266 – Mastering Microsoft Partnerships: Agility, AI, and the Path to Growth with Lori Borg

Recorded Live at Ultimate Partner LIVE in Redmond, WA

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Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast.

Join us for an insightful conversation with Lori Borg, Vice President of Microsoft America’s Go-to-Market, as she shares her incredible journey from Microsoft partner to a key executive at Microsoft. Dive deep into the critical importance of organizational and technical agility in today’s rapidly changing tech landscape, especially within the Microsoft ecosystem. Lori emphasizes the need for technical intensity, urging partners to not only adopt the latest Microsoft technologies, including agentic AI, but also to apply them internally to drive innovation and efficiency. Discover the magic that happens when you strategically build with, sell with, and market with Microsoft, and gain valuable insights on how to foster a culture of growth and adaptability within your own organization to become the ultimate Microsoft partner.

We’re curating the very best of these moments—fireside chats, expert panels, and executive insights—so you can stay ahead of the curve and fully aligned to where Microsoft and the industry are heading.

And this is just the beginning.
More sessions. More voices. More of what you need to know.

If you’re not yet part of the UPX Community, now’s the time to join us. Access exclusive content, events, and strategies that keep you in front of what’s next.

Thanks for being on this journey with us.
— Vince

Key Takeaways

• Agility—both organizational and technical—is essential for Microsoft partners to adapt to rapid changes in the tech landscape.
• Partners should actively adopt and apply technical intensity, leveraging new technologies like agentic AI internally to drive innovation and efficiency.
• True success for Microsoft partners lies in strategically integrating efforts to build with, sell with, and market with Microsoft.
• A strong culture of agility, fostered from the top down, is crucial for organizations to remain competitive and adaptable.
• When introducing new initiatives, it’s vital to not only generate energy but also provide clear clarity on practical implementation steps.
• Microsoft is committed to simplifying partner engagement and enhancing clarity in its processes, keeping partners at the core of its strategy.

If you’re ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community.

At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins.

Key Tags:

Microsoft, Lori Borg, Microsoft Partner, Go-to-Market, Technical Agility, Organizational Agility, AI, Agentic AI, Ecosystem, Partnerships, Growth Mindset, Digital Transformation, Business Strategy, Innovation, Technology, Microsoft Americas, Channel Partners, Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Customer Success, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Cloud, Satya Nadella, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Change Management, Business Growth, Co-selling, Solution Areas, Digital Marketing, Cloud Computing, Microsoft Programs, Partner Hub, Future of Work, Tech Trends.

Transcription:

Lori Borg 

[00:00:00] Lori Borg: I think we talk so much about ai. We talk so much about how it’s changing everything and the opportunity in front of us, but we really need to hold the mirror up. Yeah, I do as well. And go, what am I doing to make sure I’m using it for myself? Yes. And I’m encouraging and supporting my teams to be using it as well.

[00:00:21] Intro: We believe this time is like no other. We believe we refer to these as the tectonic shifts, all the hyperscalers in the world. If you add them all together. Managed services will be one and a half times larger because it is the customer buying behavior that has created the need for all of us to rethink our models.

Until we have data quality, the effectiveness of AI cannot be realized and effectiveness of the partnerships cannot be realized. Can you figure out, first, what your purpose is and how Microsoft can support your purpose and how you can support Microsoft purpose? Now we have a partnership. It’s the ultimate partnership.

[00:00:59] Vince Menzione: Welcome to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi, own your host, and my mission is to help leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. We just came off Ultimate Partner Live at Microsoft Redmond Campus, our most powerful event. Yet, over two days, we gathered top leaders to tackle the real shifts shaping our industry.

If you weren’t in the room. This episode featuring Lori Borg, Microsoft’s new Vice President for Go to Market, kicks us off for day two and brings us right to the edge of what’s next. Let’s dive in. I have an incredible privilege this morning. Um, we, we wanna have the conversation about embracing change, and I could think of no one better to come on stage with me today than someone who’s been around the Microsoft ecosystem and around the community of partnerships her entire career.

In fact, and we will talk a little bit about it. I want, I wanna save some of the conversation for her. She recently joined Microsoft like a hundred days ago, became a vice president at Microsoft. So she went from being one of you all, like one of us in the, in the ultimate partner world that we live in to now being an exec at Microsoft and shaping a very important part of Microsoft’s business.

You see, if you know anything about how Microsoft is organized, you have the global roles and Nicole’s organization drives it at. The global level. But when you get into the Americas, which is where you all sit, whether you’re in Canada, Latin America, or the United States, there’s an America’s business that’s very deliberate, very focused on driving success.

And within that business, a very, very strong component of that business is go to market. It’s marketing. Because as you know, being around Microsoft, all the engines, all the support, all the investments that make partners successful, that go to market strategy is critically important. So I am thrilled to invite my friend, we’ve known each other for many years around the partner ecosystem.

I can’t wait for her to spend some time with us this morning talking about embracing change. Laurie Borg is the vice president of Microsoft America’s go to market for the. Global partner community. That’s a mouthful. A lot of acronyms out there. Lori, I’d love to have you up on stage. Come on up. Come up.

So good to see you. Good. So good to see you, my friend. So good to meet here. We got to be together. We, we were together just a little, was it a month ago? It seems like a hundred years ago. Of course, before a lot has changed. Before I sit down, I have to

[00:03:24] Lori Borg: say who noticed? The ultimate partner pillows the amazing attention to detail.

I love it.

[00:03:30] Vince Menzione: Thank you.

[00:03:30] Lori Borg: Yes. I’ve got a whole

[00:03:32] Vince Menzione: collection of them in my house, by the way. But, uh, we, we will give you a ch we’ll give you a challenge coin and an ultimate partner pillow if you sign up today. How’s that?

[00:03:40] Lori Borg: Perfect.

[00:03:41] Vince Menzione: And a hat. So, and a hat. Absolutely. You got a hat ab Absolutely. For being here. So thanks for having you.

So great to be here with you. Yeah. So great to be here. Um, and I, I just wanna spend a moment talking about your journey. ’cause it’s been incredible. You’ve had an incredible career in the, in the ecosystem that we know and love.

[00:03:57] Lori Borg: Yes.

[00:03:58] Vince Menzione: And, and now you jumped and you came over to the other side. I did. So I want to, let’s, let’s talk about it.

I did tell, take us through it.

[00:04:03] Lori Borg: I, I, I would love to ask before I jump into it. I’ve been in the Microsoft ecosystem for 26 years, so it’s been a minute. Um, and I have some of my peers on my team now at Microsoft celebrating 15, 20, 25 years at Microsoft. And we do a lot to celebrate them inside of Microsoft.

Amazing. What I’m curious of, is anybody in the room? Have you been in the Mark, Microsoft partner ecosystem? Like 20 plus years. Can you raise your hand? Yes. What about 25 plus years? Keep your hands up. There’s several of you. 30 years, anybody? 30 years. Yeah. A few of you, Jeff. Yeah. Good. Well, I wanna do celebrate all those people.

Absolutely. Yeah. Congratulations. Because we celebrate, we celebrate inside of Microsoft. So, um, thank you for choosing Microsoft and for being so committed to the Microsoft ecosystem. Okay with that, a little bit about my journey. So yeah, let’s

[00:04:52] Vince Menzione: talk about you like, yeah,

[00:04:54] Lori Borg: so my journey, I started in the late nineties actually, with a training company.

Wow. So back in the CPLS Ctech days. Yeah. And that’s how I got into the business. I started in, in sales and sales leadership, but I really had a passion to run a company and to be an i, a entrepreneurial spirit, wanted to build a business. Uh, so when I had my first kiddo, I used that as the opportunity to step back from what I was doing and take that big jump.

Very cool. And start a Microsoft partner company. Where’d that

[00:05:24] Vince Menzione: entrepreneurial edge come from? Was there, was it in your DNA? Was it, I will tell

[00:05:28] Lori Borg: you, my first little business was when I was 12 and I started teaching piano. Okay, nice. Very nice. So it very much was in my DNA. It’s DNA. Yeah. Yeah. It’s DNA, um, which I’m sure a lot of you have that same DNA as well since you’re sitting here and partners.

And tell us about the first company

[00:05:42] Vince Menzione: that you started.

[00:05:43] Lori Borg: Yeah, so, uh, the company was a systems integrator designed to help software development teams improve how they built software. We were actually Microsoft’s first DevOps partner, first gold DevOps partner, so helped shape what that competency looked like back in the day.

Um, and I ran that business for 10 years. It was a great, great. Company loved it and had the opportunity to, all through the

[00:06:07] Vince Menzione: s right. All through the s

[00:06:08] Lori Borg: Yeah. Had the opportunity to sell, uh, the company to another larger firm that was one of Microsoft’s largest Azure partners at the time. And I, uh, was a partner there and stayed on to help build that business and then sell it again to one of Microsoft’s largest global companies.

Yeah. One of

[00:06:28] Vince Menzione: the largest GSIs.

[00:06:29] Lori Borg: Yeah. One of the largest GSIs. Um. So then I, you know, that was a, that took a, that took about 13, 14 years out of my career doing kind of that whole sequence of events. Uh, and then I had the opportunity to join a biz apps partner and help build the Azure business. And um, and that was incredible.

And then now I’m here at Microsoft.

[00:06:49] Vince Menzione: Unbelievable. Yeah.

[00:06:50] Lori Borg: So from small to big and everything in between.

[00:06:52] Vince Menzione: So what did you learn along the journey like that you can share with this audience and. People watching today also on livestream. Yeah. About embracing change, about like how do you think about working with Microsoft as your largest vendor or partner?

[00:07:04] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:07:05] Vince Menzione: And then how did you do it? Like what did you have to do?

[00:07:08] Lori Borg: I think a couple of things that come to mind right away for me are around agility. Uh, I talk a lot about the importance of agility from two different lenses. One is organizational agility and the other is technical agility. Um, and it’s fairly self-explanatory, just.

By the words in themselves. But when we think about the combination of making sure that your organization is organizationally agile, that you are structured in a way where you can pivot when you need to pivot. Mm-hmm. When you’re tied to a Microsoft funding program and the funding dries up and you need to quick go do something different.

Yes. Or Microsoft rolls out a new solution area or new competency requirements and you need to be able to pivot. So. Structuring the business in a way that you have that culture where you are organizationally agile is key. The other side of that coin though, is having that technical agility. Interesting.

Um, I think it sometimes is easy for us to sit back and not stay on top of that technical intensity that we all need to make sure that we’re. Always learning. We’re in the business of technology.

[00:08:12] Intro: Yeah.

[00:08:13] Lori Borg: Um, and so making sure that you’re creating a culture of technical agility as well as that organizational agility, I think is, is really critical for Microsoft partners to stay front and center and to stay kind of leading edge with all of the change.

[00:08:27] Vince Menzione: How do you think about agility when you’re in the boardroom, when you’re running an organization like that, what do you do to stay agile? Like I know that you have like listening mechanisms, but how do you think through it?

[00:08:38] Lori Borg: Oh, that’s a good question. I think, um, you know, in the boardroom and speaking at the executive level, I think a lot of it does again, come back to creating that culture of agility and it.

It does need to be created from the top down. Mm-hmm. Um, because it impacts how you invest the horizons that you’re planning things on, the rigor and discipline that you put around processes and activities that you’re doing so that you can move quickly if you need to. Um, so I think a lot of it comes down to.

Comes down to making sure that you have the right framework and mechanisms in place to be able to move and to ensure and motivate that everyone on the teams are inspired and want to lean in and learn and stay competitive technically.

[00:09:25] Vince Menzione: So critical there. To your point, like people talk about fail fast, right?

Yes. Fail fast. That’s the term. Fail is used. SAT is used many times. Yeah. In terms of having a growth mindset, like you’ve gotta be able to accept failure.

[00:09:36] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:09:37] Vince Menzione: And embrace it.

[00:09:38] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:09:38] Vince Menzione: Uh, and it’s okay.

[00:09:39] Lori Borg: And avoid the analysis paralysis. Yeah. Like no analysis paralysis, fail fast and iterate quickly. Yeah.

[00:09:45] Vince Menzione: Very cool.

Yeah. Very cool.

[00:09:47] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:09:47] Vince Menzione: So, um, what is the opportunity for our partners today? Like we talked about the fact that they’ve gotta look at embracing change so much is happening.

[00:09:54] Lori Borg: Yeah,

[00:09:55] Vince Menzione: I’d love to talk more about the business and all the changes.

[00:09:57] Lori Borg: Yeah. I

[00:09:57] Vince Menzione: know some of them are still kind of like nestled here. We can’t bring everything up to market, but what are you seeing and what, what do partner, how do partners, what do you, what have been your experiences so far in the first a hundred days?

Oh gosh. Working with these partners and what would you say to them now?

[00:10:11] Lori Borg: Yep.

[00:10:12] Vince Menzione: About what we need to go do better and differently.

[00:10:15] Lori Borg: Alright, so I’m gonna get on my soapbox a little bit on the topic of technical intensity. Uh, some of my, some of my team who might be watching, we hear, we talk about it a lot, and Satya, I think coined the phrase technical intensity.

I remember watching him talk about it for the first time at, I believe in Ignite in maybe 2018, somewhere around that time. And the concept of technical intensity really is twofold. Part of it is being. Intentional about using and staying up with the latest and greatest Microsoft technology. So that’s part of it.

But the other part of it is using that technology to really create something special and unique. Unique IP, baking it into your services and offerings. And I think for. All of us at a very personal level, as well as leading our teams. And in our organizations, it’s critical to have technical intensity at the heart of what we’re doing.

Um, I will just say very personally, I, I’m certainly not a technologist and I need to kind of push myself every day to go, okay, how could this be done differently? How could this be done better? I’m gonna carve out. 20 minutes or two hours on the weekends to go learn about a new thing so that I can show up better and stronger for myself and for my team.

And I think we talk so much about ai, we talk so much about how it’s changing everything and the opportunity in front of us. But we really need to hold the mirror up. Yeah, I do as well. And go, what am I doing to make sure I’m using it for myself? Yes. And I’m encouraging and supporting my teams to be using it as well.

I think that’s one of the biggest things as we think about looking into Microsoft’s new fiscal year, there’s so much opportunity with ai. But we can spend all day talking about how are we gonna build it into our offerings and roll it out to our customers. Yeah. But what are we doing inside of our own houses?

So good to, to build agents and to use Agen ai, to not just enable ourselves to do things better, faster, cheaper, but to do things differently.

[00:12:18] Vince Menzione: And I think we’re at a cusp of a moment here with Agen ai. Right. We talked about AI now for, it’s going back to 22, 23. Yep. When it first hit chat, EBT, and then copilot, but.

We kind of, you know, we sat back a little bit because we were getting criticized because the CFO wasn’t seeing the benefit. They weren’t seeing the 30% drop in, in cost out of their business from it.

[00:12:39] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:12:40] Vince Menzione: Uh, we expected too much too soon.

[00:12:42] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:12:42] Vince Menzione: Uh, I, I feel like we’re at a moment now where things are gonna really accelerate and a lot of conversation yesterday with Nvidia and Sandy Gupta talking about AG agentic ai.

Good. I think we have more conversation today with partners. Good. Talking about how they’re applying AG agentic AI into their businesses. Yeah. Cutting costs.

[00:12:57] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:12:57] Vince Menzione: Improving efficiencies and, and, uh. Creating better outcomes.

[00:13:00] Lori Borg: Good. That’s good. Yeah. I mean, I think so much of it again, is what are you doing inside of your own businesses?

Yeah. With your sales org, your marketing org, your engineering teams, your product teams, uh, and making sure that from the top down you have champions driving that change in momentum for internal technical intensity, as well as what do you bring to market? What and how are you creating those differentiators?

What, what I

[00:13:24] Vince Menzione: heard you say too is we need to like look in the mirror. Right. Yeah. That was your exact words. Literally

[00:13:28] Lori Borg: those, yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:29] Vince Menzione: And we need to apply it. Like we can’t just sit on the sidelines and kind of watch it go by ’cause it’s happening so fast, right? Yeah. It’s gonna, we’re gonna be, we’re here and it’s gonna be there.

I. Before a day goes by.

[00:13:39] Lori Borg: Yeah. And I think we can’t just sit in our companies and expect that our customers are going to adopt it and tell our customers why it’s so great and how to adopt it when we’re not adopting it ourselves. So I think it starts in our own houses, if you will.

[00:13:53] Intro: Yes.

[00:13:54] Lori Borg: Um, and that’s how we create energy around it because when we can see, oh my gosh, we built an agent that’s able to do this thing for me that we never were able to do before.

We get excited about it and our customers will see that excitement and energy. You know? Yeah. So I think it starts with us. Well, and

[00:14:10] Vince Menzione: you were leading a company that was a leader in Azure. Yep. And migrations and all of that. Yeah. And brought it to a large GSI where you had to basically change, you had to,

[00:14:19] Intro: yeah.

There was a

[00:14:19] Vince Menzione: lot of change management. A lot. Bringing that organization lot Yeah. To to the same level that you were before. Yeah. What do you do internally now at Microsoft on helping them? Look in the mirror. I guess, how do, what do you, is there like a set of instructions we need to think about for our companies?

Like what do we, what do we need to go do with our organizations to get them to that next level?

[00:14:39] Lori Borg: Yeah, that’s a really good question. Um, I, I think Satya, going back to Satya again, uh, a couple of things that he has talked about a lot over the years is creating energy and driving clarity. Uh, that is a lot of where it comes from honestly.

Vince I think is just being able to identify even the motion or the movement around technical intensity inside of my organization and our broader America’s team looking at how can we get everyone excited about, yeah. The impact that technical intensity will drive. So it’s creating the energy, but then it’s also creating clarity on what does that actually mean.

Uh, we can talk a lot about it, but practically speaking, what should I go do as an employee or as a leader or as an executive? To go myself be technically intense. Yes. And also encourage my teams to do the same thing.

[00:15:31] Vince Menzione: And your business is traditionally marketing.

[00:15:33] Lori Borg: Yeah. Go to

[00:15:33] Vince Menzione: market, which generally is not as technically intense.

Right. I.

[00:15:38] Lori Borg: Yes, but well, some might argue, yeah,

[00:15:41] Vince Menzione: it has changed over the years. It has that from

[00:15:42] Lori Borg: a go to market perspective, we should be the beacon Yes, absolutely. Of technical intensity because it’s, it’s creating clarity and it’s, uh, creativity, it’ss content scale engagement. You know,

[00:15:56] Vince Menzione: and the technology has changed rapidly.

Right. I go back to, back in the old days of marketing, we didn’t even know what the outcomes were.

[00:16:02] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:16:02] Vince Menzione: And then we layered in Marketo and Iqua and some of those technologies. Now marketing is really the science, the data science.

[00:16:08] Lori Borg: Absolutely. It’s, it is the art, the perfect art and science of, yeah. I love of a great go to market strategy.

[00:16:14] Vince Menzione: So for everyone watching us today, everybody watching on the live stream and the recordings of this, what are the three things that you think. Like, we’re going into this moment and I, I think when we get to our October event, uh, so much will have changed already. Yes. Like we’ll be ready for that next iteration.

Yeah. But during this moment, between now and then, what should the organizations, the partners in the room that wanna be the ultimate partner, how do they move forward and what should they do in this next quarter?

[00:16:41] Lori Borg: Yeah. In

[00:16:41] Vince Menzione: their own businesses.

[00:16:42] Lori Borg: Alright. Uh, well first you heard the technical intensity message, so just that kind of overarches everything else, I think from my perspective is making sure that you’re creating a culture and you’re holding up the mirror personally on what you’re doing.

Um, but if I were to say, what are those three things, the three things I always come back to are, what are you doing to build with, sell with and market with Microsoft? Mm. And. I have been in so many different organizations and have worked with so many different Microsoft partner companies over the years that are really strong at one or two of those things.

Yes, I am a firm believer that where the magic happens is when those three things come together. So as an organization, if you are in the marketing side of the business, make sure that you’re looking across sales and engineering or delivery. If you’re in the sales, do the same engineering do the same? Um, it’s not enough.

To just be great at selling with Microsoft. It’s not enough to just be great at building solutions that are landing in the marketplace, that are showing up well there. And it’s not enough to just be marketing. Yeah. Using the Microsoft resources and kind of snapping in with Microsoft. Right. I think when the magic happens is when those three things happen.

So my feedback or advice would be for partners is you’re starting to get kind of towards the end of Microsoft fiscal year and planning towards the new. Take a couple of steps back and evaluate inside of your organizations, do I have a clear leader or clear strategy around how are we gonna approach selling with marketing, with and building with Microsoft, and how can I make sure those three strategies and or leaders are coming together like a.

Like a braid.

[00:18:23] Vince Menzione: So important. You, you touched on the three of the biggest areas and I’ll, I’ll just comment back. ’cause I’ve, I’ve worked across a lot of these organizations over the years. Yeah. The 99.99% do not get that. And those three organizations, generally the engineering or product organization, the marketing organization, the sales organization, let alone the partner organization that’s managing the relationship, they don’t talk to one another.

I know they don’t do a good job. And I think to your point, you’ve gotta get good at all three of those sets of disciplines. You need to have internal communication. Yeah. And then the way you show up with Microsoft and in a way that you’re demonstrating this is the, this is how we’re addressing each of these areas.

And to your point, like how do, how do I get better at the flywheel? Yeah. On each of these, right. That’s it. That’s right.

[00:19:07] Lori Borg: Yep.

[00:19:07] Vince Menzione: And I’m sure you did this because you led a top company.

[00:19:10] Lori Borg: Well, and this is, uh, for a couple of my roles over the years, my title was Chief Growth Officer, and we kind of came up with that many years ago.

It wasn’t very common the first time. I, I, uh, put that on my business card, if you will. And what it really was for me at the core is how are you looking across all three of those areas in a way that’s strategically designed to drive growth? Um, but they all do need to be interconnected. Yeah.

[00:19:37] Vince Menzione: So let’s talk, I, I double cook a little bit on the role because I don’t know if every partner in the room or watching really understands that what is, what your, how your organization is focused.

Yep. What is the value you bring and work with partners to drive? ’cause it does drive a lot on the demand side, but also drives into the co-selling, which we spent a lot of time on yesterday. But tell, take us through that a little

[00:20:00] Lori Borg: bit. Yeah, sure. Great. Um, I loved how you introduced. To the role as it relates to our worldwide organization.

And then we have the Americas team. And my role and the teams in my organization specifically are our go-to market strategy leaders and teams who are working with partners. Sometimes one-on-one, one to many helping land scaled type motions with a lot of partners. Uh, and so what might be helpful is for me to just take a couple of steps back and start by mentioning there are 165,000 ish partners in the Americas.

So there’s a lot of partners in the Americas, so of course my team is not. Large enough to personally spend all 65,000 spend time with all 165,000 partners. Um,

[00:20:49] Intro: yeah,

[00:20:50] Lori Borg: so we work really hard to be strategic and thoughtful about how can we create. Energy and programs and leverage the great assets that worldwide is building and try to scale those so those 165,000 partners can snap into what matters most to them.

Mm-hmm. Or what will be helpful resources for them from a sales enablement, marketing, technical enablement, um, leveraging different programs and getting involved with different channels and so forth. Yeah.

[00:21:20] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And then you align partners to solution plays. I know that’s a big. Big factor of the, the business.

Yep. And then I also know you do a lot on co-selling. Yeah. Like your, your teams are really responsible. We do, uh, getting the, you know, literally taking the. Yeah. Microsoft side and the partner side and getting them in a room to having a meaningful conversation about co-selling.

[00:21:39] Lori Borg: That’s exactly right. I think, uh, the America’s team in the Americas is where the rubber hits the road.

[00:21:44] Vince Menzione: Yeah.

[00:21:44] Lori Borg: So Exactly. So, uh, that’s where, that’s where the, the magic happens on the ground with the Microsoft sellers and with our partners and the partner sellers working with customers.

[00:21:53] Vince Menzione: And I don’t know if everybody realizes if you’ve been inside Microsoft, as I have in New York, uh, you realize how global an organization it is.

Yes. Uh, you go to a Microsoft event and we, people were in their company colors and like 220 subsidiaries and all that, and then, but Microsoft Americas is more than 45% of the overall business at Microsoft.

[00:22:14] Lori Borg: Yes, it is. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a big part of the overall business’s, and I will say one thing as a partner, I think I work.

A long time with a lot of different people at Microsoft and once or twice I had the impression of do they not talk to each other once or twice? Only once or twice, and I understand now because it’s complicated and big and there’s a lot of different people touching. The same partner ecosystems and communities.

And so we do our best to create clarity and simplify. And I think a lot of the changes that you heard Nicole talk about yesterday and what you’ll see coming as we get closer and closer to the end of fiscal is really Microsoft taking some big, bold steps towards how can we even better clarify and simplify how our partners are working with us, making it easier.

And it’s hard, it’s complicated, it’s hard, you know it, it’s complicated to do it.

[00:23:08] Vince Menzione: We had some sessions yesterday, workshops going on, and we talk about Brandon’s story being so important. Yes. Yeah. Because I’m a Microsoft seller and I’ve got thousands of partners beating on my door. Literally want meetings with me.

Yeah. And why? Why are you different? Like why are you relevant to me? Right. Yeah. So I know that your team spends a lot of time on this. Yeah. But. It is, it is a critical piece to these organizations. They need to stand out, they need to differentiate, they need to add value, they need to understand how to align.

We talked about MA little bit. Yeah. And we’ll talk, talk about M again today. But I do think that that’s, there’s an incredible set of skills from top partners and we’ll have some of them up on stage here as well today to talk through it. But, uh, just incredible things. Um, yeah, so. I’m just thrilled to have you on stage with us today.

[00:23:51] Lori Borg: That’s great To be here. Um,

[00:23:53] Vince Menzione: we could spend the entire day, you and I talking about the I know the business. I know I, there’s a lot of things IW wanna ask you, but I know we’re at the end of fiscal year.

[00:24:01] Lori Borg: Yep.

[00:24:01] Vince Menzione: And I know there’s a lot of change coming. There’s m Mcap START program is only another month and a half, two months away.

I away. I know. We’ll be

[00:24:07] Lori Borg: here before we know it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:09] Vince Menzione: Anything you could signal to this audience that you can say in public that won’t get you in too much trouble.

[00:24:13] Lori Borg: Here’s what I will signal very clearly. I am very excited and optimistic, and this is not a scripted message from Lori. I’m very excited and optimistic about what’s to come.

Nice again, some of what we’ve seen already is Microsoft taking some great big steps towards adding clarity and simplification to get closer to our customers and make it easier for us to partner with our partners. So we’re, we’re gonna, we’re gonna continue to, I love it. Strive towards that. I can’t

[00:24:40] Vince Menzione: wait to see some of the announce.

Been, I can hear, hear more from you. I and

[00:24:43] Lori Borg: partners at the center of it. Man. Center of it, man. I, I love it. Love. Yeah. Partners at the center of it. Yeah.

[00:24:48] Vince Menzione: So, um, so good to have you here today. It’s

[00:24:51] Lori Borg: great to be here. I thank you so much. I would, I would

[00:24:53] Vince Menzione: probably wanna open it up to questions, but we are not set up to do that.

But if people wanna reach out and they have questions, what’s the best way that they can communicate with your team?

[00:25:01] Lori Borg: Hmm. That’s a good question. You, you can always ping me on LinkedIn and you can connect with me there. Absolutely. Uh, connecting with my team, one of the things I will get a give a plug for is our partner hub, our America’s partner hub.

Very nice. So if you’re not already connected there, be sure to connect there. That’s where we, uh, post a lot of, uh, upcoming activities and resources and so forth. So be sure that you’re connected there.

[00:25:25] Vince Menzione: Very good.

[00:25:26] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:25:26] Vince Menzione: Partner hub.

[00:25:27] Lori Borg: Thank you. Thank you

[00:25:28] Vince Menzione: so much, Lori. I really appreciate you coming. You bet.

This morning starting us off.

[00:25:32] Lori Borg: Yes, you bet. Getting

[00:25:33] Vince Menzione: us moving in the right direction too. And so great to have you.

[00:25:35] Lori Borg: Thank you. So good to spend time with you. Should you sink the pillow with me?

[00:25:38] Vince Menzione: Absolutely. Anytime. You can take a, well, we’ll send it. Uh, team, we need to send a pillow, Lori’s address, home address, please.

All right. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you so much, Lori. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering. We’re bringing these episodes to you to help you level up your strategy. If you haven’t yet, now’s the time to take action and think about joining our community. We created a unique place, UPX or Ultimate Partner Experience where leaders come to learn from each other.

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