Migrating to New Commerce Experience (NCE) for Microsoft 365

Last December we made a post relating to the upcoming pricing changes that were coming for Microsoft 365 (CSP) and Service Provider licensing agreement programs (SPLA). Please see the post made here for reference: News & Updates - Raines Internet Solutions (Microsoft 365 and SPLA Price Changes in 2022)

Microsoft had asked all partners globally to transition customers into their new purchasing motion referred to as the New Commerce Experience (NCE) which was expected to take effect from 1st March 2022. Due to some backlash from Partners about this sudden change and the purchasing rule changes in NCE; Microsoft made the decision to allow partners to delay the migration to NCE until 2023 for customers with existing subscriptions in Microsoft 365 and only require new subscription orders to be placed under the NCE program.

We would like to stress that the changes outlined in this announcement are coming from Microsoft and we are required to implement these changes with all our current Microsoft 365 customers. Raines Internet Solutions is not imposing the pricing changes associated to NCE and only passing on the pricing changes we have incurred from Microsoft as your indirect reseller of their services.

Customers need to note; these changes are purely billing related. There are no changes to the service descriptions or features included in any subscriptions being migrated to NCE. There will be no interruption to services whilst we make subscription changes on your behalf. The changes are backend administration related only.

Key Differences that New Commerce Experience (NCE) Introduces:

Before we talk about the key differences between legacy CSP and NCE, let’s look at the features of the current CSP offer that your subscriptions operate under today:

1. 12-month subscription term (excluding some Dynamics 365 SKUs which come with a 36-month term).
2. Flexibility to cancel subscription and adjust seat count at any time with charges prorated.
3. Price protection during the subscription term.

The main differences between legacy CSP offers and the New Commerce Experience are as follows:

1. Enforcement of cancellation policy – Microsoft Partners can only cancel on your behalf with prorated refund within the first 7 calendar days (the cancellation window), proration calculated daily. After the first 7 days, you can no longer cancel a subscription or reduce the number of seats until the subscription anniversary. You will be billed for a full term without refund. 
2. New 1-month term offer – A new 1-month term offer will be available at 20% price premium for customers who need flexibility to adjust seats.
3. Schedule changes at subscription renewal – Microsoft Partners can turn on or off auto-renewal, and schedule change of seat count at the time of subscription renewal.
4. Upgrade – As cancellation is not available outside the 7-day cancellation window, a full or partial upgrade is available for customer to upgrade to higher tier product during mid-term.

Migration to New Commerce Experience:

Starting from the January 2023 billing period (15/01-14/02), Raines Internet Solutions will migrate all legacy CSP subscriptions to NCE on behalf of customers. This excludes Not-for-Profit subscriptions and Education subscriptions which are to remain on legacy CSP until Microsoft advise of changes to these subscription types. 

Our migration process will transition your existing Microsoft 365 subscriptions to the new 1-month term offer. This means that if you wish to make changes after migration, we can organise for these changes to take effect in the next billing period post migration (14/02-15/03). A key point to remember is that remaining on the 1-month term offer enables much the same experience as the current CSP offer works today except that if an order is placed in error, we only have a 7-day window in that billing period to correct the error otherwise it will need to be scheduled in the following month and a prorate refund will not be provided.

Options to move to a 12-month purchase offer or even a 36-month purchase offer are available; however, we will require up-front payment for these purchase offers, and the same 7-day cancellation window applies. No refund will be provided after 7-days. We would encourage a conversation with us regarding these options in the new year if you would be interested in converting some or all your subscriptions to a longer-term purchase offer.

As mentioned above; the price premium does apply to 1-month purchase offers. Here is a summary of the most common subscriptions and there pricing changes after migration to NCE. Please note this is not a comprehensive list, all products after migration will see some change in pricing.  

Вторник, Декабрь 6, 2022

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