ECIF is Microsoft’s strategic funding mechanism used to accelerate enterprise cloud adoption by providing milestone-based financial incentives directly to customers. Because payouts depend on strict delivery, documentation, and Proof of Execution requirements, partners often struggle with governance, scope control, and timely milestone completion.
The Gap: Most Partners Are Not Operationally Set Up for ECIF Delivery
Partners excel at selling and initiating transformation projects, but ECIF requires:
- Structured delivery
- Process-level documentation
- Consistent change management
- Traceable approvals
- Milestone-aligned implementation governance
- Clean PoE evidence
- End-user adoption and validation
These are areas where most partners struggle, causing ECIF milestones to fail.
Most ECIF failures aren’t technical—they’re governance, documentation, and milestone problems.
Mavim fills this gap by providing the structure, traceability, and documentation quality partners need to reliably meet ECIF milestones and unlock funding.
ECIF payout follows a predictable, milestone-based pattern
Example below of this could be structured in the Microsoft SOW.
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Milestone 1:
Project Kick-off
10% Funding
- Signed SoW
- PO confirmed
- Internal Order (IO) created and approved
- Governance validates eligibility before work begins
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Milestone 2:
Initial Deliverable
25% Funding
- Discovery / environment setup
- Customer confirms project start
- Governance confirms alignment with SoW and workload guidance
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Milestone 3:
Midpoint Milestone
40% Funding
- Key partial deliverables (blueprints, configurations, migration checkpoints)
- Progress review
- Governance verifies timing fits within the fiscal quarter
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Milestone 4:
Final Deliverable
25% Funding
- Full completion of funded activity
- Customer sign-off
- Governance confirms deliverables match SoW
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Milestone 5:
Proof of Execution (PoE) — Required for All Payments
- Partner submits deliverables, evidence, and approvals
- Governance performs audit
- Payment triggered only after final validation
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Mavim addresses the single biggest risk in ECIF: failure to meet milestones due to incomplete documentation, inconsistent delivery, or slow user adoption.
This section outlines where partners typically struggle and how Mavim replaces those gaps through structure, traceability, and accelerated implementation.
Incomplete Opportunity & Delivery Readiness
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Partners often initiate ECIF requests without a clearly defined:
- Business value case
- Stakeholder map
- Transformation scope
- Operating model baseline
- Prioritized requirements
This results in ECIF governance questioning feasibility before work even begins.
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How Mavim Replaces This Gap
Mavim provides:
- A standardized Phase-0 blueprint
- Pre-loaded Business Process Catalog models
- Stakeholder & RACI alignment
- Initial KPIs and measurable success indicators
- Defined governance roles
This ensures the project begins with a clear and auditable delivery framework.
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Unstructured Customer Discovery
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ECIF governance often rejects milestone plans because partners struggle with:
- Accurate timeline phasing
- Fit-Gap visibility
- Dependency mapping
- Stakeholder readiness
- Alignment with Success by Design
As a result, milestone planning appears too vague or too risky.
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How Mavim Replaces This Gap
Mavim provides:
- A delivery method aligned to Success by Design
- Automatically generated process deltas
- Workstream-driven planning
- Governance checkpoints
- Baseline vs. future-state clarity
This gives Microsoft confidence that milestones are achievable.
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Poor-Quality Statements of Work (SoWs)
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Partners often submit SoWs that are:
- Missing key assumptions
- Not mapped to business processes
- Lacking acceptance criteria
- Not traceable to discovery outcomes
- Too high-level for governance review
This directly leads to milestone and PoE rejection.
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How Mavim Replaces This Gap
Mavim outputs include:
- A requirements catalog
- Process-level deliverables
- Acceptance criteria aligned to business flows
- Role-based responsibilities
- Full audit trail
Partners can produce SoWs that are detailed, defensible, and compliant.
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Lack of Delivery Governance During Implementation
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Where partners most often fail:
- No traceability from discovery to delivery
- Missing sign-offs
- Lost documentation
- No evidence of customer engagement
- Workshops not documented properly
- Scope drift without governance approvals
These gaps cause the most ECIF milestone failures.
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How Mavim Replaces This Gap
Mavim adds:
- End-to-end documentation
- Approval workflows embedded into every artifact
- Scope management & controlled change logs
- A single source of truth for all deliverables
- Predictable governance checkpoints
This creates structured delivery that Microsoft’s governance teams expect.
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Failure at the PoE (Proof of Execution) Stage
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Across all partners globally, the number one point of failure is at PoE submission:
- Deliverables do not match the SoW
- Work performed outside the funded window
- No customer sign-off
- No traceable evidence
- Poor process documentation
- Missing versioning
This blocks payout and increases friction.
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How Mavim Replaces This Gap
Mavim auto-generates PoE-ready evidence:
- Business processes (as-is / to-be)
- Requirements traceability
- Approvals and sign-offs
- Change logs
- Fit/Gap analysis
- Stakeholder alignment documentation
This aligns directly to what the ECIF Governance Board audits.
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How Mavim + Helps to Transform ECIF Delivery
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For Partners
- Faster qualification
- Faster implementation (Mavim)
- Higher milestone achievement rates
- Clean, audit-ready documentation
- Reduced customer friction
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For Microsoft
- Higher ECIF utilization
- Higher D365 adoption
- Lower delivery risk
- More predictable revenue recognition
- Improved seller compensation stability
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For Customers
- Clearer understanding of what will change
- Faster stakeholder alignment
- Faster go-lives
- Higher adoption
- Transparent implementation governance
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Mavim eliminates the risks partners face when delivering ECIF-funded engagements. By providing structured documentation, governed delivery, traceable decisions, and auditable evidence, partners can reliably meet Microsoft milestones, reduce delivery friction, and unlock ECIF payouts with confidence.
Where Partners Fail & How Mavim Solves It
| Partner Challenges |
Mavim Boost |
- Weak readiness
- Unstructured discovery
- Bad milestone planning
- Poor SoWs
- No governance in delivery
- PoE rejection
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- Phase-0 blueprint, BPC alignment
- Industry models, process mapping
- Succeed by Design alignment
- Requirements → processes → acceptance evidence
- Change tracking, approvals, one source of truth
- Full PoE evidence package from Mavim
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