An Ecosystem Primer
Tech ecosystems create numerous benefits for ISVs and their customers. Here’s an overview of what an ecosystem is and what it does.
One of the best ways for an ISV to scale is through co-selling with a Cloud Provider. In fact, Tackle’s 2022 State of Cloud Marketplaces Report noted that 84% of ISVs said driving co-sell with the Cloud Providers is important or very important to their business priorities in the next 12 months, and 74% said that unlocking co-sell opportunities was the number one reason for listing on a Cloud Marketplace.
Co-selling is an integral part of an effective Cloud GTM strategy and is also key to building a strong and mutually beneficial relationship with a Cloud Provider. Fortunately, AWS has created a robust co-sell program to help ISVs build momentum and generate leads. Here are some of the highlights of the program, along with a few tips to help you get the most out of co-selling with AWS.
Co-selling is the sharing and collaborating on leads and opportunities between an AWS Partner and the AWS Sales field. The purpose of co-selling is to increase the amount of leads/opportunities shared between both AWS and the AWS Partner. Co-sell increases the likelihood of closing these opportunities by fostering collaboration across teams and communicating the value each side (AWS and the Partner) offers the customer.
Read more: Happily Ever After: Craft a Co-sell Success Story
According to AWS’ data, co-selling with the Cloud Provider in AWS Marketplace has a few distinct advantages:
Although transacting on AWS Marketplace is not a requirement for co-selling with AWS, leveraging co-sell to generate business and using AWS Marketplace to close that business are synergistic. A co-sell relationship opens new doors and opportunities.
For example, buyers making purchases through AWS Marketplace can do so via AWS’ two committed cloud spend programs: the Enterprise Discount Program (EDP) and the Private Pricing Agreement (PPA). Buyers are more inclined to use a Marketplace for purchases if they’ve already committed spend to one of those programs. In a co-sell relationship with AWS, these budgets may become more accessible to ISVs as AWS will more eagerly pair potential customers with your product to help buyers draw down on those cloud budgets. In turn, AWS benefits from increased cloud consumption.
Read more: Startup Essentials: Making the Most of AWS Marketplace
The AWS co-sell program is facilitated through the APN Customer Engagement (or “ACE”) tool, a portal that enables ISVs to securely collaborate and co-sell with AWS.
Partners can register and manage pipeline opportunities with the AWS team through ACE. This helps to enhance customer engagement and grow your overall business with AWS and your customers.
Once an opportunity is registered in ACE you get access to AWS account owners who are assigned to that account in the “Contacts” section.
Read more: How to Sell More on AWS Marketplace With the ACE Program
When it comes to co-selling, the ISV must educate the AWS team on how its product or service is different from—or better than—a competitor’s product or service. This is best achieved by crafting a “better together” story describing the specific value that the partner’s solution offers to AWS customers.
Partners should leverage the “better together” story to build their AWS Field Readiness Kit (FRK), an AWS internal document which helps AWS teams and AWS customers better understand your product/service, and helps enable co-selling efforts. Similarly to the way you enable your internal sales team to sell, you want to ensure AWS Field Sales teams understand your product, positioning, and personas.
In addition, Tackle’s complimentary template download, Creating a “better together” story, can also help clarify your messaging.
It is the AWS team’s responsibility to understand the thousands of solutions available to their customers and suggest (or introduce) the best one to meet the customer’s needs. The AWS team can assist ISVs by providing insight and potentially access to contacts inside the customer account. These include:
Supporting Partner referred opportunities, which may include meeting with the Partner on the opportunity, or offering deal support ranging from identifying customer pain points to key account contacts.
AWS referred opportunities, which encompasses the above responsibilities but also includes AWS introducing the partner to the customer opportunity.
There are three ways to engage with AWS through a co-sell relationship, each with its own benefits. ISVs usually start at the “base” level and progress through each step sequentially:
As you work with AWS in your co-selling efforts, these are the people and roles you’ll most likely interact with:
The trick to making co-sell work is knowing how to maximize your impact on the AWS sales team. This is done by clearly outlining the value that your offer provides, to both the customer and to AWS. Here are a few tips for developing a co-sell strategy with AWS:
Co-selling with AWS is an effective way to put your product in front of a lot of buyers and speed time-to-market. Fortunately, AWS continues to enhance its co-sell program with incentives created specifically to help ISVs make the most of cloud selling.
To help you create a more effective “better together” story, download Tackle’s complimentary template.