[MUSIC]
CHARLOTTE YARKONI: Hi, everyone. Welcome to
the first ever Marketplace Summit.
I'm Charlotte Yarkoni,
Microsoft's President for commerce in ecosystems.
Today, we are so excited to host thousands of
ISVs in attendance representing
50 countries across the globe.
Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today.
Microsoft's mission is to help every person and
every organization on the planet to achieve more.
As part of this, we are putting
Marketplace at the center of our ISV and
partners' strategies so that you
can achieve more growth and together,
we can help customers realize their goals.
We created the Marketplace summit to
help give you the knowledge, insight,
and confidence to make Marketplace a growth engine for
your business and we
hope you'll take a few key learnings with you.
First, we'll share our perspective
on why Marketplace is so important to
partners and customers and how we're
investing to connect customers and partners at scale.
Second, we will call out
actionable go-do's and help that
Microsoft is offering to
support you in scaling your business,
whether you're new to Marketplace or a veteran.
Lastly, we'll give insights to
the innovations ahead to help you reach more customers,
simplify your sales, and unlock growth.
Joining us in a moment is Assaf Rappapor,
The Chief Executive Officer of Wiz,
an industry-leading ISV in the security space,
to give his perspective on the Marketplace opportunity.
Please enjoy the summit and let's get started.
We're entering a do more with less economy.
This is a period of historic,
economic, societal, and technological change.
But for all the uncertainty,
there is one constant.
Organizations in every industry need
digital innovation to navigate this volatile time.
You are the change agents who
make doing more with less possible.
Less time, less cost,
less complexity with more innovation,
more agility, and more resilience.
Doing more means applying technology to
support an organization's goals with today's constraints.
Efficiency is the name of the game right now with
doing more with less is central in today's market.
The Cloud budget will be your path forward.
It's durable and it's growing.
Gardner said it best;
Current inflationary pressures and
macroeconomic conditions are having
a push-and-pull effect on Cloud spending.
Cloud computing will continue to be
a bastion of safety and innovation,
supporting growth during uncertain times
due to its agile,
elastic, and scalable nature.
Gardner also made a prediction
that Cloud budgets will grow
21 percent year-over-year to nearly 600 billion in 2023.
Cloud migration is not stopping.
It will continue to grow.
Why? Because businesses still need to accelerate IT.
Modernization initiatives to minimize
risk and optimize costs.
In a tough economy,
managing cash is crucial.
The flexible subscription-based economics of
the Cloud helps companies smooth their cash flow.
How do you unlock this durable budget for your business?
Through Marketplace.
We are at an inflection point in Marketplace adoption.
Bessemer Venture Partners has called 2023.
The year Marketplace goes mainstream,
with total Cloud Marketplace revenue
growing from 8 billion in
2022 to an estimated 50 billion by 2025.
That's over 500 percent growth.
In addition, they predict that 80 percent of
sales interactions will occur via
digital channels by 2025.
This is very exciting.
What was once just an experiment,
a side hustle between Cloud providers and partner
Alliance Teams is now
becoming a core go-to-market strategy.
Top of mind for CEOs,
CROs, investors, and boards.
But ultimately it's the customer that
matters most and they are voting with their wallet.
Customers are spending on Marketplace because
it helps them do more with less.
They can increase their efficiency by having
fewer vendors to manage and fewer bills to pay.
They can buy confidently,
choosing vetted solutions that are
easy to find, purchase, and deploy.
They can spend smarter and make
their Cloud budget stretch further with
a vast catalog of solutions
that count towards their Cloud consumption commit.
Those of you who adopt Marketplace courtier sales and
marketing strategy will emerge as
the winners of the do more with less economy.
Some of our partners have
already made Marketplace mainstream
with the results to show for it. For example.
Palo Alto Networks sells a security offerings through
the commercial Marketplace and experienced
transaction growth of more than 300 percent last year,
creating a persistent,
always-on channel with new revenue opportunities 24/7.
For Wiz, Marketplace is core to
how they go to market and sell their solution.
They've recently landed
a significant multi-million dollar deal with
the Fortune 100 customer and the customer was able
to count their purchase towards
their Cloud consumption commitment,
which helped bring this deal over the line.
ISVs of all sizes and
maturity are finding their path to success.
It's not a one size fits all.
Law Toolbox builds a Teams application
with a niche target legal counsel.
They're activating a network of partners like
Pax8 that has more than 25,000 managed service providers.
Since scaling through CSP partners
in integrating their application native to Teams,
they've quadrupled their licensing revenue.
Marketplace has become essential in the market,
and it's essential to Microsoft and so you will
see us continuing to put Marketplace
at the center of our partners strategy.
We have invested heavily in our Marketplace so
that we can turn our strengths into your strings.
What do I mean by that?
With our Marketplace,
you can get global reach no one can match.
You can get access to
over 95 percent of the Fortune 500,
you can co-sell with
their global sales force of over 35,000 sellers,
you can scale to new markets with
our network of 90,000 CSP partners,
or you can sell direct to
our customers via our store France and
in product market experiences like Microsoft Teams,
with 270 million people logging in every month.
With our Marketplace,
you can tap into the power of
the most comprehensive Cloud and
sell solutions that span
technology and lines of business buyers across apps,
infrastructure, and productivity solutions.
Finally, you can unlock
enterprise budgets with private offers.
This is the path to closing
seven and eight-figure deals on Marketplace.
These investments are paying off with
our partners and we are seeing
it in our Marketplace growth.
Over the past year,
we have seen nearly 300 percent growth
in billed sales on SaaS apps,
we've seen a 319 percent increase
in customers buying with consumption commits,
and we've seen a 200 percent increase in
private offers sold through our partner channel.
We're seeing momentum,
but we are not resting on our laurels.
We are constantly listening to you and
striving to make our Marketplace better.
Throughout this event, you'll be hearing from
our leaders on how we are innovating
to make Marketplace easier to
use a more valuable as a growth engine.
As one example, we've heard from partners that it can be
difficult to figure out where
to start working with Microsoft
with many different programs and
incentives available across our business.
We heard you and we are simplifying it.
We have created one path for ISVs across
Microsoft and today we are
proud to announce the ISV success program
is globally available and in public preview.
Built within the foundation of
the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program,
the ISV success program helps ISVs
innovate and get to market faster
by offering developer tooling,
Cloud sandboxes, technical consultations, and more.
We're previewing a new expanded offer
to provide even more value with
Azure credit and more hands-on support
to give you the technical guidance you need.
Marketplace Rewards is now
part of the ISV success program.
With Marketplace Rewards, ISVs get listing, optimization,
marketing support,
and additional Cloud credits based on the sales.
The more you sell,
the more you earn.
This is all very exciting.
But it's one thing to have me
tell you how we're helping you grow your business,
is quite another to hear from one of your peers.
I'd like to welcome a Assaf Rappapor,
the CEO of Wiz,
to give his perspective on
B2B commerce and how
they've maintained success in a shifting market.
Welcome, Assaf.
ASSAF RAPPAPOR: Hey, Charlotte.
Super thrilled to be here.
CHARLOTTE YARKONI: Thank you for taking the time
to join me today.
Let's start by having you tell us a little bit about Wiz.
ASSAF RAPPAPOR: Super cool. Wiz is
actually two-and-half years old.
We raised $600 million from Sequoia Index Insight.
Basically, we're a startup.
We are in the field of Cloud security,
super relevant to what you're talking today.
We're basically helping organization
to protect and run
everything they're building in the Cloud.
It could be Azure, of course, AWS or GCP.
We have customer mutual customers like Mars,
Barclays, Morgan Stanley, and many others.
Super thrilled to be here.
CHARLOTTE YARKONI: Awesome. How are you
incorporating Cloud Marketplaces into
your go to market strategy?
ASSAF RAPPAPOR: I heard some of
the numbers and actually,
we can see it in the field.
I would say that we started
working with the Marketplace,
surprisingly to me as a CEO very early in the journey.
It actually came from a CISO that the demaded that
we will do our transaction
through the Marketplace. That's how we started.
In the first nine months when we started to sell,
we were part of the Azure Marketplace
and it was our first transaction.
Definitely, as we can see in the market,
Marketplace is becoming the corner store
for digital transactions,
and definitely for your talking about
Cloud and you're talking about Cloud security.
That's what we're seeing in the market.
CHARLOTTE YARKONI: Wonderful. [MUSIC]
Wonderful.
Your company growth has
been tremendous with some serious accolades,
some of which you already shared just in terms of the how
quickly you grew as young as you were.
Can you share a little bit more details about
just at that ramp and how your company was able
to address that with leveraging
more sales and marketing channels like Marketplace?
ASSAF RAPPAPOR: Yeah. Our claim
to fame as a young startup,
we are considered to be
the fastest company ever to $100 million,
the faster software company.
We've been able to do it in 18 months.
I must say that we couldn't have
done it without the Marketplace.
For us it's the strategy,
if you're looking at the strategy of Marketplace,
as I mentioned, this is the corner store
and we started very early with that.
But the way we're thinking about it is
that's the way we want to do business with our customers.
It's not only because of us,
it's because our customers wants us to be.
There's so many incentives,
both for us as ISV,
but more for the customer
themselves to work through the market-based,
which makes it easier.
I must say that we couldn't have
achieved being the fastest company ever and
reaching $100 million without doing
any transaction through the Marketplace
and through the Azure Marketplace.
CHARLOTTE YARKONI: That's amazing.
Congrats on all your successes.
It would be wonderful because I know
many ISVs out there are on a similar journey.
Some just starting out,
others pretty early stage
that they're listening and hearing your story.
It would be great to hear
any advice that you may have for them in terms of
how do they think about just starting out and
working through not just the sales and marketing,
but any other words of wisdom you
can share about getting a product to market?
ASSAF RAPPAPOR: Yeah, definitely.
I think that if we're
looking and we're working mainly with enterprises,
we have if 30 percent of
the Fortune 100 as customers today.
I think that it's all about solving
a top-priority problem like a complex program.
That's the first thing that you need to do.
But also, in a way, be customer obsessed.
Customer obsession is a lot about technology,
about the product, what should you build,
but also about the go-to-market.
How your customers want to actually use the product,
how they want to consume the product.
That's part of our culture.
The last thing that I'll say that these super
critical as well is all about teamwork.
Building the best theme
and good to be the best partners,
that was super important for our success.
CHARLOTTE YARKONI: Wonderful. You're right.
How customers want to pay,
how customers want to buy,
how customers want to use and deploy.
These are all very important things
and we're certainly seeing
more and more customers asking for
their purchases to go through the Marketplace.
I think you did a great job
explaining how that was a key advantage for you,
because it wasn't one you had to build out,
it's one you are able to just leverage.
Was there any tips or tricks
you had about thinking of Cloud Marketplace to share with
other ISVs as they're thinking about
getting on to that as
a distribution channel for their business?
ASSAF RAPPAPOR: Yeah. For us,
this is the main distribution channel.
I would say that the first thing is be
in the Marketplace as soon as possible.
Again, we were lucky to be
pushed in a way through the Marketplace.
We didn't think to invest in it,
we didn't think that's going to be our main channel.
But basically, we faced more than a year ago,
a chief information security officer that
told us just before even starting,
it's going to go through the Azure Marketplace,
otherwise, I'm not going to do business with you.
Actually, in a way we feel frustrated in the beginning,
but eventually that's probably the best thing
we ever got from a customer.
Since then we're doing much more
through the Marketplace,
I think that one thing is be in
the Marketplace as soon as possible.
That's where business is happening,
that's where our customers are.
I think also we created
the right incentives for our team basically,
and we are not providing
any negative incentives for them not to run through
the Marketplace or to be in the Marketplace.
I think that's also super crucial in
the way we are building it as of today.
CHARLOTTE YARKONI: Thanks so much Assaf,
for taking the time today and sharing all of
your experience with us in terms
of Wiz the success on Marketplace.
Any last thoughts?
ASSAF RAPPAPOR: Actually,
maybe a question to you.
We also talked about what's
the downturn and what's helped the
epidemic in the market dominance.
Actually, Charlotte what's your advice for me,
at Wiz or to other ISVs in
the crowd in a situation like that?
How should we work with the Marketplace?
CHARLOTTE YARKONI: Great question.
I think as I opened up
earlier with the idea of doing more with less,
I think that applies to Wiz, all the ISPs.
That is one of the key things that I want to make
sure that I convey about Marketplace.
Marketplace is all about simplicity.
I think in today's market,
making it simple for you
to be able to reach new customers unlock Cloud budgets,
grow your revenue and reduce
customer acquisition costs is
crucial for our partner community.
I think on the customer sides,
customers are demanding more simplicity.
They need more efficiency out of
their environments as well
in terms of where they can try,
where they can buy, how they can use,
how they can grow.
Marketplace represents a great channel for them as well.
In that regard, my encouragement is
for all of us to continue to focus on
doing more with less but
thinking about it in terms of creating
more simple experiences for our entire ecosystem.
ASSAF RAPPAPOR: Perfect. Definitely,
we saw that with one of our largest customer,
we had a huge transaction that we couldn't have done,
a 20-something billion dollar that we
just did it two weeks ago.
That without this incentive and
the ability to work through the MAC of Microsoft,
these transacted first wouldn't happen
and not in this size and not at this speed.
I think truly that's what we're seeing
to do more with less.
That's something that we're seeing in the market today.
CHARLOTTE YARKONI: Wonderful. Assaf,
thank you again for being here today.
Was a great discussion.
ASSAF RAPPAPOR: Thank you.
CHARLOTTE YARKONI: I appreciate
Assaf taking the time and
sharing his ongoing success.
If you haven't started
your Marketplace journey, please don't worry,
there is time for you to be among the leaders in
this B2B commerce revolution.
If you are selling in the market place,
you've made a great choice.
There's an incredible opportunity for
ISV partners to embrace
the Marketplace as a go-to market channel.
This Marketplace Summit and the conversations we're
having today will show you how you can do more.
[MUSIC]