Customers are always looking for ways to boost productivity. And one sure-fire way to magnify all business developments is through easy-to-use software and services. As customers adopt technologies like cloud and become more agile, their expectations around the speed and efficiency of software procurement and fulfillment also increase. They need to purchase and deploy the required software solutions in days and not weeks.

In the traditional software procurement cycle, customers have to go through the steps of discovering the right solutions, testing, creating Proofs of Concept, establishing value, securing budget, and obtaining legal approvals before they can even get started with extracting value from their investments. Many major cloud service providers (CSP) recognized this business opportunity and launched their respective Marketplaces.

Cloud Marketplaces have caused a paradigm shift in how customers find, buy and use enterprise software. This online store accommodates and fosters the growth of their services from third-party providers that have built their own solutions on top of the CSP’s platform. With a plethora of products, these marketplaces have solutions for infrastructure, DevOps, business applications, machine learning, data, Internet of Things (IoT), security, storage, and much more to help customers augment their cloud journey.

Cloud Marketplaces offer a win-win solution for customers as well as the independent software vendors (ISV) and global system integrators (GSI) that sell their solutions on the platform. Cloud customers now have a wider palette of products and solutions that fits their needs. The ease with which customers can get through the software procurement and consumption cycle is unparalleled. Ease of consumption along with integrated experience across hundreds of services in the cloud platform is driving a virtuous cycle of adoption and stickiness. There are flexible consumption and contract models (free-trials, pay-as-you-go, hourly & monthly, annual & multi-year, ‘bring your own license’, sellers’ private offers, and consulting partners’ private offers) on these marketplaces that are transforming the way cloud users transact and consume these services.

On the supply side, the visibility and reach that the product of the ISVs/GSIs can get in this ecosystem is exceptional. The cost for these vendors has reduced orders of magnitude and they are able to quickly build and scale offers on this agile platform. These marketplaces have evolved from being just catalogs to full-fledged value chain. Adding features of popular e-commerce websites that support a growing buyer/seller community, promote a diversity of products and services and drive sales will increase the user adoption of cloud marketplaces. There is ample potential for future spends on cloud platforms that no software vendor can ignore.

With the spread that the marketplace is able to bring together, customers are today spoilt for choices. As an Amazon Web Services’ AI/ML marketplace launch partner and a leading GSI in the cloud space, Wipro also has its marquee AI/ML solutions on the AWS marketplace.

Embarking on a cloud journey requires a great deal of planning, with many considerations to be made at the stage of software procurement itself. Keep in mind that there are several resources and partners available to guide you in this transformation and Wipro, as a Premier Consulting AWS partner, is one of them. Wipro can help you bring your vision to life and support you on this exciting initiative.