Increasing Add-on Sales After Successful Pilot Listing: Building Brand, Presence, and Pipeline on the Web

ZSL is a global consulting, outsourcing, and technology services company that specializes in industry-specific solutions, outsourcing, and integration services. After learning about the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace, a website where partners can post their solutions for prospective customers, ZSL was quick to join. In adopting the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace, ZSL has taken an incremental approach, starting with its add-ons for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. From this, the company has, with little effort, achieved 10 customer inquiries of which one led to a sale.

ZSL is a global consulting, outsourcing, and technology services company that specializes in industry-specific solutions, outsourcing, and integration services. As a Microsoft partner with gold competencies in Enterprise Resource Planning and Customer Relationship Management, ZSL provides businesses with Microsoft Dynamics ERP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM products. Sales of add-on solutions for Microsoft Dynamics products constitute a significant portion of ZSL’s Microsoft Dynamics business. Manick Vel, Practice Head for Mid Market Solutions at ZSL, explains, “20 percent of our company revenue comes through add-on solutions; but more importantly, those add-ons are how we differentiate ourselves as a partner. They often open the door to the sale of our customization, implementation, and support services.” Some of ZSL’s add-ons include solutions like GP Exchange Rate Web Feeder, CRM – MapPoint Integration, Bulk Email Upload, CRM Copy Quote, and CRM Email Preview.

*
* We will be bringing our full suite of add-ons to the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace, helping us to market quickly on the web and open the door to a global audience. *

Manick Vel,
Practice Head for Mid Market Solutions, ZSL
*
When ZSL heard about the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace, a website where partners can post their solutions for prospective customers, the company was quick to join. “The customer buying habit for add-ons was already to purchase over the web,” says Vel. “In fact, 90 percent of our leads for add-on sales came through that channel. When Microsoft made the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace available, we saw that it could help us build the validity of our add-ons, provide a venue for showcasing them, and ultimately help us further grow our sales because it made it easier for customers to find the solutions they needed.”

In adopting the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace, ZSL has taken a slow but steady approach. “We started with one of our Microsoft Dynamics CRM add-ons and will make our nearly 20 other add-ons available in the near future,” says Vel. “When we made our add-ons available on the marketplace, we also began to incorporate new best practices, including providing support materials, case studies, and links to demos on our own site in our listing, to help drive traffic. We will also soon begin to include keywords to help in search engine optimization.”

Regarding the process of making ZSL add-on solutions available, Vel notes that, “We found it really easy to make our first add-on available on the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace. We just submitted it through a short certification process and it was soon listed on the marketplace.”

After six months on the marketplace, CRM Email Preview has garnered 10 inquiries and one sale—all with minimal effort. Says Vel, “We’re still in the early stages of using the Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace, but we, Microsoft, and many other partners are working hard to promote it. In the future, customers won’t search the web for add-on solutions; instead, they will go straight to the marketplace—and that will be a huge value-add for us.”

Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace Listing: dynamics.pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-US/PartnerDetails.aspx?PartnerId=4295610062