Go-to-Market Strategy for Cloud Services to Improve Marketing and Sales

Challenge

A Fortune 500 technology firm needed to improve their cloud technology go-to-market offer. An important part of their sales channel strategy involved strong channel partners—ranging from system integrators to data center service providers to a variety of other technology service providers. At the time, the technology firm was selling the same comprehensive, but complex, product portfolio to all channel partners.

Solution

We conducted a rapid engagement focused on developing a marketing and sales strategy that was tailored to each type of indirect sales channel partner. Specific activities included global market sizing, interviews with senior IT executives, primary research web surveys across U.S. and Europe, and finally sales/marketing playbooks by segment and cloud service. By linking a detailed understanding of the end-user needs to their preferred channel partners and the associated cloud products, we provided our client with a clear set of guidelines to develop targeted sales channel packages.

Results

The client was able to extend the findings of the project beyond the immediate need in two important ways. First, the client used the findings to better educate their channel partners on how they could improve their cloud offers—positioning the client as a welcome thought leader for channel partners that were still determining the best way to sell cloud services. Second, the findings identified key offer improvement opportunities such as improved pricing plans and specific product features.