Recently Vince Menzione, CEO, Ultimate Parter, and Yvonne Muench, Senior Director, Business Program Management at Microsoft engaged in a dynamic discussion exploring the transformative potential of marketplaces and the increasing significance of AI adoption within the Microsoft ecosystem. This conversation provides valuable insights into the rewards awaiting Microsoft partners, the tangible benefits of Microsoft's marketplace, and essential strategies for succeeding in the commercial marketplace through uncovering how strategic alignment, profound audience understanding, and effective partner planning can propel marketplace growth and cultivate collaborations with Microsoft. Don't miss out on this invaluable conversation guiding you through the evolving landscape of partner ecosystems.
In this discussion, you'll learn about:
- The transformation of marketplaces: Customer preferences are shifting towards digital self-serve purchases which is driving change in enhancing marketplace platform capabilities and customer adoption.
- Benefits of marketplace for ISVs: Customers seek cloud solutions to accelerate innovation and reduce costs. They aim to maximize cloud investments, simplify procurement, and deploy validated SaaS solutions easily. ISVs utilizing the marketplace benefit from expanded reach, simplified procurement processes, and increased visibility for their apps. Marketplace data from a Total Economic Impact study conducted with Forrester showed a 580% 3-year ROI with a payback period of 6 months. Specific benefits include a 75% reduction in employee time for onboarding new vendors, a 50% reduction in employee effort for procurement engagements, and a 30% improvement in time savings with finance and payments teams.
- How Microsoft supports ISVs through the build, publish and grow phase of their journey: Microsoft offers ISV Success a set of tools and benefits to assist businesses in publishing or intending to publish an application through the build and publish phase of the journey. ISV Success offers technical benefits across the cloud, developer tools, and technical consults to aid in building and publishing. Microsoft also offers Marketplace Rewards, which focus on supporting publishers through the grow stage, providing sales and marketing benefits to help increase sales. Benefits include social promotion, success stories, Microsoft seller spotlight, 1:1 consultation to optimize listings, Azure credits to accelerate sales, and others. In addition to the free Azure grants that unlock based on your sales, there are also cash incentives for ISVs that start at $25K in marketplace billed sales and co-sell benefits that kick in at $100k of marketplace billed sales.
- Importance of Channel Adoption- The Multi-Party Offer (MPO) capability is a significant advancement allowing ISVs to engage channel partners in selling their apps through the marketplace. Early data shows that the average deal size in MPO deals is approximately three times larger than private offers without channel partner involvement.
- What’s next for marketplace- Microsoft plans to further enhance the marketplace further with additional app types, continued geographic rollout of the multi-party private offer capability, continued improvements in customer experience and searchability, and continued investments in marketing the marketplace and driving demand. ISVs are encouraged to actively participate in marketplace programs, upgrade their apps for transactability, and engage channel partners for increased success.
No matter where you are on your journey Microsoft has resources and tools to help you build, publish and grow the sales of your applications.
To learn more and watch the entire conversation check out the interview on any of these channels:
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Additional Resources:
- Join ISV Success
- ISV Hub: Microsoft Cloud for ISVs
- Microsoft Partner Program: Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program
- If you are looking for unparalleled insights, best practices, and essential information to unlock your potential as a partner check out additional conversations Vince Menzione has had with other tech industry experts on Ultimate Partner