$3M
In motion in four months
A stalled program went from $2.46M to its full $3M ceiling in four months. Then Microsoft raised the ceiling by 50%.
The problem
The paperwork was an unpaid favor, so it never got done.
The funding only unlocks after the customer signs off and completes a short survey. This company kept every dollar internal, so the customer had no reason to sign and the deal team had no reason to chase it. The steps ran by hand, late, and inconsistently. At kickoff in March the pipeline stood at $2.46M against a $3M annual ceiling, with a Microsoft rule change tightening the program on July 1.
From stalled to a raised ceiling
March to June
$2.46M
Stalled at kickoff
Sitting against a $3M annual ceiling, with claims going unfinished.
→
$3M
Full ceiling, 4 months
$1M paid and $2M approved and in flight by June.
→
+50%
Ceiling raised
Microsoft lifted the annual cap once the program was clearly running.
What Carve did
Pay the people who have to do the paperwork.
- Redesigned the funding model as a three-way split. The customer, the deal team, and the client's central fund each take a share of every pre-sales fund. Completing consent and surveys stopped being an unpaid favor and started being worth money to everyone involved.
- Made Microsoft deal registration the price of entry. Every qualifying deal now has to be logged in Partner Center to be eligible for funding, so nothing slips through unclaimed.
- Replaced the manual process with one intake form and automation. A single intake form kicks off automated customer consent and survey requests, with reminder cadences that chase completion so the team doesn't have to.
- Built a dashboard down to the individual claim. Claim-level visibility showed exactly which claims needed attention. When the ratio drifted to 4:1, we cleaned up expired and inactive claims and brought it back inside 3:1.
The outcome
They filled the ceiling, so we got it raised.
$3M
Full program ceiling reached, from $2.46M at kickoff
+50%
Increase Microsoft granted to that ceiling
4 mo
From kickoff to a full program
By June the program had reached its ceiling, $1M already paid and $2M approved and in flight, and Microsoft agreed to raise the cap by half again. Giving the customer a real reason to sign closed the gap that had stalled every claim, and the dashboard keeps the program inside Microsoft's rules. The engagement is ongoing.
