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215% Marketplace ARR Growth for Seeq Drives Investment in Sustainability

Executive Summary

Seeq, a data visualization, collaboration, and analytics platform, decided to adopt a Cloud go-to-market strategy by leveraging AWS Marketplace and Microsoft commercial marketplace in late 2019 to meet their customers where they wanted to transact. With Tackle’s support and partnership, Seeq quickly went from struggling to launch a listing to now being a top Marketplace seller in its industry category.

Key Highlights

20%

of Seeq's total ARR transacted in Marketplace

215%

year over year growth (2020-2021)

30 Days

First Marketplace transaction within 30 days of launch

Early Cloud Marketplace Adopters Faced Challenges

In 2019, Seeq was one of the first manufacturing-focused ISVs to start work on selling through a Cloud Marketplace–and being first comes with unique challenges. Early on, the company recognized the value it could deliver to customers by making the process to buy the software easier. 

While Seeq had a clear vision for what Marketplace could mean to buyers (and sellers), it was one of just a handful of industry ISVs leading the way on Marketplace. This meant forging a new path and the team spent five months trying to get their first listing live on AWS Marketplace. In 2019, Cloud Marketplace was still unknown territory for most industry ISVs, and limited capacity from the in-house engineering team made the do-it-yourself approach even more challenging. 

AWS referred Seeq to Tackle, resulting in a partnership that enabled Seeq to quickly execute its  Cloud go-to-market strategy. 

Sprinting to Launch with Tackle

After partnering with Tackle, Seeq launched on not just one Marketplace, but two in the fall of 2019: AWS Marketplace and Microsoft commercial marketplace. “I wish I had known about Tackle in the first month,” says Megan Buntain, Seeq’s VP of Cloud Transformation. “I’m sure we would have cut our listing onboarding time by more than half.”

As soon as Seeq’s AWS Marketplace listing went live, the team quickly got to work positioning this new transaction avenue with their prospects. Within the first 30 days, Seeq transacted its first deal with a mature Marketplace customer. “That was the first sign to the sales team that there was value to be gained from transacting in the cloud,” Megan says, noting that the team hosted many Sales enablement sessions and motivated the team to increase their co-selling efforts. “After just a year, we had a seven-figure multi-year deal come through Marketplace and that had our whole team excited.”

Transacting through Cloud Marketplaces enables businesses to accelerate deals with easier procurement–a common bottleneck of direct sales. As an approved vendor with AWS marketplace and Microsoft commercial marketplace, Seeq’s customers can use pre-committed cloud spend to purchase Seeq. This enables easier procurement for Seeq’s customers, leading to accelerated time to value for the buyer.

Joey Meucci, Manager of Cloud Partner Operations for Seeq and 2022 Tackle Marketplace Masters Award winner, shared how a Marketplace deal made by a new sales hire with a 3-week tenure propelled the rest of the sales team into action. “The legal evaluation stage is often a bottleneck in the sales process, but just 3 weeks in, he was able to close a deal through Marketplace for half a million dollars,” he says, “by leveraging flexible contract options including Marketplace standard contracts, one of the key benefits of selling through the Cloud Marketplaces.” That transaction drove the sales team to want to learn more about Cloud Marketplaces and how they could steer prospects towards a new method of purchase. 

 

Gaining Momentum with Partnerships

In 2021, approximately 20% of Seeq’s total ARR was transacted through AWS Marketplace and Microsoft commercial marketplace, a 215% year over year increase. “To top it all off,” Megan says, “Seeq was recognized as a top Marketplace seller in industry category in a keynote given by AWS’s VP of AWS Marketplace, Partner Engineering, and ISVs, Stephen Orban at Re:Invent 2021.” 

“We transacted our first deal on AWS Marketplace in the first 30 days of listing so that was the first sign to the sales team that there was value to transacting in the cloud.”

VP of Cloud Transformation, Seeq

What drove Seeq’s Marketplace success?

Seeq relies on Tackle to be their first resource for all things Cloud Marketplace. “I interact with Tackle basically everyday,” says Joey, “Whether it be logging into the platform to manage our business, speaking with our Tackle Marketplace Success and Customer Success Managers, or attending a Marketplace Meetup or Office Hours.”  In addition to leveraging Tackle’s resources, Seeq has found success in co-selling with Microsoft commercial marketplace. During December of 2021, Seeq closed 4 major deals on the Cloud Marketplace within 3 weeks of the fiscal year’s end, which boosted the co-sell partnership between the two companies. Today, Seeq benefits from Microsoft’s partnership resources, such as lead generation and co-selling opportunities, as the team continues to meet and exceed their Marketplace goals.  Lastly, Joey gives credit for Seeq’s continued success to a unique culture of having fully remote staff. “Seeq’s remote culture opens the opportunity for professionals from all over the globe to join our team. This expands our reach to support customers in all areas of the world. Depending on the location of our customers, there are contract requirements that are unique to regions, cultures, and industries,” Joey says. “The AWS Marketplace and Microsoft commercial marketplace enable Seeq to utilize contract terms and conditions that are dynamic to all areas of the world.”

Advice for Teams New to Marketplace

Nail It, then Scale It
Changing the way an experienced seller sells takes time. Implementing a new go-to-market strategy will require patience and persistence in internal training.  “Focus on a target pipeline, continue to educate the benefits of the Cloud Marketplaces, celebrate the wins, and investigate the losses,” Joey shares. “From there, you can continue the momentum by taking those best practices and make that the standard for every Marketplace deal.”  

What’s Next for Seeq?

With the whole sales organization at Seeq excited about Marketplace, Seeq is implementing a new sales strategy that is designed to accelerate closing deals leveraging Marketplace standard contracts, private offers, and SaaS deployments. The team’s Marketplace learnings played a big role in designing the new sales program and they are looking forward to being able to report on their initial results in late 2022. One of the reasons behind Seeq’s goal of increasing their Marketplace revenue is not an obvious one: the potential to impact real environmental change. “Seeq works with customers in manufacturing and heavily regulated industries and with that comes the responsibility to help the industry become more sustainable and drive very specific actions related to climate change and driving down the carbon intensity of manufacturing operations,” Megan says. “With Tackle on our side helping us with our Marketplace ARR growth, we’re able to accelerate our investment in our product innovation, best practices, events, and thought leadership around sustainability and that’s really core to Seeq’s mission.” While Seeq leads the way in educating businesses about sustainability, the team will also continue to focus on bringing new products to market: adding new listings in the future and educating others about the benefits of Marketplace.  “We want to get out ahead of it,” Megan says. “We want to help educate customers and set the stage for the software industry that it's possible that a business software sold to non-IT buyers can be purchased through a Cloud Marketplace.”

Hear from Joey Meucci, Sr. Mgr, Cloud Partner Operations


Visit SeeQ's Website

About Seeq

Seeq is an industrial time-series data virtualization, collaboration, and analytics platform that empowers plant engineers, operators, and data scientists with advanced applications to improve operational performance. Seeq is available worldwide on AWS and Microsoft commercial marketplace.
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