Cloud Marketplace Strategy
All software companies should be creating or reviewing their Cloud Marketplace Strategy to ensure they are at the top of their game.
Each of the large public cloud providers has their own version of a marketplace that allows customers to browse and purchase software products compatible with their cloud platforms. These providers include AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), IBM, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
Just like shopping for a new coat from an online store, where you search a site and see results by brand or by size, in a cloud marketplace you can search or use drop-down menus to quickly find software listings by publisher or by category for everything ranging from security to networking and automation.
Combining a good cloud marketplace strategy with well-developed identity and access management (IAM) controls can typically get ahead of any issues and allow an organisation to confidently incorporate the cloud marketplace as part of their business.
Many public marketplaces have recognised the need to offer assisted sales resources, ranging from educational materials to sales consultants that can help you select the right cloud application for your needs. In other words, if you’re interested in the possibilities of a cloud marketplace but want a little more support, vendor-agnostic providers are putting the resources in place to make buying easier.
Today’s marketplaces offer help, from consulting on your specific questions to product resources.
Developing the right cloud strategy for your organisation is a key component to keeping your technology effective. Buying from a public cloud marketplace gives customers more control, enabling them to access a wider range of products and services, and streamline the buying process.
To define your organisation’s cloud strategy, you’ll want to answer the following questions:
- Which products and services will you move into the cloud marketplace, and which will you provide via the more traditional IT infrastructure standpoint?
- Does the business have a mandate for keeping certain products or services internal?
- What products and services can be placed externally to the business’s infrastructure and operations?
- What changes will you make to your current business policies, including security to accommodate your cloud strategy?
- What metrics will you use to measure the success of your cloud marketplace initiative?
Once an organisation starts selling on a cloud marketplace, customers will begin to emerge. But when this happens, sellers should begin to gain visibility into who their ‘new customers’ are so that you can support them and make them use more features of your product.
The more you know about your customer base in the marketplace, the more you are equipped to serve customers and customise offerings to drive sales.
Winning large projects often stems from a cloud partner’s ability to create custom offers through the cloud marketplace. AWS Marketplace initially lets Independent Software Vendors (ISV) create private offers that feature custom pricing and end-user license agreements. But AWS has extended that capability to service providers through its Consulting Partner Private Offers (CPPO) program. Through CPPO, professional services providers can create bespoke offerings with client-specific pricing and statements of work.
The private marketplace’s ability to provide monthly variable billing presents an advantage to sellers. The CPPO also instills confidence among customers who can rely on AWS to manage the invoicing and billing process through its automated workflow. Finally, the private offers drive deeper “cloudiness” into services traditionally delivered through a multiyear, fixed-contract model, he noted.
In addition, the private offers allow companies to work directly with its vendor partners at scale, without having to rely on complex, local value-added reseller (VAR) agreements.
Consumers expect marketplaces to be just as seamless as any other e-commerce experience. Marketplaces are built around relationships, and the organisation’s support platform should be able to support these complex relationships.
Whichever channel the customer contacts your business through, agents need to be able to view past history, order details and task status immediately. Customers can feel the friction that comes with being treated like a ticket. When support agents ask for information they’ve already provided, and confirm details the company already has on file, customers feel like a problem that needs to be resolved instead of a valued customer.