Everyone wants to grow their business, and when it comes to the managed services industry, you may be inundated with options for how to get that done. But there really is an easy way to do that without having to overhaul your entire managed service provider (MSP) business: Use a cloud marketplace. Here’s everything you need to know about what a marketplace is and why it matters in this cloud marketplace 101.
What Is a Cloud Marketplace?
A cloud marketplace is simply an online source where buyers and sellers can discover, procure, deploy and manage solutions from various providers in one place. It’s basically an online store, but with the added distinction that the purchasers buy on behalf of end users—that is, an MSP buys and deploys cloud solutions on behalf of its clients.
Why Should I Care About Selling Through a Cloud Marketplace?
Now, you may be saying, I already provide great service to my clients. They seem happy, they keep coming back for more. Why should I add a new element to my business and start using a cloud marketplace? This is a great question, and it’s got a simple answer: Simplicity.
People want the buying process to be as simple as the click of a button, and that’s no different from consumer goods. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) looking to purchase IT solutions are often nimble and trying to solve a problem quickly. They don’t have the luxury of time to wait for a lengthy sales and provisioning process; they need solutions to their challenges now.
That’s not just lip service from the leading cloud Marketplace; according to Gartner, 83% of business-to-business (B2B) buyers want to purchase through a marketplace or a digital sales platform. So, you need to be able to provide that to adequately meet the needs of most B2B buyers. A cloud marketplace can help you meet this challenge.
How a Cloud Marketplace Can Help You Grow (and Maintain) Your Business
It’s not just about better serving your clients and meeting their needs; it’s also about setting yourself up for success. Recent research also shows that profitability is the top challenge for most MSPs (91%) due to a variety of factors, from tighter margins to greater competition. Using a marketplace helps you reduce inefficiencies and overhead while creating new avenues for revenue.
As your MSP may not be able to deliver one-click shopping on its own, provisioning through a cloud marketplace that allows you to easily find and procure solutions can help accelerate your delivery. And an advanced cloud marketplace like Pax8 can help you take things a step further through Professional Services that round out your team’s capabilities and enablement that helps you and your team get the skills they need to succeed.
Pax8 also stands out from other marketplaces by enabling the creation of storefronts so you become the marketplace for your clients. With that kind of simple provisioning in place, your clients won’t have reason to change providers, helping you keep churn to a minimum.
Other Benefits to Using a Cloud Marketplace
Here are some of the other reasons your fellow MSPs have decided to use a marketplace:
- Consolidated billing, combining multiple vendors on one invoice (64%).
- Becoming a one-stop shop for your clients (56%).
- The ability to research, discover and compare products (50%).
There’s more when it comes to cloud marketplaces and all the benefits you and your clients will see:
- Price transparency, including installation.
- Near-instant quoting.
- Immediate fulfillment.
- Support and services from your marketplace provider and the vendors they feature.
The Benefits of Using the Pax8 Marketplace
Beyond the benefits mentioned in this blog, Pax8 offers a wealth of features that are exclusive to our Marketplace that our partners can take advantage of right off the bat. These include:
- Hundreds of solutions from 100-plus top vendors.
- Opportunity Explorer, which allows partners to identify sales opportunities, reveal security gaps and define recommendations.
- Storefronts, which allows you to create customized customer experiences while maintaining complete control over permissions and access.
- Custom products, which allows you to add your own solutions to what you provide through the Pax8 Marketplace.
- Seamless, direct quoting with advanced tooling.
- Multi-cart functionality allows partners to manage multiple purchase options for clients simultaneously.
That’s in addition to the services Pax8 offers its partners as a cornerstone of our Marketplace, such as:
- Pax8 Academy, which gives you access to a worldwide support team of coaches and peers to upskill your team.
- Professional Services, which adds bandwidth and expertise to your team so you can solve all of your clients’ challenges and scale as needed.
- World-class live and virtual events that connect you to peers, best practices and business potential.
How Do I Get Started with the Pax8 Marketplace?
To get started with Pax8, simply sign up, and we’ll get in touch with the next steps.
Not ready to commit? We totally get it. Changing your business can be tough, but we’re here to talk it through and help you make the best choice for your MSP business. You can always schedule a demo to see how it all works. And we invite you to explore the Pax8 Marketplace so you can see everything we have to offer and rev up to take your business to the next level.
