Cloud GTM Leader

Customer cloud commitments of AWS, Azure, and GCP are set to reach 💰 $500Bn (half a trillion dollars!) in the next 18 months. This isn't even the full story. If we take into account all Microsoft Cloud commits (not just Azure, which we conservatively put at ~50% of MSFT Cloud total), the collective client backlog across hyperscalers already was $504Bn last quarter! Let's break it down. 📈 Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure and Google Cloud commit to reach $500Bn by 2026 Cloud commit backlog is growing alongside the revenue hyperscalers recognize. These are signed customer obligations that can also be used to buy 3rd party SaaS on cloud marketplaces. Commits growth is lumpy (see graph), but the trend is clear - big 3 commits are growing at low 20% YoY ($65-70Bn). Last 12 month #growth across big 3: Q2’23: $304.6Bn Q2’24: $369.9Bn Assuming this holds, customer commitments will reach $500Bn by early 2026, or in ~18 months (the graph shows model/timeline variations). If we add Microsoft's full Cloud commits ($269Bn), including all MSFT product suite, not just Microsoft Azure, the last quarter commit across the big 3 is already $504.4Bn. 📊 What's behind this massive number? Gen AI has triggered a new wave of cloud migration, modernization, and data operations, as enterprises race to leverage AI potential. Hyperscalers lead this AI revolution with their #partnerships and deep investments in foundation models, AI infrastructure, and tools. 🛒 $500 Bn in commits will create a quantum leap for marketplaces Using cloud marketplaces is already normalized across enterprises. Even top companies like Salesforce claim that their top 3 out of 10 deals last quarter were through AWS marketplace. Given that cloud commits will grow ~2X from 2023 to 2026, marketplace transactions will multiply too. 🤝 AI meet marketplaces Marketplaces are already a top 3 GTM channel for 47% of software companies. Verticalized AI apps and industry-specific solutions will be both powered by AI/ML through hyperscalers and distributed to enterprises via their marketplaces. Hyperscaler co-sell will remain essential to winning major SaaS and AI deals. Partners, from SIs to services, are adjusting to this (sometimes uncomfortable but critical) trend, where marketplaces are essential to reach customers/budgets. Marketplaces will lbecome the default purchasing model for complex projects, with 50% of their revenue to be driven by partners (Canalys). 💡 For Alliance leaders this data should be a wake-up call Cloud commits represent future spending that's already locked in. If you're not tapping into these massive pools via marketplace GTM, you're leaving money on the table and missing the future growth. 👍 Follow for more insights & share with others P.S. Accelerate your growth on #cloud marketplaces with Cloud GTM Leader course in a cohort of alliance leaders. Cohort 7 starts on Sept 10th. https://lnkd.in/edUa-qm2

Rapid growth of AI companies has shrunk the time to reach 💵 $100M ARR for the entire Cloud100 list to less than 8 years. But what's behind the growth of AI companies? You probably guessed it - hyperscalers. Bessemer Venture Partners' Cloud 100 Benchmarks Report shared some incredible insights for alliance leaders on how cloud software market is evolving since the GPT moment. One of the top VCs highlights that over 9 years of the Cloud 100, they "have yet to see as competitive of a cohort as the 2024 list." 📈 AI's Accelerated Timeline AI companies are rewriting the rules of scaling, reaching $100M ARR in just over 6 years compared to 8 years for the average Cloud 100 company from the 2024 list (and 10 years for the 2016 cohort). This unprecedented #growth is reshaping the cloud landscape. "AI companies in particular have shown their ability to scale faster than others... value is accruing to these companies faster than ever." What's enabling this hypergrowth? Three key reasons: 1️⃣ Enterprise demand 2️⃣ Access to hyperscaler resources 3️⃣ Most importantly, I'd argue, - access to hyperscaler customer base BVP's insight: "Beyond broad-based consumer demand for AI products and services, enterprises are increasingly demanding AI solutions to enhance efficiency, drive innovation, and maintain a competitive edge. AI companies are leveraging strategic #partnerships with #cloud providers to accelerate their reach, providing access to vast computational resources and cloud infrastructure." We've also seen that selling to enterprises via cloud marketplaces has been a major unlock for many AI companies. This hypergrowth is occurring across the entire AI technology stack: "This hypergrowth is occurring at all layers of the new AI technology stack, from infrastructure to applications, across both B2B and B2C segments, as they redefine how we interact with software." 🎯 Impact on the Cloud Ecosystem "The success of AI companies in bending the scaling curve has also influenced average Cloud 100 growth rates. The average Cloud 100 revenue growth rate fell to a record low of 55% year-over-year in 2023 [from 100% growth in 2022]; however, this has rebounded incredibly to 70% for the 2024 cohort." This demonstrates the overall re-acceleration in the cloud market in 2024, largely driven by the growth in a new cohort of AI companies. At the same time, it looks like non-AI companies need to tune their product and GTM strategies to compete in the new environment. 📍 Alliance leaders should be ready to evaluate and move fast with AI and hyperscaler partnerships to keep pace on the market, where growth is so unevenly distributed. What do you think? How are you adapting your alliance strategy? 👍 Follow for more insights & share with others P.S. Accelerate your growth on cloud marketplaces with Cloud GTM Leader course in a cohort of alliance leaders. Cohort 7 starts on Sept 10th. https://lnkd.in/edUa-qm2 Source: link in comments

What gets you started in cloud marketplaces won't get you to scale 📈. Free webinars and guides can give you a glimpse, but how do you learn behind-the-scenes tactics, what it really takes, and things to avoid to grow on top cloud marketplaces? Our 5-weeks Cloud GTM Leader course is just 9 days away. It's where we teach how to use marketplaces to get your share of $370Bn cloud commits that enterprises committed to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. In the last 12 month, 🏆 120+ alumni, including alliance leaders from GitLab, Citrix, and BMC Software, learned from the course, giving it a 9/10 rating. Couldn't they just read the free guides available on the internet? Of course, they could. But why didn't they? 😤 Our Alumni Could've Spent Countless Hours Reading tons of advice online Trying to get co-selling with clouds right Learning how to align their CXOs and internal teams Paying consultants for help Learning from their own mistakes Instead, they joined others like them and absorbed key learnings from 10+ Cloud GTM leaders condensed into 5 weeks for less than 10% of the time and resources they would have otherwise spent. So what made the course so impactful? 📊 Learning Directly From Experts Our alums loved: "People with real experience sharing the how - how did they win, how did they fail, how did they tackle challenge x or y." "Structured and methodical approach to unbundle the complex process of partner enablement/Cloud GTM/Cloud Marketplaces." Our students highlighted the "open discussion with peers from different business functions and companies covering SaaS, Cybersecurity and Hyperscalers." They loved the "tactical elements and the measurement tools to measure progress." They learned from VPs of Partners of the Year to alliance leaders with decades of cloud GTM experience. 10+ outstanding expert speakers delivered unique insights in our course sessions. 🤝 Masterminds With Mentors and Peers Our weekly Masterminds are yet another way to learn and gain insights from our community. The high-energy discussions and probing questions turned them into a forum for the community to truly help each other in #Cloud GTM and build lasting connections. 7️⃣ Join Cohort 7 on September 10th If you're ready to take your cloud marketplace #growth to the next level, I invite you to join us for Cohort 7. Not only our course consistently get a 9/10 rating from alumni, but Canalys recognized Cloud GTM Leader course as a Top Education and Training Program for Channel and #Partnerships professionals. 💡 Enroll in Cloud GTM Leader course and accelerate your growth: https://lnkd.in/edUa-qm2 Don't wait - spots are filling up fast.

AI isn’t just changing partnerships, it creates new 🎯 GTM playbooks. We discussed with two incredible leaders, Avanish Sahai and Bader Hamdan: ✔️ How is AI creating billions in new service revenue? ✔️ How are $370Bn in cloud commitments reshaping the tech ecosystem? ✔️ Challenges and opportunities in AI implementations ✔️ How will this change the role of alliance leaders? And more In our new episode on “How AI is changing Cloud GTM and partnership playbooks?” I'm joined by: Avanish Sahai, board member, frm. top executive of many iconic software companies - frm. CVP at Google Cloud, Global VP at ServiceNow, Salesforce. Bader Hamdan, the Ecosystem Chief at Vectara - frm. VP at Twilio; Global Head, Strategic Technology Partnerships at Google Cloud. 5 insights that may reshape your partnership strategy: 👨🏻💻 AI is challenging the single-stack approach Avanish explained that AI is changing the technology game as “you start moving away from a completely fully verticalized single stack to really bringing different sets of data, different set of workflows.” For this to work together seamlessly, companies need to figure out how to unify and leverage their internal data and data that sits in their partners, customers, and suppliers. 🎯 AI will enable precise GTM targeting AI is not just changing how tech works, it has potential to unlock precision targeting and new GTM strategies. Avanish highlights, "The second implication is more on the go-to-market side... how can AI help partnership teams work with their own sales teams, work with their partners and ecosystems to build better, you know, better targeting, better alignment?" 🗃️ 85% of enterprise AI data is on-prem, making it the new battleground As AI drives #cloud commitments to nearly $370Bn, hyperscalers have a distinct advantage as the access point for these large commits and consumption patterns. However, most of enterprise data is still not on the cloud. Bader emphasizes, "85% of the enterprise data that really matters for Gen AI is sitting on-prem, right? So on-prem is going to be sexy again in this Gen AI era." 💰 Services companies are seeing an AI gold rush Avanish highlighted: "If you look at some recent announcements from BCG or McKinsey, etc., they're saying 30 to 40% of their projects now are about AI. Those numbers are staggering. Boston Consulting Group (BCG), I think annual revenues are about 12 billion, and if it is 30 percent, they're doing three to four billion dollars kind of from scratch." 🧰 Customers expect tech stack integration in the #ecosystem Alliance leaders must become orchestrators in their own right to thrive in this new AI era, advised Bader: "It's about the ecosystem in this market, in this specific tech stack. It's about connecting the dots. You have to be the orchestrator to unleash the art of possible of Gen AI via that ecosystem”. 👍 Follow for more insights & share with others Watch the full episode: https://lnkd.in/e5GimXFx

Imagine generating $18M in new revenue 📈 within a month of launching a new AI product. That's exactly what ZoomInfo achieved with its new CoPilot offering. But the real story lies in the power of strategic #partnerships in the age of AI. ZoomInfo's Copilot, launched in June 2024, is a new AI-powered GTM solution. It combines signals from ZoomInfo's database and partner ecosystem with customers' first-party data to identify companies most likely to purchase and offers insights on how to engage with them. “Copilot takes signals like website visitors, spikes in job postings, earnings call transcripts, contract renewal dates, and expert calls that indicate spending or competitive threats, then uses advanced entity resolution and matching to combine them with customers' first-party data.” - explains ZoomInfo's CEO. This enabled sales teams to transform their work. Users saved 10 hours per week on manual account research, while Copilot's identified signals drove 45% of total opportunities created. So Copilot users created nearly 2x as many opportunities as non-users. 🎯 This new product struck a chord with enterprise customers: "We now have more than $18 million of Copilot ACV across more than 1,000 logos, up from nothing just a few months ago." - Henry Schuck, ZoomInfo CEO stressed the uptick from only one month of selling the product. “Over 75% of CoPilot upsells were with mid-market or enterprise accounts.” 🤝 But drivers of ZoomInfo's successful launch go beyond its innovative product The company has been forging a strategic partnership with Google Cloud since 2022. Earlier this year it won two 2024 Google Cloud Technology Partner of the Year Awards. ZoomInfo was also named as one of the business applications in Google Cloud Marketplace driving the most significant business impact for joint customers across multiple regions. "In June, Google announced ZoomInfo as a key partner in its strategy to make generative AI more reliable and accurate for enterprise use. Google selected us because of our specific trusted and authoritative datasets." - highlighted Henry Schuck, ZoomInfo CEO 💡 This collaboration and ZoomInfo results highlight the potential of combining cutting-edge AI with robust data assets and the power of hyperscaler partnerships. While Copilot currently represents just 1.5% of ZoomInfo's ARR, it has significant potential for #growth. With ZoomInfo now available not only on Google Cloud, but also Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure marketplaces, the company is well-positioned to leverage the new playbook of Cloud GTM used by SaaS and AI companies. 👍 Follow for more insights & share with others P.S. Accelerate your growth on marketplaces with Cloud GTM Leader course in a cohort of alliance leaders. Cohort 7 starts on Sept 10th. https://lnkd.in/edUa-qm2

Did you know that the Business and Professional Services industry is 🔟X the size of the entire software market? It seems ripe for disruption by SaaS, AI and cloud, but there is one challenge 📊 SaaS #Growth Potential With professional and business services spend dwarfing the SaaS market, there's still untapped potential for software to eat into this services pie. Many processes and workflows in this huge sector are not digitized or automated. New SaaS players can target underserved segments, while existing companies can expand into higher-value services. 📈 AI-Powered SaaS: Game Changer? Recent Gen AI’s acceleration changed the rules. AI can automate and augment many language-based tasks that are the lifeblood of professional services. This drastically expands the TAM for AI-SaaS companies and drives incredible valuations. Two scenarios are possible: 🚀 AI as a disruptor Vertical AI apps can capture spend that used to go to armies of human professionals, like AI contract review in legal or AI generating draft reports in consulting. 🤝 AI as an enabler AI-powered tools can supercharge human productivity, allowing them to serve more clients, tackle more complex problems, and deliver better results. AI + humans don't just capture share from incumbents, but grow the overall pie. Forward-thinking pro serve firms that embrace AI can gain a competitive edge and market share. AI-SaaS startups can partner with these firms, providing the tools and expertise to help them level up. Think OpenAI partnering with McKinsey & Company, BCG, etc. 🔐 "Dirty little secret" of AI In our recent podcast, Yan Zhang, frm. COO of PolyAI, highlighted the challenge of the "last mile" in AI deployment. AI often struggles with edge cases and needs guidance to work well in real-world settings. Services can play a critical role in customizing, and fine-tuning AI to meet client needs. For AI-SaaS companies, offering services in-house or through partners, may be key. Pure self-serve AI tools may struggle to gain traction if they can't bridge the gap to real results. 🎯 Cloud Marketplaces as Orchestrators As more of the services economy gets digitized and automated by AI-powered SaaS, cloud marketplaces have a huge role to play: 1️⃣ Many service engagements are still brokered and billed manually. 2️⃣ Services are often tied to software purchases, so it’s natural to sell them together. Marketplaces, with large catalogs, central billing, and GTM support stand to benefit big from the migration of services spend to the cloud and AI. That’s why all hyperscalers are working hard to enable service and #channelpartners. Partners are expected to drive 50% of #cloud marketplaces revenue. As this multi-trillion services market is set for rapid transformation, are you capturing this opportunity? 👍 Follow for more insights & share with others P.S. Learn top Cloud GTM strategies & unlock growth on cloud marketplaces with my free newsletter: https://lnkd.in/er4haEq2

Where's the money 💰 in Gen AI today? Just look at the top earners - 6 out of 10 are either hyperscalers or their partners, with Microsoft Azure ($3.9B ARR) and OpenAI ($3.4B) leading the pack. 💳 But it's not just about revenue Generative AI could be a game-changer for operational efficiency In the recent earnings call, Microsoft claimed "hundreds of millions" in customer support savings, while Amazon highlighted "$260 million and 4,500 developer years" saved in code migration. As more companies lean into Gen AI, expect to see similar efficiency gains in the key areas where AI is already good enough. 💡 What's the takeaway for the tech #ecosystem? Partnering with hyperscalers could be the key to hypergrowth. Top clouds are fighting for dominance and becoming the de facto orchestrators of the AI ecosystem. Despite market fluctuations, hyperscalers remain all-in on AI infrastructure. Amazon's Andy Jassy put it bluntly: "while we're investing a significant amount in the AI space and infrastructure, we would like to have more capacity than we already have today." Hyperscaler commitment to (over?) building will enhance access and reduce costs for everyone. For partners, aligning with hyperscalers can unlock client access, resources, and growth opportunities. Because of their central role, making it simple to buy, customer trust and (importantly) cloud commitments, customers will gravitate to them for deploying cutting-edge enterprise AI applications. At the same time, hyperscalers are actively searching for new AI products to plug into their platforms to serve incredible customer demand in AI. That’s why 47% of SaaS companies leverage cloud marketplaces. 📈 Beyond hyperscalers The AI ecosystem is diversifying. Sapphire Ventures recently stressed "a broadening of categories with GenAI products at $25M, $50M, and $100M+ scale." From coding copilots to marketing copy generators, AI is quietly transforming industries. But let's not get carried away by the hype Today, inflated expectations are giving way to the realities of technology deployment timelines. Shipping AI products is difficult regardless of the layer of the tech stack. Patience is still required for the overall deployment of generative AI. 🤝 Aligning with hyperscalers is a smart play in AI today, because this is where customers' hearts and wallets are. If you agree, check 5 steps to get you going in cloud GTM (link in comments). Still, cloud marketplaces aren’t the only path to win. The question is, how will you position yourself to ride the Gen AI wave to follow the customer and without getting swept away by the hype? 👍 Follow for more insights & share with others P.S. Learn top Cloud GTM strategies & unlock growth on cloud marketplaces with my free newsletter: https://lnkd.in/er4haEq2 Graph source: Sapphire Ventures, link in comment.

120+ alumni. 40+ incredible expert speakers - in just one year Cloud GTM Leader course has 📈 become the go-to program to unlock cloud marketplace #growth. Discover how it’s transforming alliance careers as we celebrate our 1-year anniversary. When we announced it last August, few expected us to grow to over 120 alumni from industry leaders like GitLab, Citrix, and IDC. As we gear up for Cohort 7 starting on Sept 10th, I'm blown away by the incredible journey we've been on together. 🏆 Recently Jay McBain from Canalys even recognized us as a Top Education and Training Program for Channel and Partnership professionals! So what made the course so impactful? 💡 We asked our alums, and here's what they said: "The highlight was the curation of the speakers and how they organized the information, they were clear and didactic." "Meeting the plethora of expertise that have been at the very forefront of Cloud Marketplaces." 🎯 From VPs of Partners of the Year to alliance leaders with decades of cloud GTM experience, 40+ outstanding expert speakers delivered unique insights in our course sessions. Rolf Heimes, Jonathan Kingsepp, Brian Laing, Mike Marzano, Rick Buijserd, Darren Sharpe, Subhash Jawahrani, Kate K., Abhijit Madhugiri, Alex Balcanquall the list goes on. But it wasn't just the caliber of the speakers that made the difference. It was the "Structured and Methodical approach to unbundle the complex process of partner enablement/Cloud GTM/Cloud Marketplaces." Our alums highlighted the "open discussion with peers from different business functions and companies covering SaaS, Cybersecurity and Hyperscalers." They loved the "tactical elements and the measurement tools to measure progress." "People with real experience sharing the how - how did they win, how did they fail, how did they tackle challenge x or y." While 5-week curriculum proved to be very successful, it’s not just in-session experience. 📈 The journey continues long after the course Our Cross-Community Masterminds are yet another testaments to the incredible energy and insights of our community. The high-energy discussion and probing questions turned it into a forum for the community to truly help in #Cloud GTM each other and build lasting connections. 7️⃣ Join Cohort 7: Special 1Y anniversary referral If you're ready to take your cloud marketplace game to the next level, I invite you to join us for Cohort 7. As a special celebration of our 1-year anniversary, I'm offering a $50 discount for the next 48 hours. 📍 Use code RKLi@1Y48h at the enroll page: https://lnkd.in/edUa-qm2 But don't wait - spots are filling up fast. Is your company ready to unlock the full potential of cloud marketplaces?

Even when half of the companies go multi-cloud as they increase cloud spend, they still spend 📊 70-80% on the primary cloud provider. Ofcom recently published analysis on multi-cloud adoption in the UK, based on customer data from 3 top hyperscalers, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. 🏁 Companies Naturally Start Single-Cloud In the $10K-1M #cloud spend bracket, only 12-13% of customers use multi-cloud. If you sell to smaller accounts, they probably use a single provider. But when we focus on higher spend tiers that matter most for enterprise alliance managers, this changes. $1M-20M Cloud Spend: Multi-Cloud Emerges For customers spending over $1M annually, the multi-cloud share jumps to ~30%. 💰 $20M+ Cloud Spend: Multi-Cloud Dominates Move up to the $20M+ enterprise spenders, and multi-cloud is the new normal. Ofcom's analysis reveals that a 45-55% of these high spenders use multiple clouds. 🎯 But There's a Twist: Primary Cloud Commits Still Rule Before you go all-in on multi-cloud story, consider this: Ofcom found that "Customers in higher spend bands who use multi-cloud spend a greater proportion on their primary cloud." This means that: The average spend in a two-cloud architecture is around 80/20 – 80% on the primary cloud and 20% on the secondary cloud Just under a third (~30%) of multi-cloud customers have at least a 70/30 spend split In a 3-cloud architecture, the average spend split is approximately 75/15/10, with “the primary cloud generally accounted for about three quarters of spend” This means that the bulk of the commit likely lands at the preferred customer cloud. 💎 The Cloud Marketplace Takeaway: A Balanced Approach The most effective alliance managers will craft GTM strategies and train their sales teams to tick the multi-cloud box while maintaining a focus to identify and leverage primary cloud commits. For the $20M+ enterprises, assume they have commitments across several clouds, but the largest chunk will probably with one. The future is multi-cloud, but success hinges on understanding the nuances. Master them, and you'll unlock your #growth. Curious, if you agree with this analysis and how are you adapting your marketplace GTM for a multi-cloud world? 👍 Follow for more insights & share with others P.S. Accelerate growth on marketplaces with Cloud GTM Leader course. Cohort 7 starts on Sept 10th: https://lnkd.in/edUa-qm2

“Channel leaders are turning their attention to cloud marketplaces 📈 as the future of partnerships,” reports a top VC/investor managing $83.5Bn. Here's what you need to know to succeed in Cloud GTM A recent ICONIQ Capital study on SaaS GTM 2024 reveals that a staggering 47% of software companies are using marketplaces of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. But navigating these hyperscaler ecosystems can be challenging. Here are 6 crucial lessons for succeeding in #cloud marketplaces, based on insights from companies like Drata and Glean: 👨💼 Start from the customer Don't just default to your cloud provider - consider which marketplace best reaches your ideal customers Infrastructure & security companies often prioritize AWS for its strong CIO/CISO relationships Application software companies targeting CFOs or revenue buyers often favor Azure given Microsoft's strong ties in those areas Analyze your ICP and map it to the hyperscaler with the best connections to it 🛒 Master one marketplace first Resist the temptation to pursue multiple marketplaces at once Focus on building a strong, predictable revenue stream with one marketplace before expanding Develop a scalable partner enablement program to set the stage for future expansion Once a successful playbook is ready, "companies tend to move towards a multi-marketplace approach by selling through 2-3 marketplaces at the same time.“ 🤝 Tap into your network Startups can leverage VC connections to get on the radar of hyperscalers if they lack established relationships Learn from operators and companies who have successfully navigated these marketplaces. Don't hesitate to ask for help 🎯 Cultivate insider relationships Treat marketplace partnerships like enterprise sales - identify and build relationships with key decision-makers Hire team members with experience and existing relationships in your target hyperscalers Multi-thread within the organization, connecting with partner reps and other key stakeholders Invest time in becoming an "insider" to gain visibility and advocacy within the marketplace ecosystem 🛠️ Invest in operational readiness Dedicate 1-2 people early to operations, billing, and marketplace backend- don't wait until you're overwhelmed Marketplace billing is nuanced and may require separate systems /processes Implement a CRM lead sharing and revenue attribution for partner-sourced and partner-involved deals 💡 Enable partners like your own sales team Train cloud partners on your ICP, product features, use cases, and messaging - just like you would train a new sales hire Repurpose existing sales enablement, customer success, and onboarding resources For complex products, leverage solutions architects and sales engineers for hands-on technical enablement 👍 Follow for more insights & share with others P.S. Unlock growth on marketplaces with Cloud GTM Leader course. Cohort 7 starts on Sept 10th: https://lnkd.in/edUa-qm2