Being a venture-backed start-up in a manufacturing industry dominated by giants has its benefits. I routinely hear from customers how much they value our responsiveness and focus on their requirements – particularly when compared to the inflexibility of larger providers. We are also nimble, and we benefit from being able to switch gears quickly and smoothly when the need arises.
Being smaller also hones your focus on partnership strategy: finding the right partners, crafting the right relationship, and executing in the market. For Canvas to date, our partnership strategy has primarily focused on building compelling integrations and joint go-to-market propositions with adjacent platform providers including Aras, Rockwell Automation, and SAIC – to name just a few – which has been exciting and rewarding.
We’ve now added to our partnership portfolio by becoming a Microsoft ISV partner, which sees Canvas Envision now listed in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.
For a company our size this delivers enormous benefits:
- Seamless integration with Azure Ecosystem: With integrated Azure services as part of the Envision platform, we are a more natural choice for the many customers that are invested in that ecosystem.
- Enhanced Visibility and Reach: The Azure Marketplace gathers together a huge, global audience of buyers looking for the best products and solutions to meet their needs. It beats trying to claw your way up the Google search rankings
- Product Introduction: The result of that visibility and reach is that we can get our product into the hands of prospective customers in a truly frictionless way, without tying up our market-facing specialists.
- Trust and Credibility: Being in the Marketplace as a certified partner delivers credibility up front – which is highly valuable when you a smaller company taking on dominant incumbents
- Flexible Pricing and Billing: While Microsoft’s handling of payment infrastructure is an obvious win for a smaller company, so too is the opportunity to experiment with pricing to see what scores hits at scale.
In business, that old saying about being judged by the company you keep still holds true. Partnerships matter to companies like Canvas. Not only because they reflect on you as an organization, but because they unlock accelerated opportunities for exposure and adoption in a market where it’s sometimes difficult to get your voice heard.
