Borrowed leverage: partners, resellers, and the myth of ‘direct’
When someone says ‘go direct’, I always ask, ‘Direct to what?’
Connections
Other articles exploring a different angle of Top-down FinOps and personification
- When good top-down structure is on the other side
- When the human is the UI
- AWS sells to the tribe, not the board
- Borrowed leverage: partners, resellers, and the myth of ‘direct’
The context
- Audience: leaders deciding how to buy cloud, not just how to run it.
- Situation: ‘middleman’ is treated as an insult rather than a design choice.
- Decision on the table: direct, partner, reseller, MSP, marketplace, or a mix.
When someone says ‘go direct’, I always ask, ‘Direct to what?’
Direct to the product catalogue? You already have that.
Direct to support? That depends on what you pay for.
Direct to negotiation leverage? That depends on how much the vendor needs you.
For most customers, ‘direct’ is not a magic lever. It is simply the default route into a very large machine.
This is where intermediaries can help, sometimes.
A smaller partner, reseller, or managed service provider might offer ‘borrowed leverage’. Not because they have secret buttons, but because the relationship is different.
In a smaller organisation:
- you matter more as a proportion of revenue
- escalation is shorter
- decision-makers are closer to the customer
- commercial flexibility can exist where hyperscalers standardise
Partners may also receive benefits from the vendor that they can pass through, rebundle, or translate into services that make your life easier.
You might get:
- more responsive support
- someone who will actually chase billing issues
- help navigating enterprise agreements
- packaging that aligns with your internal chargeback and reporting needs
- advisory that is not tied to a single vendor product line
That last point is the quiet one. A partner who lives or dies on your satisfaction may be more willing to say, ‘Do not buy that. Fix this first.’
Of course, intermediaries can also be terrible.
Some add opacity.
Some add fees with no value.
Some create distance from the vendor in ways that hurt.
So the decision is not ‘direct good, intermediary bad’. It is ‘which model gives us the best leverage for our context?’
Here is a practical way to evaluate it, without ideology.
- Speed of action
When something breaks, are you on your own? Who can actually fix it, and how fast? - Commercial flexibility
Who can change terms, bundle services, or create a structure that matches how you buy? - Transparency
Will you understand your pricing, discounts, and allocation, or will you inherit mystery? - Alignment
If you ask for a cost-down plan, are they rewarded for lowering your spend, or for increasing it? - Governance fit
Will this model support your top-down operating model: decision rights, unit economics, budget accountability?
There is also a brutal truth here.
If you want someone to care about you, you either need to be important, or you need to pay.
A reseller can make you more important in their world.
A support tier can buy you attention in the vendor’s world.
Neither is free.
Top-down FinOps is about making that trade deliberately, not accidentally.
So yes, sometimes going through an intermediary increases leverage. It can turn you from ‘one of many’ into ‘a priority’.
And sometimes going direct is the right move, especially when you are large, sophisticated, and able to manage the relationship as a system, not as a friendship.
The myth is thinking ‘direct’ means ‘in control’.
Control comes from your own system: procurement posture, architecture discipline, governance, and clarity about what you are willing to accept.
If you have that, any buying route can work.
If you do not, no buying route will save you.