Why are you only selling on AWS Marketplace?

According to Forrester Research The AWS Marketplace is a happening place to be selling all your tech services and software. Not only does it increase your possible deal size by 80%, your sales folks will close 27% more deals, the deals will close 40% faster, and the sellers will have 20% more Marketplace sourced pipeline. "The highest reported business outcome for ISV Partners via the survey was an increase in innovation (63%), followed closely by improved performance or security and compliance (52%), and expanded market size/client base (52%). Refer to the following bar chart, which visualizes these results, along with increased top line revenue and shorter sales cycles (42%), lower cost of customer acquisition, higher conversion rate, and faster deployment times (40%), and lower churn rate (37%)."

This is wonderful, and should be shown to the C level of every partner in the AWS Partner Network(APN). At the CADyShack, largest AWS centric community for cloud alliance folks, one of the biggest hurdles that Cloud Alliance Directors(CADs) go through with Hyperscalers is getting the C level on board with best practices. Hopefully this Forrester link above will help many with that.

However, the second biggest problem that CADs go through with AWS is how to become a strategic partner. At CADyshack many partners that have not hit that level of partnership with AWS yet ask how they can set themselves apart from other partners, become super partners. That's where we look at AWS Marketplace again.

Did you know that Forrester Research also showed what happens when you buy through AWS Marketplace? When you buy through AWS Marketplace you will have :

• Increased licensing flexibility.?Using AWS Marketplace leads to an increase in licensing flexibility, which resulted in a 10% reduction in licensing costs.
• Streamlined procurement practices.?The time spent in searching for and selecting vendors was reduced by 66%, and the time spent performing invoicing tasks was reduced by 50%, as well as use of standard contract templates all led to $2 million in efficiency savings.
• Recapturing 25% of at-risk spend.?Companies that have minimum spend commitments with AWS and purchase software through AWS Marketplace can fulfill their spend commitments and recapture 25% of at-risk spend.
• Improved vendor onboarding.?Companies improved their vendor onboarding processes, reducing the effort required to onboard a new vendor by 75% and a time savings equating to $62,000.

Is that not amazing? You get savings and enriched experience as a partner coming and going. My good friend Mr. George Maroulakos, North America Leader - AWS Marketplace Customer Advisors (the team that helps customers enhance their cloud strategy using partner solutions available thru Marketplace) said "Many partners continue to realize the business benefits for our mutual customers, as well as for themselves, in using AWS Marketplace. To accelerate opportunities, many partners will incentivize customers when using AWS Marketplace, which drives greater value and faster innovation using those partner solutions". I am truly amazed that more partners do not do the double sided freeway thing with AWS.

When you buy and sell through Marketplace it makes you that much more sticky with AWS. You are showing AWS that you are all in on the way of AWS. This all in approach will distinguish you from other partners that are only half in. With all the savings that you will find in the article listed above it only makes sense to gather a list of all your vendors, reach out to your PDM/PDR and Account Manager (AM) and start buying on Marketplace. (especially if it is a net new vendor). The higher the frequency of Marketplace interaction with AWS, the faster you will be a strategic partner.

If we all start buying our vendors through the Marketplace, and selling through the Marketplace the more valuable each of us will be to AWS. The early adopters of this thought will be the ones first to the table. Let's all eat together and stay healthy together.

If you are not a member of CADyshack, and you are not a sales role, feel free to join us at www.cadyshack.com/join.