Some of those late deals still close: they give procurement a workable path, let finance use committed cloud spend, and take friction out of the paperwork. But they could do far more.

Bain & Company and LinkedIn surveyed 750 buyers of B2B software like cloud data platforms.

Their finding: winning has two jobs.

1. Get onto the Day 1 list first.

2. Then build confidence on the five things buyers actually weigh:

   • meeting current and future needs,

   • value against total cost,

   • whether the choice is safe to defend internally,

   • confidence it will be implemented,

   • and ease of working with you.

The buyers Marketplace teams overlook usually decide the deal

Users and business leaders judge the product.

But procurement, finance, and IT hold roughly 50% of the influence, and their call leans as much on defensibility as on features — they want the safe choice they can justify later.

Each asks a different question, and a Marketplace transaction answers it:

• Procurement: is there a manageable commercial path?

A familiar buying route, standard workflows, less vendor admin.

• Finance: can we defend the economics?

Align the purchase to committed cloud spend, consolidate billing, clarify total cost.

• IT and security: can we deploy this with controlled risk?

Cloud alignment, a named implementation partner, proof from comparable deployments.

• Executive sponsor: can I stand behind this?

Hyperscaler advocacy, SI support, relevant customer references.

One caveat: A listing alone moves very little in large enterprise deals.

In many cases it’s only the transaction layer. On its own it creates no preference.

It earns its weight as part of a package: a clear customer and cloud outcome, defensible economics, implementation proof, partner validation, and a ready commercial path.

That is what turns Marketplace into part of the reason a buyer chooses you, well before they reach the transaction.

Three lessons for alliance leaders:

1. Put Marketplace into account planning and discovery for priority accounts, before procurement becomes the trigger

2. Stop measuring Marketplace only by how fast it closes. Measure it by whether it lifts confidence across the whole committee — especially the hidden buyers your sellers rarely brief

3. Get your proof early. References, SI partners, and cloud-seller advocacy are what put you on the Day 1 list in the first place. Marketplace then turns that into a yes the committee can defend internally.

When does Marketplace enter your deals — before the shortlist is set, or only when you need a transaction path?

Source: Bain B2B decision framework