A PROGRAMME TO BUILD GTM PLANS FOR THE MICROSOFT MARKETPLACE
The big business challenge
Microsoft’s Cloud Marketplace is 'transforming the way companies buy and sell software'. It promises independent software vendors (ISVs) the opportunity to reach hundreds of thousands of buyers, yet few are truly mastering this channel.
Microsoft's ISV Partner team recognised that even their largest ISVs needed help to plan their Marketplace GTM strategy. So they asked us to figure out the best way to do just that.
.png)
.png)
The approach
Despite the hype and focus around the Marketplace, we needed to understand how both buyers and sellers were behaving in relation to the Marketplace. We started with a Voice of the Customer assessment to ask some broad-reaching questions: How was the Marketplace being used? How did it fit with their proposition? What were they doing to leverage it?
From this work it was clear that knowledge was limited on both sides about the versatility and benefits of the Marketplace. In many instances, ISVs hadn’t done much to encourage sales beyond becoming transactable – the functional element of being able to sell on the Marketplace.
Our recommendation to the Microsoft team was to build a programme that educated, demystified and engaged multiple stakeholders within their ISVs.
The
impact
Over a 5-month programme we:
-
Created and delivered a programme to help top tier ISVs develop a Marketplace GTM strategy & plan
-
Created a blueprint that could be replicated with a broader range of ISVs
The programme contained 5 core elements which were delivered through a mixture of in-person and digital sessions. These took place as group 'cohort' sessions (with all the ISVs collaborating), as well as working sessions with individuals / teams in their own organisation.
By the end of programme, each ISV had experienced a huge leap in their understanding of the Marketplace and produced a ‘strategic screenplay’. This one page document helped bring together their thinking into a prioritised plan, ready for execution in Microsoft's new financial year. The ISVs are each following their plan and are now transacting multiple millions in Marketplace sales.
For further detail on this work, please contact Simon Barnett.
