4 ways owning the entire customer lifecycle makes you more profitable
By Brent Combest, Director, Partner Profitability & Compete Microsoft on October 5, 2015
Moving to the cloud is just more profitable: we know you’ve heard it many times before, but it’s always worth hearing again, especially when so many of our partners are still leaving big opportunity on the table. According to a 2014 study we commissioned with IDC*, successful Microsoft cloud partners experience 1.4 times the revenue growth, and more importantly, make 1.5 times the gross profit. Not only is that profit greater, it’s more sustainable over time, with cloud partners seeing higher gross margins from the recurring revenue streams of managed services and packaged IP and less from product and project services. All of this can lead to significantly higher valuation of cloud-based organizations. Since virtually all signs point to cloud as the best direction for your business, we want to help you get there.
Cloud Solution Provider program
The Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program is a two-tiered system that helps you build profitability in the cloud by selling Microsoft cloud services alongside your own offerings. As a CSP partner, you own the entire customer lifecycle, giving you real advantages over the competition and helping you increase your profitability.
Having been in marketing for 17 years, I can attest to the traditional divide between sales and marketing. In the early days of my career, I spent plenty of time trying to get sales to follow up on the leads generated at tradeshows and events and through marketing campaigns I had driven
Over the last several months, I have been working closely with IDC to better understand the opportunity for Microsoft partners in the cloud and how partners can go after this opportunity.
Partners who don’t already have a cloud strategy today have the opportunity to find an indirect partner that is fully supportive and can help produce healthy margins.
