Salesforce and Amazon Web Services announced earlier this week that Salesforce will be available on the AWS Marketplace. This has multiple implications for Salesforce customers, including:
- The ability to save money through AWS discounts. With cost savings top of mind for everyone these days, one of the key benefits of this partnership will be the ability to increase AWS spend using dollars that you already planned to spend. This will have the financial benefit of increasing overall AWS commitment by adding Salesforce spend to the total, resulting in greater discounts through achieving a higher tier of spend for the AWS discounts.
- Streamlined procurement and billing. Firms using software-as-a-service marketplaces can reduce the number of places that their buyers go to procure and deploy technology, as we discussed in our latest Forrester Wave™ on the subject. They can also get more of their subscriptions to show up on a single invoice. This latest Salesforce-AWS announcement now adds a major vendor to the mix, one that is used by hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide. One benefit to firms that go this route is that they will be able to surface up Salesforce products in a sanctioned software marketplace to buyers around their organizations, enabling self-service and speed in a way that aligns with corporate needs.
- New abilities to use AI and link data across AWS and Salesforce products. This week’s announcement includes many more technology partnership benefits beyond the buying motion. For example, there is more AI collaboration, security, and data integration across products from the two firms. This builds on previous partnerships such as the partnership between Salesforce Service Cloud and Amazon Connect. For Salesforce-AWS customers, this will simplify integration and speed the ability to consume innovations at the interesection of these two major software platforms.
This announcement will appeal most to buyers who already have a significant relationship with AWS and who either use or are considering using Salesforce. If you are an AWS customer and already use Salesforce, look to upcoming (or early) renewal cycles to see if you can gain advantage. If you are an AWS customer and don’t use Salesforce but are considering it, incorporate this option into your buying process.
