Dynatrace is capitalizing on a massive shift to cloud-native workloads, which is dramatically increasing both data volume and complexity. As CEO Rick McConnell emphasized:

“The cloud is a huge factor. Why? Because it results in enormous quantities of data, massive increase in complexity.”

Beyond just hyperscaler revenue growth, Dynatrace is seeing widespread cloud-native adoption among its customers:

"Virtually all organizations at this point are moving cloud native, cloud native workloads. We see 85 to 90% of our customers or more, now have cloud native workloads. They're expanding in banks, they're expanding in commerce, healthcare — everywhere." — Rick McConnell, CEO

Rising Workloads & Demand for Unified Solutions

Steve Tack, CPO, connected this workload expansion to a growing demand for consolidated, unified solutions:

“The workloads are growing. Consolidation [for customers] is not just about ‘I want to deal with fewer vendors or simplify procurement.’ It's that they really need a different type of system and approach, and they want to bring those worlds together.”

Dynatrace’s strategy reflects this cloud-native shift, positioning them at the intersection of increased workload complexity and the demand for holistic, integrated solutions.

Partner & Marketplace Strategy: Cloud Co-sell is Critical

Dynatrace has developed a multi-tier partner strategy that aligns with the strengths of different partner types. As Dan Zugelder, CRO, explained:

“we're activating three key parts… GSI actually will take you more up market, if you look at GSI is going to play as a partner, typically, whether it's Accenture, Deloitte and some of the others in your IT 500, I think that's where they spend more of their time…

As you go down to the transactional business, you have a lot of regional players that are there - so our regional partners.

And then what's critical and one that we are spending a lot of energy and, and really I would say is really still in early days…is our co-sell with the hyperscalers. We have activated huge initiatives with the hyperscalers. That is a huge motion for us in that transactional business.”

Dynatrace’s Microsoft Americas Partner of the Year (2024) award in Commercial Marketplace and their growth reinforces its success in this approach.

Marketing’s Role in Partner Success: Co-Sell, Not Sell-Through

Dynatrace is rethinking partner marketing to focus on co-selling instead of just sell-through. As Laura Heisman, CMO, explained:

“I have a lot of conversations with the hyperscaler and GSI, my counterparts, CMOs or their marketing teams on what can we do. We've been building out the partner marketing organization along with the partner team within Dan's [CRO] organization.

They are glued the hip together on how are we gonna NOT just utilize our partners as a sell-through. This is a marketing opportunity, this is a co-sell opportunity. This is how do we design programs together? There are so much activity happening there, uh, that we see big opportunity for us”

Key initiatives include:

• Joint marketing programs with partners

• Co-branded content and campaigns

• Enablement materials for partner sales teams

Sales Transformation: Strategic Focus & New Motion

Dynatrace has been methodically revamping their sales strategy, starting with the focus on the IT 500 segment. Dan Zugelder, CRO, explained their staged transformation:

"We had an IT 500 priority. We felt that we would add sales capacity density there…I think it's important to know is that we're changing our selling motion there and that we are going to become more strategic and less transactional in that arena.”

Why They Bet on IT 500

• Strong customer base in the segment

• Unique value proposition validated by existing clients

“We had a number of customers in that space that did a lot with us, thought highly of us, and gave us back feedback that we had a unique value proposition. So it was kind of easy to bet on that - and we did.”

Increasing Sales Density: A Calculated Risk

Dynatrace recognized an opportunity to increase account density, i.e. put more sales people on strategic accounts.

The company found that many sales reps with seven or eight accounts were only actively engaged with three or four.

To address this, Dynatrace decided to redistribute accounts, giving those with less activity to new reps. This allowed existing reps to focus on accounts with established relationships and ongoing sales efforts.

This allowed the company to change its selling motion to become more strategic, but this move wasn’t without risks:

“A lot of people that had seven or eight accounts, they were really doing business with three or four of them. … we kept those people, they kept those, that was a, you know, risk mitigation. They had relationships, they had active sales campaigns and pipeline.

And then sometimes there were three or four accounts that they didn't have a lot going on. So when we gave that to a new rep, remember they're kind of starting from scratch a little bit.” - Dan Zugelder, CRO

This strategy is paying off now.

Aligning Marketing with Sales Priorities

Dynatrace’s GTM shift wasn’t just about partnerships and sales motions—it was supported by a fundamental change in marketing.

Laura Heisman, Chief Marketing Officer, emphasized how closely marketing aligned with sales priorities to support this transformation:

“So we're aligned very closely in the marketing organization with the sales organization….

Coming in and just sitting with Dan and saying, ‘Where are your priorities? What are the customer segments? How do we increase investment in the globals and the strategic accounts that we need to do more there?’ [...] As he changes out his go-to-market changes, making sure that I'm doing the same thing to align very closely across everything that we're doing.”

The alignment wasn't just theoretical—it became a key driver of sales success.

Shifting Sales Messaging to Focus on Customer Problems

One of the biggest transformations was how Dynatrace approached sales conversations. Instead of leading with who Dynatrace is, they shifted to focusing on the customer’s problems.

As Dan Zugelder, CRO, explained:

“We no longer, we won't wanna start off our sales calls of who Dynatrace is. We wanted to start off our sales calls by saying, “You know who Dynatrace is. Let’s talk about your problems and how we solve them.’ That was our motion.”

Dan also highlighted the impact of this shift on the sales organization, crediting Laura’s marketing leadership:

“Laura won over the entire field sales organization—over 1,100 people—by helping them with this. [new messaging]

The field was like, ‘Hey, that’s what we want to go in and do. We don’t want to explain who Dynatrace is. We want to go in, we don't wanna explain who Dynatrace is. We want to go in and say, hey, what challenges you're facing? What's keeping you up at night? What's causing you, you know, pain? And then how can we align our technology to that? So I think we're on that journey, and I think that's working very well.’”

Dynatrace made impressive progress in executing this vision, moving away from transactional sales and towards strategic problem-solving with key customers and partners.

The company also mentioned plans to focus on other segments after they hone their IT 500 strategy. More to come.

Key Takeaways for Alliance and Cloud GTM Leaders

1. Build a Multi-Tier Partner Strategy – Different partners have different superpowers in scaling GTM.

2. Leverage Cloud Marketplaces Momentum – Treat marketplaces as a strategic growth channel, not just a transaction platform.

3. Align Marketing & Sales with Partners – Tight integration ensures a seamless GTM motion.

4. Lead with Customer Problemsin Sales Conversations instead of company capabilities.

Dynatrace’s transformation shows that a partner-first GTM requires cross-functional alignment, cultural shifts, and execution discipline. When done right, the results can be transformative.

For Cloud GTM leaders, the key question is: Which elements of this playbook could you use to accelerate your own partner transformation?