SADA Launches SaaS Alliance Program Tied To Google Cloud

‘What we’re bringing to market together with Google Cloud here is completely unique in the MSP partner ecosystem space, and we’re really excited to make SADA the best possible home for every SaaS company that wants to run on GCP,’ SADA Systems CEO Tony Safoian says.

SADA Systems is redoubling its efforts to help SaaS companies launch their products and grow using Google Cloud technology.

Its new SADA SaaS Alliance Program will give SaaS providers access to SADA’s co-marketing and co-selling services, including lead generation with the SADA sales team, to scale and amplify their brands and sales within SADA’s customer base and the Google ecosystem.

Los Angeles-based SADA will assign its SaaS provider customers to a dedicated alliance account manager -- a newly created position -- who will assist them with planning to full execution. SaaS providers will benefit from assistance with go-to-market strategies, account mapping to maximize success with targeted prospects, business reviews to measure performance goals and objectives, thought leadership content and promotional opportunities with SADA and Google Cloud, according to SADA.

Other SaaS Alliance Program benefits will include GCP training and cost-optimization whiteboard sessions, 24x7 support, co-branded marketing collateral, a guest appearance on SADA’s Cloud N Clear podcast, and sales enablement sessions and materials.

SADA’s new program aligns with Google Cloud’s strategy for 2021, according to SADA CEO Tony Safoian. Google Cloud has been vetting the same types of SaaS requests and has brought on specialists to nurture the relationships, he said.

“I think you‘ll see them making bigger investments in the space with Google (Cloud) Marketplace, etc.,” he said. “In typical fashion, we’d like to align our strategy as closely to Google Cloud as possible. What we’re bringing to market together with Google Cloud here is completely unique in the MSP (managed service provider) partner ecosystem space, and we’re really excited to make SADA the best possible home for every SaaS company that wants to run on GCP.”

Google Cloud did not respond to a CRN inquiry by deadline.

SADA’s new alliance program was born out of the needs that its “most progressive and prolific” customers were expressing to SADA when talking about what a Google Cloud partnership means to them and what Google Cloud Platform (GCP) will do for their platforms, according to Safoian. SaaS providers account for SADA’s largest segment of GCP customers.

“These are the subset of SaaS companies who are digital natives themselves, who are in the business of providing enterprise software to other businesses,” Safoian said. “They’re picking GCP not only because it’s better technology or the cost performance ratio is impressive, but…for what it means to them from a growth standpoint, a go-to-market standpoint, a revenue acceleration standpoint.”

SADA previously had been onboarding SaaS partners in sort of a piecemeal, relatively unstructured fashion, according to Safoian.

“We were being custom about it,” he said. “It was not very organized. We were just picking off things that they would express that they need, like help in marketing awareness, like introductions to our thousands of customers.”

Last August, SADA hired Nikki Harley (pictured above) as its strategic alliance manager, and she oversaw the creation of the new program. Harley previously served as director of partnerships and alliances at AODocs, an Atlanta independent software provider (ISV).

“SADA being Google Cloud Partner of the Year two years running, it’s kind of an obligation for ISVs to reach out to us now and say, ‘Hey, we want to partner with you,’” Harley said, noting SADA had been a bit overwhelmed with the number of SaaS provider requests that it was receiving. “Initially, I was brought on to really vet out those requests and figure out which ones that we want to do more with and then, obviously, this program was born. Just having a point of contact here at SADA for those ISVs to go to is, speaking from somebody who’s been there, so valuable.”

SADA currently has one dedicated alliance account manager and has plans to hire additional ones as it onboards more SaaS partners.

It’s been piloting the new program with four SaaS companies: Cysiv, a security operations center (SOC)-as-a-service provider with headquarters in Dallas; Culver City, Calif.-based PacketFabric, which offers a network-as-a-service platform for scalable, private connectivity; Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Quantum Metric, whose SaaS platform helps organizations build digital products faster; and Virtru, a data protection and privacy company based in Washington, D.C.

“We’re really helping these ISVs make a make a firm decision to go GCP, because not only are they are they building on GCP, but they’re also getting those go-to-market benefits through SADA,” Harley said. “It helps make that decision easier for a lot of folks.”

For Quantum Metric, it’s important to find partners that can support its accelerated growth, given the increasing importance of delivering digital products with greater impact, speed and confidence, according to Mario Ciabarra, Quantum Metric’s CEO.

“As such, we’ve made a five-year commitment to Google Cloud through SADA, given their technical expertise and the strong relationship SADA has established with the Google Cloud team,” Ciabarra said in a statement.

Many ISVs that launched five to 10 years ago started on Amazon Web Services and other clouds, but now are migrating to GCP as a competitive advantage as they go to market, according to Safoian.

“What’s wonderful about the incentive alignment and how it all works together is…the fact that they’re running on GCP and consuming GCP,” Safoian said. “The bigger those businesses get, the more revenue is driven to Google and to SADA. It’s a magical alignment of incentives -- exactly the type of multi-way wins that we love in our business model.”