New Commerce Experience - We're on Track

Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) has been in constant evolution since its inception, looking to respond to market needs and necessities. In its mission to reduce licensing complexity and costs, while also providing enough flexibility to reach a wide range of client purchasing scenarios, Microsoft launched the New Commerce Experience (NCE) for Microsoft Azure.

Are you ready?

In the fall of 2021, NCE was expanded to include Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Windows 365, and Power Platform for commercial seat-based offers.

So, what exactly is NCE?

The new commerce experience for seat-based offers in CSP delivers a consistent, simplified, and flexible purchase experience for customers and partners. You will have the opportunity to build and deliver more managed services, expand your customer base, and help guide your customers through their transformational journey to the cloud:

New Commerce Experience (NCE) is the newest development in the CSP program. It provides re-sellers with newly available tools that allow them to simplify how they manage subscriptions.

Dates and Deadlines

14/8/2021: Technical Preview 2 of NCE for Modern Work and Dynamics was made available for all partners.

10/01/2022: Microsoft offered two time-bound promotions to encourage partners to migrate from CSP legacy to NCE. These promos were:

• 5% off annual subscriptions from January through March 2022

• Monthly subscriptions available at annual pricing from January through June 2022.

1/02/2022: Margin and Incentives will be removed from Azure Program.
In order to retain margin and earn incentives all Azure Program Subscriptions must be upgraded to Azure Plans by January 31st.

1/03/2022: Price increase in the following products:

Enterprise:

SMB:

10/03/2022: All new subscriptions for Modern Work and Dynamics will be required to be procured through the NCE Platform.

1/06/2022: Al renewal subscriptions for Modern Work and Dynamics will have to be done through NCE Platform.

We are here

Following the changes brought by NCE, Cloudcockpit was upgraded and is now able to provide services such as:

• provisioning of new commerce experience subscriptions;

• schedule changes and auto-renewals;

• upgrade and cancel subscriptions;

• NCE reconciliations and billing plan changes

What is coming

1/01/2023: Incentives only available for NCE transactions (through MCI).
1/07/2023: All remaining subscriptions on CSP legacy must be moved to the New Commerce Experience.

Lessons Learned

CloudCockpit was one of the first platforms in the world to support the changes to NCE. Because of this, we managed to gather extremely valuable insights through the lens of our client's experiences.

Keeping that in mind, we decided to host a Webinar to share some of the lessons learned in these last few months. Enriching our stage we had Lenny Vercruysse from Be-Cloud and David Robinson from BlueCube, bringing us valuable insights.

If you're curious about what was discussed, you can check out the full video below with the respective chapters flagged.

Webinar - CloudCockpit and NCE: The Challenges

• 1:00 - 3:30: Intro and Introductions

• 4:12 - 11:12: Experience with NCE Announcements

• 11:14 - 15:33: How was the approach/experience to NCE with the Clients

• 15:34 - 27:48: Changes on the billing and clients reaction

• 27:50 - 32:44: Different promotion for different products -» What were the advantages

• 32:45 - 39:10: What are the impacts the NCE may bring to the business

• 39:15 - 44:30: What are the next steps for CSPs in the industry

• 44:45 - 47:18: Are CSP changes good news?