When Dataiku came to Tackle, they had recently launched their first Cloud Marketplace listing on Azure Marketplace. The team's initial goal was to simplify customers’ buying process by leveraging the Marketplace’s private plans.
The path to the initial listing proved complex. Dataiku struggled for months to coordinate the engineering, legal, sales, and accounting processes that needed to be put in place and approved to launch. Still, a few immediate successful transactions on the Azure Marketplace drove the need and demand for expanded use. When it came time to build listings for AWS and GCP Marketplaces, Dataiku knew that to effectively master the differences and complexities, they needed a faster, better way.
AWS Marketplace, Azure Marketplace, GCP Marketplace, Customer Story
Rapid Time to Value
Scalability Without Headcount
Customer-Centric Buying Experience
When Dataiku initially started to explore using the Cloud Marketplaces as a go-to-market channel in addition to using Marketplaces as a transaction method, they found they had at least ten enterprise prospects engaged in AI transformation projects who would buy Dataiku as part of their “AI/ML stack” if they could purchase through Azure, AWS, and GCP Marketplaces.
For months, Dataiku inched forward with a DIY Marketplace approach, consuming a lot of hours and presenting a series of obstacles that were often repetitive and complex. Along with the inherent complexities of engineering a Marketplace listing, they faced added challenges involving multiple banks, international tax codes, legal conditions, and deal amendments as Dataiku is a global company headquartered in France.
“Reading the tutorials and understanding the requirements [for one Marketplace] was excruciating and a full-time job in itself,” said Dataiku’s Head of Cloud Alliances Hillorie Farace Di Villaforesta, who spearheaded her team’s efforts. “That doesn’t even include getting input from our stakeholders in legal, order processing, pricing, operations, development, marketing, and more — all of whom have limited bandwidth.”
“We [also] had no bookable artifact [for Marketplace transactions] and that really inhibited our ability to get deals done easily,” said Hillorie. That meant there was no way for Dataiku’s finance teams to book a deal completed through the Marketplace.
Despite the internal obstacles and a non-optimized listing strategy, demand from customers for Marketplace transactions hit an all-time high. These quick wins got their leadership’s attention and opened the doors for adopting a multi-Marketplace approach. Learning from experience, the team opted to seek Tackle’s help for their expansion.
Based on recommendations from Azure Marketplace teams plus a referral from the GCP team, Dataiku engaged Tackle to first optimize and re-launch their Azure presence to understand how Tackle worked, then expand to two major Marketplaces, AWS and GCP immediately after.
“It’s somewhat rare for a company to transact on all three major Marketplaces immediately,” said Hillorie. “They all have their own rules and nuances. Tackle provided a clean approach to simplification in our key pain point areas like accounting, which requires proof of contract and custom amendments that differ across Marketplaces.”
Tackle experts served as coaches for best practices around each platform’s day-to-day operations concerning issues such as contracts, legal conditions, taxes, and more. They were available and on-hand to help 24/7.
Tackle’s solution for creating, delivering, and tracking private offers across the Marketplaces, provided Dataiku with a way to deliver, track, and book enterprise Marketplace deals without overhead which initially counted for 90% of deals.
Tackle more than paid for itself after our first deal.
In just six weeks, Tackle helped Dataiku improve their Azure listings and launch on GCP and AWS Marketplaces. Dataiku even closed a deal on GCP Marketplace before officially announcing their presence there.
“Being available on the Marketplaces is a paradigm shift in allowing customers to do deeper analytics with cloud services,” said Hillorie. “Now [with Tackle] we are able to operate on three Marketplaces without needing significant internal headcount. In fact, it costs less to use the Tackle platform than to pay internal resources to manage our Marketplaces.”
Being transactable is just one Marketplace benefit for Dataiku. “Our Marketplace presence has validated us and generated brand awareness,” said Hillorie. “It’s a door-opener to work with cloud and partner sellers to include us as part of a tech stack, and they get compensated for that.”
Going forward, Dataiku will leverage its multiple Marketplace listings to support its founders’ vision of a customer-first approach. “More of our customers are adopting cloud and we need to be there to address their pain points and provide solutions where they need them,” said Farace Di Villaforesta. “Our founders believe that knowledge is power, and data provides the knowledge to make powerful decisions.”
Learn more about how Hillorie and her team at Dataiku tackle the Cloud Marketplaces.
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