1. Battle Card: Why Cloud Partner go do’s
Last Updated: Oct 2018
Partner go do’s 1 2 3 4 5
Understand your customer: where they are now in terms of licensing/deployment position.
Identify any blockers for moving to the cloud: security and compliance, cost, other IT concerns.
Address the blocker using guidance (5 Benefits of the Cloud, Why Cloud Blocker 1-pager)
Land the value and benefits of moving to the Microsoft 365 cloud now with Transform ( Tailor the message to your customer’s cloud blockers.
Once the customer is open to the idea of the cloud, move forward with the other Microsoft 365 sales resources.
This play card is for internal Partner use only. It provides benefits, potential cost savings, best practices, and links to resources and support for landing “Why Cloud” conversations. A
Know where to start your conversation with a non-Microsoft 365 customer
Where are they now?
(licensing/deployment position)
Comfortable with the cloud?
Conversation starts at…
Customer Group
(non-cloud groups are in bold)
Owns other Microsoft cloud (non-M365) or a cloud position with competitor
Yes
Why Microsoft 365
Sees cloud value – but lack awareness of Microsoft 365
Private cloud No
Why Cloud
Do it yourselfers
Owns SA, ProPlus, or a newer Office version
On-prem, staying current
No Office or on Office 2007 only
IT laggards B
How to personalize the “Why Cloud” messages based on current positioning
Group
Top Customer Concern
Primary Message
Top Value Messages
Top Blockers
Do it yourselfers
What are the benefits of productivity in the public cloud vs. doing it yourself?
A hosted solution can be more cost-effective and more secure than what you can create or provide yourself
Helps to simplify IT, potential security improvements, reduce costs, supports teamwork/innovation
IT (Control), Security, Cost
On-prem, staying current
Why move to the cloud at all or why now?
The cloud helps to improve teamwork and spur innovation while enabling you to stay secure
Supports teamwork/innovation, potential security improvements, helps to simplify IT, promotes agility/ability to stay current
Security, IT (Migration)
IT laggards
Why invest in IT at all?
The cloud helps to remove the headache of managing IT yourself and the risk of non-compliance on old, unsupported systems (end-of-life)
Helps to simplify IT, can reduce costs, promotes agility/ability to stay current
Microsoft confidential – Internal Partner use only – Do not use as marketing collateral

2. Show how moving to the cloud can benefit a customer
Reimagining how people, data, and processes are brought together in the cloud enables digital transformation which can create value, enable connected experiences, drive efficiencies, and generate competitive differentiation in a business.
Provides solutions that can enhance teamwork, unlock innovation, and drive culture change, wherever your employees work.
Supports simplified IT management, removing the headaches of managing hardware without losing control of your environment.
Helps improve security by delivering end-to-end protection from cyberthreats with capabilities that organizations cannot match on their own while staying on-premises, including staying up to date on security patches and support in enabling compliance.
Can help reduce costs by eliminating hardware costs, reducing administration costs, and retiring third-party products.
Can increase overall business agility, ability to stay current, scale, and roll out new capabilities quickly and cost effectively.
Not moving to the cloud can result in: a disconnected workforce, wasting time on IT maintenance, being at an increased risk for security breaches and noncompliance, higher costs, and the inability to ramp up new functionality quickly. D
Follow best practices for landing key “Why Cloud” messages
Cloud promotes teamwork and innovation. Present a digital transformation vision. Teams work better together when they can access, edit, and share documents anytime, from anywhere. Cloud-based workflow and file sharing apps help them make updates in real time. Moving to the cloud spurs innovation with teams working together effectively. (Steelcase)
Cloud helps simplify IT management. Present the Modern Desktop pitch. Eliminate hardware management and other admin tasks so you can redeploy your most valuable IT resources to higher value activities than managing computing. Your environment is always up-to-date, while fine-grained management tools let you maintain control. You can also take advantage of Microsoft’s ability to support a hybrid cloud/on-premises environment, which helps you move to the cloud faster. (FedEx)
Cloud helps improve security and enable compliance. Present a vision of security in the cloud. The money and manpower Microsoft invests in its cloud infrastructure cannot be matched by clients. Clients can harness these investments for their own benefit through the cloud and build a more secure environment that is always up to date to thwart the latest global cyberthreats without limiting employee productivity. Demonstrate that Microsoft can scale and protect better than anything a client could build themselves on-premises. The cloud’s built-in compliance capabilities make it easier to meet GDPR and other regulations’ requirements. (BP)
Cloud helps reduce costs. Use Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) reports to give an estimate of potential cloud savings. Use Cost Savings Guidance to provide direction and a starting point for the cost conversation. The Cost Take Out Tool helps to identify third-party cost displacement savings. (Revel Consulting)
Cloud promotes agility and can keep you current. Present the digital transformation vision with the Modern Desktop pitch. CIOs rate ‘operational agility’ as a top driver for cloud adoption. Provide users with the latest capabilities for productivity and mobility. Make sure you stay on supported products – Office 2007 reached end of extended support in 2017; Office 2010 will in (Bertel O. Steen) E
Use cost savings guidance
Server, storage, and datacenter costs
Vendor displacement across security, compliance, identity, communications, BI, MDM, and file shares
Annual hardware and software deployment costs 
eDiscovery legal reviews
Annual administration costs
Spending on on-premises Microsoft software across CALs, Windows, and Office
Security breach detection and remediation cost savings annually
*Additional information including this initial estimate and those for additional company sizes can be found here.
Customer Resources:
5 reasons to move to the cloud, 10 myths about the cloud, Questions to ask before choosing a cloud provider
Additional SMC-specific resources:
Questions to ask, Webcast: secure cloud, Engage your employees, About Office 365, Customer-facing SMC page
Microsoft Partner confidential – Internal use only – Do not use as marketing collateral