increase in PO’s sent to AWS
increase in AWS-originated opportunities
About Serverworks
Serverworks is a cloud integrator providing support for Japanese businesses seeking to implement, manage, and automate tools within Amazon Web Services (AWS). They were the first Japanese company to earn Managed Service Provider Competency in AWS Partner Network (APN), and are an APN Premium Consulting Partner, the highest partnership tier within AWS.
A Massive Opportunity
In April 2023, Serverworks announced their Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA) with AWS to help Japanese companies leverage the latest cloud technology, accelerate innovation, and drive business growth.
This agreement primed Serverworks for massive growth in partner collaboration and co-sell revenue, but the promising opportunity also highlighted a challenge within Serverworks’ sales workflow that would drastically limit their ability to efficiently scale.
Big Problems, Global Solutions
Serverworks’s sales team managed their partner-originated opportunities in Salesforce and their AWS-originated opportunities in ACE (APN Customer Engagements). Because these separate systems lacked integration, they were forced to manually duplicate data entry for every opportunity in both CRMs.
This inefficient management of opportunities wasted time and doubled operational costs. It also hindered their ability to track partnership progress in real-time, limiting their execution of partnership scale and growth of co-sell revenue.
Serverworks quickly ruled out building their own internal solution, as the cost of constructing and maintaining a secure integration between Salesforce and ACE would’ve overly taxed their already strained team. Instead, they turned to WorkSpan’s Hyperscaler Edition.
On paper, WorkSpan’s co-sell process automation was the perfect solution to handle the magnitude required for integrating Salesforce and ACE partnerships. But Serverworks was a Japan-based company of, as one exec described, “basically 98% non-English speakers.” Would this limit their ability to implement and utilize WorkSpan’s comprehensive offerings?
Collaborating Across Continents
While the international nature of the partnership posed unique challenges, WorkSpan was able to integrate their tools into Serverworks’ workflow through highly visual training materials, a product designed for ease of use, and a committed and attentive support team.
In an effort to overcome the language barrier, WorkSpan provided Serverworks with a detailed, visual collection of migration and onboarding materials created with step-by-step screenshots and comprehensive demonstration videos.
And while the platform was not translated into Japanese, WorkSpan and Serverworks collaborated on a centralized Japanese accompaniment guide that was widely disseminated to their sales team.
“Even if there’s no English-speaking person in the company, it’s worth it, It’s worth having WorkSpan.”Eri Yoshiaki, Serverworks representative
The Serverworks’ team reported a deep satisfaction with how simple WorkSpan’s platform was to learn and operate. WorkSpan customizable features allowed for a tailored user experience that replaced a four-step manual process with a single click. And due to WorkSpan’s automated, bi-directionally syncing, Serverworks’ sales team only had to enter information once in one system instead of two.
And when AWS pushed routine updates that impacted their system and altered Serverworks’ workflow, WorkSpan’s support team was readily available to make the necessary adjustments.
Regarding WorkSpan’s support time and responsiveness, Serverworks said the time-zone difference between companies was a non-issue. If questions or problems arose, a Serverworks employee could simply make a request in a shared Slack channel, and the WorkSpan team would quickly resolve the situation.
With this successful migration in place, Serverworks became the first company to utilize WorkSpan's capabilities to adapt to regional language, currencies, programs for true global adoption, and the newfound efficiencies unlocked massive growth.
Full-Scale Results
Serverworks reported a resounding 714% increase in Partner-Originated opportunities (POs) sent to AWS and a 90% increase in AWS-originated opportunities.
They experienced significant cost savings and increased team satisfaction through WorkSpan’s bi-directional automation. Their sales team could instantly sync and monitor partnership opportunities without the redundant manual processes, leading to enhanced productivity and streamlined operations.
WorkSpan’s system integration not only helped Serverworks increase opportunity generation, but it also contributed to higher conversion rates of partner-originated opportunities, resulting in increased revenue generation.
Serverworks is not able to provide specific revenue figures until the close of their fiscal year, but their current revenue estimates reflect a definitive increase.
A Partnership That’s “Worth It”
Despite the perceived friction of working with multinational organizations – language barriers, time zone, and cultural differences – Serverworks has continued to grow through their partnering approach with AWS.
After experiencing the solutions of automated co-sell management, Serverworks expressed confidence that any company, regardless of language and culture, would benefit from partnering with WorkSpan.
