Scaling smarter together: Learn from Microsoft’s partner strategy – a practical playbook .

In B2B SaaS, partnerships are one of the most powerful levers for growth and durability. Together with trusted partners, companies can bring innovations to customers faster and expand the value they offer. By aligning with established partners and integrating into trusted ecosystems, SaaS providers accelerate adoption through partner-led engagement and integration into trusted ecosystems.  

Partnerships also strengthen delivery: technical integration ensures solutions work seamlessly in customer environments, shared go-to-market efforts open new opportunities, and regional collaboration helps bring innovation to markets that benefit from local expertise 

Microsoft’s long-standing partner strategy provides a proven framework for scaling through collaboration. For decades it has gone to market with and through partners, while keeping the barrier to building on its platforms low for new software companies. That is why Florian Gaede, Delivery Executive at Nordcloud Switzerland and responsible for the startup programme, sat down with Andrew Reid, who leads the Enterprise Partner Organization and the startup motion at Microsoft Switzerland, to ask what founders can learn from that approach. 

Microsoft’s partnership strategy, in practice 

Microsoft’s partner system grew organically and became a strategic asset, presenting. a way to focus on innovation while partners translated technology into benefits for customers. For this discussion, two pillars matter most: systems integrators (SIs) and software development companies (SDCs). 

SIs – from global consultancies to specialist regional firms – work directly with end-customers to implement cloud platforms and applications. They understand estates, security models and change-control. And they provide the “glue” that allows a product to read and write the right data, pass reviews and go live in complex environments. Nordcloud is such an SI, focused on cloud migration, modernisation and data/AI delivery. 

SDCs build solutions on Azure and package them so buyers can understand, procure and deploy them quickly. In the context of this article, startups are SDCs: product teams with repeatable software who benefit when their offer is clearly specified, well-documented and easy to buy. 

Seen through that lens, successful engagements are rarely the work of a single logo. They are stacks that combine platform, product and an integrator’s last-mile engineering so the solution behaves inside the client’s world. As Andrew puts it: 

“No solution is an island. You start to build it up from platform to software elements to the systems integrator. I look at it like a Tetris puzzle or a set of Lego bricks.” The integrator often writes the “magic layers” that make everything work in the customer’s environment. 

In Switzerland the intent is explicit: support the next generation of software companies while keeping the ecosystem broad, from the newest startups to the largest integrators. 

A practical playbook for founders and product leaders 

For young B2B SaaS firms, Microsoft’s approach offers both a blueprint and a springboard. The blueprint is the layered model – enablement, co-selling, joint customer success. The springboard is access to infrastructure, innovation, enterprise customers and a global network of collaborators. In a world where distribution is often the bottleneck, partnerships are the multiplier. 

• 1) Segment the problem, then map the ecosystem. Decide whether you are building a better mousetrap or reframing the problem. Pick a tight segment — pharma, high-tech manufacturing, financial services — and list two or three SIs already delivering outcomes there. Your first distribution deal is often an SI’s existing relationship. 
• 2) Buy time by borrowing distribution. Startups need time, money, an ecosystem and customers. Partnerships compress time by providing access to demand, data and compliant deployment paths. Choose partners thoughtfully, ensuring alignment on goals, values, and customer impact. 
• 3) Be explicit about your channel model. Selling five high-value enterprise deployments is a different business to broadly adoptable SaaS. Let your channel, enablement materials and margin structure reflect that choice. 
• 4) Productise the last mile. Budget for integration accelerators and a small catalogue of adapters SIs can reuse. Most value appears when your product connects to a customer’s systems with the security and auditability they already trust. 
• 5) Remove procurement friction. Make it easy to buy and easy to stand up. Publish reference architectures, offer private-offer options where needed and ensure a partner can deploy a reference environment in hours rather than weeks. Keep the focus on simplicity, not checklists. 
• 6) Instrument the motion. Track time-to-first-value, expansion, attach of integration components and the share of partner-sourced deals. Stop what does not move the needle. 
• 7) Close the feedback loop. “Try. See if it works for you. If it doesn’t, give feedback,” says Andrew. Programmes evolve. Treat Microsoft and your SI like design partners with short iterations. 

The hyperscaler playbook is broadly similar across providers. Whether you work with Microsoft or another, the pattern holds: transact in ways customers already use, align to field priorities and turn integration into packaged building blocks. The most effective companies embed this as a repeatable capability rather than a short-term initiative. 

Where Nordcloud fits when you need to go live faster 

Nordcloud is a long-standing Microsoft partner and a pragmatic guide for founders and SDCs who want results without unnecessary complexity. 

Partnership strategy 

We help define whether you are running a high-touch enterprise motion or a scaled SaaS motion, then map the right ecosystem to it. We turn that into an operating plan with clear targets, assets and owners. In many cases, Nordcloud can also be one of your identified SIs. 

Navigating Microsoft 

We set up or tune your presence in Partner Center, pursue the designations that matter and make your offer co-sell-ready with the artefacts field teams expect. We identify and apply for relevant incentives, prepare the evidence Microsoft asks for and build a cadence that keeps proof points fresh: customer wins, usage data, architecture reviews. 

Accelerating your cloud capabilities 

Use Nordcloud’s engineers to speed up development, address regulatory and data-security requirements and design an infrastructure that scales with your ambitions. 

At Nordcloud, we believe innovation thrives when startups have the right support, tools and community. That is why we work with startups across Switzerland to help them scale faster and more securely. Our Swiss startup programme includes: 

• 8 hours of free mentoring from our experts 

• Startup-friendly project pricing 

• Guidance on working with hyperscalers and introductions to our client network 

• Access to our “CxO-to-Go” service 

The takeaway – and the moment to start 

Partnerships are not a badge. They are a system for turning scarce time and capital into outcomes customers notice. Copy the routines: segment tightly, pick two or three SIs, productise the last mile, make adoption simple and iterate with your platform and partners. Do that and the ecosystem stops being abstract and starts compounding. 

For Swiss startups, the timing is favourable. Switzerland pairs high AI adoption with a pragmatic regulatory environment and real skills shortages inside enterprises. That raises the premium on software that turns automation into measurable results. Andrew calls it “the start of a new dawn” – provided teams focus on deployment as much as invention.