TVAP 4 introduces an intelligent reduction in renewal uplift, based on:
Prior deal quality for Software products – Based on factors like Zone, floor & recommended values for the prior net unit price (considering pricing multipliers) , Deals are categorized as Good, average & Bad. Each deal is classified into one of three categories.
🟢 Good Deal → Lowest Uplift
🟡 Average Deal → Moderate Uplift
🔴 Bad Deal → Highest Uplift
The uplifts in TVAP4 are always lower than TVAP 3
Prior term consideration while determining the uplift.
Appreciation uplift is linear and not compounded as before(V3) and capped at 4 yrs. appreciation.
This dynamic approach ensures that uplift percentages are aligned with the value of the original deal and the customer’s contract history.
🎯 Business Impact: This change is designed to:
âś… Reduce customer churn by offering more predictable and reasonable renewal pricing with lower term uplifts & appreciation uplifts.
âś… Ease pressure on expansion conversations by eliminating friction from aggressive uplift practices
âś… Promote long-term retention by rewarding high-quality initial deals with fair renewal treatment
The objective of this project is to ensure Sales Programs and Deal Structures are recorded separately and accurately to enable precise reporting on the effectiveness of our promotions and deal strategies.
Key Features:
Currently, the “Sales Program” field was used to capture both sales programs and deal structures within an opportunity, leading to inaccurate deal reporting.
A Sales Program is a structured program or limited promotion that the business implements to promote and sell our products to customers.
Deal Structure refers to the specific nonstandard terms and conditions of the deal. It outlines how the deal will be executed, how the parties will interact, and any dependencies.
As part of thisproject, “Deal Structure” is Introduced and all the existing guardrails & processes those were used for the deal structure values under “sales program”, analyzed from each business functions (SFDC, FL, RE, Licensing) to ensure alignment with business expectations and continued functionality.
The Marketplace private offer selling motion differs from the standard 2-Tier channel motion, requiring new processes and system capabilities. Private offer transactions occur directly within the Marketplace portal, either to a Reseller or directly to the Customer, with the Marketplace provider handling invoicing and payment collection.
Marketplace Private Offer Quote-to-Cash Process Flow
Creating a Quote for a Private Offer in Frontline: Guided Experience
Frontline provides a guided quoting experience tailored for creating Marketplace private offers involving term licenses and professional services, which include both standard offerings and custom engagements based on Statements of Work (SOWs). As part of the quote creation process, users are prompted to input Marketplace-specific information, such as AWS or Azure account IDs and other required customer or deployment details.
Marketplace Account Details
When a quote is designated as a “Marketplace quote”, the system dynamically displays additional fields relevant to private offer transactions. Users can specify the Marketplace provider—AWS or Azure—and indicate whether the offer is intended for a direct customer or a reseller. Both reseller and buyer account IDs must be entered directly on the quote page, as these are essential for resale authorization/private offer publication in Marketplace portal.
Offer Expiry Dateand Agreement Start Date
Each quote for private offer includes an expiry date, which defines the deadline for customer acceptance of the private offer in Marketplace portal. This date is set in UTC. AWS permits cancellations up to 48 hours after acceptance, while Azure allows cancellations within 72 hours. The agreement start date is determined by the customer’s acceptance of the offer, with sales order creation initiated 48 hours later for AWS and 72 hours later for Azure.
Delayed License Fulfillment Date
For scenarios requiring a delayed fulfillment start date, the “ship hold” process—managed by Sales Support Ops—has replaced the previous method of using quote to provide delayed start dates. The ship-hold process aligns with the new automated workflow that prevents changes to quotes once a private offer is published, while still allowing flexibility in start dates without requiring revisions. For more information, contact Sales Support Ops.
Selecting Product or Professional Services
In both AWS and Azure Marketplaces, software products and professional services are listed separately, hence they must be offered as two distinct private offers each requiring its own corresponding quote to be attached. The quoting system enforces mutual exclusivity between product and professional service selections—once one is chosen, the other cannot be added.Â
Only software products currently listed on the Marketplace will be available for selection. All professional service SKUs—standard and custom—are eligible for private offers. Custom SKUs are managed in admin mode, and Sales Support Ops can assist with adding or editing SKUs and attaching the SOW before quote approval.Â
For Azure, professional services are only available via direct private offers to customers in the US, UK, and Canada, and not through resellers.
Pricing and Discounting
Both the Marketplace discount and total net price fields in the quote are editable. The Marketplace discount is typically lower than the base discount which takes into account transaction fee. Deal approval routing is based on the base discount. The total net price reflects the Marketplace TCV extended to the reseller or customer.
Primary and Approved Quote for Private Offer
Only one Marketplace quote per opportunity should be marked as “primary” and “approved” for private offer publication. While multiple quotes can be approved, only the primary quote is eligible for publishing. Once approved, the Sales Representative initiates the publishing process by emailing Sales Support Ops with the quote number.
If overage consumption is required for an NC2 deployment, this should be included in the Sales Rep’s email. Overage support requires an NC2 subscription and will be enabled in Phase 2 of Marketplace automation. After accepting the offer on AWS or Azure Marketplace, customers must complete their setup in the Nutanix Portal.
Publishing a Private Offer
Sales Support Operations uses Raft, a home-grown SaaS application, to manage the end-to-end process of creating and publishing private offers in the Marketplace. When a Sales Representative initiates a request by email, including the quote number, Raft enables users to retrieve the corresponding quote details and legal documents in PDF format.
Once all validations are complete, Sales Support Ops either creates the private offer in draft mode or publish directly to the Marketplace portal with a one-click action. If a draft is created, it must be published through Raft when ready.
Sales Order Creation (Post Customer Private Offer Acceptance)
Once a private offer is accepted by the customer and the Marketplace agreement is created, a cancellation grace period applies—48 hours for AWS and 72 hours for Azure. This grace period allows the customer to cancel the offer if needed.
After the grace period expires, Sales Operations initiates the sales order creation using a one-click action in the Raft application. This action automatically generates a sales order in Salesforce, where it enters a pending state.
Following this, Sales Support Operations notifies Order Operations of the newly created sales order number. Order Operations is then responsible for validating the sales order and submitting it for fulfillment and invoicing. A Netsuite Sales Order is created.
The objective of this initiative is to standardize the MSP quoting process in Frontline, replacing the existing manual quoting process with an automated, streamlined system.
Key Features:
Standard Quoting Process – Eliminate manual effort by setting up a standardized quoting process in Frontline for both Minimum-Commitment & PAYG MSP quotes. The enhanced quoting experience enables a seamless and efficient process by incorporating key elements such as commitment schedules, rate cards, promotion/credit schedules, and discounting, ensuring accurate and flexible pricing.
Enhance Approval Process – The standard “Role-Based Approval System” ensures that deals follow a structured approval workflow based on predefined rules. This feature automates the approval process by assigning approval steps based on deal parameters such as discount thresholds, contract value, and other parameters.
Seamless Integration of Quoting with Sales, Subscriptions, and Billing System – Integrate the quoting system with Opportunity, active subscription, invoicing, and payment collection. Enable accurate forecasting, revenue recognition, and reporting as all the Commitment schedule, rate-cards, actual consumption, subscription-updates, credit schedule are captured in SFDC.
Flexible Payment Option — The “Advance Payment Option” in MSP quoting allows customers to choose their preferred billing frequency, providing flexibility while ensuring predictable revenue recognition. This feature streamlines the quoting and invoicing process by offering the Monthly, Quarterly & Annual payment options.
Business Goal & Success KPI:
Quoting: 100% of quoting will be moved to frontline and Reduce quote turnaround time and increase sales team productivity.
Our KPI is to onboard 100 MSP customers by the end of 12 months following the general availability (GA) date 5th Feb 2025. This target aligns with our goal of expanding our customer base while delivering value through the streamlined quote-to-cash workflow and enhanced service offerings.
The objective of Renewal Discounts Visualization is to offer a clear and intuitive view of how various discounting and pricing strategies influence customer renewal pricing.Â
Key Features:
Provide a transparent view of discount/uplift factors(Term Compression%, Appreciation, Incumbency & One-time Adjustment), enhancing visibility and empowering representatives with better negotiation capabilities to drive optimal renewal outcomes.
It enables RQE/CS teams to seamlessly adjust key factors with inline edit on quote-line and Bulk edit, ensuring an optimized renewal price while maintaining a smooth and efficient user experience in Frontline.
With dynamic formulas built into the Renewal Engine, this eliminates the need for manually creating the 120Ă—120 matrix, streamlining the process for the pricing team whenever a new TVAP version is introduced. This automation enhances efficiency, accuracy, and scalability in pricing adjustments.
Business Goals:
Decrease in manual intervention when computing discounting for the RQR, Field, CSR, Deal Desk, and Finance
Increase in quote time turnaround.
Increase in deal economic exposure driving better negotiation and lower discounts.
Pricing model changes due to exposure of discounting impacts.
The objective of Exception Based PriceQuoting is to offer a feature in Frontline to Auto Approve the Non DR partner’s quote with eligible discount.
In Exception Based Price Quoting, Frontline will ensure DR policies inside Exception Based Pricing scenarios are upheld automatically resolving potential legal issues, eradicating errors, and decreasing the number of quotes requiring lengthy research, review, and approval cycles. Additionally, ensure the ExceptionDiscounting only with a DR policy is automatically upheld in a quote.
Key Features:
Exception Based Price on a quote would trigger only when a non DR quote has been applied a discount greater than desired discount to be given.
Once the system finds the discount is higher than desired discount , Frontline’s exception pricing discount rules triggers to correct discount and Auto Approve the quote.
When a Non DR quote is compared against a DR quote in opportunity, multiple factors considers like product, Quantity , Term , a valid DR , license and supportagainst the DR quote,
A Non DR quote will also be “Auto Rejected” when it does not meet the rules of exception based pricing against a DR quote,
In addition Frontline has automated the PIF discount to be updated in a Non DR quote.
Key Benefits:
Improved Turnaround Time: With instant quote dispositions, the automation allows for faster quote processing and delivery to customers.
Enhanced Accuracy: The system ensures that all discounts adhere to the allowable discount levels, eliminating confusion and preventing approval errors.
Streamlined Process: By automating the approval process for non-DR quotes, we can reduce manual intervention and expedite the overall workflow.
We are confident that this new feature will provide a more efficient and seamless experience for our users. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to enhance our systems.
Automating the quote approval process for non-DR quotes will enhance the user experience by providing instant quote dispositions, allowing for faster turnaround and delivery to customers. This automation ensures accuracy in allowable discount levels, eliminating confusion and preventing approval errors that could violate a DR holder’s discount advantage.
All exception-based pricing requires a deal registration, In Phase 2 of quote automation, launching on February 05, 2025, the focus will be on automating non-DR quotes under opportunities with an approved deal registration.
Exception priced quotes under opportunities without an approved deal registration will continue to be routed to quote approvers, with guidance to reject the quote unless it qualifies for an allowable exception. Auto-rejection of these quotes will be automated in the next phase of quote automation.
Discounting Methodology for Non-DR Quotes
Non-DR exception discount approval is variable, based on the software discounts of the approved DR Quote
All distributors have access to standard non-DR discounts, which are determined by the zone and term bucket of the software.
When a DR quote is approved for exception pricing, non-DR quotes with the same configuration are also permitted to enter into exception pricing, following the discount advantage guidelines.
The permissible discount level for non-DR quotes is determined by the discount advantage guidelines outlined for deal registration.
To view the permissible software and PIF discount levels for non-DR quotes, please refer to the Distributor Transfer Pricing for PnP 2.0 SPOT page. Discounts are listed by term bucket and price zone.
The Non-DR exception pricing automation is based on NCP (2.0) software SKUs, NX HW Support and the platform integration fee (PIF) on NX & DX quotes
Legacy products and services SKUs follow standard quote approval routing
Discount Guidelines for Non-DR Quotes
Automated Quote Comparison – Product, SKU, Qty and Term
During the quote process, the deal registration must be valid and approved
The BOM is compared first on configuration (SKUs), followed by quantity and then term bucket
When there are multiple DR quotes with similar configurations, the automation will use the quote with the highest overall discount to compare the Non-DR thresholds against (see here for example)
When a DR quote has multiple quote lines for the same SKU with different discounts, automation will use the lowest discount to calculate the Non-DR discount threshold (see here for example)
Every quote line is individually compared against the following scenarios
Auto Approved Quotes
Same BOM: Number of unique software products on both quotes are the same
Same SKUs: The Unique software product License tier and support type on the quotes are the same
Same Quantity
Two Term Buckets at a line level: 1 to 35 months (1) and 36 or greater (2)
Non-DR quotes with Term Bucket 2 can be approved against Term Bucket 1 but not vice versa
Discounts on the Non-DR quote must adhere to or be below the discount advantage guideline
When the SKU, quantity, and term on the non-DR quote match the DR quote, but the discount on the non-DR quote exceeds the discount advantage guideline, the system will automatically adjust the discount to the acceptable level and proceed to auto-approve the non-DR quote
Quotes Routed for Approval
Non-DR quotes that meet the auto-approval criteria but are missing a required services SKUs will be routed for approval review instead of auto approving
Any discount adjustment required for auto-approval will be made before the quote is routed for approval review
Non-DR quotes that meet the auto-approval criteria but have a Sales Program on the Opportunity will be routed for approval review instead of auto approving
Any discount adjustment required for auto-approval will be made before the quote is routed for approval review
Quotes identified on the exclusion list will be routed for approval (see Exclusions and Exceptions section below)
Quotes with an exception selected will be routed for approval (see Exclusions and Exceptions section below)
Auto Rejected Quotes
Exception-based pricing quotes will be automatically rejected if they do not meet the qualifications outlined in the guardrails or the following scenarios.
Auto-rejection will be a quote status (e.g., Approved, Expired, Void, etc.)
Auto-rejection will be included in the quote history tracking in Frontline
Auto-rejection is recorded as a “System Rejection” rather than an “ApproverRejection”
Users cannot manually tag a quote with’Auto-Rejection’ status
During cloning, if the original quote is in ‘Auto-Rejection’ status, the new cloned quote will be in Draft status.
When a quote is auto-rejected, a pop-up message will appear in Frontline to the quote submitter —regardless of channel, internal, quote creator/editor, etc. Additionally, an email notification will be sent.
Exception Discount Quotes: PIF Discount = Variable (Based on the software discount)
To view the permissible software and PIF discount levels for non-DR quotes, please refer to the Distributor Transfer Pricing for PnP 2.0 SPOT page. Discounts are listed by term bucket and price zone.
Exclusions and Exceptions
The following types of quotes are automatically recognized in our system and do not require discount advantage discounting rules for exception pricing.
These exception priced quotes will continue to go through the approval process for review.
Quote Types
Account Types
Public Sector
Renewals Quotes
Internal Orders Quotes
Quotes for Public Sector, Public Tender (end user account that has“Public Sector” in the account segmentation field & the Opportunity RFX box is checked)
Upgrade Quotes
Direct Customer Quotes
OEM Quotes
Exceptions
Exception requests can be made for the following quote scenarios
In Frontline draft quotes, users can choose from the following exception reasons using a dropdown field to route the quote for approval review
