AWS Marketplace seller success: Building an enablement strategy

A cross-organizational enablement plan helps increase success in AWS Marketplace by removing friction and accelerating growth. When teams across product, partnership, marketing, operations, sales, and finance align their efforts with Amazon Web Services (AWS), each group can effectively contribute to driving cloud revenue in AWS Marketplace.

Enablement represents one of six pillars in the characteristics of successful sellers (COSS) framework. By incorporating AWS Marketplace into your existing onboarding and evergreen enablement plan, you can optimize processes and improve results.

This post provides six steps for creating a strategic enablement plan to equip teams with best practices when working with AWS Marketplace.

Prerequisites

Before using the enablement pillar of the COSS framework, you need to:

• Have an available software product listed in AWS Marketplace.
• Meet the requirements for selling paid products in AWS Marketplace.
• Complete AWS Marketplace seller registration and access the AWS Marketplace Management Portal.
• Read the How AWS Marketplace sellers can use the COSS framework for a successful sales strategy in the AWS Marketplace Blog for an overview of all six pillars in the COSS framework.
• Complete the enablement section of the self-assessment at the end of the blog post referenced in the previous bullet point to assess your maturity and prioritize efforts.

Building an effective enablement strategy

To build an effective enablement strategy, follow these steps:

1. Assess your current position – Start by evaluating your current strengths and challenges using the COSS framework self-assessment scorecard. This helps identify areas of opportunity and provides recommended practical next steps. Focus on one or two pillars that need attention and build your enablement plan accordingly.
2. Create an engagement plan – After identifying areas of improvement or growth, develop a detailed plan for each team involved with AWS Marketplace. Define the frequency of education, content refresh cycles, delivery methods, and locations of internal repositories. Determine which teams participate in the AWS Marketplace strategy and understand how they align with your company’s business strategy.
3. Develop supporting content – Create training materials and documentation specific to each group’s needs. Host all content on an internal site accessible to stakeholders, including content from in-person education, virtual webinars, or self-paced training. Every team has different requirements for ongoing enablement. Work with each organization to develop materials that match their AWS Marketplace participation and responsibilities, such as:

1. 1. Finance teams focus on billing, disbursements, listing fees, and revenue tracking.
   2. Operations teams concentrate on deal structuring and managing AWS Marketplace Private Offers.
   3. Sales teams need to understand co-selling with AWS teams and influencing AWS Marketplace goals.

4. Integrate AWS Marketplace training into onboarding and education programs – Share documented materials with organization leaders and contributors to help them understand how AWS Marketplace can streamline software procurement and governance. Establish a cadence for continued education through annual, quarterly, or monthly training offerings to keep internal stakeholders current with AWS Marketplace features, such as private offers and standard contract terms. Incorporate these education programs into onboarding plans for new hires to quickly understand how AWS Marketplace can help reduce procurement cycles and improve spend visibility.
5. Measure effectiveness and share results – Document and share team success stories, FAQs, challenges, and highlights with organizational leaders for stakeholder review. Track these achievements to identify specific enablement needs and improvements for training offerings.
6. Establish a repeatable enablement plan – AWS Marketplace releases new features and updates programs throughout the year, and new team members join the organization. A consistent enablement plan means that all teams understand the latest features, programs, and processes to effectively serve customers. Repeat the enablement process often, to maintain team knowledge and capabilities, following AWS best practices.

Next steps

Begin with the self-assessment at the end of the COSS blog post mentioned earlier in this post, then follow the six steps we outlined to identify, build, implement, and maintain a strategic enablement plan for each participating team. Work with your AWS team to support your enablement strategy and align goals with AWS.

Conclusion

This post demonstrates how to use the enablement pillar of the COSS framework by first evaluating organizational readiness and maturity. The six steps can be used to build a strategic enablement plan that provides the best practices for teams working in AWS Marketplace. Incorporating AWS Marketplace when creating an enablement plan that spans across all organizations involved helps to improve efficiency, create consistency, and drive results.

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