How Kovai.co Turbocharged Its GTM On The Azure Marketplace With WeTransact

Kovai.co is a multi-award-winning software vendor with a suite of world-class software products: BizTalk360, Document360, and Turbo360. The Turbo360 platform is designed to maximize ROI on Azure cloud investments, providing the visibility needed to support different solutions and manage Azure spending.

To better serve Azure-based customers, Kovai.co needed its Turbo360 product listed and transacting on the Microsoft marketplace. But, the process presented two key challenges: technical complexity and go-to-market (GTM) strategy. That’s why Kovai.co leaned into the marketplace expertise of WeTransact.

“The WeTransact portal streamlines the commercial process. It makes things a lot easier.” - Michael Stephenson, Product Owner for Turbo360

A scaling SaaS striving for unicorn status

CEO and Founder of Kovai.co, Saravana Kumar, has grown a single-person product entity – BizTalk360 – into a multi-product, multinational organization with an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of US$10 million.

The former Microsoft consultant is passionate about developing the SaaS ecosystem in Tier II cities. His current mission is to make Kovai.co the first SaaS unicorn in Coimbatore, India – his hometown and the city from which the company takes its name (Coimbatore is ‘Kovai’ in Tamil).

Since 2023, Azure Expert and Microsoft MVP Michael Stephenson has been the project lead for the Turbo360 product. Azure is a powerful platform on which to build solutions, but gaps can sometimes emerge in runtime operations and cost management. Turbo360 helps organizations address these gaps, optimize the value of apps, and minimize the total cost of ownership.

One of the key challenges facing Azure customers is keeping track of their configurations and spending over time, as they consume more and more products and services. As a result, many companies have huge pockets of waste – they just don’t have the visibility to see it. And that’s where Turbo360 can help. In fact, one customer used the platform to uncover $1 million of cost savings per year.

The Azure marketplace had been on Michael’s radar for a number of years. But even for the technical experts at Kovai.co, it was difficult to understand how to navigate the complexities of the marketplace, and Partner Center, to deliver the best offer to customers. Previous attempts at deploying an app resulted in a product listing, but the company hit a number of barriers on the commercial side. They needed an expert guide to get listed and stimulate marketplace growth.

It was whilst exploring the Microsoft Partner ecosystem that Kovai.co discovered a C2C briefing hosted by WeTransact’s CRO and Co-founder, Juan Castiblanques. It was exactly what the team needed to hear.

Turbocharging Kovai.co’s GTM on the marketplace

“We knew enough to know we could do something, but not enough to make it happen. WeTransact held our hand and guided us through it.” - Michael Stephenson, Product Owner for Turbo360

Watching the briefing, Michael and the Kovai.co team realized that WeTransact could help supercharge their efforts on the Partner Center. Within a short space of time, the product was set up, configured, and deployed. They also went through the entire transactability process, quickly arriving at IP Co-sell status, and qualifying for incentives.

Within the first two months of listing, Kovai.co secured its first marketplace customer via the WeTransact portal. It’s now looking at migrating existing customer renewals onto the marketplace and qualifying for more incentives. The portal has simplified the commercial side of things, but the company also benefitted from support on the GTM strategy. WeTransact has helped them reach out to MSPs (Managed Service Providers) and CSPs (Cloud Solutions Providers) to connect with potential partners.

The next big focus for Kovai.co is outbound sales. For that, they intend to fully leverage the Microsoft Marketplace. All Turbo360 customers are Azure customers, so paying for Turbo360 through their Azure spend makes sense. That’s especially true when you consider the potential cost savings that Turbo360 can deliver, and the need to deploy unfulfilled MACC (Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment).

WeTransact has been instrumental in getting Turbo360 listing and transacting on the Microsoft Marketplace. In fact, it’s a partnership that’s opened the door for a second product listing for Document360.

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Curious on how WeTransact helps you build your go-to-market strategy on the Marketplace? Talk to Us.