Securing a 38% Azure Discount with the Right Deal Strategy

The Situation

A large enterprise was preparing to make a significant Azure investment, separate from their Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, which already covered Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 licensing.

Microsoft was aggressively pushing a multi-year Azure MACC (Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment) with limited commercial flexibility and minimal discounting. The customer was expected to commit to high spend levels based on future-state consumption—without the contractual agility they needed.

At the same time, multiple hyperscalers were in active discussions, each competing for the customer’s cloud workloads. Azure was not the default.

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Keystone’s Role

Keystone provided independent Microsoft negotiation support, ensuring the deal structure, pricing, and commitments aligned with the customer’s actual goals—not Microsoft’s internal targets.

Our support included:

• Cloud-Only Strategy: We guided the customer through a cloud-focused negotiation separate from their Microsoft EA, avoiding bundling pressure and preserving leverage.
• Multi-Cloud Leverage: The customer had credible, validated options with AWS and Oracle Cloud. We helped them position that leverage to full commercial effect.
• Forecast Clarity: Keystone worked with internal stakeholders to build and validate a defensible Azure forecast—helping anchor the negotiation in credible data.
• MACC Restructure: We restructured Microsoft’s MACC proposal to introduce staged consumption targets, flexibility, and governance guardrails, including clear expectations for the reseller’s role in tracking and supporting MACC attainment.
• Incentive Unlock: Our strategy surfaced significant End Customer Investment Funds (ECIF) that were not initially disclosed. These funds were repurposed to support onboarding, migration, and optimisation activities.

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The Outcome

The final Azure agreement delivered:

✅ 38% total discount on Azure compared to Microsoft’s opening proposal
✅ A custom MACC structure with ramp flexibility and clearer accountability for MACC tracking
✅ Significant ECIF incentives tied to execution and technical milestones
✅ A standalone cloud deal that avoided unnecessary entanglement with the Microsoft EA

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Why It Worked

This result was possible because the customer had:

• Leverage — They ran a truly competitive process between hyperscalers
• Clarity — Their Azure forecast and goals were clearly defined
• Independence — Keystone brought strategy, benchmarks, and execution experience not available through resellers or Microsoft account teams