Microsoft’s Azure Marketplace is an online store offering cutting edge applications and services built on or designed to integrate with Azure. With more than 4 million monthly active Azure customers and 90,000 Cloud Solution Providers worldwide, it’s one of the most prominent storefronts for virtual machine, solution templates, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings.

But taking advantage of the full power of this ecosystem isn’t easy. It can be a lengthy and complex process for independent software vendors (ISVs) to bring their solutions to the marketplace as transactable listings, so that they can benefit from Azure’s brand, global customer reach, and technical resources and tools.

A cutting edge SaaS partner and marketplace enablement solution can help your ISV to dramatically simplify integration with the Azure Marketplace and accelerate the deployment of your solution. Such a solution can help guide your business in meeting all the Microsoft requirements and dependencies to create listings on the Azure Marketplace.

It makes sense to opt for a third-party tool rather than building in-house because the software vendor will have deep experience and best practices in Azure Marketplace enablement—sparing you a steep learning curve. Choosing a third-party solution also means you avoid using your resources on marketplace enablement, so you can focus in improving your solution.

Here are some features and benefits to look for in a smarter go-to-marketplace solution:

• Accelerate the journey—The solution should help speed up and simplify enablement of your product as a registered and listed ‘Contact Us’ IP Co-Sell ready offer.
• Full customisation and cohesive brand identity—An ideal platform will enable you to tailor your customer sign-up and lifecycle experiences to resonate with your brand.
• Data to drive better decisions—Look for an offering that allows you to analyse marketplace performance. Use actionable insights to optimise your listings and subscriber lifecycles.
• Full subscription lifecycle management—Cutting edge platforms offer turnkey integration that significantly reduces development time for full marketplace integration. Manage every aspect of your subscriber’s lifecycle with seamless integration.

1Nebula’s cutting edge go-to-marketplace platform, Stactize, was born out of our own experience in integration with the Azure Marketplace. Our knowledgeable team built the platform based on our learnings from experience in helping companies with digital transformation and our background as a developer of solutions that run in the Azure cloud.

Stactize Licensing includes comprehensive and customisable templates to satisfy all technical requirements necessary to sell through Microsoft. This incorporates the landing page, fulfilment APIs, operations APIs, and webhooks to drive subscription activation, usage, updates, and cancellation.

It automates onboarding of your solution with a pre-built orchestration app. You can tailor user journeys, using templates. You can also customise product branding in your customer sign-up journey and notify customers of changes and new features. Stactize can accelerate the go-to-marketplace process from six months to four weeks, allowing for minimal development effort.

Contact us to learn how to accelerate and simplify Azure Marketplace enablement.