{"id":27541,"date":"2023-06-12T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-12T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/en-us\/blog\/?p=27541"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:53:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:53:02","slug":"microsoft-commercial-marketplace-improves-b2b-commerce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/azure.microsoft.com\/en-us\/blog\/microsoft-commercial-marketplace-improves-b2b-commerce\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft commercial marketplace improves B2B commerce"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Companies continue to adopt the cloud across every aspect of their business. Scoped well beyond the IT department, every employee needs cloud-based services tailored to their function. So, even among economic uncertainties, cloud budgets are proving durable\u2014and even growing.

According to IDC, the public cloud services market will surpass USD1.7 trillion by 2026 and the number one consideration customers give to selecting a cloud provider is the quality of its cloud marketplace.1<\/sup> As organizations increasingly rely on cloud infrastructure and an increasing assortment of SaaS-based services to support their businesses, they need a way to streamline investments and simplify deployments. Cloud marketplaces<\/a> are maturing and becoming the preferred option for customers to find, purchase, and manage innovative applications and services to achieve their business outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The momentum will continue with two key benefits propelling cloud marketplaces as the B2B commerce channel of the future:

1. Reduce friction.<\/strong> During periods of economic and technical change, organizations everywhere need to accelerate IT modernization while optimizing costs and mitigating risk. Marketplace offers convenience, trust, and purchasing power for customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Cloud migration. <\/strong>Managing cash is critical for companies of all sizes and the flexible, subscription-based economics of the cloud is powering the growing worldwide market taking advantage of an operational expenditure model, rather than a traditional capital expenditure model, enables future growth and cost efficiencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advantages of the Microsoft commercial marketplace<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To further validate and gain insight specifically to how the Microsoft commercial marketplace<\/a> is benefitting customers, we commissioned GigaOm Research<\/a> to take an in-depth look at B2B buying journeys. Acting as a customer persona, GigaOm quantified the advantages of centralizing cloud purchases through the marketplace versus buying directly from vendors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study took three well-known products and documented how buying directly from those vendors measured up against the same process using the Microsoft commercial marketplace and deploying directly from Azure. Three factors were used to evaluate the results: time to value (whether purchasing through marketplace saves time), ease of procurement (length of quote request process and number of third parties involved in procurement), and billing transparency (complexity and visibility of all billing aspects).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The test results are clear as the Microsoft commercial marketplace performed far better than purchasing directly from the vendors, resulting in a score of 35 to 21 (with a possible max score of 45). Some of the key findings were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n