Granicus transforms AWS co-selling process with ACE CRM Integration

Granicus, an AWS Partner, empowers governments to better connect with the people they serve through cloud-based civic engagement and digital services. The company’s sales teams needed to reduce the manual effort required to find and share co-selling opportunities with AWS. To overcome that challenge, Granicus implemented the ACE-CRM connector tool, which synchronizes leads and opportunities between the Granicus customer relationship management (CRM) and the AWS Partner Portal. What began as a technical solution to meet partnership requirements evolved into a strategic advantage in driving revenue growth, as Granicus grew co-selling opportunities with AWS by 198 percent and increased its number of sellers using the tool from 20 to more than 100.

Granicus, a leading provider of cloud-based civic engagement solutions, is committed to helping governments strengthen relationships with citizens through technology. The company provides AI, cloud, and other digital solutions and services designed to make government more accessible and efficient.

Granicus has built a robust partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), through which the company uses AWS infrastructure while expanding its market reach. However, the co-selling process between Granicus and AWS initially faced operational challenges, and Granicus sales teams encountered numerous obstacles when managing AWS APN Customer Engagements (ACE) program opportunities. For example, sales employees relied heavily on manual lead entry, requiring duplicate data input across different systems such as Salesforce and cumbersome workflows necessitating multiple logins and platform switches. “It was difficult to have a good flow in the co-selling process,” says Lena Pekaj, channel account manager at Granicus. “We have over 100 sellers, and we didn't want to give them extra work by requiring them to make a unique login and go into another website outside of their CRM.”

Stirling Smith, senior manager of business systems at Granicus, adds “Sales employees had to use two systems and had to manually monitor the portal for new leads, route them to the appropriate person internally, make sure that they see those leads, and keep them updated.” For both Granicus and AWS, these inefficiencies drained valuable time and resources from revenue-generating activities and caused missed opportunities. 

For Granicus, the need to automate and transform co-selling accelerated when the company pursued the AWS SaaS Co-sell Benefit (SCB), a strategic recognition resell program. This advanced partner status required more sophisticated integration between their systems—a mandate that became the catalyst for transformative change in their sales operations.

Granicus identified the AWS Partner CRM Connector, an integration solution that would address their collaboration challenges while meeting AWS partnership requirements. The integration offered numerous advantages
that directly targeted the company's previous pain points, including:

• Automated synchronization of leads and opportunities between
  the Granicus CRM and AWS Partner Portal
• Single-entry workflow eliminating redundant data input across platforms
• Unified dashboard providing visibility into shared sales pipelines
• Streamlined communication channels between partner sales teams

Unlike experiences with other technology partners, the AWS ACE-CRM connector implementation proved to be straightforward. “Compared to another experience, which was cumbersome and offered minimal support, the AWS integration was refreshingly simple,” says Smith. This ease of deployment allowed for rapid adoption, transitioning from a small pilot group to company-wide implementation with minimal disruption to daily operations.

The ACE-CRM connector helped Granicus connect its sales teams with the appropriate AWS account managers for co-selling, eliminating manual ACE entries and enabling opportunities to move seamlessly between the Granicus and AWS Salesforce environments. AWS account manager contact information and other sales data are available to Granicus sellers to initiate the co-sell motion.

The implementation of the CRM connector delivered immediate operational benefits for Granicus, transforming how teams collaborated with AWS. The most significant impact came from the elimination of previously manual processes, reducing the administrative burden on sales personnel and reducing bottlenecks. “The ACE-CRM connector provides a more automated and unified experience,” says Smith. “Our team members no longer waste time on double entry of data and can instead focus on revenue-generating activities.” As a result, Granicus and AWS have newfound transparency in their co-selling relationship. “The integration gave us increased visibility into the sales process and clear metrics on shared sales opportunities with AWS,” explains Pekaj. This visibility, along with synchronized communication channels that eliminated information silos between teams, fostered a more collaborative environment where both Granicus and AWS sales teams can align their efforts more effectively, creating a unified front in customer engagements rather than parallel but disconnected approaches.

After fully implementing the integration, the company experienced a 198 percent rise in Granicus-originated co-selling opportunities with AWS, directly impacting the bottom line. The CRM connector has proven to be scalable as well. What began as a limited pilot with 20 users quickly expanded to encompass more than 100 people in Granicus's global sales organization, with teams across different regions embracing the streamlined workflow. “We were able to roll this out to five times the number of sellers because we can enable auto permissions for ACE opportunities. Now we have state, federal, and enterprise level market reps involved,” says Smith. The company also saw a 117 percent year-over-year increase in average time to launch ACE opportunities with the integration.

The elevated SCB partnership status has also provided Granicus with meaningful differentiation in the government technology sector. “The AWS resell program partnership helped us stand out and afforded us more support and collaboration opportunities from AWS,” noted Stirling Smith. “This has further driven our co-selling traction in ways we couldn't achieve before.”

Granicus is positioned for sustained growth through its strengthened AWS partnership. The foundation of automated processes, clear metrics, and collaborative selling approaches has created a scalable framework that will continue to evolve as both companies innovate.

The APN Customer Engagements (ACE) program allows you to securely collaborate and co-sell with Amazon Web Services (AWS), drive successful engagements with customers, and grow your business. 

Granicus provides technology that empowers government organizations to create better lives for the people they serve. The company helps organizations at all levels of government become more transparent with their information, more efficient in their workflows, and more collaborative with the public.