Partner & OEM Risk Review

Reveal the long-tail risk and revenue leakage hiding in partner contracts, reporting habits, and one-off metrics.

Partner & OEM Risk Review

Surface buried risk and reclaim lost revenue from indirect licensing agreements.

Overview

Some of the biggest licensing risks are the hardest to see.

OEMs, resellers, and embedded SaaS partners often operate under bespoke terms—crafted at the last minute to close deals, with limited input from Legal, Product, or Finance. These contracts tend to include unique, one-off billing metrics that are rarely revisited and often ambiguously defined. Reporting is usually periodic and partner-submitted, with early reports reused as templates and little to no validation from your team.

Because these reports are directly tied to revenue, they’re often booked without scrutiny—and over time, small inaccuracies can turn into major long-tail revenue loss.

Our Partner & OEM Risk Review identifies these hidden risks, helping you understand which contracts are vulnerable, which terms are unclear, and which partners may be underreporting—knowingly or not. We evaluate the health of your indirect licensing portfolio, pinpoint risky language, and provide actionable guidance to help you regain control over partner reporting and entitlement integrity.

What We Assess

📄 Contract Terms & Metric Clarity

  • Are key billing terms like “user,” “transaction,” or “output” clearly defined?

  • Were metrics tailored to individual partners without measurement guidance?

  • Are license grants and usage caps enforceable, or loosely written?

  • Do audit clauses exist—and if so, are they practical given how usage is reported?

📊 Reporting Practices & Risk Patterns

  • Are reports consistently formatted—or cloned from older submissions?

  • Is usage data manually submitted without checks or validation?

  • Are partners submitting all required data fields, or only the royalty-related revenue values?

  • Are contractual obligations for usage counts, product breakdowns, or attribution details being met?

  • Is there a pattern of missed fields, inconsistent logic, or prolonged submission gaps?

🤝 Internal Oversight & Visibility Gaps

  • Do internal teams know which partners have unique license terms?

  • Is there a central record of partner obligations, entitlements, and reporting cycles?

  • Have Legal, RevOps, and Product ever reviewed these contracts for enforceability?

Sample Inputs We May Request

  • Executed partner or OEM agreements, including license and audit language

  • Historical partner reports (including all expected data components—not just royalty figures)

  • Submission histories to identify gaps, duplication, or formatting drift

  • Product or usage documentation provided to partners

  • Interviews with stakeholders managing indirect channels or license reporting

  • Optional: partner disputes, escalations, or compliance concerns tied to reporting quality

What You’ll Receive

  • A structured evaluation of partner and OEM contract risk across language, reporting, and measurement practices

  • Identification of high-risk or vague billing definitions and reporting gaps

  • Annotated examples of unclear language, plus model contract clauses to guide future negotiations or redlines

  • Recommendations for improving internal controls, partner communication, and reporting discipline

  • A tailored strategy document and engagement proposal outlining how we can support your team as you execute clean-up, renegotiation, or reporting improvements

Why It Matters

  • Indirect agreements are rarely monitored closely—but carry high risk over time

  • Most partners reuse early reports, meaning small errors can become embedded

  • Contracts written under pressure often lack enforceable structure or audit readiness

  • Internal teams may not know what was promised—or what’s been reported since

  • Tightening language, strengthening expectations, and increasing internal awareness protects long-term value

Ideal If You:

  • License or sell your software, SaaS, or API through OEM, reseller, or embedded models

  • Rely on partner-submitted usage reports that are rarely validated

  • Have inherited legacy partner deals with unusual or unclear terms

  • Are preparing to renegotiate high-value partner agreements

  • Suspect revenue loss due to ambiguous metrics or outdated reporting habits