Fortinet transforms customer experience through Microsoft commercial marketplace

For more than 20 years, Fortinet has been at the forefront of the digital security landscape, forging the convergence of networking and security with the emergence of a platform approach. With more than 600,000 customers worldwide, its customer base is varied and diverse. However, they all share the common need to efficiently secure their infrastructures, people, data, and devices everywhere.

Fortinet has been a member of the Microsoft Partner Network since 2016 and an early adopter of the Microsoft commercial marketplace as a go-to-market channel. Fortinet believed that the marketplace would give it an opportunity to meet customers where they are—physically, digitally, and financially. It has helped Fortinet expand its reach to more than four million monthly active users, Microsoft sellers, and 70,000-plus resellers. In 2020, Fortinet worked with Microsoft to offer the first self-service program through Azure Marketplace to create a seamless customer journey from awareness through purchase. It was also the recipient of Microsoft’s 2020 Commercial Marketplace Partner of the Year award for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology. Its commitment to the marketplace as a primary channel is paying off in dividends.  

As Fortinet has grown and matured along with the commercial marketplace, it has consistently focused on understanding the buyer journey. “Marketplace gives customers the flexibility to test, consume, and purchase in a way that suits their needs,” said John Maddison, CMO and EVP of Products with Fortinet. “They can also draw down their Azure consumption commitment and reduce overall cost. Marketplace gives Fortinet the ability to meet our customers where they want to purchase and the analytics to understand how they consume our solutions.”

Fortinet also transformed its co-marketing efforts to align around the experience that customers want throughout the procurement process. To that end, by using cloud marketplaces to attract new customers, it is meeting customers where they are and simplifying processes by using Microsoft invoicing, commercial agreements, and consumption commitments. This creates a digital touch all the way from initial contact with the customer through the transaction and then an ongoing nurture cycle. “Selling through marketplace translates into time to revenue, time to market, more satisfied customers, and it allows us to service with a global reach,” said Marty Hess, EVP of Global Cloud Alliances and Ecosystem Strategy for Fortinet.

Fortinet also credits the marketplace with helping to accelerate deal velocity. Marketplace provided Fortinet with cross-sell and upsell opportunities, while also providing a solid foundation for co-selling engagements with field sales organizations. “We find that to be a very compelling value proposition and we double down on it year over year,” said Hess.

Uncovering opportunities

Fortinet works with a number of government entities, and one in particular started out with very small purchases. By engaging with Microsoft, Fortinet learned this customer had a significant transition to the cloud planned. It was able to then grow that business from a few dollars to now deploying millions of dollars of software every year and a very satisfied customer.

Expanding markets 

“It’s benefited us in several ways. The biggest is it has expanded our sales coverage to a huge Microsoft Azure install base. Marketplace has allowed us to put new solutions out there and market that to a much larger audience,” said Hess.

Marketplace has also allowed Fortinet to scale out self-service marketing campaigns globally, while providing for localization across the various markets. To date, Fortinet has used the marketplace to service customers in nearly every region. The ability to expand into new markets is paying off, and Fortinet has seen an increase in conversions to purchases on the marketplace. 

Leveraging the Microsoft technology stack

Fortinet currently has over 100 different integrations across Microsoft Azure and 10 offers linked to the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (MISA) catalogue.

“One hundred percent of the customers I speak with have some type of Microsoft product,” said Maddison. “We see a big opportunity in combining our security functionality with the Azure cloud platform’s native security capabilities. Selling this on the commercial marketplace allows our customers to get solutions quickly, it’s easy to purchase, and our teams can add new capabilities there almost immediately. Overall, this helps our customers consume our technology in a much easier fashion.”

With such a wide variety of integration options and so many customers with varying needs, the Microsoft commercial marketplace has become a standard, critical channel for Fortinet to engage with customers at every size, stage, and scope.