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This is our first installment of the Priorities Pulse, a new US Partner Community Blog series designed to help build awareness of Microsoft priorities among partners. Our priorities are shaped by industry trends and the opportunities we have to meet customer needs and drive growth across the Microsoft partner ecosystem. Now more than ever, partnerships make it possible to go to market faster with the Microsoft Cloud solutions customers need for success.
The areas below will help you facilitate customer engagement and grow market share, enabling partners at all levels in their lifecycle to build intelligent solutions, accelerate time to market, reach new customers, and be discovered in the Microsoft commercial marketplace by millions of customers.
We hope that this will be a useful guide in helping you identify which priorities integrate well with your partner competencies and what steps you can take to grow into these key opportunity areas.
Priorities for the next half year
These select priorities have been defined for Microsoft and partners to focus on in the second half of our fiscal year (January-June 2022).
1. Make Hybrid Workplace a reality for customers with Microsoft 365 E5
We see a massive opportunity as customers continue to embrace Hybrid Workplace and look for productivity solutions that facilitate rich team collaboration and foster employee engagement, while strengthening your cybersecurity posture. Microsoft 365 E5 continues to be a top priority for Microsoft field teams in our fiscal H2 (January-June 2022).
Microsoft partners make the possibilities of the Hybrid Workplace a reality for our customers – through workshops and pilots, and accelerating deployment and adoption of these advanced workloads.
The following workshops can help establish the value for Microsoft 365 E5 workloads:
- Modernize Communications
- Microsoft Viva
- Microsoft Viva Insights
- Threat Protection
- Discover Sensitive Data
- Manage & Investigate Risk
- Hybrid Cloud Security
Please nominate customers for workshops in MCI Engagements via aka.ms/MCI/Claim.
2. Employ the power of Surface for employee retention
Our customers are among the many organizations struggling to overcome what’s been coined ‘the Great Resignation’ where as many as 40% of employees are considering leaving their job this year1. One of the primary pain points – reported by 70% of workers – is the need for improved devices to support a successful hybrid work experience2.
Microsoft Surface is one way we are helping customers achieve a competitive advantage in holding onto top talent. In fact, when Microsoft asked their customers about the benefit of M365-powered Surface devices, 86% agreed that they help drive employee satisfaction and retention3. Devices partners can take Microsoft services to market on their devices, offering incremental value to their customers.
To ensure that more customers recognize this opportunity, we’ve launched Modern Work Assembled, an integrated Microsoft 365, Surface, and Services Partner program aimed at streamlining cross-solution selling. New integrated training and BOMs are available to help partners kick off customer-centered conversations, and there are a number of channel and customer incentives and promotions available for you to leverage. Speak to your PDM for more information.
Get started:
- Learn how to include Surface in your Hybrid Workplace conversations.
- Explore Q3 Surface offers you can leverage through March 2022
- Invite your customers to our February Webinar: Reimagine workplace dynamics and adapt your business to the new world of work
- Learn more about the Windows 11 optimized Surface Premium devices: Surface Pro 8, Surface Laptop Studio and Surface Laptop 4
1Work Index Study
2PC Devices Forrester Research Paper
3M365+Surface TEI Study
3. Boost Business Applications billed revenue and Dynamics 365 customer adds
The US Business Applications market has grown beyond $78 billion4 this year. There is significant growth potential for Microsoft solutions and partners. Leading customers to their first Dynamics 365 workload is key to accelerating our market share and hitting our growth objectives in FY22 and beyond. Microsoft Internal Research shows that winning that first workload with a customer, and deepening relationships with business leaders (BDMs), is key to strengthening our impact across the customer’s organization and expanding reach into other next-best workloads.
In H2, we continue to focus on leading customer conversations with industry stories and business impacts that speak to the circumstances of the customer. In this way, we demonstrate empathy for our customers’ challenges, can better anticipate their questions, and build trust among BDMs.
Our FY22 Business Applications Partner Offers Presales Program enables partners to utilize Business Value Assessments to accelerate the sales process and funds pre-sales engagements at a customer level.
Partners are encouraged to understand our Sales Plays, Industry Marketing Priorities, and leverage our presales offers to grow their business.
- Learn more about the Microsoft Business Applications business opportunity and ways to grow your practice.
- Leverage the Partner Plays-in-a-Box bringing together capacity and enablement, go-to-market, and co-selling resources for Business Applications.
- Explore partner GTM resources and case studies: Dynamics 365 Partner Portal (microsoft.com)
- Request funding for pre-sales engagement: FY22 Business Applications Partner Offers – Presales
- If you need help closing a large deal, fill out the Partner Lead Sales Resource Engagement Form to ensure that you have the right resources to close the deal.
4 Microsoft Internal Research
4. Drive co-sell readiness through Commercial Marketplace
Through Microsoft’s global co-sell programs and our cloud-based Commercial Marketplace, we are working toward enabling our partners and customers for digital transformation.
One meaningful benchmark of progress is enabling our partners to take advantage of transformational business opportunities like marketplace and Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC). Becoming co-sell ready is the first step to getting there. By publishing transactable offers on the marketplace, partners gain access to Microsoft’s global customer base to build awareness of their solutions and drive frictionless B2B sales at a global scale. B2B sales at a global scale.
Microsoft’s industry-leading commercial marketplace gives partners unmatched access to customers and opportunity to drive sales more effectively and efficiently. Simply creating a listing in marketplace gives you access to over 4 million active visitors per month across 140 geographies. Through relationships with Microsoft field sellers and partner-to-partner co-sell, you can scale your sales force through the Commercial Marketplace while earning Marketplace Rewards.
Microsoft is committed to ensuring our partners know how to leverage commercial marketplace and how to benefit from associated FY22 Marketplace Incentives, such as the Teams Build With incentive. Publishing on commercial marketplace is easy – set up your account, prepare your offer, create your offer, publish, and go to market. Get started now with step-by-step guidance for publishing to commercial marketplace.
Takeaway
Staying aligned with Microsoft priorities ensures you are prepared to move into key industry growth opportunities and take advantage of programs, resources, and incentives Microsoft offers to drive mutual growth.
Stay connected
Keep a pulse on these priorities throughout the quarter – join Microsoft and other US partners in the US Partner Zone within the Microsoft Partner Community!
