Ingram Micro has significantly stepped up its push in Australia to help partners seize what it calls a "huge" AWS Marketplace opportunity.
Partners gathered at an AWS, Red Hat and Fortinet-sponsored Ingram Micro event on Sydney harbour yesterday to learn about its new AWS Marketplace offering, which is designed to make it easier for partners to build and take to market solutions via the marketplace.
“We are seeing a huge number of organisations interested in AWS Marketplace,” said Phil Duke, IaaS sales lead at Ingram Micro Cloud Australia and New Zealand.
“A lot of CEOs are leveraging [AWS] Marketplace more and more,” Duke said.
Last year, Canalys chief analyst Alastair Edwards predicted that "global sales of third-party vendor software and services through cloud marketplaces would hit US$45 billion by 2025, up 84 percent CAGR over five years”, noting that was “less than 5 percent of the total global software and cybersecurity market.”
“As enterprise customers look to scale back on cloud adoption and cut costs, accessing these marketplaces becomes vital for meeting cloud commitments and finding alternative funding,” Edwards reported in mid-2023.
Distributors have taken notice, with several announcing Designated Seller of Record (DSOR) agreements with AWS this year.
Duke said he had seen AWS Marketplace transactions “in the millions”, adding that smaller deals meant there was also an opportunity for non-enterprise players.
“We've got small MSPs, SIs currently transacting or putting offers out there to large, medium, and small customers.”
There are also cases where the channel can add value by help customers make the right choices when spending on the AWS Marketplace.
“The value add that you have that you bring to the table is configuration, the design, the implementation. Traditional AWS Marketplace sales don't have that.”
Duke said partners should also consider the AWS Enterprise Discount Program (EDP), which offers discounts to customers for spending a certain amount on AWS. “Marketplace transactions can retire up to 25 percent of that commitment per year,” he said.
He also noted that hundreds of vendors are on the AWS Marketplace.
“This is a massive opportunity for yourselves to really look at a new go-to-market avenue,” he commented.
A "full vending machine"
Yesterday, Duke laid out how Ingram Micro’s new AWS Marketplace partner offering aims to help partners.
Ingram Micro’s DSOR offering enables partners to build and take solutions to market via the AWS Marketplace in a sales cycle they are familiar with.
Ingram Micro has also created a “full vending machine” of infrastructure-as-code solutions, or AWS Starter Kits, designed to simplify deployment. Ingram Micro can help partners build their own to suit their needs, and help with cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, and with tracking renewals.
Its AWS team can help partners with vertical opportunities and training, through to migration.
“We’ll go out and actually do the assessment for you,” Duke said. “We’ll help you tap into those greenfield opportunities.”
Ingram Micro’s pitch also encompasses the deal cycle. “We try and turn these marketplace deals for you into a very traditional sales cycle,” Duke said. “You come to us, you ask us for a quote, we then work with the vendors, we then get an offering put in place in the AWS Marketplace to support you.”
It will also help partners with renewals. “When a traditional sale in the AWS Marketplace happens, no-one's managing those renewals,” Duke said. “Ingram Micro can help you track those renewals.”
Duke stressed that the Ingram Micro AWS sales team is focused on partners' growth, and that Ingram Micro would not replace partners’ existing AWS relationships.
Beyond the catalogue
Asked about the demand for marketplaces, Garry Gray, Red Hat senior director had this to say: “Customers are saying marketplaces have all of this, let's call it a catalogue, but don't necessarily bring that all together in a cohesive way that a customer can consume.”
The Ingram Micro agreement enables a partner to build a solution that brings together multiple vendors and then deliver that to the customer via the AWS Marketplace, simplifying quoting, procurement and other aspects of the offer.
“It's no longer buying a catalogue of offerings off a marketplace, but actually buying a solution that's been specifically built for that customer by that partner with Ingram, with AWS and with Red Hat behind it,” Gray said.
“It allows partners to take their solutions through this mechanism to customers in a much easier way than they would have otherwise done. And then conversely, for those customers to find those solutions, and consume them in a way that they want to, be that on cloud or be that via some other alternatives.”
Simon Bray, Fortinet cloud and alliances manager, said customers were looking for new ways to streamline procurement.
“Our partners, and now distribution, are taking the opportunity to increase value through cloud marketplaces, with customised offers and solutions incorporating a range of Fortinet products and services,” he said.
Bray’s pitch was that Ingram Micro’s development of Fortinet quick start services helps enhance partners’ ability to deliver Fortinet Cloud security solutions in a “differentiated, scalable and time efficient manner”.
That opportunity is wide open, if yesterday’s event was any indication, with many attendees not yet transacting via the AWS Marketplace.
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