Monday.com Expands Channel Specialization Frameworks For AI, Services

‘Basically, by bringing out specialization frameworks, we are creating a more exclusive group of partners that we are investing in more. And obviously, in return, we expect them to put more focus on us,’ says Dror Spindel, Monday.com’s acting vice president of global partnerships.

Cloud-based project management software developer Monday.com Wednesday expanded its specialization frameworks for channel partners with a focus on AI and services.

The two new specialization frameworks follow the introduction last year of the company’s CRM specialization framework, which aimed to improve how the New York-based company identifies and promotes its top CRM partners globally.

Monday.com is a global software company that transforms how businesses are run, said Dror Spindel, the company’s acting vice president of global partnerships.

“We build products people love,” Spindel told CRN. “Our aim is really to manage the core of the work, regardless of what it might be. We work in over 100 countries by now and have over 250,000 paying customers across 200 different business verticals and use cases. Every business can basically take the relevant piece of the product in order to make sure that it’s building the workflows that make sense for their day-to-day. In a way, it’s a way to move from software that you need to adjust yourself to work [with] to software that adjusts itself to the way you work.”

Monday.com has over the last two years moved from a company focused on a single product—work management—to a multi-product company that offers capabilities around CRM, DevOps, and IT service and support, Spindel said.

Monday.com has over 2,000 channel partners globally that currently account for about 25 percent of the company’s total revenue, he said. Those partners have revenue and annual recurring revenue (ARR) targets, and many work with the company to build proprietary solutions for their clients, he said. They also handle the migration, automation and implementation of projects.

Monday.com’s two new specialization frameworks for services and the company’s AI offering follow the specialization framework launched for its CRM offering, which the company introduced in 2024, Spindel said.

“CRM was basically the first product we launched after the core product of Monday,” he said. “And we’ve seen a lot of success with this. Having a specialization framework lets us provide partners with more dedicated support and better teach them how to sell and implement it.”

That in turn leads to developing a more exclusive group of partners, Spindel said.

“Basically, by bringing out specialization frameworks, we are creating a more exclusive group of partners that we are investing in more,” he said. “And obviously, in return, we expect them to put more focus on us.”

That has proven to work for Monday.com and its partners, Spindel said.

“Specialist partners for CRM contributed 50 percent of the channel’s CRM ARR,” he said. “So we saw a high correlation between this exclusive group around ARR delivery. And they were also landing the biggest customers in our CRM business. As of today, we have 40 CRM partner specialists globally, and we managed to double this number by riding on this success.”

On the AI side, Monday.com in February launched its AI vision, making the technology central to all it does, Spindel said.

“Our AI vision is not just about new features,” he said. “It’s really about reimagining how work gets done and unlocking infinite possibilities and empowering businesses to scale like never before. And we really believe that we are in the best position to do it because we are already integrated in work processes and work management. This marked a strategic shift from helping customers to manage their work to building AI tools that will let them use AI to get the job done for them.”

The AI specialization framework is an opportunity for partners to validate and to position themselves as AI experts, Spindel said.

“It helps solidify their position as AI-first companies to the broader market and ultimately drive more value to customers because they are tied to Monday’s AI strategy and vision,” he said. “We have different metrics that we put it in front of partners to make sure that they are qualified.”

Monday.com’s new services specialization framework recognizes partners who are Monday.com service product experts with proven quality to deliver to the company’s services, Spindel said. Partners will have to meet certain ARR thresholds and have dedicated sales certifications, he said.

“The benefits for both the AI specialization and the services specialization include a public badge we give to partners to put on their social media so customers see them as experts,” he said. “We’ll also put it in our partner directory. They are also entitled to dedicated enablement and access to our product team. Those partners will get priority support and some professional services and will be eligible for extra MDF.”

Bringing out the new specialization frameworks is a very good move for Monday.com, said Tyler Manee, president of Ability Ops, a Frederick, Md.-based solution provider focused exclusively on the Monday.com platform.

For Ability Ops, Monday.com’s initial specialization framework in its relatively new CRM market was a welcome move, Manee told CRN.

“Monday’s CRM in its own right is an extremely powerful CRM, and I think it deserved be its own product,” he said. “I think becoming its own product showed customers that this isn’t an afterthought add-on. This is a true CRM, and I think we gained access to a higher tier of users by having a proper CRM product.”

Ability Ops has done over 300 Monday.com implementations, and Manee said he likes how the company is expanding its offerings and its specialization frameworks.

“Monday became a multi-product platform a year and a half ago,” he said. “You’ll see a lot of these platforms all try to dip a toe into every product type. Something for development, something for marketing, something for communications, something for project management. I think Monday is set up very well because it was project management first, which I think is the hardest of those use cases to pull off. It has that underlying flexibility.”

Spindel said Monday.com is looking to recruit more channel partners.

“We’re not optimizing toward a certain number of partners,” he said. “We’re really optimizing toward quality and deep relationships and levels of investment. [And] I want them to really buy into the Monday vision, and I want their commitment to build something big together and have dedicated practice toward Monday. This is, for me, first and foremost. And we’re very much looking into culture.”

On the technical side, Spindel said his company is looking to build what he called “360-degree” relationships.

“We are looking for partners with sales teams that are able to go and sell our technology,” he said. “We’re looking for partners with implementation and service teams which are able to implement and serve customers effectively. Customer satisfaction and retention is a big, big, big focus for the company now. … We’re also looking for higher-scale partners who want deeper relationships with their enterprise clients.”

Spindel said Monday.com’s specialization frameworks offer strong benefits for partners.

“They unlock new revenue streams,” he said. “They drive differentiation and visibility to partners and allow them to position themselves as product experts to customers. I really feel this will make a difference to our partners.”