Today we announced that Copilot for Microsoft 365 is now available through all sales channels, including the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program. We also removed the minimum purchase requirement and expanded prerequisite licensing to be more inclusive. This represents a unique and exciting opportunity for partners to help even more customers begin their AI journey.
To empower CSPs to take advantage of Copilot and leverage the upcoming renewal period to improve retention and accelerate growth, we’re excited to announce new capabilities now available in Microsoft 365 Lighthouse, including:
- Customer targeting with propensity to buy Copilot for Microsoft 365
- 90-day view of upcoming renewals with a tailored set of recommendations
- Seamless onboarding for all CSP direct and indirect resellers
- Role-based access control (RBAC) for account managers, eliminating the need for Partner Center roles to access Sales Advisor insights
- Copilot deployment management with improved security configurations
Accelerate how you go to market with Copilot
Copilot has generated a lot of customer enthusiasm, offering a great opportunity for CSPs who have a clear go-to-market strategy. Since Copilot is new in the CSP channel, the first step is to build a plan to inform your customers and get them excited about Copilot. Microsoft 365 Lighthouse can help simplify and accelerate your time to market.
Sales Advisor can quickly identify the best customers to engage, helping you identify eligible Copilot customers and, more importantly, customers with a high likelihood of benefiting from enhanced productivity. Sales Advisor also provides account managers with best practices and tailored marketing content to help you easily kickstart your customer conversations.
For customers who aren’t initially eligible for Copilot, Lighthouse can help identify those customers who are ready to upgrade to one of the prerequisite offerings, such as Microsoft 365 Business Premium or Microsoft 365 E3/E5. These insights let you take the proactive steps needed to get your customers AI-ready and ensure they’re prepared to take advantage of Copilot in the future.
Getting customers licensed for Copilot is important, but equally important is supporting them in the setup process to get them ready to use Copilot. Make sure users are on the current update channel for Microsoft apps, and configure conditional access to ensure users and devices are secure. Multi-tenant management capabilities in Lighthouse can help ensure a smooth and successful rollout of Copilot. Lighthouse includes the following capabilities:
- Device management controls to ensure devices are protected and secure.
- Conditional access configuration to safeguard sensitive business data by regulating employee access to internal content.
- The ability to establish robust security policies, so environments are prepared for a better Copilot experience.
Optimize your renewal conversations with simplified renewal insights
As a CSP, you can help your customers make the most of their licensing, switch to more appropriate offers and services, and define their expectations and objectives for the year ahead. Renewal moments are essential for establishing trust and loyalty with customers and increasing your revenue and profitability. However, managing renewals can be difficult and time consuming, especially if you have many customers with different needs.
With the new upcoming renewals experience, you get access to insights and recommendations to help you prepare and conduct effective renewal discussions with your customers.
On the Upcoming renewals page, you can view subscription renewals happening in the next 90 days. By using the filter and sort capabilities, you can prioritize customer outreach to focus on customers who have the most valuable or urgent renewal opportunities. Connecting upcoming renewals with the opportunities available in Sales Advisor can help you decide what to present to your customer during the renewal discussion. Opportunities can include recommendations to upgrade customers so they’re more productive and secure, as well as suggestions to help customers realize more value from the subscriptions they already have.
Lastly, we’re making it easy to seamlessly integrate Copilot opportunities into your renewal conversations. Leveraging the Sales Advisor recommendations, you can proactively align your renewal conversation strategy by tailoring your pitch to the customer's needs and goals. You can also use the links and resources provided in the recommendations to learn more about the offers and services that you can propose to the customer. This holistic approach ensures that your renewal discussions address your customers’ current needs while also highlighting the potential of Copilot.
Get easier access to insights and recommendations
The more accessible the insights and recommendations in Lighthouse are, the more valuable they become. To allow for more users to access the insights and data within Lighthouse, we’ve streamlined the Lighthouse onboarding process. Lighthouse is now enabled by default, which means no action or extra steps are needed to access the full capabilities. CSPs can sign in to lighthouse.microsoft.com and get started immediately.
We’ve also made it easier to control who can access and use Lighthouse in your partner tenant with custom, built-in RBAC roles. The first role we’ve made available is Lighthouse Account Manager, which removes the need for a user in the partner tenant to have Partner Center permissions to access Sales Advisor insights. CSPs will soon have the flexibility to assign additional Lighthouse RBAC roles to give users extra functionality within the portal. These new roles significantly increase the flexibility you have in determining how you and your teams access and manage customer data in Lighthouse.
Get started today
Sign in at lighthouse.microsoft.com.
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