

Azure VMware Solution Customer Sentiment Analysis
As a former VMware intern and an admirer of Microsoft Azure, I found this product to be a great research project idea.
The Azure VMware solution is a product that allows customers to run VMware environments within Azure. This makes it easy for any customers already on VMware environments to transfer the capabilities from on-prem to the cloud using Azure. AWS and GCP have similar offerings with VMware.
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By reading online reviews, I tried to understand what were some of the reasons for purchase of a product such as this and what made Azure stand apart from the rest.
Target Personas

AVS Marketing Director

AVS Product Marketing Manager
The Work
Figuring out the market landscape
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Updated myself on the current trends in the industry, the needs of the customers, and where organizations are in their digital transformation processes in general by looking at industry reports, Seeking Alpha, and SEMRush
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Analyzed the different competitors in the market with respect to the features they were offering, the price, and the customer feedback
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Sifted through reviews and understood the common pros and cons customers were talking about
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Used ChatGPT to updated myself on certain industry terminologies
Providing recommendations based on the insights
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Some of the insights included:
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The differentiator of the Azure VMware solution was the fact that it was being offered as a bundle with Microsoft​ Office and Azure so organizations only need to deal with one vendor: Microsoft
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More new users were experimenting with GCP than Azure
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Customers found Azure VMware Service to be too expensive and as a short-term option
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Customers were looking for better customer support as turnaround times were huge
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Synthesizing these insights into recommendations resulted in the following suggestions:
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More support in the form of monthly office hours​
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An online course just for the Azure VMware solution
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Adding a justification of costs in customer-facing assets and in sales pitches
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The Impact
Improved Market Research Capabilities
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Creating this personal project resulted in a better understanding of secondary market research
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Prompted the creation of a review insights process that uses a spreadsheet to record the keywords highlighted in reviews that relate to a pain point or a benefit. This word list can be put through a word cloud generator: one for the benefits and one for the pain points to reveal the biggest improvements customers are asking for and the biggest differentiator that convinced them to continue with the product
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