The Difference Between Azure Co-Sell and IP Co-Sell Ready
The word co-sell or collaborative selling gets thrown around a lot in the Azure ecosystem – do you know the difference?
A benefit of selling on the Azure marketplace and your Microsoft Cloud Partner Program membership is that it can include digital sales motions, account or territory strategic planning and collaborative selling with Microsoft sellers. And as you invest in your Microsoft partnership, you can see additional benefits and incentives that help your business grow.
Confusion arises in understanding the terms and the differences between the co-sell terms and what they mean as far as requirements and benefits. This blog will help break down the difference between Azure co-sell and IP co-sell ready.
First let’s look at the co-sell status:
In this blog we’re going to focus on the middle two statuses – co-sell and IP co-sell ready.
Co-sell ready: What does it mean for Microsoft Azure?
To qualify for co-sell-ready status, your offer or solution must be published live to at least one of the online stores: Azure Marketplace or Microsoft commercial marketplace. If you are not yet published, you can use this guide to learn more about the process.
To achieve co-sell ready status an ISV must complete the following steps. We’ve included links to the items listed to help you along.
- Have a PartnerID (formerly MPNID) and an active commercial marketplace account in Partner Center.
- Have a complete business profile in the Partner Center.
- Publish the offer on the commercial marketplace.
- Provide a sales contact for each co-sell-eligible geography.
- Provide the required listing and document information on the Co-sell > Solutions page.
- The required information on the Co-sell > Solutions page, including a one-pager and a pitch deck. Templates are provided to help create these documents. For more information, see Configure Co-sell solution.
Note that any offer published through the Azure commercial marketplace developer program in Partner Center is eligible for co-sell-ready status if co-sell-ready requirements are met. Apps and add-ins for Microsoft Office (for Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Excel, for example) are not eligible for co-sell-ready status.
IP Co-sell Eligible on Azure Marketplace
After achieving co-sell-ready status, there are four more requirements to achieve Azure IP co-sell eligible status:
- Requirement 1: Reach the required revenue threshold.
At the organization level, that is $100K of Azure Consumed Revenue over the trailing 12-month period. This threshold can be reached with a combination of Azure solutions. If the offer is transactable (more on the benefits of being transactable in this blog) in the commercial marketplace, you can meet this requirement by meeting a billed revenue threshold of $100K over the trailing 12-month period. - Requirement 2: Pass the Microsoft technical validation for an Azure-based solution which is a subset of RAD review.
A technical validation must confirm that more than 50% of your offer’s infrastructure uses repeatable IP code on Azure. (Transactable Azure VMs, Azure Containers and Azure application solutions on the commercial marketplace meet this requirement by default.) - Requirement 3: Provide a reference architecture diagram.
Upload a reference architecture diagram with your co-sell documents in Partner Center for review. This item is not mandatory for offer types Azure App, Containers, VMs and IoT Edge module. For guidance on creating this diagram, see Reference architecture diagram. - Requirement 4: Offer Transactability on marketplace. Effective July 11, 2023, your new offers (aka solutions) should be transactable on Azure marketplace. This condition is applicable only to get IP co-sell eligible status.
So why go through the effort of becoming IP co-sell eligible? Bringing your co-sell eligible Azure solutions to the marketplace allows you to:
- Attract enterprise customers with cloud commit budgets that can be used on your solution
- Differentiate by offering a faster and easier way to buy
- Expand your brand awareness
- Join forces with Microsoft sellers to access new deals and speed up pipeline opportunities
- Tap into more opportunities for growth and sales success, such as the Solutions Designation program
Unsure where you fit into the Microsoft partner maturity level or how to get to co-sell or IP co-sell eligible? Invisory is here to help. Reach out to our team and we can help in creating an easier and more lucrative path to market. Interested in AWS? Read our guide on AWS co-selling.
How Invisory helps ISVs reach cloud marketplace success
The Invisory GTM cloud solution helps ISVs unlock their cloud marketplace potential across platforms like Salesforce, Azure, and AWS. Invisory’s one of a kind platform delivers actionable insights and key go-to-market deliverables to SaaS companies looking to stand out and maximize revenue in crowded marketplaces while reducing risk and accelerating results. For more information contact info@invisory.co.
FAQ
What is co-selling with Microsoft?
Co-selling with Microsoft occurs when Microsoft Sales team sell products and solutions alongside Microsoft partner ISVs to fill whitespace in the customer's existing cloud tech stack.
What is an example of co-selling?
PDMs, short for Partner Development Managers, will sell a product or solution on behalf of an ISV. The Microsoft seller helps customers fill a pain point in their Azure cloud experience, so it's a win-win for Microsoft and the ISV.
What are the requirements for co-sell with Azure?
In addition to becoming transactable, ISVs can become co-sell ready. This means that Microsoft sellers will sell a solution on behalf of an ISV.
First, you will need to meet co-sell ready status, which requires you to create a business profile in the Partner Center, publish an offer on the marketplace, and provide additional documentation, including a one-page and a pitch deck.
After successfully achieving co-sell-ready status, you have the opportunity to become IP co-sell eligible. This requires meeting specific revenue targets (at least $100K of Azure Consumed Revenue over a 12-month period), technical requirements, and becoming transtactable.
What are the benefits of co-selling with Microsoft?
Benefits of listing, selling, and becoming transactable include:
- Trust, since customers have faith in the Microsoft brand
- Partner opportunities, including access to Microsoft’s support and resource
- Increased customer base
- Security and compliance tools
- Flexibility
- Scalability
- New revenue channels
- Customization, including the ability to send private offers
- Streamlined and simplified payments
- No need to worry about international taxes or currency conversions, international banking, cross-border taxes, or tariffs
- Integration with popular Microsoft products, such as Office 365 and Teams
- Opportunity to participate in ISV programs for innovation
- Reliable revenue
- No need to go chase after late payments or missed payments, since Azure manages all of the payments for you
- Bypass delays that are common in enterprise deals
- Streamline the legal review and contract process
What is the difference between cross sell and co sell?
Co-selling requires two businesses to work together to successfully sell their shared prospects or current clients, while cross-selling does not require a partner. With cross-selling, sales people close deals on supplementary products.
