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How Automated Billing Platforms can Simplify Managing Pricing and Product Changes

Name: Work 365
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New products, changes in SKUs, changes in SKU functionality (Office 365 EX without Teams), six-monthly price adjustments for currency fluctuations, new offers, products being retired, term-based pricing, and different terms for certain SKUs – for example, Microsoft Co-pilot is only available for annual billing with an annual commitment.

It’s becoming cumbersome for Microsoft resellers and has an impact on all facets of the business. It impacts go-to-market, sales, support, billing and invoicing, renewals.

If not managed effectively, it can create friction with customers, time-consuming activities for all internal teams, revenue leakage, and churn.

However, with the right tools and systems, not only can you streamline operations, but you can reduce the costs, transform the way you deal with price changes, and maximize the opportunity,

Here are some of the top problems that Microsoft partners and resellers have to endure:

It’s not easy to learn about Microsoft price changes. You have to login to Partner Center and there are different price lists for legacy, NCE, Azure, Perpetual licenses. Doing business in multiple regions – that’s many more price lists.
There are thousands and thousands of products. The pricing is different for segments, and terms (annual vs monthly)
There is no way to know exposure. There is no way to know from Partner Center or price lists the exposure or risk you have as a partner because of the price change.

MSPs and CSPs must constantly validate pricing changes, end of SKUs, or new products from Microsoft to meet SLAs already agreed with their customers.
They need to manage renewals and update subscription pricing for customers.
The impact of price changes may be spread across a wide inventory of products. For minimizing adverse effects, Partners have to monitor the impact of price change and maintain the product catalog for individual products. Also monitor factors such as type of services offered, contractual period, usage terms, and so on.
Partners/ resellers need to handle revenue reconciliation in highly fluctuating pricing scenarios without risking the loss of customers over price hike in billing.

The next question that needs immediate attention in this context is about how partners can mitigate the challenges posed by such changes. The answer lies in bringing onboard an efficient billing automation solution in your business.

By using software and processes Microsoft Partners and Resellers can navigate price changes confidently and effectively.

Explore the entire CSP catalog with ease: no Excel

A solution like Work 365 enables you to explore the entire range of Microsoft CSP products across catalogs (Azure, New Commerce, Perpetual, Subscriptions), segments (Commercial, Education, Government, and Non-Profit), currencies, and markets.

Because you are not downloading price lists from PartnerCenter monthly, your entire organization, which is impacted by pricing (marketing, sales, support, and billing), is in the know.

With advanced grouping, sorting, and filtering capabilities, they can explore, navigate, and shortlist products from Microsoft’s tens of thousands of SKUs.

Build your own product catalog.

Most partners will have a core offering and focus. With the right software, you can build your product catalog, including what products you will market, resell, and develop pricing strategies for.

Pricing strategies could include markups and discounts, and the right solution would facilitate different pricing strategies for segments, products, customer types, or specific customers.

Eliminates Manual Effort

By leveraging an automated billing platform like Work 365 for your pricing and billing, it is possible to say goodbye to long hours of toiling with multiple spreadsheets and documents to develop invoices for customers. Everything can be automated with necessary controls on profit margins.

It also ensures that all stakeholders, including sales, finance, and IT teams can manage billing and invoices without glitches and delays. As billing is taken care of autonomously, sales and their associated teams can focus more on their core activities rather than spending time on creating viable financial models that accommodate changes in pricing made constantly by Microsoft.

Encourages Self-Service

Automated billing platforms eliminate the need for end customers to frequently reach out to MSPs for queries on their price quotes or to get information such as pricing reports. They can avail of all these services as well as raise queries, support requests, and demand any further reports, comfortably through self-service portals that are part of the billing solution. This allows for significant savings in terms of both manual effort and time to market.

Pricing fluctuations are an inevitable part of today’s highly competitive technology space. With vendors like Microsoft constantly thriving to set industry standards in pricing, partners and resellers can have a tough time aligning their revenue and billing processes to adapt to the dynamic nature of Microsoft’s pricing. Having a powerful automated billing solution is the key to eliminating complexity in pricing and ensuring that all end customers have a transparent and fair pricing model made available for them to consume.

If you’ve read this far, so you must be experiencing at least one of these challenges.The good news is Work 365 has you covered.

Schedule a Demo

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