Turning a thousand stale partner records into sales-ready data
SAP had invested heavily in partner marketing but their PRM data was outdated, incomplete and unreliable. We cleaned, verified and enriched around a thousand partner accounts into a targeted, sales-ready dataset with personalised conversation starters for every contact.
SAP is the largest non-American software company by revenue globally and a Fortune Global 500 leader, with a partner ecosystem spanning hundreds of technology partners worldwide. Their partner marketing managers had built new enablement content and co-marketing campaigns, but the underlying data in their PRM was outdated, incomplete and unreliable. They couldn't reach the right people at the right partners.
Challenge
SAP's partner marketing managers had around a thousand partner accounts sitting in their PRM across multiple regions. They had built co-branded campaigns, content kits and activation playbooks, but none of it was going anywhere because the underlying data was a mess.
Company names were inconsistent, contacts were outdated or missing entirely, and there was no way to know if they were reaching the person who could actually act on the material. Some partners had merged. Others had rebranded. A fair few had no web presence at all.
Previous attempts using traditional data providers had been slow, expensive, and still left gaps. They needed a different approach, and they needed it before their campaign launch date.
Solution
We started by running the full dataset through our AI-powered data cleaning pipeline. Bespoke tools resolved company name inconsistencies, caught mergers and rebrandings, and flagged partners with no verifiable web presence. Over 93% of the original partner accounts were successfully verified and matched to active companies.
With clean account data in place, we then identified the most relevant contacts at each partner. We ran every contact through multi-stage email verification. Around 70% came back with verified, deliverable email addresses. The rest were flagged or removed rather than left in to pollute the dataset.
We applied a prioritisation layer on top. Not every contact is equally useful for partner marketing, so we built a selection hierarchy: marketing leads first, then sales, then leadership, then business development. The result was one best contact per partner, the person most likely to engage on a co-marketing conversation.
The final step was the bit that made this genuinely useful. We enriched every contact with LinkedIn profile data, time in role, recent posts and articles, relevant certifications, and AI-generated intent signals. Each contact came with a concise summary and bullet-pointed conversation starters tailored to their role and activity.
Outcome
SAP went from a messy spreadsheet of company names to a fully enriched, verified dataset ready for their partner marketing team to action immediately.
Every contact came with verified email addresses, LinkedIn profiles, role context, and personalised conversation starters. The partner marketing team could pick up the phone or send an email knowing exactly who they were talking to and what to talk about.
More importantly, all that enablement content they had invested in now had somewhere to go. Instead of blasting generic emails to outdated contacts and hoping for the best, they had targeted data built around the right people at the right partners.
The entire project, from raw data to sales-ready output, was completed in under two weeks. A process that would have taken months using traditional data providers and manual research.
Working with Chris and the Fifty Five and Five team has been an absolute pleasure. They are extremely thorough, flexible, and easy to work with. More importantly, they provided a high-value deliverable that directly propelled SAP's business success within our partner channel. Their ability to combine strategic insight with seamless execution makes them a standout partner. They know how to drive results for their customers.
