The Total Economic Impact™ of using AWS Marketplace, a commissioned study by Forrester

In this blog post, I will summarize the key findings of two commissioned studies conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AWS Marketplace in May 2022. These studies include the Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) of AWS Marketplace and the Reduce Risk Exposure and Friction with Trusted Online Marketplaces.

Total Economic Impact™ of AWS Marketplace study

The Total Economic Impact™ of AWS Marketplace study provides data to show the cost savings and business benefits achieved when organizations shift procurement of software to AWS Marketplace. From the study, “The purpose of this study is to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential economic impact of AWS Marketplace on their organizations.”

By way of methodology, Forrester Consulting conducted interviews with 10 representatives who have used AWS Marketplace and combined their results into a composite company. The composite company was assumed to procure software from AWS Marketplace in 18 transactions spanning 3 years, with a total value of $13.5M.

The key findings based on the composite company were as follows:

Increased licensing flexibility. Using AWS Marketplace leads to an increase in licensing flexibility, which resulted in a 10% reduction in licensing costs.
Streamlined procurement practices. The time spent in searching for and selecting vendors was reduced by 66%, and the time spent performing invoicing tasks was reduced by 50%, as well as use of standard contract templates all led to $2 million in efficiency savings.
Recapturing 25% of at-risk spend. Companies that have minimum spend commitments with AWS and purchase software through AWS Marketplace can fulfill their spend commitments and recapture 25% of at-risk spend.
Improved vendor onboarding. Companies improved their vendor onboarding processes, reducing the effort required to onboard a new vendor by 75% and a time savings equating to $62,000.

These benefits scale with the number and size of procurement transactions using AWS Marketplace.

One-sentence financial summary: benefits of using AWS Marketplace

“The decision-maker interviews and financial analysis found that a composite organization experiences benefits of $4.38 million over three years versus costs of $673,085, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $3.70 million and a return on investment (ROI) of 550%.” The payback for the composite company was under six months.

This Total Economic Impact™ of AWS Marketplace downloadable infographic visualizes these findings.

Reduce risk exposure and friction with trusted online marketplaces

In order to drive and execute business initiatives, most organizations must procure both third-party data and software. However, business users’ need for ease of procurement and the organizational need for governance to reduce risk are often at odds. Without quick access to the right software and data, the pace of innovation slows. But without appropriate governance, risk increases.

This Forrester Consulting study explores the risks, governance protocols, and maturity of cloud software and data procurement processes in 2022. By way of methodology, Forrester surveyed 725 global cloud technology leaders and data procurement specialists. The key findings are as follows:

Data and cloud software is critical, but governance is often neglected. Only a third of surveyed respondents have a fully defined and governed workflow for cloud software and data procurement.
Risk management is an often-ignored piece of the procurement lifecycle. Over 60% of respondents said risk management isn’t a high priority.
Not all software and data acquisition goes through procurement. In fact, nearly 60% of data and 45% of cloud software purchases take place outside of established procurement processes.
Organizations seeking agility are looking to invest in new procurement channels. Nearly 80% of respondents indicated that they saw cloud marketplaces as a way to better govern their software and data procurement processes and decrease their organizations’ risk profile.

Using an online marketplace to procure data and cloud software comes with easier governance and control implementation, an increased variety in data and cloud software, and more trusted data.

This Cloud Marketplaces Promote Quality, Speed, And Security For Data And Software Procurement infographic summarizes these findings.

Key recommendations

The study makes the following recommendations:

Access the tools you need for better, faster response to business and market changes. To do this, organizations need access to the right software and data at the right time. The study cites: “Overwhelmingly, 85% of procurement decision-makers are turning to online marketplaces to improve business agility and speed the procurement process for cloud software and data.”
Ensure the quality and variety of data and cloud software without undue risk exposure. One of the primary benefits of online marketplaces is the ability to enable organizations to better govern the procurement process by creating a catalog of preapproved data and software products.
Remove friction and complexity from the procurement process, enabling employees to focus on higher-value processes. The reported benefits of a reduced-friction procurement process include better collaboration across teams, greater employee engagement, and less time spent managing risk.

Conclusion

In this post, I summarized the key findings and recommendations from two commissioned studies conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AWS Marketplace in May 2022. These studies include the Total Economic Impact™ of AWS Marketplace and the Reduce Risk Exposure and Friction with Trusted Online Marketplaces study.

Next steps

You can download the full studies here:

About the author

Heidi Miller AWS Heidi Miller is a Senior Program Manager at AWS Marketplace. A content marketing manager at heart, she enjoys driving customer-obsessed strategies for the AWS Marketplace and Control Services blog and social media programs. In her spare time, she loves to swing and salsa dance (pre-pandemic) and enjoys water aerobics, biking, gardening, and running Instagram accounts for her dog and cat.

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