AWS Marketplace

AWS Marketplace named a leader in The Forrester New Wave: Marketplaces for SaaS Sourcing, Q1 2022 report

Forrester New Wave: Marketplaces for SaaS Sourcing report summary

The Forrester New Wave: Marketplaces for SaaS Sourcing report names AWS Marketplace as a leader in SaaS cloud marketplaces. The report reveals findings from Forrester’s evaluation of marketplaces for software as a service (SaaS) sourcing and evaluates the nine most significant providers across 10 criteria and where they stand in relation to one another. Vendors are scored as differentiated, on par, needs improvement, or no capability across the criteria.

Forrester rated AWS Marketplace as differentiated in buyer interface, contract terms, artificial intelligence and automation, roadmap, and [go-to] market approach. The report states that AWS Marketplace is “well suited to procurement and IT” and “provides advanced features relevant for procurement in areas such as contracting.” Forrester states that AWS “has invested significantly in its marketplace and continues to push the envelope in areas like standard contract terms; custom contract negotiation in its marketplace; and integration with leading procurement tools, such as Coupa. AWS has broken new ground in areas that procurement cares about and offers a new way to streamline SaaS buying and thereby increase efficiency while lowering risk.”

Reference quotes from the report state: “We like the ability to leverage standard/enterprise pre-negotiated terms and conditions,” and “we like the standard way of procuring essential tech software/services that are low risk/lower value.”

Benefits of SaaS Marketplaces

Marketplaces for SaaS sourcing aim to preserve buying agility across organizations while alleviating risk. As SaaS and the need for fast purchasing cycles continues to grow, it’s imperative to mitigate risk to prevent excessive costs, redundant functionality, and security and compliance issues. At the same time, organizations are seeking increased business agility, better business, and improved experiences. SaaS marketplaces have evolved from just a place to buy software to a reliable option that will help organizations streamline how they find, buy, manage, deploy, and govern software. More organizations are seeing SaaS marketplaces as opportunities to transform their digital supply chains. With features to help shorten procurement cycles, flexible buying options, and centralized governance, organizations can use SaaS marketplaces to accelerate the buying process.

Organizations want to accelerate digital innovation efforts and increase the velocity of bringing new products to market. At the same time, they strive to reduce costs, mitigate business risk, and improve operational efficiency and productivity. AWS Marketplace helps organizations to derive value from several main value levers that drive additional economic value in the areas of:

  • procurement productivity
  • operational efficiency
  • accelerating time-to-market for innovation
  • consumption-based licensing
  • reduction of “shadow IT”
  • volume discounting from spend consolidation
  • streamlined invoicing and vendor onboarding
  • increased developer productivity.

Offering a transformational procurement model, SaaS marketplaces remove friction points between developers and procurement. They help IT, procurement, finance and legal teams achieve their respective goals driving better business outcomes.

Further reading on SaaS in AWS Marketplace

As SaaS continues to gain popularity and enable organizations to increase agility, business and IT leaders turn to cloud marketplaces to improve governance, compliance, and controls over software purchasing. To evaluate and select the right SaaS sourcing partner, read The Forrester New Wave: Marketplaces for SaaS Sourcing report. Additional reading on SaaS in AWS Marketplace includes:

About the Author

Alison Salinger is the Senior Product Marketing Manager for AWS Marketplace, focused on helping bring new features and products to market. She has spent her career in technology marketing spanning across various industries. Outside of work, Alison is located in San Diego, California and she enjoys playing soccer, walking her dog, hiking, traveling, and cooking new recipes inspired by her travels.