Elly Yates-Roberts |
This article was originally published in the Summer 2019 issue of The Record. Subscribe for FREE here to get the next issue delivered directly to your inbox.
With an already well-established product offering spanning both the public and private sectors, Formpipe is built on solid foundations. The firm’s efficient document management solution, Lasernet, is sold worldwide and used by over 2,500 companies, simplifying and streamlining the management of both outgoing and incoming business documents, delivering the documents in the exact format and layout desired.
Formpipe began collaborating with Microsoft back in 2017, following the opening of a new office in Copenhagen. The Microsoft team in Copenhagen set its sights on Formpipe from the start, and we immediately recognised the enormous potential of the partnership. Formpipe is now an established co-sell prioritised partner with our Lasernet solution and we have since extended the cooperation to also include other solutions from the Formpipe suite. In addition to this, we also collaborate with leads through Microsoft’s One Commercial Partner (OCP) programme.
This all started when we added Lasernet to AppSource. It’s the smartest thing we’ve done. It opened a window to the world and gave us the opportunity to post a demo video of our product. Microsoft really got eye of Lasernet via AppSource and started using our demo as an example for its own partners and customers.
We then learned that Microsoft was building a co-sell programme. We seized the opportunity and filled in the OCP directory straight away and helped Microsoft to market our software. We did everything asked of us as quickly and precisely as possible.
We also decided to register our leads on Microsoft’s system. The transparency of this meant that we had access to a lot of people on Microsoft’s part who wanted to collaborate with us. We soon saw they were getting leads for Dynamics thanks to us and, in return, we saw our buying cycle reduced from three to six months to within just one month.
Formpipe is currently building a specific Microsoft team that will exclusively work on the collaboration. With concrete business plans in place with Microsoft, we are looking to jointly access new markets. Together, we are now evaluating possible synergies within business and technology and are seeing how they can be improved for both companies.
The strategy is typical of Formpipe. We work together, act and react – it’s our culture. Microsoft loves our products. But I think it also loves our business culture – that we act and react, quickly.
Lasernet is now available as a clover offer and is presented with complementary products through Microsoft’s marketplaces in the cloud: AppSource; and Azure Marketplace.
Mike Rogers is sales and marketing director, Private Sector at Formpipe