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Could you explain the concept behind the AWS Marketplace? Who are some of your customers? AWS Marketplace is a service where a customer can discover a product, a service, or a solution that meets their business need. We think of it as Amazon.com, but for Enterprise IT. It was launched over 13 years ago. We’ve been focused on expanding AWS Marketplace outside of the United States, like in India now. AWS Marketplace offers more than 25,000 listings from AWS partners, including ISVs like CrowdStrike, Databricks, Snowflake, and Splunk, all of whom crossed a billion dollars in sales through the Marketplace last year. Salesforce has already eclipsed multiple billions of dollars and has been on the AWS Marketplace for under two years. It’s also a great route to market for consulting partners like Accenture and Deloitte, who are providing their end-to-end solutions through the AWS Marketplace. For customers, it’s a place to discover, evaluate, and procure these products and services, and for partners, it’s a place to reach customers. We’re helping these partners expand their reach, revenue, and relationships with customers, which they would find difficult doing on their own. What does this India expansion mean? Does it now allow Indian ISVs and GSIs to find customers on the AWS Marketplace? Customers could earlier procure from the AWS Marketplace, but what’s significant about the expansion is that India-based customers can now buy offerings from India-based software and services companies using local invoicing and local payment options. Sellers like ISVs and consulting partners can now list and sell their software and services in Indian rupees. The tailoring is that it’s available for them to purchase within the local requirements. We are excited about helping local vendors in India grow their business. We see India not just as a market, but as a catalyst for global transformation. For customers in India, being able to access a broad offering catalog of offers unlocks huge value for them. For Indian vendors to reach customers outside of India provides them with new growth opportunities. One local customer in India is Swiggy. They shared that they use AWS Marketplace to manage their work with 140 ISVs. It allows them to streamline their procurement process, reducing their procurement complexity from a couple of weeks to a few days to evaluate all their vendors and transact with them. GupShup, Clevertap, and Wakefit are among others who have been using AWS Marketplace to procure and manage their IT estate. Can companies potentially increase their IT budgets because of a simplified procurement process? Companies across all industry verticals, including the public sector, are using AWS Marketplace. The reason isn’t necessarily to expand their tech stack since every company relies on technology for fundamental business operations. However, there are other benefits to a simplified procurement process. Forrester conducted a total economic impact of AWS Marketplace. They saw that vendors that list on AWS Marketplace get a 377 per cent return on investment. They get a payback within six months. Customers reportedly saw a 70 per cent reduction in discovery time and a 60 per cent faster procurement process. It’s less about reducing hesitation and more about helping the customer find what they need quicker. If you can reduce the amount of time it takes you to discover the best solution for you by 70 per cent , your problems will be solved 70 per cent faster. This will become more important with AI agents. If you take a business process that a customer has, there could potentially be dozens of agents to support that business process. If you have a traditional procurement method for each of those agents, that time and that complexity could add up. AWS Marketplace simplifies the customer’s ability to pinpoint the agents and the tools that will support them faster. We think the benefits will increase with the agentic proliferation that will happen. Has listing on the AWS Marketplace had any impact on companies’ DSO metrics? Absolutely. The speed of closing deals has gone down. The time to close a deal is 60 per cent faster through the AWS Marketplace. For example, a U.S.-based medical company had a cybersecurity issue and needed to procure a new solution. Using AWS Marketplace, what would have taken them days took them minutes. With GenAI, it’s not just about the time to procure, but the time to extract value. Through our AWS Partner Network, we’ve launched a GenAI competency for our partners. To date, over 110 partners have this competency. This process helps customers have a 30 per cent increased likelihood of moving GenAI pilots into production when they’re working without a partner with this competency.
