Gary Green: Leverage Cloud Marketplaces Without Killing Your Channel
By Rob Spee, Channel Journeys Consulting
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“We think that the most effective, cost-efficient way that our customers will or actually are deploying today is through the Marketplace” - Gary Green
The two hottest channels I hear discussed by XaaS vendors are MSPs and cloud marketplaces. If you haven’t already, now is the time to consider how hyper-scale cloud marketplaces from the likes of AWS, Microsoft, and Google can fit in your channel strategy.
One challenge you will face, however, is how to sell your as-a-service offering via a cloud marketplace without alienating your existing channel partners. I discussed the marketplace opportunity and challenges in a recent Channel Journeys podcast interview with Gary Green, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Cloudera.
Key Take-Aways
Gary shared many ways that Cloudera is leveraging cloud marketplaces and offered these tips:
- Starting your cloud marketplace partnership with deep technical integration can help you develop a deeper commercial partnership down the road.
- Make sure your sales teams collaborate with your cloud marketplace provider’s sales teams in front of the customer and that both teams understand the joint value proposition of your solution in their public cloud environment.
- Plan on running a lot of market awareness campaigns to help your customers know your offering is now available on the marketplace and how they can get it.
- Educate your channel partners on how they can participate in marketplace sales, including sales credits and service opportunities.
- Be flexible in your pricing models and allow customers to consume your offering in a pay-as-you-go consumption model.
Take Action - One Thing You Can Do Today
Consider which hyper-scale cloud marketplace offers the greatest opportunity for technical integration and sales integration with their sales team and channel partners. And listen to my full Channel Journeys podcast interview with Gary.
About The Author
Rob Spee is the founder and CEO of Channel Journeys Consulting and host of the Channel Journeys podcast. Rob applies his channel expertise to help clients create and execute channel strategies to accelerate revenue growth. His global channel experience spans from building channels at startups to vendors and distributors like Arrow, BMC, Carbonite, and SAS. Follow Rob on Twitter and LinkedIn.