INTRODUCTION TO DISTRIBUTION CLOUD MARKETPLACES
Forrester predicts that 17% of all B2B commerce will be through Marketplaces by 2023. That’s a shift of over two trillion US dollars from traditional reseller channels into Marketplaces.
Here we focus on the B2B Cloud Marketplaces of the largest technology Distributors: Ingram, Arrow, TechData and Synnex. If you don’t know your CloudBlue from your Stellr, then this piece is for you.
Catalogues and Commerce Platforms
It’s useful to start out by being clear on what we mean by a B2B Cloud Marketplace. ‘Marketplace’ is a term used to refer to two distinct components, which are ‘Catalogues’ and ‘Commerce Platforms’. Let’s explore these.
A Catalogue is an on line list of offers. It’s used by buyers to evaluate and select items to order. The ordering and fulfilment process may or may not be managed on line. The menu of your favourite takeaway food outlet might be on line and could therefore be referred to as a Catalogue. The ordering process may be on line or by phone, and delivery of food is physical.
A Commerce Platform is an on line tool used by sellers to collect customer payments, and in the case of on line services, to manage delivery. The delivery process is referred to as ‘Service Provisioning’. If you subscribe to a newspaper on line you are using the publisher’s Commerce Platform, which triggers delivery of the soft-copy newspaper as long as you keep paying the subscription.
A B2B Cloud Marketplace has a Catalogue and a Commerce Platform. The Catalogue allows B2B customers to evaluate and select. The Commerce Platform collects payments and manages provisioning of cloud software.
Cloud Provisioning and Billing
Distributors have had Catalogues for a long time. Back when a Distributor took an order from a technology VAR over the phone, the VAR was selecting software from the Distributor’s catalogue. The distributor would invoice the VAR and send disks to the VAR with the purchased software for installation on the customer’s premises.
That process changed when software moved to the cloud. In the cloud model the Distributor now has to manage virtual delivery (provisioning) of software, possibly charging based on usage (consumption). Not only that, but provisioning of the software is often directly to the end customer, not through the VAR. A process is required to ensure that the VAR invoices correctly for what the customer uses. This is all managed by the cloud Commerce Platform.
Large Distributors realised early on that by bolting a sophisticated cloud Commerce Platform onto their Catalogues they would be able to offer significant value to VAR’s, who would otherwise have to find other ways to measure their customers’ cloud software consumption and to manage billing.
Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace and CloudBlue
Ingram is the world’s largest technology Distributor and the company was first to bolt a cloud Commerce Platform onto its Catalogue. In 2013 Ingram Micro Cloud (IMC) was created through the acquisition of a Canadian company called SoftCom, a cloud software provisioning platform. In 2016 IMC acquired Ensim, which brought in technology to provision AWS, Microsoft Azure and VMware cloud software.
IMC today is made up of two parts, the Ingram Cloud Marketplace and CloudBlue, the cloud Commerce Platform. Not only does the CloudBlue platform run the Ingram Cloud Marketplace, but it is also offered as a standalone platform to run other Marketplaces. So for example the Telstra Application Marketplace runs on the CloudBlue Commerce Platform. Ingram is the only Distributor to separate out it’s Cloud Commerce Platform in this way.
The Ingram Cloud Marketplace is a public resource and can be seen here. Cloud software offers from a wide range of vendors are presented by category. Registered VAR’s can place an order. The CloudBlue Commerce Platform then provisions the software and offers the VAR a dashboard to monitor customer usage of the software and to manage billing.
Arrow and ArrowSphere
ArrowSphere was launched in 2012 as a white label solution for VAR’s wanting to offer cloud services to their customers. The tool included a private Catalogue that the VAR could re-brand to their look and feel, and also the associated Cloud Commerce Platform to manage provisioning and billing.
ArrowSphere is here
and has since evolved into a full-service cloud platform including quoting, ordering, provisioning, subscription management and invoicing. ‘MyCloud Portal’ allows users to create a white-label private Catalogue, and there are open API’s to link ArrowSphere Commerce Platform to existing non-ArrowSphere Catalogues.
TechData and StreamOne
TechData has two Marketplace offers. StreamOne Cloud Marketplace (SCM) is aimed at smaller VAR selling to SMB customers. It provides all the tools a VAR needs to provision and bill cloud software, and gives the VAR access to pre-configured cloud software bundles from vendors like Microsoft and AWS.
StreamOne Enterprise Solution (SES) is here
and is aimed at a larger VAR who wants to open up their own public Catalogue which their customers can access. This Catalogue might include offers from cloud vendors like Microsoft and AWS, as well as cloud services offered by the VAR themselves.
Synnex and Stellr
Synnex launched its cloud Marketplace later than other large Distributors and has taken a different approach. The Stellr Marketplace here, which is a Cloud Commerce Platform for VAR, was launched in 2019 alongside the ‘Stellr Connect’ Partner Program. The Stellr Connect Partner Program has three tiers, offering sales incentives and marketing funds to VAR who generate higher sales volumes through the Stellr Marketplace.
Comparing the Distribution Marketplaces
Although there are many similarities, there are some key differences between the various Distributor Marketplaces:
• ArrowSphere and StreamOne are primarily aimed at VAR wanting to provision, bill and manage subscriptions for cloud solutions that they are selling to their customers. ArrowSphere MyCloud Portal and StreamOne SES offer the VAR the ability to create their own public catalogue.
• Ingram is a step ahead. CloudBlue is a highly-scalable stand-alone cloud Commerce Platform, used by a wide range of large businesses to power their Marketplaces. The Ingram Cloud Marketplace, itself powered by CloudBlue is a public Catalogue, and is best practice.
• Stellr from Synnex is more than a Marketplace. It’s a three-tier cloud Partner Program connected to a Marketplace. The Synnex Marketplace does not yet offer the sophistication we see in the Commerce Platforms of the other three Distributors.