review costs a day of somebody’s week to assemble, it will be quietly dropped by month four, and you are back to reconstructing a year at the annual review. * * * ## **Where the funding sits** An SCA usually comes with access to investment, and investment is claimable rather than automatic. Funding programs have their own eligibility rules, evidence requirements and windows, and a claim that misses its window is money the plan counted on and did not get. Treat funded activity as a tracked commitment with an owner and a deadline like any other, not as a benefit that will be remembered. [AWS partner funding programs](/resources/blog/aws-partner-funding-programs/) covers what each program is for; confirm current amounts and terms with your AWS partner team rather than from any third-party summary, because those figures change and age badly. * * * ## **Frequently asked questions** **What is an AWS Strategic Collaboration Agreement?** A multi-year business plan jointly agreed between a partner and AWS. AWS describes SCAs as underpinned by multi-year business plans and investments, providing resources, support and funding to help the partner scale. **Is an SCA a partner tier or a certification?** No. Tiers and certifications describe status. An SCA is a plan with agreed goals, investment and dates, which is why it needs an operating cadence rather than a badge on a website. **What does AWS provide under an SCA?** AWS names training and enablement, strategic guidance, go-to-market support, joint marketing campaigns, co-sell motions, participation in AWS events, and strategic investments. **How often should SCA progress be reviewed?** More often than quarterly. One published partner example runs monthly KPI reviews to remove obstacles, with quarterly, half-yearly and annual business reviews for leadership decisions. **Why do SCAs stall after signing?** Because the plan sits in a document while the work happens in a CRM, Partner Central and a marketplace console. With nothing connecting them, progress gets assembled by hand only when a review forces it. **What is the first thing to do after signing one?** Decompose every commitment into a record some system already emits, and give each one a named owner. A goal that maps to no record cannot be tracked and will be reconstructed manually forever. * * * ## **Takeaways** - An SCA is a multi-year plan with defined metrics and milestones, not a tier or a badge. - It stalls because the plan and the work are in different systems, so progress is only ever assembled by hand. - Decompose every commitment into a record something already emits — a referral, an accepted opportunity, a closed agreement, a funding claim. - Agree which number a revenue target means, in writing, before the first review. - Run a monthly review, not just a quarterly one. Quarterly can only report; monthly can still correct. - Give every commitment a named owner. A plan owned collectively is owned by the alliances lead alone. * * * Suger tracks SCA goals against the records that prove them — referrals, agreements and marketplace revenue — in the same place the co-sell motion already runs. See [co-sell automation](/platform/cosell/) and [marketplace reporting](/platform/reporting/), or the [co-sell playbook](/resources/guides/co-sell/) for the motion underneath the plan. ## Sources Primary sources for the platform rules cited above. Last verified August 16, 2026. Cloud providers change fees, eligibility, and program terms without notice — check the source before relying on a figure. - [AWS Partner Network: Strategic Collaboration Agreements catalyze partners' growth and international expansion](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/apn/aws-strategic-collaboration-agreements-catalyze-partners-growth-and-international-expansion-automat-it-case-study-2/) — AWS's own description of what an SCA is — multi-year business plans and investments — and the benefit list quoted here (enablement, go-to-market support, joint marketing, co-sell motions, events, investment) - [AWS Partner Network: an SCA powers Crayon's growth](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/apn/aws-strategic-collaboration-agreement-powers-crayons-3x-revenue-growth/) — That SCAs drive execution through defined metrics and milestones, and the monthly KPI plus quarterly/half-yearly/annual review cadence one partner runs against theirs - [AWS Cloud Adoption Framework, business perspective: strategic partnership](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/aws-caf-business-perspective/strategic-partnership.html) — The plan-owners-KPIs framing and the two-to-three-year commitment quoted under 'what good looks like'. AWS marks this whitepaper as historical reference, so it is cited for the concept rather than for current program mechanics ### Stay Updated Get the latest Cloud GTM insights, product updates, and marketplace strategies delivered to your inbox.