Amazon Web Service Earns Frost & Sullivan's 2017 Competitive Strategy Innovation and Leadership Award for Its AWS Partner Network

AWS™ is a leader in the cloud market, offering a portfolio of more than 90 services. AWS™ has also garnered success through its extensive AWS Partner Network (APN), which helps APN Consulting Partners and APN Technology Partners grow their businesses. The company also offers solutions such as the AWS Competency Program, which helps providers of market-specific services differentiate their strengths in niche markets; the AWS Managed Service Provider Partner Program for APN Consulting Partners skilled in cloud infrastructure and management and application migration; and the AWS Service Delivery Program for APN Partners with a track record of delivering specific AWS services to customers. These programs are part of a comprehensive strategy that enables AWS to maintain its core business focus while providing customers with highly qualified APN members that can deliver solutions run on AWS.

As demand increases for cloud services, channel partner members must adapt to the new cloud-based economy. The AWS approach has proven effective in extending the company's reach by bringing in new customers that have existing relationships with different managed service or technology providers, as well as providing additional services for existing AWS customers to choose that are compatible with the AWS cloud services.

"The AWS focus on cloud services has been a success," said Karyn Price, Senior Industry Analyst, Cloud Computing at Frost & Sullivan. "As evidenced by AWS's market share—the company currently enjoys 68% of the growing US public cloud infrastructure market, up from 62% in 2014—success begets success. The more AWS dominates the cloud market, the more partners want to collaborate with them."

The APN has APN Technology Partners and APN Consulting Partners:

• APN Technology Partners include commercial software and Internet services companies that provide software solutions that are either hosted on or integrated with AWS.
• APN Consulting Partners include system integrators, managed service providers, and value-added resellers that help customers of all sizes design, architect, migrate, or build new applications on AWS.

APN Consulting Partners can be Registered, Standard, Advanced, Premier, or Managed Service (MSP) and Competency tier, while APN Technology Partners can be Registered, Standard, Advanced, or Competency tier. Each tier offers an increasing level of benefits. AWS helps its APN Consulting Partners and APN Technology Partners through deep sales-enablement programs and its AWS programs, developed by APN to help APN Consulting Partners and APN Technology Partners identify and build their core business differentiators, and provide guidance in how to leverage those strengths to the customers' benefit. This systematized process helps partners both differentiate and market their strengths to grow their businesses.

"APN Consulting Partners and APN Technology Partners have access to an online portal that offers a plethora of tools to help them grow their online businesses. They also have access to marketing support; video, webinar, and other technical aids; and unique programs that help them develop and test new services," Price said. "The benefits of the APN extend to customers as well: End customers can use the AWS Partner Solutions Finder to locate APN Consulting Partners and APN Technology Partners based on industry specialization, use case, or specific cloud expertise."  

As the relationships continue to evolve between cloud service providers and partners program members, those that understand the needs of channel partner program members in a cloud-based IT environment—and can best support those needs—are poised to thrive in today's IT environment. Frost & Sullivan commends AWS™ for developing its highly systematized, yet still personal, APN that has proven effective, as evidenced by its broad and deep bench of APN Consulting Partners and APN Technology Partners.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has leveraged competitive intelligence to successfully execute a competitive strategy that results in stronger market share, competitive brand positioning, and customer satisfaction.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Contact us: Start the discussion.

Contact:

Ana Arriaga
P: 210.247.3823
F: 210.348.1003
E: ana.arriaga@frost.com

Related Links

http://www.frost.com