Sell and Thrive on the Cloud Globally

Last week at #Inspire, #Microsoft, a company I was part of over the last 3 decades, launched their new ISV Success Program #isvs . A huge step forward even for a company who really understands the power of partnerships and the ecosystem. Apart from accelerating app development and innovation, they stress on how an ISV can “reach more customers across the globe” and “Scale your business by selling through Microsoft partners”

Now the pessimist would reiterate to me that there are hundreds of thousands of ISVs worldwide. Microsoft alone speaks about over 400,000 partners, of which 90,000 are Cloud Service Providers, to possibly sell through. Yes, you could get lost in the matrix; yes, you could say the market is overcrowded; yes, you could say that a partner will not focus on your solution (I know of a Microsoft partner who has over 2,000 ISVs in their portfolio!!); yes, you could say that you will continue to operate in a smaller pond and one could go on and on and sometimes, with merit that the task is far too arduous.

Now, what if we could recommend to you a route that is working well in scaling many an ISV’s business globally?

But, before I go there, it is important to underline why this expansion is logical and imperative to both the ISV and the Partner.

For the ISV:

1.    Access to Customers and markets: Yes, new partners and new geographies bring you new customers at a lower CAC than if you were to enter directly. Every sale in a new industry, segment or geography where you are not present is a net increment and adds to your profitability as well as your valuation;

2.    Focus on your Core: In a world where constant innovation is a must and the market is truly competitive and overcrowded (some may say), an ISV must have laser focus on scaling and innovating their app to remain ahead;

3.    Valuation: Even if one assumes revenue generation of at least $3-5Million of Annual Recurring Revenues in 3-5 years per geo market, this translates to each geo giving you an additional $30-75Million in market value;

4.    Competition: The more customers you have, the more competitive you are and the more insights and intelligence you garner to stay ahead.

5.    Low Risk: Pay for performance models.

For the Partner:

1.    Increase sustainable ARR and profitability based on a margin on sales and renewals and exclusivity in return for a strong business plan and targets;

2.    Enhance value offerings to existing customers/ ecosystem to increase their and their customers stickiness. (CSM);

3.    Drive consumption of cloud services to which the customer has signed up for;

4.    Services opportunity around the solution;

5.    Differentiate from your competitors and move away from resell to true value add.

If you are an ISV who already has 20+ customers in your home location and you are hungry to scale or if you are a partner who has existing cloud customers and wants to scale and stand out from the competition do get in touch with us at The York Group (https://theyorkgroup.com/international-expansion ) ( info@theyorkgroup.com ) or me to know how we can Make this Real for your company! We have already taken ISVs global!

#msinspire #microsoftinspire #microsoft #partnerships #microsoftpartners #isv #globalization #saas #founders #ecosystems #startups #payforperformance