GSMO ENGAGE 2020

Join the Teams Call Here

@ 6:00 p.m. 24th Sep!
GSMO CHALLENGE CASE STUDY SUBMISSION RULES

 Single submission per person. In case of multiple submissions, first

submission would be considered for evaluation.

 Choose any one of the 3 case studies and submit your proposal on the
GSMO Engage website.

 Each submission should be a 3-4 slides of Power Point presentation

with the solution highlighted.

 Some of the focus areas for assessment will be:

 Market Research

 Feasibility of the implementation of the idea;

 Scalability

 Originality & creativity of the idea

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
MENTORSHIP PATH - October 12th – 23rd
 Shortlisted Candidates will be assigned mentors from Microsoft.

 Your assignment will span over 2 weeks with the following focus areas –

 Target Setting - The candidate will connect with the mentor to

understand the assignment and get more clarity on target setting &
assessment parameters.

 Mid-Point Connect – To check on the progress made.

 Final Connect – Final assignment submission.

 Based on the feedback of the mentor, the candidate may be given an

opportunity to present their learnings to a panel of leaders.

 Candidates who perform well and get recommended by the panel of

leaders will be considered for an internship opportunity for 2021 (April –
May 2021)

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
GSMO ENGAGE – NEXT STEPS
 Case Study Submission deadline – 1st October 2020 11:59 PM.

 Submit your Case Solutions on the GSMO Engage website

 Shortlisted Candidates list announced – 7th October.

 All candidates shortlisted from the case study challenge will be assigned a
Mentor.

 Meet your Mentor – 12th October.

 Mentorship timelines – 12th October – 23rd October.

 Mentor evaluation results – 27th October

 Panel Presentations – From 27th October onwards

 Top performers will be considered for an internship opportunity with

GSMO for 2021 (April – May 2021)

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
Are you Ready?

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
 CASE STUDY – TOPIC 1

Increase Customer Adds on Cloud for

Microsoft India

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
Increase Customer Adds on Cloud for
Microsoft India
Context

We have several millions of customers that are small and medium business (SMB)
owners in India. They typically have 10- 250 employees in the company. They can be
in any vertical – retail, manufacturing, services industry etc.

Up until a few years ago, many of them have been reluctant to adopt technology.
However in the last couple of months, with GST, digital payments and with the
increased need to work remotely given the pandemic, mobile app penetration
companies have increased their adoption of various technologies.

Microsoft Cloud Business

Microsoft Cloud business has been growing strong over several years and the
penetration has gone up tremendously. We have multiple data centers in India and
are the only company with multiple data centers in the same country.

If companies have data residency requirements i.e. data to reside only in India, only
Microsoft can always provide it. (Several other companies have only one data center
and so, if that goes down due to disaster, the backup data is stored outside India).

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
Increase Customer Adds on Cloud for
Microsoft India
Customer Environments

While several of these SMBs use teams for collaboration, only 1/5th of them use
Azure. Several customers use ERP solutions or taxation related solutions from
independent software vendors (ISVs). Some of these ISVs are on Azure. Similarly,
Customers could directly use cloud services for strong backup data or protecting data
against disasters or using cloud for analytics on customers or leverage Artificial
intelligence services for advanced scenarios (for example detecting faults post
processing in a textile plant or predicting equipment failure) or use a product vendor
solution (a mini ERP or CRM) that is hosted on Azure cloud.
A key thing to keep in mind is that customers are price sensitive and are under cash
crunch especially with the Covid Pandemic.

How SMBs can buy today

Our current go to market strategy is to work through partners. Several of our key
distribution partners also resell and provide migration services. The distributors work
with smaller resellers to provide migration services to customers or work with
independent software vendors (ISVs). These distributors sell all types of Microsoft
products to customers (including teams). Most of products can also be acquired
online by SMBs
M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
Increase Customer Adds on Cloud for
Microsoft India
Business Problem

We are looking to increase our penetration of Microsoft Cloud into our SMBs.
Acquiring customers is key to increase penetration. Given that our channel partners
(both distributors and resellers) in several cases sell competing cloud solutions, there
is a challenge and conflict in channel sometimes.

Also Channel typically finds hard to acquire customers as SMB customers may have
low spend initially. SMBs have multiple point solutions (Free/ paid) in their
environment.

They may find local solutions as good enough and trade off features to cost of
acquiring a robust solution.

SMBs may not have formal IT departments and lean on referral / hear say.

Reaching out to SMBs in a diverse country such as ours poses a challenge.

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
Increase Customer Adds on Cloud for
Microsoft India
Problem Statement

 How would you segment the SMB customers? Which target segment would you go
behind?

 From a channel perspective, what sort of programs and offers would you employ
for them to acquire more SMB customers?

 What channel programs would you target to the distributors/reseller and what
programs would you get the distributors/resellers to provide? What is their
motivation to provide the same?

 What strategies would you employ to increase Cloud penetration in SMB?

 What alternate scale channels /partnerships can be leveraged to acquire SMB

customers in India

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
 CASE STUDY – TOPIC 2

Firstline worker in Remote/Hybrid

work

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
Firstline worker in Remote/Hybrid work
Why?

 Microsoft is focusing on Firstline workers to enable them work better using

technology.

 Firstline workers have different needs from normal office workers and the
personas are also very diverse across various verticals e.g. Store employees, Field
Sales, Onsite service, Dealers etc.

 Remote and Hybrid work during the COVID has hit these employees significantly
and there is a need to enable their work securely and efficiently in a seamless
manner.

What?

 Understand the different Firstline worker profiles across one of Manufacturing,

Banking, Retail and BPO industries in India – how their work is impacted by COVID.

 Map the emerging industry trends as organizations reimagine this workforce to

deal with the changes.

 Formulate Strategy for Microsoft India to address these needs.

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
Firstline worker in Remote/Hybrid work

Who?

 Key customers across one of Manufacturing, Banking, Retail and BPO industries.

 Target Firstline profile of employees only.

Benefits?

 How can we put the right solution and use cases to deal with real problems for
these employees?

 What is the right Total Economic Impact (TEI) framework that would make sense
for organizations to get the ROI from the investment required?

Ideas from Candidates

 Understand real problems for these user profiles specific to India.

 Provide practical ideas that we can implement fast and show returns on the
investment.

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
Firstline worker in Remote/Hybrid work

Final Deliverable from Candidates

 Build the Strategy Document comprising of

 Market analysis and Industry trends and analyst observations

 Persona definition and use cases for one of the 4 verticals.

 Microsoft solution approach and TEI analysis for customers to understand the
return on the investment.

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
 CASE STUDY – TOPIC 3

Startup Referral Program

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
Startup Referral Program

Why?

 Microsoft India is working with startups since the last 12 months and the team is
putting together various programs which can be scalable.

 Startup founders are a close-knit community, and the founders know each other
very well and rely on each other’s recommendations on both business and
technology.

 We would like to explore options to build referral referrals from existing Microsoft
startups and from influencers.

What?

 Create a formal program construct for existing startups which are on Microsoft
platform (i.e. Azure) so that they can help connect us to other founders from their
network. Create a strong incentive/ referral for the founders (should the incentive
be commercial or is there anything else we can offer?)

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
Startup Referral Program

Who?

 Existing customers / startups on Azure; who have a certain threshold of Azure

consumption (threshold to be decided).

 Which stakeholder should we be running this referral with (within the Startup)?

 Are there influencers for Startups.

Benefits?

 What benefits matter to the Startup to refer a Technology vendor ( Business,

Commercial, Technology, Any other benefit)

 Commercial – can we provide X% of consumption by the referred startup as credits

to the referring startup / founder – again mechanics and operational

 Provide Ideas of Commercial benefits – can we offer flat credits or Azure passes
(No paid credits ) ? Free premier service ( Support option) ?

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY
Startup Referral Program

Ideas from Candidates

 What benefits do we need to offer for reference

 Any other comparable referrals programs in market that can be referred

 Invite only referral program – not open to all. (How do we limit this? Need to
understand the mechanics)

Final Deliverable from Candidates

 Build a 3-4 slider approach document to address below

 Lay out framework of a Startup Referral Program

 Articulate benefits of the Program

M I C R O S O F T C O N F I D E N T I A L – I N T E R N A L O N LY