SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) is taking a strong hold as a means for vendors to deliver IT services to end customers. With new buying centers incharge of IT purchase decisions, the budget is shifting from capex to opex that is putting revenue pressure on both the vendors and eco-system partners. Subscription metrics like ARR/ACV is used to measure business performance. Sustained post-sale engagement with customer by both the vendor and the partner through adoption and expansion motion is paving way for success with renewals.
With XaaS , we are witnessing a new dynamics of interplay between the vendor, partner and customer where success is dependant on a positive sustained engagement with the customer
Specifically, from the Partner standpoint, traditional revenue streams from project based and support activities are shrinking. Their Customer Success motion is mostly a cost center at this point and efforts are being made to turn it into a profit center by created value added services across their customer product lifecycle. A proven approach for partners to monetize in the XaaS world is by creating vertical specific offers for their customers that is complementary to the vendor offerings and delivers customer value.Moreover, from a recent IDC report , Cisco customers valued ‘vertical expertise’ of Partners as one of the key attributes for their success.
So what is the secret recipe for partners to create these value added services that improves time-to-value and allows for monetisation at the same time ? There are several ingredients that goes into creating differentiated and value added services and aligns tightly to customer use cases and business outcomes. Below you will see an example of a value added service where a partner expertise in Finance vertical is applied to campus network, use cases, persona and pitstop that is finally linked to the customer’s business outcome of improved compliance. This sort of tight alignment is necessary between the technology and business outcome to increase the chance for monetization.
Further more, Partners can also consider building services across micro verticals, cross solution , business process, etc., Cisco Partner Success team runs Service Creation engagement workshops with Partners to convert the above framework into a set of tangible service offers. Partners can contact their respective Cisco account managers for more information.
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