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Microsoft and Microsoft Partner Confidential
December 19, 2014
Sellers Guide
Microsoft and Microsoft Partner Confidential
What questions does this address?
What is the Assessment and Planning Experience?
How does APEx support business goals?
What makes a good target account?
Who could be part of the team?
How does an estate view help customers?
How do I start the discussion?
What tools are available for me to use?
How does the process work?
How do I make a compelling case?
What can I do to overcome obstacles?
Where can I find more resources?
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What is the Assessment and Planning Experience?
APExAPEx is a sales program that provides the support you need to assist customers with scanning their software environments, building a detailed view of their IT estate, and understanding the results. Use APEx to have great upfront conversations with customers, efficiently collect inventory data, and provide new insights that will help customers make informed decisions around their current technology resources and future investments.
APEx includes a set of tools that help customers gather data, store data securely, and analyze data about their software environments to help them achieve their business goals.
Objectives
Resources
APEx will help you:
• Communicate to customers the value of scanning their software environments.
• Support customers who want to upgrade their estate, migrate off a competitor, or scale to the cloud.
• Identify ways to improve a customer’s IT estate – from maximizing performance of existing assets, to eliminating entry points for unauthorized access – and more.
Resources that support the APEx program include:1. Detailed discussion guides to help you effectively engage the customer.
2. A web-based WorkSpace application for securely managing engagements.
3. Guidance on how to perform an IT environment scan using the MAP Toolkit.
4. The Analyzer tool to summaries and reports using the customer’s scan data.
5. A Summary template to help you summarize the findings and present recommendations.
6. A helpdesk team, ready to walk you through any part of the process.
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How does APEx support business goals?
APEx insights help you…
Grow your customer’s business
Build customer trust
• Using APEx tools to help customers understand their complete estate can lead to new sales involving upgrades, competitive migrations, software assurance (SA), Azure and more.
• You can use the detailed estate data to identify places where customers may be eligible for special offers from Microsoft, and you can help them leverage the scan to ensure they are adhering to their industry’s regulations.
Consolidate your customer engagements
• An estate overview provides the opportunity to discuss strategic IT-estate goals which you can use to build a long-term plan.
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How do I manage the engagement? Eng
agem
ent
Du
rati
on
: U
p t
o 9
0 d
ays Identify key accounts that are well positioned to take advantage of the benefits an
IT estate summary can offer.
Enlist all account team members to help determine the right approach, communicate the value, and build contacts.
Determine the scenario in which the results from the estate scan are likely to yield the greatest benefit to your customer.
Use the MAP Toolkit, the WorkSpace, and the Analyzer to gather data, store data securely, and analyze your customer’s data.
Use the findings from the Analyzer to demonstrate how your customer can realize more value from their environment.
Identify target accounts
Unify the team
Start the discussion
Use reliable tools
Demonstrate the value
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What makes a good target account?Identify target accounts
Customers facing a time-stamped event such as:
Be well-positioned to hear and take advantage of the benefits an IT estate summary can offer. It’s never too early to start the discussion with any customer regardless of their event horizon.Build APEx into your account planning & start now!
Renewal or true-up deadline for a Microsoft Volume Licensing Agreement
Compelling license transition or end of an agreement End of an agreement with a competitor A need for additional products
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Someone who can act as an ambassador for the APEx process within the entire customer organization.
Someone who can make sure the customer understands the value of running an IT environment scan.
Someone who can find the right technical person at the customer’s organization to run the scan.
Someone with technical expertise who can help the customer’s technical contact run the scan. This person may also help recruit the customer contact with the ATS.
Someone outside Microsoft who can help discuss the benefits of the inventory, and encourage the use scan tools. Common partners are LSPs/ Resellers and SAM Partners.
Who could be part of the team?
RolePartner Account
ManagerPSS or SSP
ATS TSP
Description of key tasks
Unify the team
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How can an estate view help customers?Start the discussion
APEx insights can help
customers…
Save money
Plan for the future
• Get more from software investments • Take advantage of special offers• Lower infrastructure costs• Scale up using cloud services• Realize virtualization plans• Benefit from fail-over rights
• Avoid security threats and unplanned downtime• Stay compliant with industry regulations• Protect mobility rights
Maximize performance
• Get the most from existing investments• Leverage dual-upgrade scenarios • Ensure next version upgrades
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Start the discussionHow do I start the discussion?
Use the detailed discussion guides (Word doc) to plan your approach.• Pick the most relevant “discussion starter” question for your customer
and open the conversation with it. • Use the points from the Value & Savings section to help your customer
understand the scenario you’re describing and how it affects them. • Explain to your customer how insights from the scan will help them
realize the benefits you’ve discussed (spelled out in the “Why performing an inventory assessment is important” section).
Desired Outcome: Customer happily agrees to perform a scan of their IT estate.
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Use reliable toolsWhat tools are available to help?
Tool Name DescriptionMAP Toolkit(download)
The MAP (Microsoft Assessment & Planning) Toolkit assesses a network environment using agentless data collection technologies to gather inventory and performance information and provides source reports that aid organizations in their IT infrastructure planning.
WorkSpace(login)
A new web-based application that is designed to help you manage your APEx engagements. The WorkSpace formats and encrypts the data allowing you and your customers to securely share it. The WorkSpace houses other useful tools including the Analyzer.
Analyzer (available in WorkSpace)
The Analyzer is an Excel-based tool that provides summaries, charts, and visualizations of the inventory data to help identify areas where customers could be getting more from their environment. It produces reports for: SQL Server, Cross Product (ie. datacenter software supporting a data platform), Windows Server, Visual Studio, and Azure Propensity.
Customer Output Tools(available on APEx MPN page)
A full set of materials to help you share your findings with your customer including a summary template, support from Sales Desk (Microsoft only), and value presentation guidance.
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Use reliable tools
1. Send the customer the “How to run the MAP 9.0 toolkit” sample email included on APEx website and in the Technical User Guide.
2. Customer follows the provided instructions and runs the MAP Toolkit
3. The resulting MAP.bak file will be needed to generate the analysis of their environment.
How does the process work?
Present findings and recommendations
1. Contact [email protected] to request access to the WorkSpace. You need a Microsoft Live ID to register.
2. Login and setup your engagements. These map to CRM opportunities IDs.
3. Download a Windows 8 app (Discovery Toolkit) to consolidate the MAP.bak file into a spreadsheet. Follow the instructions for gathering additional information (step 1 in the WorkSpace).
4. Encrypt your customer’s data (step 2 in the WorkSpace).
1. Use the charts, visualizations, and summaries from the Analyzer to build your recommendations for your customer.
2. Use the Summary Template to consolidate the results. For Microsoft employees, //salesdesk/ is available to help create this summary.
3. Use the discussion guides to help with the conversation around the results.
1. Download the Analyzer through the link provided in step 2 in WorkSpace or ask APExhelp for a direct link.
2. From the “Start Here” tab on the Analyzer, import your customer’s EDP file. Select which product environment analysis you want to look at first.
3. Review the resulting charts and summary reports on the corresponding tabs in the workbook.
Use the Analyzer to visualize the data
Consolidate and encrypt the data on WorkSpace
Customer scans their estate with the MAP
Toolkit
After the customer is on board and ready to scan their environment:
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Demonstratethe valueHow do I make a compelling case?
Get detailed guidance and useful tips to help you demonstrate the value from the Discussion Guides found on the APEx MPN or APEx InfoPedia.
Graphs show a sample of the data visualization that automatically builds when a customer’s data is loaded into the Analyzer.
Total No. of Servers (150)
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• Make sure everyone understands the process and the desired outcome.
• Run the numbers to show how your sales can benefit everyone on the team. Collaborate with team members to help them reach their goals too.
• Get started early – between 4-6 months prior to a time-stamped event is ideal! Make sure everyone is on board and give each person a reason to buy into the process.
• Help prepare the customer by explaining the tool requirements, the report dependencies, and the timeline.
• Use accurate data. Make sure the customer has access to the required information.
• Encourage upper management to get involved early.
• Different team members will have slightly different objectives priorities.
• Delegating tasks can be tricky and could bring the process to a stalemate if not handled delicately.
• These discussions and engagements take time. They may slow down the sales cycle and delay closing deals.
• Customers may need help performing the scan.
• Running a scan can be difficult and customers may unknowingly provide incomplete information.
• Upper management may request a thorough review when they see the final report and any errors in the data will reflect poorly on the engagement.
Obstacles to watch out for Tips
How can I overcome common obstacles?
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APEx MPN Page- https://mspartner.microsoft.com/en/us/Pages/Solutions/APEx.aspx
MAP Toolkit Information- http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=233058
WorkSpace (invite to login required)-https://mssampw-int.com/Account/Login?ReturnUrl=%2F
Support and Questions- [email protected]
Microsoft Internal-Only Resources:Microsoft InfoPedia Site- http://infopedia/Pages/APEX.aspxMicrosoft Yammer Group- https://corp.sts.microsoft.com/adfs/ls/
Where can I find more resources?
© 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries. The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.
