The Impact of Partnerships in Shaping Cloud Marketplace Growth

The cloud marketplace is experiencing a rapid transformation, with partners emerging as critical drivers of growth and innovation. As hyperscalers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud continue to expand exponentially, vendors are increasingly recognizing the importance of prioritizing partner-first strategies. These strategies go beyond a tactical shift; they represent a fundamental rethinking of how cloud sales and customer acquisition are approached. Partners, in turn, are central to this evolution, enabling businesses to develop tailored offerings that not only enhance value for customers but also safeguard margins. By leveraging innovations that allow for personalized solutions, partners can amplify their revenue impact while contributing to the ongoing success of the cloud marketplace. 

As companies accelerate their adaptation to the changing dynamics of the cloud marketplace, the channel’s influence is more crucial than ever. Through models such as AWS’s Channel Partner Private Offers, Microsoft’s Multiparty Private Offers, and Google Cloud’s newly launched Marketplace Channel Private Offers, vendors are providing unprecedented opportunities for channel partners to drive sales, offer unique solutions, and boost their margins. 

The Rising Importance of Partner-First Marketplace Strategies

For years, the cloud marketplace has been dominated by a few key players—AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud—which together make up a substantial portion of the global cloud infrastructure market. These hyperscalers are keenly aware of the partner’s value and are moving proactively to enable them to leverage the full potential of their marketplaces. 

Recent Canalys research predicts that enterprise software sales through major cloud marketplaces—dominated by AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud—will reach US$85 billion by 2028, up from US$16 billion in 2023. This growth reflects a shift as enterprises increasingly use cloud marketplaces to optimize credits and simplify procurement. By 2027, over 50% of these sales are expected to involve channel partners, highlighting their role in driving adoption. With hyperscalers investing heavily in co-sell resources and channel programs, vendor-first marketplace models like Microsoft’s, AWS’s, and Google Cloud’s private offers enable partners to customize deals, emphasizing the channel’s critical role in the market’s expansion. 

How Partner-First Strategies Drive Revenue Impact and ROI

As the shift toward cloud marketplaces accelerates, a partner-first strategy offers significant revenue growth opportunities for both vendors and partners. This approach not only enhances ROI for partners but also strengthens competitive positioning by enabling the creation of customized offers. By aligning with cloud marketplaces like Microsoft Azure, vendors can position themselves for long-term success by committing to strategic sales processes. Integrating marketplace deals into sales forecasts, incorporating marketplace qualification into sales methodologies, and ensuring compensation neutrality for sales representatives can drive adoption and accelerate deal closures. Additionally, pre-authorizing key partners to resell through marketplace offers simplifies and scales the process, broadening revenue opportunities. 
 
1.  Customized Offers: A Strategic Advantage 

Partners now have the flexibility to create specialized solutions within cloud marketplaces, a major shift from selling standardized solutions. This flexibility allows partners to meet specific customer demands, enhancing their competitive edge and driving quicker deal closures. By leveraging tools within the marketplace, partners can bundle services and solutions that add greater value for customers, thus increasing customer satisfaction and driving more revenue. With the emergence of Multiparty Private Offers (MPOs), partners can collaborate with Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to create solutions that tap into pre-committed cloud budgets, ensuring mutual growth and business expansion. 
 
2.  Margin Protection: Maximizing Profitability 

With increasing competition in cloud marketplaces, many partners may worry about margin erosion. However, private offer models—such as those available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace—provide a reliable solution. These models allow partners to negotiate favorable pricing terms that protect their margins while offering competitive pricing. Additionally, by incorporating incentives like cloud credits and co-marketing support, partners can maintain strong margins while remaining competitive in the marketplace. This approach allows partners to continue delivering exceptional value while safeguarding their profitability. 
 
3.  Simplified Sales Processes: Speeding Up Revenue Recognition 

Cloud marketplaces significantly streamline the purchasing process, making it easier and faster for partners to close deals. This reduction in friction accelerates revenue recognition, which enhances cash flow and fuels growth. With streamlined processes in place, vendors enable partners to deploy tailored offers aligned with customer needs more quickly, resulting in shorter sales cycles and increased profitability. The combination of simplified transactions and flexible offer structures, like those seen in MPOs, helps partners generate more revenue while ensuring smooth and efficient deal closures. 
 
4.  Global Reach: Expanding Customer Base 
 
Cloud marketplaces provide access to a vast, global customer base. With billions of users already engaged with the hyperscalers, partners are able to tap into markets they might have otherwise struggled to reach. By having their offerings featured on these marketplaces, partners can access customers across the globe without needing to invest heavily in sales and marketing efforts. 
 
This global reach is especially compelling as companies face increasing IT budget pressures. As enterprises shift more of their IT spend to cloud marketplaces, partners who are able to leverage these platforms can access new customers, expand their market presence, and ultimately drive higher revenue. This is particularly important as enterprise customers have already committed billions to the top three hyperscalers’ cloud services, with a significant portion of those budgets now being allocated to third-party solutions available on the marketplaces. 

Real-World Impact: Accelerating Growth and Driving ROI

The adoption of partner-first marketplace strategies has already led to tangible revenue improvements for companies across the cloud ecosystem. As cloud marketplaces mature and enterprise software sales through platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP are projected to reach US$85 billion by 2028, channel partners are positioned to capture a growing share of this revenue. 

Hyperscaler marketplace sales have become a key route-to-market for software vendors, and research indicates that by 2027, more than 50% of these marketplace sales will flow through the channel. The continued growth of these marketplaces is fueled by changing buyer behavior—enterprise customers are increasingly using their cloud credits to purchase third-party software through these platforms, which simplifies their procurement processes and accelerates time to value. 

For partners, this shift is an opportunity to expand their role within the cloud marketplace ecosystem. Partners are increasingly becoming a crucial element in the sales cycle, managing cloud credits, supporting vendors, and driving customer demand. With hyperscalers offering co-marketing, co-selling programs, and additional financial incentives, partners are better equipped than ever to deliver value to customers while securing their own margins. 

To effectively leverage these opportunities, partners need robust tools that streamline operations and optimize engagement. Solutions like Impartner’s Partner Relationship Management (PRM) platform, which integrates with cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure and Dynamics 365, offer the scalability, real-time data synchronization, and security required to manage complex partner ecosystems. provide the scalability, real-time data synchronization, and security necessary to manage complex partner ecosystems. These tools allow partners to enhance relationships, optimize sales pipelines, and ensure a secure, compliant environment—all while positioning themselves for sustained growth. 

Real-world data further underscores the impact of leveraging these strategies. According to a Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ study commissioned by Microsoft, organizations utilizing the Microsoft commercial marketplace achieved an impressive ROI of up to 587%, with a payback period of under six months. Key benefits include a 75% reduction in time spent onboarding new vendors, a 50% decrease in employee effort for procurement engagements, and the optimization of Azure cloud budgets, allowing businesses to recapture up to 50% of at-risk spend. 
 
Future-Proofing Cloud Marketplaces: The Essential Role of Partners

As the cloud marketplace continues to expand, partners will play a crucial role in shaping its growth. Through innovations like AWS’s Channel Partner Private Offers, Microsoft’s Multiparty Private Offers, and Google Cloud’s Marketplace Channel Private Offers, partners can deliver more value to customers while protecting their margins and driving revenue growth. By encouraging partners to fully leverage these marketplace tools, businesses can help guarantee their partners remain competitive, profitable, and essential to the cloud marketplace’s success. 

Looking ahead, the ability to create customized, value-driven offers within hyperscaler ecosystems will become increasingly important. Partners who adopt these new tools and strategies will not only stay ahead of cloud growth trends but will also drive significant ROI for their businesses. Future-proofing strategies and staying ahead of industry trends will be the key to success. Those who align with marketplace dynamics and utilize the right tools and methodologies will secure long-term growth, benefiting both their business and their customers.