Microsoft boosts incentives for Azure deals

Microsoft has laid out its vision and priorities for the coming financial year, and in a colossal non-surprise they include a lot more incentives to use Azure.

The company has spent the last few months coming up with four priorities it says will be critical in FY20 that will support and reward partners.

The first is accelerating usage, which covers further incentives to push cloud consumption, namely Azure, Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365, just case Microsoft hadn’t enough incentive yet.

Next is customer adds (aka winning new customers - Ed). Microsoft said several of its incentives programs are increasing their focus on these adds across solutions areas.

Third is retaining customers, which simply put means Microsoft will raise incentives for partners that renew customers and reduce churn.

Lastly is facilitating growth, which means Microsoft will further emphasise products that align with partner’s objectives and priorities.

“These priorities are foundational to our FY20 individual incentive program changes,” said Microsoft’s general manager for partner investments & incentives Erez Wohl. “Customer adds, consumption, retention, and growth are part of multiple programs, largely because we know those objectives are crucial to your company’s success.”

Those priorities are pretty vague, though more details are available on Microsoft’s partner website. CRN isn’t a Microsoft partner, so we couldn’t log in, though the vendor did offer a high-level look at how its approach will affect existing programs with some specific examples.

Cloud Solution Provider members will see “greater earning opportunities” from October this year and will be rewarded for offering their managed services on Azure. Partners will also have access to enhanced accelerator rates on customer adds.

Dynamics 365 partners can also earn better incentives for focusing on customer-adds, while Enterprise partners will continue earning rewards for driving Azure consumption and Modern Workplace Cloud sales.

Microsoft is moving its Usage program to an incentive model where partners can earn rewards when their customers hit usage milestones.

Microsoft said its also streamlining customer conversion and services processes by centralising some of its partner and customer interfaces and introducing a common Azure pricing engine.

“These changes will allow your customers to evolve their current contracts into Enterprise Agreements or Microsoft Customer Agreements far easier than before, giving you a more direct path to customer expansion and retention,” said Wohl.

“To help you make use of these capabilities, this year’s program lineup will also include a Microsoft commerce incentive program that rewards you for delivering services that drive customers’ Azure consumption.”