From Manual to Automated: Streamlining Private Offer Creation in the AWS
With over 330K active customers, AWS marketplace is an obvious choice for ISVs selling their products and services. Even while selling in AWS marketplace, creating private offers is becoming increasingly popular owing to the multiple benefits, including the opportunity to:
- Lock multi-million dollar deals enterprise customers with negotiated pricing and terms
- Leverage channel partner networks with AWS Channel Partner Private Offers
- Submit new customer private offers as opportunities in co-sell pipeline as a part of AWS ACE program
However, AWS Private Offer Lifecycle Automation was not available and for a long time has relied on a manual process. This has led to several challenges like the need to:
- Constantly switch between AWS marketplace and CRM (where negotiated details about the offer are captured)
- Upskill sales and operations team to learn the nuances of both the platforms, which has a steep learning curve
- Undertake multiple steps, manually update all data and coordinate with different teams, leading to delays and missed opportunities
Invariably, ISVs are now exploring ways to automate the entire workflow for creating and managing private offers in the AWS marketplace, by integrating with popular CRM like Salesforce.
SaaSify’s Salesforce Application is a unique solution to aid this journey.
Automating private offer lifecycle for AWS marketplace via Salesforce
The SaaSify’s Salesforce Application enables ISVs to automate AWS private offer lifecycle from within Salesforce, allowing ISVs to create, manage, track and bill all private offers without leaving their preferred system of record. SaaSify’s Salesforce Application enables ISVs to:
- Convert quotes, opportunities, orders in Salesforce to private offers in AWS marketplace for direct customers and channel partners (CPPO)
- Manage all inbound and outbound co-selling opportunities for AWS marketplace without leaving Salesforce and mapping all fields across platforms to maintain seamless data exchange
- Ensure real time visibility for all deals and status for each for all team members with bi-directional sync to ensure consistency
- Improve accuracy and consistency while creating private offers
- Eliminate the need for sellers to learn different systems or software and concentrate on building the prospect pipeline
- Accelerate the pace of closing private offers by reducing the number of steps and people involved in the workflow
Calculating the sales ROI: Automating private offers via Salesforce for AWS marketplace
While the aforementioned benefits of automating private offers for AWS marketplace via Salesforce present a case of operational efficiency and process optimization, workflow automation has a direct impact on Sales ROI as well.
85% of business leaders believe that automating tasks will give their sales reps (ISVs) more time to focus on goals beneficial to the company
Here are some of the sales KPIs (key performance indicators), which clearly highlight the business impact of private offer automation.
Average age of leads/ Sales cycle length
Creating, extending and managing private offers manually entails several steps and internal coordination, and can take several days to close. However, with automation, private offers are created from within the same system of record, eliminating the unnecessary steps and time spent. This directly impacts the sales ROI in several ways, including:
- More leads can be generated within the same time frame
- Faster revenue realization, yielding greater return
- Elimination of missed opportunities due to delays
ISV sellers can save up to 2 hours and 15 minutes daily by automating activities like data entry (for private offer creation), reducing the sales cycle length considerably.
New leads serviced
Starting with the first KPI, i.e. the number of new leads serviced or pursued. Calculated on an annual or monthly basis, this KPI focuses on how many new prospects or leads a sales person or the team has been able to generate and service. As mentioned above, with automation of private offers via Salesforce, ISV sellers are able to considerably close deals faster, which allows them to pursue new leads faster within the given period of time, hence directly impacting the sales ROI. Since more leads serviced directly impacts the number of conversions and hence the revenue, automation of private offer lifecycle in AWS marketplace leads to a healthier bottom line.
Cost of selling
When it comes to the cost of selling as a KPI, several expenses need to be considered. In this case, we will focus on the HR cost and the cost of upskilling. In a manual private offer creation process, these costs include: - Cost of sellers involved in the deal
- Operations and marketplace enablement team/ RevOps team costs involved in creating and managing the offer
- Cost of upskilling Sales and RevOps teams to use different systems of operation
However, automation of private offer lifecycle management considerably brings down this cost with expenses limited to: - Cost of sellers involved in the deal
- Cost of the software (SaaSify Salesforce Application) being used to automate the workflow
Thus, automating private offers for AWS marketplace facilitates ROI via: - Reducing the number of people involved and their training costs
- Reducing the time spent in closing a deal, thereby reducing the cost per person (Time commitment and cost for sales team for 1 day vs 5 days, for instance)
Invariably, the total cost of selling private offers, manually vs with automation, clearly has a better ROI for ISVs using automation. As the cost of selling goes down, even if the overall revenue stays the same, the bottom line shows a positive growth.
Percentage of time spent on ancillary selling activities
To maximize the sales ROI, ISV sellers need to focus their energies on generating and closing deals. However, creating and managing private offers manually involves spending a lot of time on ancillary activities, which do not contribute to the volume or value of sales, including:
- Time spent on coordinating with RevOps and other teams
- Time spent on constantly switching between AWS marketplace and CRM
- Time spent on different platforms to check deal status
- Time spent on duplicating deal information in AWS marketplace post CRM updation
- Time spent on upskilling required to manage different software systems
But, when automation comes into the picture for creating private offers, ISV sellers can save a lot of time by using Salesforce to: - Create private offers for direct customers, easily managing AWS SaaS contracts
- Create private offers for Channel Partners (CPPO)
- Create and manage ACE pipeline for co-selling
- Track all offers, deal status, send invoices and manage billing from a single dashboard
Invariably, by automating private offer creation for AWS marketplace from within Salesforce, ISV sellers can save a lot of time spent on ancillary selling activities. This time can be spent on fresh prospecting, lead nurturing and customer retention.
In fact, automating private offers for AWS marketplace can result in ~40% increase in overall productivity, often lost in switching between tasks and ancillary activities.
Net promoter score
A key sales KPI that directly translates to high ROI is the net promoter score (NPS) or the likelihood of customers to refer a business to his/ her friends. Automation of private offers leads to an exemplary customer experience as:
- The offer creation process happens at an exponential speed
- There are negligible chances of error (due to no data duplication from CRM to AWS marketplace)
- There are no surprises or changes in negotiated terms or pricing
- They receive invoicing and billing related documents in a timely manner
Together, these factors create a group of customers who are highly likely to recommend a business to others in his/ her network, creating a multiplier effect. Each referral becomes a new lead with no additional cost. That’s not all, high NPS also leads to reduced customer churn, which directly links to another sales ROI, i.e. customer lifetime value. With automation, customers are likely to constantly renew their deals and even upgrade their SaaS subscriptions or contracts, leading to recurring revenue and higher CLV.
Maximize Sales ROI with SaaSify Salesforce Application
ISVs have been increasingly quantifying the potential ROI that can be generated by automating the private offer lifecycle workflow in the AWS marketplace. A significant number of ISV sellers doing the math claim to have reaped benefits clearly outweighing the costs associated with using a third-party software or enablement platform like SaaSify to automate the process. The SaaSify Salesforce Application is one of the most sought after solutions for ISVs to maximize their ROI by:
- Reducing the sales cycle and generating more leads in a given time
- Reducing the overall cost of selling, contributing to higher profits
- Reducing the time spent in ancillary selling activities, with a higher focus on prospecting and conversions
- Increasing the NPS, leading to increased customer lifetime value, referrals, etc.
Overall, the business impact of AWS Private Offer Lifecycle Automation through Salesforce is far more than what appears on the surface. Beyond simply being a solution for optimizing operational efficiency, automating private offer workflows creates a clear business case, impacting the business’ profitability and overall continuity.
Book a discovery call with SaaSify today to learn more about private offer automation for AWS marketplace, the business impact and the best practices to achieve maximum ROI.
