business-context.md

Business Context

• Goals
  • Key Concepts:
    • Motivations
  • Questions:
    • Why are we moving the solution to Azure?
    • What are the business objectives or quanitifiable business goals?
    • What outcomes will you achieve for customer?
    • Is there a timeline for building the solution Azure?
    • Is there a targeted event or date for an announcement about the solution's availability on Azure?
• Customers
  • Key Concepts:
    • Customer profiles, expectations
  • Questions:
    • Is there a deal or customer opportunity associated with having the solution in Azure?
    • Are customers requesting the solution in Azure or the Cloud?
    • How many customers do you have?
    • Are customers willing to work with you to pilot the solution in Azure?
    • Are your customers already using Azure?
    • Are customers already comfortable using Azure/Cloud?
    • Are your customers already using services like M365, O365 or D365?
• Partners
  • Key Concepts:
    • Who are the ISV's partners for professional services?
  • Questions:
    • Do customers work with partners to implement and manage the solution?
    • Who are the partners?
    • Are they also Microsoft partners?
    • What does a typical engagement look like?
    • Should your partners also be aware of how to implement the solution on Azure?
• Industry
  • Key Concepts:
    • Retail
    • Financial Services
    • Healthcare
    • Insurance
    • Federal
  • Questions:
    • What industries does the solution serve?
    • What roles in that industry do customers have (e.g Healthcare: payer, provider, research, pharma, etc)
    • Are there any special industry/compliance security requirements?
    • Are there government regulations that need to be considered?
    • Will the solution be required to run in certain Azure datacenters (Government or Geo specific)?
    • What log retention policies do you have?
• Model
  • Key Concept:
    • Hosting
  • Questions:
    • Do customers host the solution themselves?
    • Do you offer a hosting service?
    • If it's a hosted model, where is it hosted?
    • If it's hosted in a competitor cloud, what does the architecuter look like? How much does it cost to host today?
    • Will you be migrating existing customers to the cloud?
    • Is the cloud solution for new customers only?
    • Will you continue to onboard customers into your existing hosting environment?
    • Is the cloud only for certain kinds of customers?
• Competitors
  • Key Concepts:
    • Competition, Challenges, Strategy, Differenation
  • Questions:
    • What are the strategic advantages of the solution, compared to competitors?
    • What is the strategy for your solution in the marketplace?
    • Do you have a differentiated solution? See Porter's Generic Strategies.
    • Who are the solution's competitors? (be diplomatic)
    • Are you seeing disruption in the market for your solution?
    • Are there new challenges in the market for this solution?
    • Are customers finding new "substitutes" for your solution?
    • How can Azure make your solution more competitive? See Porter's Five Forces.
• Licensing
  • Key Concepts:
    • SAAS vs Perpetual License, Tiers,
  • Questions:
    • How do you license the solution today?
    • How is the solution sold?
    • Going forward, will this become a cloud/SAAS only solution?
    • Is the solution delivered in different offerings or tiers?
    • Are there t-shirt sized offerings for the solution?
    • Are there different support/BCDR levels per solution tier?
    • What is the typical sales cycle for the solution?
    • What are the pain points in the sales cycle?
    • How will moving to the cloud affect the sales cycle?
    • Is this an internal line of busines solution or is it external facing?
    • Do your customers rely on the solution to provide services to their own end-customers?