Win Win Advisors
Procurement Marketplace Deal: $1M Opportunity, Future Spend Secured
Channel veteran and advisory agency CEO Charlie Field seals AppDirect procurement marketplace deal unlocking additional revenue opportunities
Challenge
For the advisor:
- Competing with other agencies for customer’s multi-million dollar technology budget
- Lack of visibility into the end-customer’s technology stack, other business units
For the end-customer:
- No easy, one stop shop to find, buy, and manage cloud purchases across business locations in a unified manner
Solution
Results
For the advisor:
- Procurement marketplace solution increases end-customer stickiness by funneling technology procurement into one platform
For end customer:
- Provisioned AppDirect procurement marketplace in just 90-days
- Minimizes technology sprawl, improves security capabilities, and increases management efficiencies all while reducing spend
Providing guidance, building trust, capturing greater wallet share
Charlie Field has built a successful career as a technology advisor and CEO, building trust with each customer by providing objective guidance and support. Field founded his business Win Win with the mission of helping teams achieve their professional and personal goals. Today his team offers several services including delivering complete technology solutions for businesses.
Field excels in addressing immediate needs of customers while also strategizing for long-term solutions, ultimately tackling significant business challenges with a major impact. One example of his impact is with a long-time healthcare customer.
A lucrative AWS migration sparks additional opportunities
The customer explained they wanted to migrate its AWS portfolio over to Win Win, an account exceeding $1,000,000 in value. Eager to deliver optimal value, Field dived into the customer’s pain points and identified an additional $45,000 opportunity, which included adding Adobe licenses for the client’s Ohio location—and the opportunities kept unfolding.
Beyond addressing immediate technology needs, Field identified a significant hurdle in the procurement process. The healthcare organization faced a complex and frustrating challenge as IT leaders struggled to efficiently find, buy, and manage technology purchases across business units. Not only that, keeping pace with invoicing for software subscription compounded the issue greatly.
After hearing these concerns, Field had a breakthrough moment—why not integrate with the customer’s technology procurement process? Seeking support from AppDirect, he collaborated with his account manager and a solution architect. Field then posed the question: ‘What if I could provide the customer with all their software and assist in creating custom SKUs for clients?’ What began as a brainstorm and a single conversation quickly expanded into a transformative strategy.
An advisor blueprint to grow MRR
After navigating the process firsthand, Field offers valuable insights for advisors interested in identifying procurement marketplace opportunities within their account base.
He advises, “Simply ask your customers about Adobe, or Microsoft and how they are procuring those solutions today. Ask them how that process is going. Chances are, they are buying them directly, or through a partner— your competitor—and they may not be happy. The key is to see how you can get into the middle of that conversation and identify where you can add value by helping them procure technology more efficiently.”
Field introduces the AppDirect procurement marketplace solution
After the meeting regarding the customer’s procurement challenge, the team moved quickly. Elliott Baretz, AppDirect Senior Director of Cloud Services, provides insight into the collaboration between technology advisors and AppDirect teams.
"Most advisors are used to the AppDirect Marketplace where advisors reach into their customer relationships and help them find, buy and manage their SaaS and IaaS solution from the extensive AppDirect catalog. But there are some circumstances in which advisors can look at this opportunity differently.”
Elliott Baretz, Senior Director, Cloud Services, AppDirect
Baretz elaborates on how an innovative procurement solution delivers even greater value. “For Charlie’s customer, there was an opportunity for them to stand up their own marketplace so that they could ensure their own curated catalog and manage costs in a more refined and elegant way. With the procurement marketplace, the many business units and or locations within the organization could reach into their customized, prescribed catalog within their marketplace, and manage and buy those subscriptions. On top of that, AppDirect provides them with a single invoice so they could have some governance around their technology spend.”
Field was quick to agree: “AppDirect took a sales process that can typically take six to nine months and shortened it to a 90-day sales cycle. It was a great experience pivoting market share away from a competitor and into our portfolio for this valued customer. As they say in Boston, that was a wicked cool sale.”
Comprehensive support from pre-sale to post-sale
Field highlights the unique AppDirect partnership, emphasizing its unmatched technology catalog and the team's marketplace expertise. Another differentiator is the continuous value from the AppDirect Sales Support team throughout the entire sales journey— from pre-sale to post-sale. This team, including account managers, engineers, and product specialists, ensures comprehensive support, maximizing opportunities and guaranteeing streamlined project delivery. Field engaged with several specialists across across the organization:
- Advisor Sales: Channel Sales Managers (CSM) — CSMs analyze your unique business challenges and goals and recommend plans to expand your business and deliver more benefits to your customers
- Cloud Operations Team: Cloud Infrastructure Specialist—To help translate client needs back to AppDirect; dedicated to the outcome of the procurement marketplace
- Procurement Marketplace Platform sales: Account Management and Solution Architect—This team will customize the procurement marketplace to the end-customer’s needs. A dedicated team that works with companies who are interested in putting their stamp on their own white-label marketplaces.
- Digital Transformation Services (DTS)— Quickly stood up the procurement marketplace and making it live to fit the healthcare organization’s specific needs
Field reflects on the experience working with AppDirect through this deal, “The coordination and the orchestration of all of those different resources across the various teams was what was impressive to me and certainly to our client.”
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Beyond delivering significant value to the customer, Field highlights that AppDirect designed a creative procurement of the procurement marketplace via trading revenue commitment for Application Development costs. With the AppDirect procurement marketplace in place, Field secured not only the original $1,000,000 AWS expenditure but also the additional Adobe licenses. He’ll also earn additional commissions on all future technology purchases made through the procurement marketplace.
Consolidating IT, increasing management efficiencies
With the procurement marketplace the healthcare company now has access to a curated catalog and streamlined approval workflows, offering a comprehensive view of technology purchases. It also minimizes technology sprawl, enhances security, and boosts management efficiency while reducing overall spend.
The marketplace also gives the customers a consolidated invoice for all technology-related purchases across the organization. This means improved cost governance and a clear view into the allocation of technology across teams.
Needless to say, Field closed a win-win deal, setting the stage for ongoing success in his partnership with AppDirect.
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