This is for the partner network strategist at a consultancy, accounting firm, implementation partner or fund platform whose people hear about quality projects from the inside. If your firm's role in the upgrade comes with its own rules on outside interests, those rules come first.
What a quality upgrade puts in front of the CEO
Two kinds of upgrade arrive under the same name, and they are not equally useful triggers.
The first is a system change: paper binders, spreadsheets or an aging quality database replaced by a new quality management system. Someone has to decide which records migrate, which stay read-only in the old system and for how long, and when the old system is switched off. Those decisions carry dates, and they reach the CEO because they cost money and touch every audit the company will face.
The second is a standard change. ISO published ISO 9001:2026 on 16 September 2026 as the successor to the 2015 edition, describing targeted updates rather than a rewrite, with more emphasis on leadership and quality culture and a clearer split between risks and opportunities (our paraphrase of ISO's announcements as excerpted in search). Every certified company now has a transition to plan. A standard transition changes how the system is run; it rarely changes what the old archive holds.
| Upgrade | Decision it forces about past records | Strength as a trigger |
|---|---|---|
| New system replacing an older quality database | What migrates, whether closed records stay readable in the old system, and until when | Strong: a dated decision about years of records |
| New system replacing paper and spreadsheets | What is scanned or entered, and what stays in binders | Medium: the history may be scattered and partly undated |
| Transition to ISO 9001:2026 alone | Usually none; procedures and management review are revised | Weak on its own; useful mainly when a system change rides along |
The question this page prepares is about history, so the strong trigger is the one to watch. Revision trails for individual procedures are a different subject, covered by the SOP revision discovery interview.
Why go-live, not kickoff, is the moment to ask
At kickoff nobody knows what will migrate. During cutover the quality team is at its busiest, and a licensing question is a distraction. After go-live, usually around the first post-implementation review, the migration decision has been made, the old archive's fate is known and leadership is looking back over the project. That is when the CEO can hear the question as relevant rather than opportunistic.
Run a timing check before anyone writes. Wait if any of these is true:
- An audit is close. A certification, customer or regulatory audit within the next few weeks owns the quality team's attention.
- Something is open. A recall, a major nonconformance or a serious customer complaint is still being handled.
- People are leaving. Quality or operations roles are being cut as part of the project.
- Ownership is moving. A sale is pending, or the CEO is about to change.
- You heard it in confidence. If the upgrade reached you through paid work, check what your engagement allows before using it.
The quality-history discovery brief
Eight lines, filled in from conversation in roughly this order. Every answer comes from a person or a public announcement; none comes from opening a system. Stop at the first answer that shows the company is not a fit.
| # | Line | Who answers | A useful answer sounds like (Illustrative) | Never ask for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The upgrade in one sentence, with its go-live date | The CEO, the quality lead or a public announcement | "Moved from a 2011 quality database to a cloud system; live since June" | The project plan or the vendor contract |
| 2 | Record families left in the old system, by name | Quality lead | "Closed nonconformances, corrective actions, internal and supplier audits, complaint files" | A report, export or screenshot |
| 3 | How far back each family goes | Quality lead | "Corrective actions from 2012, audits from 2009" | Copies of old audits |
| 4 | Where the old system ends up, and until when | Quality lead or IT owner | "Read-only until its contract ends in 2028" | Logins to either system |
| 5 | Who wrote the records, and whose details they contain | Quality lead | "Our engineers wrote the investigations; complaint files quote customers; supplier audits name suppliers" | Example records |
| 6 | Any earlier AI-training license or promise | CEO | "None" | Copies of contracts |
| 7 | Who decides, and whether they have heard the idea | Sponsor | "The CEO; not yet" | An introduction the CEO has not agreed to |
| 8 | The CEO's answer | CEO | "Send me a short note first" | A deadline you invent |
Lines 5 and 6 carry the most weight. SourceX's screening page lists QA records among the original documentation it looks for, and treats material that belongs to the company's clients as usually not a fit; complaint files and supplier audits mix the company's own work with other parties' details, and only SourceX's review decides what of that, if anything, the company may license. Line 6 is a gate: SourceX's company process page lists, among what a supplier confirms, that the data has not been licensed for AI training before, so an earlier license ends the conversation.
Method note. The brief applies SourceX's who-qualifies screening profile, its company process page and the program terms (Version 2026-10-22.2, since replaced by version 2026-11-04), all read on 2026-10-27, plus ISO's announcement of the 2026 edition paraphrased above. The order of lines follows a typical system upgrade, not measured outcomes. SourceX has published no response or conversion figures for introductions raised after quality upgrades, and this page estimates none.
Quality lead, sponsor and CEO: who does what
| Role | Usually | Can | Cannot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quality lead | Head of quality or QA manager | Answer lines 2 to 5 from what they know | Agree to a licensing discussion |
| Sponsor | The COO, an operations director or the quality lead | Carry the question to the CEO in the company's own terms | Speak for the CEO |
| CEO | The chief executive, often the owner in an owner-run firm | Decide whether the company talks to SourceX, and sign for it | Hand that decision to a partner |
Ownership changes the third row: after a sale has closed, the buyer's CEO decides for the acquired company, and until it closes the company's own CEO does. Every company in a group sits under one reward cap. The brief also sits on top of the published fit facts, which still apply: a peak of at least 50 full-time employees with contractors left out, several years of records the company produced, clear rights to them and a chief executive who is interested, with location rules on who qualifies.
One question, then a dated line in your log
The question (Illustrative wording). "Now that the new quality system is live and the old one is going read-only, a question unrelated to the project: SourceX licenses records companies wrote themselves, such as corrective-action investigations and audit findings, for AI training and evaluation. Would you like a short note on how it screens companies, so you can decide whether to talk? I should say I'm a referral partner, so SourceX could pay me a reward if anything came of it. It pays that separately, and the company's payout would not change. A no is a fine answer."
The record. The trigger and where you heard it, which lines were answered and by whom, the CEO's words, the next step with its owner, and a revisit date if the answer was not now. Nothing about the records themselves belongs in it, and nobody gathers quality records for SourceX; whatever the company shares later passes between the company and SourceX.
A written yes from the CEO comes first; then whoever will submit registers and signs the SourceX Channel Partner Agreement. Credit follows section 2 of the terms: one partner per company, awarded to the first valid introduction inside the 90-day attribution window, and only when the company has filed a verified application. Under section 3, any earlier contact the company had with SourceX, from an application or lead to an account or a single email exchange, makes it a duplicate. Where colleagues or other firms know the same company, agree who asks first; SourceX settles any overlap in its duplicate review.
A 180-person contract manufacturer after go-live (Illustrative)
Illustrative. The company, its numbers and its people are invented, and nothing here predicts a review outcome.
- Month 0. A contract manufacturer with 180 full-time staff goes live on a new quality system that replaces a 2010 database. Its operations director mentions it to the company's outside accountant at a planning meeting.
- Month 1. The accountant runs the timing check: no audit for two months, nothing open, no cuts, and the CEO knows the project well. All clear.
- Month 2. In a twenty-minute call the quality manager answers lines 1 to 5: closed nonconformances and corrective actions from 2011, internal audits from 2010, the old database read-only until 2027, investigations written by the company's engineers, complaint files that quote customers.
- Month 2, later. The CEO confirms nothing has been licensed for AI training, reads the short note and agrees to a call.
- Month 3. The accountant, registered and signed since the spring, submits the introduction with the CEO's written agreement. The company applies itself, and SourceX checks fit and rights. The accountant's note says only that complaint files quote customers and leaves the rest to SourceX's review.
If the company later licensed data and SourceX paid it $400,000, the default reward would be $70,000 (Illustrative). The company's payout would be the same either way, because section 4 of the terms says the reward "is never deducted from the supplier's agreed compensation".
Where the upgrade trigger misleads
- A certificate is not fit. ISO certification says nothing about headcount, rights or whether SourceX has a current program for the records.
- Quality history names other people. Customers, suppliers and sometimes employees appear throughout it, and much of what looks like the company's own history may not be its to license.
- Migration is the company's call. Never advise on what to keep or delete; a retirement date is only a reason to ask sooner.
- A standard transition rarely touches the archive. Treat ISO 9001:2026 work alone as a weak trigger.
- Nothing is measured. Log each upgrade you hear about, the line where it stopped and the CEO's answer, for two quarters; no benchmark exists.
Related reading: what the records can look like, at the level of types, in quality assurance workflows and nonconformance disposition; other moments when a company maps its own records are covered in a new records manager can clarify the introduction path and when a business standardizes processes across branches. More trigger guides are in the guides library.
Next step
Refer a company. No cap on rewards. Default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, including the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
Once the brief's first seven lines are answered and the CEO has asked to talk, register as a partner before you submit, compare the company with who qualifies and read the program terms on how a single introduction is credited.