At a Glance
When Microsoft set out to optimize marketing and relationship management across a global network of B2B partner companies, they turned to Logic20/20. We partnered with them to build a new digital-first partner service with streamlined processes to improve agility and scale, and we dedicated a team to serve as PMO for the partner marketing program.
The results: faster campaign turnaround times, improved user experiences, more efficient nurturing of partner leads, and accurate predictions of program revenue.
Customer Background
Partner Marketing supports
90%
of Microsoft's commercial customers.
The content, processes, and technologies supporting Microsoft's global partner marketing organization had historically been driven at the local subsidiary level. This approach resulted in inconsistent marketing resources and processes that were difficult for partners to navigate, as well as a siloed ecosystem that was challenging for the enterprise to manage.
Microsoft also wanted to improve service for partners without account managers—to deliver through digital means the same level of personalized service that they would receive from a human.
The global partner content hub receives
1 billion
unique visits each month
Business, Functional & Technical Requirements
Centralize content production model while allowing for localization and translation work.
Drive the journey to innovate the tech stack, including content management, customer data, tag management, and marketing automation tools.
Solution Overview
Logic20/20 built a centralized content production model—in which the corporate team produced 80 percent of all content and enabled local customization—streamlining publishing processes, and integrating technologies to enhance visibility at the corporate level. By bringing content creation back to corporate, we simplified the customer journey for partners across delivery spaces and geographies.
Microsoft also tasked us with taking over the partner marketing network and managing it as a PMO so that global marketing campaigns could be executed at scale. In addition, we developed operational toolsets and reporting that allowed for even greater agility in content creation and publishing processes.
Our team designed a new content strategy that supports partners with personalized information targeted to their business needs and product sets, creating a dynamic experience that includes enhanced reporting and analytics on content and partner performance. We then expanded beyond the partner website to incorporate email, relationship marketing, social, search, and paid digital media for fully integrated campaign journeys.
All up, these changes enabled Microsoft Partners to go to market quickly, with consistent, easily customizable content, in 118 different countries and over 30 languages.
Capabilities Deployed
Service
Our streamlined partner ecosystem enabled access to campaigns and improved go-to-market timelines. With a reduction in wait times and ambiguity, partners could deploy better assets faster.
Digital Transformation
This content portal serves the largest partner network in the world; we ensured the portal was technology agnostic, enabling it to scale and change in response to business and customer needs.
Accelerated Product Development
We transformed disparate content into a single, templatized repository, reducing time to market from 8 weeks to as few as 2 days.
Sales
With quick access to organized content—and a 60% reduction in stagnant content—Microsoft partners could sell services easier and faster.
Impact
Our team created a new operating model for global partner marketing focused on leveraging automation through digital channels, improving experiences for both partners and consumers, and enabling our partner’s digital transformation to scale.
We also enabled our partner to evolve beyond digital operations issues, adding automation, digital scope, and analytics layers to business processes and creating self-supporting workstreams.
Coordinated Campaigns
Channel alignment, data-driven insights, and improved processes resulted in a 103% year-over-year increase in qualified leads.
Intelligent Platforms
Leveraging innovative tools and techniques, platforms were updated to create first-class digital experiences. Implementing ML models identified high-revenue leads 6 months in the future.
Introduced Personalization and Dynamic Content
Increased personalization and complexity of content, moving from static website material to triggered email streams and cross-channel marketing efforts.
Increased Speed to Market
The time for campaign turn around reduced from eight weeks to as few as two days, getting content to market - and customers - faster.
Increased Customer Retention
Engagement and retention up across the board, thanks to campaign performance analysis and 60% reduction of stagnant content.
Our client has said that without our involvement, their marketing operations program wouldn’t exist as it does today.
3 Lessons Learned
Lesson 1: Building governance and structure by design supports long-term agility. To support scale and future digital transformation, building governance by design processes in from Day One allows for future agility. By tagging structures, simplifying audits, and understanding the ecosystem, we can future-proof our work and enable faster innovation.
Lesson 2: Our partners value our focus on the business problem instead of on the boundaries of current tools. When the business problem is our focal point from the very beginning, we can avoid the risk of getting bogged down in technical details and build the optimal solution for achieving our partner's goals.
Lesson 3: Our commitment to continuous improvement adds value to our partnerships. Our experts are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to improve and enhance. We created an environment of experimentation where new ideas were proposed on a regular basis to challenge both our consultants and our partner’s team.
Partnering Model
Our partnership with Microsoft began with a small proof-of-concept project and scaled to support 186 countries across 18 languages as a long-term outsourced business process. We dedicated a service team to serve as a PMO within a dynamic model that included flex capacity for graphics, UX, content strategy, editorial capabilities, and web development. As we focused on continuous improvement, we scaled our services into core workstreams to enhance support and efficiencies.
Full delivery teams deliver projects from end-to-end.
Integrated teams collaborate with Microsoft employees.
Subject matter experts advise on unique technical challenges.
Managed services include iterative process improvements.
Commercial Construct & Performance Management
As a value-driven strategic partner, Logic20/20 invests in the success of our partners and project teams:
Project
• Account team support
• Delivery team management
• Leadership oversight
• Dedicated recruiting and resource pipelines
Facilities
• Dedicated team space for outsourced services
• Software and hardware needed to support any role
• Building supplies and equipment
• Logistics, cleaning, and snacks
Team Morale
• Practice support
• Dedicated budget for project-specific training
• Diversity, equity & inclusion initiatives
• Team, company, and office events
• Designated career managers
Commercial Construct
• Flexible commercial models based on client needs
• Multi-year engagements with baseline cost reductions
• SLA and KPI baselines
• Single contract with flexible resourcing