Tackle.io

Weka’s AWS Marketplace Pipeline

With Tackle, Weka significantly accelerated time to close.


Executive Summary

While Weka has built its storage infrastructure solutions on Amazon Web Services (AWS) since day one, building its cloud go-to-market (GTM) strategy was new territory. As the company expanded its offerings, it looked for new ways to reach its growing customer base. Tapping into AWS Marketplace and working with Tackle to streamline the process proved to be a massive opportunity. In under one year, Weka grew its cloud pipeline deals from zero to 15 percent of the company’s overall business opportunity.

Key Highlights

15%

of the companyu2019s overall business through Marketplace

20x

increase in cloud pipeline & landed several Fortune 1000

Saved nearly a week

in financial monthly reconciliation

Sales team pivots after missing out on AWS partner relationships

When the Weka team decided to launch its cloud GTM strategy, they knew that listing on AWS Marketplace was a major channel to connect with customers. At the time, most of Weka’s AWS business followed a bring-your-own-license (BYOL) structure. While this approach worked, it didn’t involve AWS, so Weka sellers weren’t able to develop relationships with their AWS partners. It also meant Weka missed out on potential co-selling opportunities with AWS.

 

AWS Marketplace and Tackle propel GTM strategy to the cloud

At first, the Weka team handled the AWS Marketplace listing in house, but they quickly realized they needed a better solution. Tackle—with its zero-engineering approach to listing on AWS Marketplace—was the clear choice. “From day one, Tackle made us feel comfortable with the AWS Marketplace process and educated us on the whole journey before we even started,” said VP of Cloud Strategy at Weka, Barbara Murphy. The fast, straight-forward onboarding process had the entire Weka team up and running in just six weeks.

As a cloud-native company, leveraging a cloud-native channel aligned with Weka’s business philosophy, and the timing of listing on AWS Marketplace was just right. “Our whole view is to be part of our customers’ migration from on-premises data centers to managed services in a public cloud,” Murphy said. “This has nurtured a huge shift in our business, and we hit the wave at the right time.”

 

Private offers and co-selling drive 20X+ growth

Between co-selling and creating private offers, Weka has hit its stride in building a strong AWS pipeline and closing AWS deals. In less than a year, the company has landed several Fortune 1000 customers via AWS Marketplace and increased its cloud pipeline by more than 20X. The majority of Weka’s contracts are private offers, which used to be an involved process for the team, but Tackle has simplified it exponentially.

Now, with a greater presence on AWS Marketplace thanks to Tackle, Weka has cultivated stronger co-selling relationships with the AWS team.

“Before, the only way we would do a private offer was through a BYOL structure that came from a direct relationship with the customer,” Murphy said. “We were really cutting out our partners on the Amazon side, which was not going to help scale our business. Today, the difference between doing business via co-sell through AWS Marketplace versus BYOL is night and day. Key to this was allowing customers to consume their enterprise commitments with AWS.”

“Tackle allows me to engage with my sales team on the customer’s journey through AWS Marketplace, which has been really useful for us. Rather than chasing paperwork, we have an email trail through Tackle that allows our entire team to speed up our time to close.”

VP of Marketing, Weka

Insight into the buying journey enables faster deals

With Tackle, Weka has substantially accelerated its time to close, not only because of the ability to transact through AWS Marketplace, but also because the sales team can track a customer’s contract throughout the entire buying journey. If the process has stalled, the Weka team can go into Tackle and see what’s holding it up. “I know exactly where our quotes are with Tackle,” Murphy said. “I can tell our sales reps to talk to a customer and help them click the right buttons to move forward,” Murphy said. “Tackle allows me to engage with my sales team on the customer’s journey through AWS Marketplace, which has been really useful for us. Rather than chasing paperwork, we have an email trail through Tackle that allows our entire team to speed up our time to close.”  

Finance cuts reconciliation time from days to hours

Beyond the sales team, Tackle has also benefited Weka’s marketing and finance departments. Marketing now has an easier way to showcase Weka’s comprehensive suite of offerings on its public AWS Marketplace listing, and finance can reconcile AWS Marketplace revenue faster. Before, finance spent roughly one week each month going back and forth reconciling AWS Marketplace transactions with AWS disbursements, then tracking down customer names and accounts. Now, the team can go into Tackle, look at the monthly disbursements, and close the books in hours. “Tackle makes it all very easy because it gives us the customer’s name and we know exactly the opportunities associated with that person,” Murphy said. “Everything is very straightforward.” Looking ahead, Weka plans to expand its use of Tackle to take advantage of sophisticated pricing models available in AWS Marketplace. In addition, the team wants to integrate Tackle into its quoting system to streamline the process.
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About Weka

Weka offers a modern file system that empowers organizations to solve big problems in high performance computing. Weka solves the most demanding storage challenges in data-intensive technical computing, delivering epic performance at any scale.
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