Your Thrive 2024 Preview Part 2—Three More Learning Tracks to Explore

The excitement is ramping up in our Chicago office and across the content, as registrations pour in and we continue to rev up for Thrive—now less than one month away! We can’t wait to see you in Chicago, September 17-19.

In this article

In last week’s blog—Your Thrive 2024 Preview Part 1—A Glimpse at 3 Learning Tracks—we gave you a sneak preview of three of our six tracks, focused on helping you drive tangible business growth.

This week, we provide a glimpse into the remaining three tracks:

• Differentiate your portfolio with unique products and services

• Strategies to drive ecosystem growth: Your marketplace strategy playbook

• Reselling third-party services: Your marketplace strategy playbook

> Explore all tracks on our Thrive website

TRACK: Differentiate your portfolio with unique products and services

This track is for: Software companies, telcos, MSPs, VARs, technology advisors

At a glance: Learn how diversifying your products and services can drive business growth and enhance your value

This track is specially curated for tech providers, advisors, and business leaders, offering a treasure trove of information and strategies to make your service portfolio stand out in a crowded, hyper-competitive market. You’ll be inspired to expand into new areas of expertise to grow revenues from your current base, and attract new customers.

Sessions in this track are jam-packed with the insights, tools, and knowledge to help you increase the size of every deal by bundling in services from areas you may not have explored yet—like white-label marketplaces, managed services, Gen AI, and high-margin support services. You’ll get a deep dive from experts into each of these areas and come away fully equipped with insights, use cases, tips, pricing, demos, selling roadmaps, and resources you need to roll up your sleeves and start differentiating your offer.

Beyond expanding your portfolio, we’ve got a power-packed panel featuring top leaders from Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, VMware, Okta, and Cisco, focused on enhancing security in the digital workspace. Hear the latest on comprehensive security strategies and network infrastructure and identity management solutions. You’ll also learn best practices and examples of real-world implementations to enhance productivity and security across your organization.

Featured session: Optimize AWS with Spot by NetApp

Get ready to unlock the secret to optimizing your AWS environment with Spot by NetApp. In a panel of experts, moderated by AppDirect’s David Landsberger and featuring Caroline Leonard and Chase Kauf of Spot by NetApp, you’ll get a look into its inner workings, demystifying cloud cost management, infrastructure automation, and performance enhancement.

They’ll shed light on the usage of Spot instances, provide insights into rightsizing recommendations, and discuss the automation of containerized workloads using tools like Ocean and Elastigroup.

Navigate the world of real-time monitoring, predictive analytics, and automated actions for achieving optimal performance and resource utilization.

This session holds the key to unlocking significant cost savings and efficiency in your AWS environment. Get ready to transform complexities into opportunities.

"In an era where cloud optimization is paramount, Spot by NetApp is revolutionizing how businesses manage their AWS environments. It unlocks a world where performance enhancement, cost reduction, and infrastructure automation are no longer hurdles, but opportunities for growth." David Landsberger, Channel Education & Enablement Director, AppDirect

This track features five other sessions that explore how to sell white-label marketplaces, enhancing the security in your digital workspace, tips and pitfalls for selling network managed security services, AI sales profitability, and amplifying sales with high-margin support services. 

TRACK: Strategies to drive ecosystem growth—Your marketplace strategy playbook

This track is for: Software companies, telcos, MSPs, VARs technology advisors

At a glance: Learn how to build, expand, and monetize your marketplace through successful partner ecosystem management

If you’re looking to unlock new revenues and grow your customer base through your marketplace, take a close look at the sessions in this track. Centering around the vital role of a successful partner ecosystem, high-profile experts from companies including Hitachi, Coupa, CapGemini, Alteryx, Vodafone, Longview, and more will take you through the many facets of marketplace expansion—from building a thriving developer community and the importance of managing partner relationships, to streamlining the integration of partner solutions that you can scale through monetization.

You’ll get answers to the classic “build vs buy” question when it comes to adopting a B2B subscription commerce model, as panel experts delve into the pros and cons of creating an in-house platform vs. opting for an off-the-shelf solution.

Top tech companies will share how they leverage AppDirect’s network of 400+ marketplaces, 10K+ advisors, and their own marketplaces to expand their distribution capabilities.

And if you want to explore launching your own marketplace in a matter of days without any coding experience, you’re in luck: Builtfirst founders will show you how building your own marketplace could be your path to new customers and new revenues.

Featured session: Lessons from ISVs with thriving marketplaces 

In this session, the members of our panel of independent software vendors (ISVs) will delve into their marketplace monetization success stories. Trailblazers UKG, Alteryx, Archer, TP Vision, and Infor have each executed exceptional marketplace monetization strategies, transforming their ecosystems from showcases of partner products to large-scale operations.

Each company will share their unique path to marketplace excellence, exploring key drivers of success, the challenges they encountered, and the tactical steps they’ve taken to ensure their marketplaces continue to thrive into the future. 

You’ll walk away with best practices for growing your developer ecosystem and maximizing your marketplace ROI.

"It's one thing to create a simple showcase marketplace to add value for your customers and prospects. But to fully scale and monetize your investment, you need to transform that marketplace into a vibrant ecosystem, fostering deep partnerships and driving dynamic growth.”—Mark Willoughby, Director, Global Account Management, AppDirect

TRACK—Reselling third-party services: Your marketplace strategy playbook

This track is for: MSPs, VARs, telcos, marketplace managers, resellers

At a glance: Master selling third-party services, from seamless billing practices and a limitless product catalog, to mastering CX and incorporating physical goods.

This track offers service providers, resellers, and marketplace managers a comprehensive virtual playbook to help you redefine your marketplace strategy. With a stellar lineup of industry leaders and experts, including Microsoft, BT, Corporate Technologies, AppDirect, and others, you’ll learn best practices for reselling third-party products and services across your direct and indirect channels.

A core element of this track is the understanding that an efficient reselling operation depends on seamless centralized billing. We’ll delve into best-practice billing technology and operational efficiencies to help you provide a seamless, modern customer experience—backed by customer use cases and live demos..

Beyond operational efficiencies and a great customer experience, at the heart of a successful marketplace is the value it delivers to customers. Learn best practices to expand your marketplace portfolio and grow your revenues, selling industry-leading brands like Microsoft, Adobe, and products from the extensive catalogs of Ingram or Synnex.

You’ll learn why you should seriously consider incorporating physical goods into your customer offer to deliver a true end-to-end solution. A panel of businesses who successfully sell physical goods on their marketplaces will answer your questions and offer best practices for selling physical goods including inventory management, fulfillment, and shipping processes.

This track is about connecting the dots between creating the ideal marketplace experience, taming operational complexities, and creating a stellar customer experience to form a coherent, effective strategy for reselling third-party services. It's about taking these diverse elements and weaving them into a comprehensive approach that unlocks the full potential of your marketplace.

Featured session: Streamline Microsoft reselling

If you want to amp up your Microsoft reselling, join Jimmy Ward from Microsoft and AppDirect’s Neil Bolton for this insightful and practical session. Neil and Jimmy will demonstrate how AppDirect simplifies your customer experience through market-leading integration with Microsoft Partner Center and jointly designed features, such as instant provisioning and self-service tenant creation.

The session will go in depth about how AppDirect and Microsoft work closely to provide partners with innovative new customer experiences and you’ll get insights into AppDirect's leadership in Microsoft's New Commerce Experience (NCE) and an ongoing collaboration with Microsoft to streamline partner go-to-market strategies.

This lively session will include product demos, best practices, and expert insights to help you take your Microsoft reselling to new heights.

"In the world of Microsoft reselling, it's all about blending simplicity with innovation, harnessing the power of integrated platforms and rethinking your go-to-market strategies. That's how you elevate the customer experience in today's digital landscape." Neil Bolton, Microsoft and Google Product Manager, AppDirect

This track features five other sessions that cover subscription billing best practices, how to extend your sales reach with a limitless product catalog, how to offer your customers the total solution package they’re looking for, and how you can accelerate your cloud reselling with Adobe Professional connector.

Explore all sessions in these tracks on our Thrive website.

About Thrive

This September 17-19 in Chicago, we're gathering the industry’s top leaders shaping the future of B2B commerce, all in one place, for the only event of its kind this year. It’s the premier conference for organizations specializing in selling third-party technology services. With 30+ interactive sessions and 50+ industry trailblazers ready to share their knowledge, Thrive will equip you with tools, tips, and playbooks to boost your success, and tons of inspiration to amp up your company strategy and go to market plan. You’ll also hear first about new product announcements and have the opportunity to explore cutting-edge technologies, connect with premier providers and B2B leaders at the Thrive Expo Hall, and enjoy exciting after-hours social events.

Register for Thrive and customize your experience

With such a substance-packed agenda, it will be hard to choose favorites among the 36+ sessions but we’ve made it easier for you. Visit www.appdirect.com/thrive#tracks to explore all six learning tracks and find your favorite sessions using the filters to personalize your Thrive experience.