UNLOCKING MARKETPLACE MILLIONS
Demystifying B2B buying on the
Microsoft Marketplace
The big business challenge
Microsoft’s Azure Cloud Marketplace provides independent software vendors (ISVs) with an opportunity to reach hundreds of thousands of buyers, yet few are truly mastering this channel.
Microsoft's ISV Partner team were looking to develop a tailored programme with two key outcomes:
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To support an elite selection of ISV to accelerate their building of a robust Marketplace go-to-market strategy & plan
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Create a blueprint that could be replicated with a broader range of ISVs
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The approach
Despite the hype and focus around the Marketplace, we needed to understand how both buyers and sellers were truly behaving in relation to the Marketplace. We undertook an initial 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 transacting on the Marketplace. We found that, 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 approach, and recommendation to the Microsoft team, was to build a programme that educated, demystified and engaged multiple stakeholders within an ISV.
The
impact
We developed and ran a 3-month programme with 5 ISVs. This consisted of 5 core elements which were delivered through a mixture of in-person and digital sessions. These took place as large 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.
