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Changes are Coming to the Microsoft CSP Program for Seat Based Offerings

Leah Davenport Marketing Specialist

Self-Guided NCE Training and Certification Now Available

As the largest and most significant change in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program since its launch in 2015, Microsoft is introducing important updates to seat-based offerings. The changes made through the New Commerce Experience (NCE) will have a major impact on commercial terms, margins, incentives, billing logic and billing dates.

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The course covers:

  • How TD SYNNEX can help you with the risks and benefits of NCE
  • Impact of NCE on the distribution channel
  • License life cycle management of subscriptions in NCE for seat-based cloud offerings compared to legacy CSP offerings
  • New rules regarding suspension, cancellation, renewal, migration and billing of subscription

Complete the lessons and pass the quiz at the end of the course to earn your Microsoft NCE Certification badge.

NCE updates include:

  • Enforcement of no-cancellation policy. You can no longer cancel or reduce seats during annual term, only at renewal of term.
  • New monthly subscription option. Customers, who require more flexibility to adjust seats may choose the new monthly term offers with a premium price.
  • New options to manage subscriptions, including upgrading products and schedule changes for renewal.
  • Easier to understand billing data and less administrative work.

More intuitive purchase experience for partners making it easier to meet the diverse needs of customers.

The update to the Microsoft CSP program for seat-based offers are part of the modernization of Microsoft Commerce options aligning Microsoft licensing programs, tools and services designed to make it more simple for customers to do business with Microsoft and partners. Microsoft has named this “The New Commerce Experience”, or in short “NCE”).

During the last two years, we did see Microsoft making changes to the partner and customer agreements, and introducing new services in the CSP program. The new commerce experience was launched in CSP for Azure plan, Server Subscriptions, and Azure reserved instances in 2019, and now in January 2022, Microsoft will introduce a new set of offers in the new commerce experience for Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Windows 365. Simultaneously, as part of this launch, an array of new features and functionalities will be introduced to CSP, in response to partner requests and customer needs.

These efforts will result in a more intuitive and streamlined purchase experience for partners, making it easier to meet the diverse needs of customers and reducing the complexity of the overall sales process between partners and their customers. The revisions and additions to policies, functionalities, offers, processes, and billing included in this release have two goals:

  • Introduce a set of new offers, policies and functionalities that will replace the current experience for partners in CSP. In new commerce, customers have a consistent set of policies, agreements, and procedures across all purchase motions, regardless of how the purchase happens (through a partner in breadth (CSP), through a Microsoft seller in enterprise or directly on one of Microsoft’s commercial marketplaces or online portals).
  • Complete the foundation in new commerce for transforming the way partners sell and customers buy in the cloud, and enable partners to expand their cloud business, offerings, and services in the years ahead.

Microsoft is simplifying the customer purchase experience, making it easier to choose the right path for your Microsoft business.

Of course, this update to the CSP program may be a significant change to the way, you do business with Microsoft. And certainly we will have some work together to land the change well with our existing customers and help them upgrade from the previous CSP-offers to the new offers.

The good news; we are ready to support you.

  • Tech Data Sales Teams, Solution Experts and License Desk are ready to support you find the best solution for your customers and help you upgrade from previous offers to the new offers.
  • StreamOne Cloud Marketplace is ready to support the new commerce offers and billing logic. As Microsoft launches the new offers January 2022, you will be able to place your orders in StreamOne Cloud Marketplace.
  • During the next months we will assist our reseller partners creating the best plan to upgrade from previous CSP-offers to new offers.
  • We will host multiple webinars and trainings to help our partners and their sales-staff understand the changes and how to navigate the new commerce offers.

And please remember, any change from Microsoft is a good opportunity to engage with existing partners and new prospects.

  • Use the opportunity to do a right-sizing assessment of their licensing
  • Inform your customers how to benefit from choosing Microsoft 365 to address security concerns
  • Maybe your customers needs help to adopt Microsoft services like Teams
  • Or maybe you will identify a cloud migration project

Use the opportunity to engage with your customers and identify opportunities to assist with your services

Microsoft resources related to Microsoft New Commerce:

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