Commercial Sales Transformation at Microsoft

Industry leaders should adapt to changes in the business context and consider different ways to grow. Advances in technology had shifted software demand to the cloud. As a result, Microsoft announced a strategic shift in direction from its existing ‘Windows first’ strategy to an ‘AI/cloud first’ strategy to capture the increasing demand for digital transformation solutions. In line with this change in the overall firm strategy, Microsoft had to come up with a viable go-to-market plan that would align its new commercial strategy with sales, partners, products, services, and customers in order to drive long-term growth without hurting current revenue or profits. The case outlines the challenges involved in transforming the sales strategy of a well-established firm to better serve customers.
The main teaching themes of the case are as follows:
• The challenges of implementing a strategic sales transformation at a large sales organization
• The pros and cons of deploying an inside/digital sales function within a sales organization
• How to define the right measure of success
• How to align the sales management/strategy with the overall firm strategy
• How to change the sales management instruments to successfully transform from selling on-premises software to selling cloud-based solutions