Digital technologies are fundamentally changing how organizations create value. Our customers rely on trusted partners with industry specific skills and experiences to provide specialized assistance and services to accelerate this digital transformation, in turn driving business and growth opportunities for our partners. According to the latest Forrester study, partners have shared that focusing investments on building new managed services and value-added IP offerings has helped them achieve higher gross margins (up to 80 percent by year three).

Microsoft strives to enable partners to grow and become a trusted advisor for our customers through product innovations, better tooling, and access to new business opportunities. Along this principle, we previously shared our plans to evolve our commerce platform to streamline the customer buying experience and to broaden your influence in helping customers on the journey of digital transformation.

Today, we’re excited to share capabilities and resources available for you to start planning the transition to new commerce experience for Azure in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program. This new experience enables you to grow your business on two fronts:

1. Acquire more customers supported by an enhanced selling experience
2. Drive higher profitability through new capabilities and tools

Here are some of the key benefits available to you with this launch:

• The new commerce experience provides you access to one universal catalog with all the latest Azure services at consistent pricing across all channels. This allows you to expand your portfolio of services with the latest innovations in Azure as soon as they become available. Attract new customers and offer value by showcasing your products in the Azure Marketplace and bundling your services with other partner solutions from the marketplace.
• Get recognized for differentiated value-added services on an ongoing basis through the partner earned credit model. Partner earned credit rewards you to focus on driving customer success via value-added services that generate sustainable profitability.
• Efficiently manage all your customers through improved capabilities including new tools like Azure Lighthouse and simplified single pricelist for Azure with consistent prices worldwide. Get predictability and transparency with a single invoice and billing date alignment for all your Azure and marketplace purchases aligned to the month-end billing cycle.
• Effectively manage and maximize cloud efficiency for your customers using the new Azure Cost Management capabilities that provide you with a set of tools to monitor, allocate, and optimize cloud costs with rich analytics.
• Do business with Microsoft with a simplified agreement framework that drives greater transparency and better business outcomes. This framework included two new agreements: the Microsoft Partner Agreement and the Microsoft Customer Agreement.

As we mentioned in the prior blog post, the current Azure Cloud Solution Provider program offer and platform will continue to be available alongside the new Azure experience for several months, giving you time to incorporate the new Azure features with your services and transition your customers to the new experience.

How to get started

1. Learn more about the new commerce experience for Azure in the Cloud Solution Provider program with the latest updated resources, including comprehensive technical resources, on the Partner resources page.
2. Partner with Microsoft to build a profitable business and expand the services you offer by following our practice development guidance. You can also find out how to expand your services opportunities with Azure.
3. Join us for a series of upcoming partner webinars for the new commerce experience in early December. Stay tuned for more details.