Ultimate Guide to Partnering®

Our First LiveStream From the Boca Studio Unlock the secrets to explosive growth in the digital landscape!  Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ Is your business ready for 2026? Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. Join industry leaders Vince Menzione, Scott Sacket, Per Werngren, and Nabil Aitonumeziane as they discuss the evolution of MSPs, the critical role of AI readiness, the power of strategic partnerships within the Microsoft ecosystem, and the growing importance of co-selling and digital marketplaces. Learn actionable strategies for profitability, navigating new buying behaviors, and becoming an “ultimate MSP” by focusing on outcomes, building trust, and embracing community. https://youtu.be/Z9towXE6hfk?si=Gjy11ItjqSN8yxf_ Key Takeaways The MSP landscape is undergoing “tectonic shifts” driven by cloud adoption, AI integration, and evolving customer buying behaviors through marketplaces. Successful MSPs must evolve beyond the “break-fix” model to become strategic partners, focusing on business outcomes rather than just technology. AI presents significant opportunities for MSPs, but requires immediate adoption and internal training to avoid being left behind. Strategic partnerships, particularly within the Microsoft ecosystem, are crucial for MSP growth, emphasizing mutual value and trust. Standardizing offerings and specializing in specific technologies or solutions can significantly improve MSP profitability and success. Engaging with communities and peer groups like Ultimate Partner provides invaluable networking, learning, and collaboration opportunities for MSPs. 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: MSP,Managed Services,AI,Artificial Intelligence,Microsoft ecosystem,cloud transformation,hyperscalers,marketplace,co-selling,partner strategy,Nabil Aitonumeziane,Scott Sacket,Per Werngren,Vince Menzione,AppPoint,FSI strategy,Ultimate Partner,channel growth,digital buying,data security,governance,copilot,agentic AI,recurring revenue,business model,profitability,trusted advisors,community building,IT business,technology evolution,strategic partnerships Transcript: [00:00:00] Vince Menzione: We believe this time is like no other. We, we refer to these as the tectonic shifts, [00:00:08] Intro: 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. [00:00:42] Vince Menzione: Good morning. I’m Vince Manzione, the CEO of Ultimate partner, and the host of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering Podcast. And I’m thrilled to be back in the studio here in Boca Raton. We have a lot of stories about Boca Raton. It is really the seminal point in the start of this ecosystem we all care about. It’s also where we host the Ultimate Eye to Partnering podcast where we host our events, and we’re gonna do our very first live stream here today. Uh, it’s designed for you to achieve incredible success as a partner. We’re working with hyperscalers like Microsoft. Our topic today is becoming the ultimate MSP. This is a topic that we care deeply about as, as our guests do as well. And each of my guests that are here today, I am so privileged to have members of our community, friends, uh, people that I truly appreciate and admire who are here now, who feel the same and are so passionate on this subject. I wanna invite them each to say, introduce themselves and say a couple words about why they believe this MSP moment is so unique and why it’s so relevant to all of us today. So s Scott, good to see you. [00:01:49] Scott Sacket: Great to see you. So exciting to be here alive, right? Gotta be careful. So for those who have, I’ve not met yet. My name is Scott Sackett and I’m the senior Vice President of Partner Strategy at AAV Point. And, um, I’ve been in the channel ecosystem now for over 25 years. I was a partner, of course, I’ve been at AAV point, leading channel now for many years, um, almost 20 years. And, um, this moment’s incredible, right? Um, you know, cloud really democratized what, what partners could do. And how to build up, um, and, and support many customers, small and large. And, and today, MSPs really are, um, the linchpin to how we build and, and, uh, manage it. So it’s an incredible moment for them and, and it’s only getting, uh, more important as things change and grow and evolve. So exciting times. [00:02:36] Vince Menzione: I love the linchpin comment ’cause it really holds it all together. I love that. And p Wgre, another great friend of ours, p uh, please take a moment and introduce yourself to our audience or all of our friends that are watching [00:02:47] Per Werngren: us today on the line. Yes, thank you, Ian. It is a privilege to be here. So I’m the CEO of Idex. We do AI and Azure operations. And why do I love MSPs? Well, I’ve been doing subscriptions all my life, and recurring revenue is such a beautiful thing because you start small, you sell a little bit. You sell more and you don’t lose what you have sold. You just keep on building and it all piles up. Beautiful business model. [00:03:16] Vince Menzione: I love it. I love it. [00:03:19] Nabil Aitonumeziane: Right. Hi, great to see [00:03:20] Vince Menzione: you, my friend. [00:03:21] Nabil Aitonumeziane: Thanks for having me. I mean, it’s been, uh, amazing coming to Florida. To the Hot Florida. But, uh, I’m Nabil Ian. I’m the president of FSI strategy. We’re an MSP. Uh, we specialize in Microsoft. We’re a, uh, managed service provider, but, uh, we specialize a hundred percent in Microsoft, uh, technologies. So thanks for having Well, [00:03:41] Vince Menzione: and you are an MSP, right? Yes. We talk about this all the time and how you’ve evolved your company. You a case study. We are, but [00:03:48] Nabil Aitonumeziane: we are not Your traditional MSP, which is. Managed service provider. We are more of the modernization solution partner ’cause we are trying to, uh, live in the AI era. Yeah. World. So we had to change our name as well. How to help our customers, uh, move forward with this technology is moving very fast. So [00:04:10] Vince Menzione: I’m gonna frame that and we’ll go right into, I’m gonna, I have, I’m gonna hit you with the first question, but you know, we talk about this tectonic shifts. That we’ve seen in our world, in our lives, and we’ve been talking about transformation and ultimate partner for many years. It started back in my Microsoft days, 10 years leading the partner business for public sector and growing that organization during the clouds transformation. But we’ve been talking about a, a, the hyperscalers really at the center and really the, we talk about Boca, the fact that Bill Gates came down here in 1981 and signed an agreement with IBM really sparked this ecosystem. There’s over a half a million just in the Microsoft ecosystem of partners. Probably well over a million if you put Google Cloud and AWS and, and you look at that center of the universe and we’ll talk about that center and how there are now seven seats at the table. But then, you know, we talked about the last couple years, AI really became a thing. Chat, GBT started it all back in November, 2022. And now, you know, we’ve had this incredible transformation that we’re gonna talk about, why it’s so fundamental today. And why it’s even more important, and then also how marketplaces are so fundamental to success today that the buying behaviors have changed. The millennials, the new buying persona, and they buy from, they’re very comfortable in marketplaces. We’re all more comfortable now hitting our phone three times and having a box show up at the end of the day, right? We’re all used to digital buying and it’s becoming the buy. The buying process has changed dramatically. And the hyperscalers have all embraced this marketplace. But then what do you need? Fundamentally, in order to have success, you need to have engagements with those sellers. And that’s why co-selling is so critical and important. We’re gonna talk about that as also an important component. And then the hype. We talk about this ecosystem and why you can’t go alone. And then we, we’ve been around ultimate partner. We created ultimate partner. ’cause we recognize that success is all about coming together. And I talk about the seven seats at the table because the buying persona is May now making a decision about driving a solution. They’re not buying a one-off vendor solution. They’re creating a solution set, and they need multiple vendors to come together. And this conversation today is how MSPs need to embrace these tectonic shift. Nabeel, you’ve owned this successful MSP for many years. You said 25 years you’ve been in this business, which is incredible. Long [00:06:29] Nabil Aitonumeziane: time [00:06:29] Vince Menzione: you don’t even look old enough to have been No. Been doing this for 25 years. Tell us what successes look like for you and your organization and what has the change been like? Can you speak to the change that we’ve been seeing? [00:06:40] Nabil Aitonumeziane: So we have seen the big changes in the past 10 years when it comes to the MSP world. Uh, we went, I think all of us in the MSP world, we came all from the break and fix model. To all you can eat, which became kind of very hard to kind of manage. But, uh, the past 10 years I’ve seen the MSP world really growing very fast because seeing the, the big companies out there, uh, ISVs, who are also now providing MSP services because. All the big scalers, if you ask me, they are trying to cover it all. Yeah. Like, you know, take a customer from soup to nuts, help them with everything they need to do with technology. And that’s why we’re seeing more and more bigger player into the MSP uh, community these days. And it’s one of, I think, one of the fastest growing technology businesses out there. I mean, I’ve been in it for 25 years and the past 10 years I’ve seen. Tens of thousands of companies that have came out of nowhere. So it’s becoming the hot business in the IT world. So, uh, the big change also that I see, it’s the technology that’s moving very fast. And I feel like the MSPs who are moving as fast as the technology is moving, they’re gonna be succeed. They’re gonna succeed. But the ones who are waiting. Trying to figure out the whole AI era that we’re living in. Yeah, they’re gonna be left behind. Yes, because the train already has left the station. For the ai, it started, like you said earlier, November 20, 27, uh, 22, but co-pilot, it started for me, 2024 copilot came out of one of the, you know, AI technologies that came out there for Microsoft. It was not the biggest success out there, but now with agents, they are fixing all the little issues that they had because, yeah. Anyway, I think we’re gonna have time to discuss AI a little deeper. Yes. And what’s going on with it. But those are the difference that I see. It’s, uh, it do not move fast enough and getting the ai, you know, trained today, you’re gonna be left behind. As an MSPI, [00:08:55] Vince Menzione: I am in violent agreement with you. You know, Scott, you’ve been at AppPoint for many years. I’ve, I’ve known AppPoint for close to two decades. And you know, you start off in the big enterprises, right? Big organizations, big public sector organizations, all the big government agencies use AppPoint technology. What have you seen this shift now to, uh, to moving out beyond just the largest customers and how is AAV Point addressing that? [00:09:21] Scott Sacket: Yeah, so it’s, it’s an incredible journey. Right. We started as a SharePoint, ISV. Yep. Uh, doing things like migration and backup and governance. Um, and the world changed drastically while we’ve been in business. I mean, just past this past July, 24 years in business, publicly traded. Right. Uh, the last four years. Yep. Um. And what we saw evolve was cloud really changing the game for us. Um, on premise became Cloud. Cloud of course, grew from just SharePoint online for us to exchange online in OneDrive. And then Teams, oh my goodness, teams just blew up everything. And when we started thinking about how we continue to evolve, our business partners became such an important and critical piece to how we grow. Because what was really expensive and complex for an SMB organization 20 years ago, server Farm, right? Really expensive hardware all of a sudden became a really simple service to flip a switch and just to log in. And so as we were thinking about this ecosystem where SMB actually comprised of 50% ultimately of the market, how were we going to scale? Yes. How were we going to be able to bring benefit? To those types of customers, and when we really started digging into it, MSPs were not just important. They’re really the superhero. Yeah. Right. They are the ones who are keeping that entire segment going and, and building out technology and exposing technology to them that they never had before. Because they have that sort of level of competency and expertise that many s and b customers don’t have. That’s right. And so we started really heavily investing in the MSP space over the last 10 years and not just taking our enterprise products and, and just handing it to, to, you know, MSPs and saying, okay, go figure it out. But we repackaged the whole thing. We built it from the ground up. We built a platform that allows for scale and automation and service delivery. Which is just so unbelievably important as we move into this next era right. Of, of ai when you layer in security and governance. ’cause that’s what’s keeping people from actually realizing that vision. [00:11:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah. You, you bring up some really great points. So I think back of the server being in the closet in the back of the room at the ss, the SMB organization and then this move to the cloud. This shift from the cloud started about eight, 10 years ago. Well, MM 365 drove Microsoft’s engagement, their Google Cloud as well. But then Azure took off in a big way in these organizations. They finally have started to realize the benefits and I feel almost feel like the MSP community was sitting behind doing break fix on computers while the customers were saying, we need to engage and we need to embrace all this. And then you start thinking about data because if you are gonna do things like ai, which is now. We talked about just the, the relevance of ai just the last couple years. You gotta get your data state right, and then if you’ve got data out there, you need to protect that data. And that’s where you, you know, you come in with all this set of tools. Right. So that point addresses all of [00:12:24] Scott Sacket: this. The, the move to AI is been so challenging for so many customers and partners. We have been building a lot of technology to help break down those barriers. That is by far the most requested and deployed service that we’re building for. Um, and we wanna solve that problem for our partners, right? Because we know once they get to AI, there’s so much goodness to unlock, right? And more productivity to unleash. [00:12:52] Vince Menzione: And you enable these MSPs, right? Oh yeah. ’cause you bring the tools, you bring the systems and tools. Uh, you take out some of the complexity for them, but then you make them the superheroes in front of those customers. [00:13:02] Scott Sacket: Absolutely. I mean, the whole idea is to get our partners to be at scale, to automate, to integrate with their existing technology right there. Yep. Their rs, you know, their PSAs, their RMMs Right. The existing, uh, infrastructure and, and to ultimately build a better business. Right. And to make them so valuable to their customers that the stickiness is, is, you know, obvious. [00:13:24] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Eric, you’ve been around. Partners for almost as long as I have, maybe even longer in some respects. I mean, you were the, you were the founder of Micro, the Microsoft partner ecosystem. It’s it’s association back in the day. And so you’ve seen this evolution up, up, close and personal, right? With, within the companies that you’ve run, you’ve been a serial entrepreneur, what are you starting to see and what, what are the characteristics that the MSP’s watching today and maybe watching this either live stream or. A recording of this, either on our YouTube channel or or on the podcast, what do they need to be doing differently? What are the characteristics that makes a successful or the ultimate MSP? [00:14:06] Per Werngren: So, that’s a good question. And I don’t know how many days we got to answer that question, but we’ll start now. Uh, [00:14:11] Vince Menzione: we’ll be here for a few days. So [00:14:13] Per Werngren: I would say that many MSPs, they give too much power to their technical people. Business decisions should be made by business people, and too many times technical people influence strategically important decisions that they should not have a say about. And that means that many MSPs, they have a product portfolio that is too broad, way too broad, and. [00:14:46] Vince Menzione: That’s broad for our American listeners today, right? [00:14:49] Per Werngren: I’m European and uh, that means that, um, uh, it is hard to entertain all the technologies that are involved. Yeah, I’m a big fan of Better Together. I want technologies to be integrated with each other because that saves cost and probably also give better outcomes for the customers and too many MSPs, they don’t dare standardize. Instead they customize a little, little bit too much. And when you customize well, then you kind of lose the ness of being an MSP. The last thing is probably that, um, when you have a product portfolio that is too wide, you will never become really good at all the offerings. Instead, it is better to look at what should you produce in-house? What can you produce in-house with good quality and good profitability? And then you find partners whose services that you resell. So this mix of, uh, creating your product portfolio and, uh, dare to kill your darlings. They’re to say no to producing everything in house. Try to become a little bit more narrow in what you do is one path to success and profitability is really bad among many MSPs. [00:16:13] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Because they’re trying to be all things to all people. [00:16:15] Per Werngren: Yes. If you try to be jack of all trades, well, you will never be successful. And, uh, that will hurt your profitability. That will also hurt the day when you want to exit your company. [00:16:29] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So let’s talk about, ’cause this is really a, it’s winning and successful as an MSB, but a lot of this is around the Microsoft ecosystem today. Neal’s organization, you would, what do you say? You eat, sleep, drink and bleed. Microsoft, is that it? Nabi, eat, [00:16:43] Nabil Aitonumeziane: sleep, breathe Microsoft. [00:16:45] Vince Menzione: Breathe Microsoft. So what are like the quick wins for the MSPs out there? What can they be doing? What are, what are the things you’ve done in the deal within your organization? We can talk, we can start top down with getting your organization right. Uh, I think P alluded to some of that as well. We can talk about like, engaging with the Microsoft Field organization, what, what, what seems to work. [00:17:07] Nabil Aitonumeziane: It may also start, but stop thinking like a service provider. Yeah. As an ms. Yeah. Alright. We are more of a, a strategic, you need to keep your mic up a little bit higher there. I’m getting, I’m sorry. Uh, that’s right. I dunno if you guys could hear me, but, uh, I feel like every MSP needs to stop thinking like a service provider and think more about the strategic partnership that they’re gonna build with the customers. We’re here to help customer. And then one thing I think Scott used talk about, it’s. The sellers, uh, in the MSP world or in the technology world, they need to start talking more about business and stop talking about technology. Yeah. Because we are dealing with C executives. [00:17:46] Vince Menzione: That’s right. [00:17:46] Nabil Aitonumeziane: They are thinking more about how can we help the business move forward and grow, and how can they do more with less? That’s why we need to have those con AI conversation. They’re more of business conversations than techno like technical conversation. You’re gonna confuse them. Because what we’re trying to do with the AI era, that’s why I think for all the MSPs out there, you need to get on ai. Now, yesterday, not today, yesterday, because our job now with our all our customers, we’re gonna help them navigate this whole AI era that we’re going through, all the confusions were out there, how can we help them? What are the solutions that we can build? And then have them repeatable with different customers, with their ai. But if you’re not in the AI world today. You need to be in it, otherwise you’re gonna be left behind because that’s how fast the MSP word is. Uh, moving. [00:18:42] Vince Menzione: Well, I’m gonna turn it over to you P but I just wanna, I want to kind of frame out a little bit like, ’cause we. You know, we talk about like, you need to be able to speak Microsoft if you’re working with Microsoft, right? So [00:18:52] Nabil Aitonumeziane: he said something earlier about Jack of all trade and master of none. This is how FSI, uh, about eight years ago decided to, uh, partner with one of the biggest partners in the world, Microsoft, for the reason we were tired of being Jack of Trade and master of none. We wanted to be good at one thing and be very good at it. So we went and we chose Microsoft. I always liked working with them, so we went with Microsoft. But it’s not about just Microsoft as a partner, choose your partners. Be very wise about how you choose your partners. ’cause the culture is also important when you working with a partner. Like I’ve worked with a point, which we have an amazing relationship. I work with Black Point, I work with Huntress, I work with Microsoft a lot. But the common things that we all have together, we are all Microsoft companies. Yeah. And the culture at FSI is Microsoft. So if I went to F Point, because F Point was also eating, breathing, sleeping. Microsoft as well. Yes. ’cause they started their business in 2001. They were a SharePoint company. So they know, they understand how Microsoft functions, whatever. But my point to you guys here. Having the right partner will help you succeed and move forward. So an ISV that you’re buying, uh, uh, services from or software from. Work with them, do marketing with them, do events with them. Uh, create things. I think this is something that we have lost. We don’t see that much anymore. We see a lot of ISVs in the conferences where they’re just over there. Selling? No. Do things together. Yes. To the community, to our customers. Yeah. For example, I’m working, I’m doing RO show with a point. I do the same thing with Microsoft where we get all our customers and our customers have also access to our ISV directly. So they know when I’m telling them, Hey, you need to buy that product I’m bringing. My partner to the discussion, they can talk with them and you know, so partnership is very important. [00:21:00] Vince Menzione: So you talked about a couple things. I’m gonna frame it and I want to turn it over to P ’cause he’s had some, he had raised his hand in a way. Uh, you talked about outcomes. So talk, start talking about the outcomes that you’re, we’re gonna help you achieve. And then you also, what I, what you implied is we bring value back to Microsoft. So this is like, how do I get a seller’s attention? And you might be in the SMB market, but they have a sales organization called Small Medium Enterprise and Channel Ssec is the new term. Not my favorite term, but, but they have taken Nicole Deen’s organization who spoke at our last event where you all were there. Um, and they’ve combined those organizations to help get the scale to the SMB market. But they have salespeople, they have sellers and specialists that support even these smaller customers. PI know you wanted to, to jump in with some thoughts on, on this, and how do you get yourself aligned better? With that Microsoft organization. [00:21:55] Per Werngren: So don’t ask what Microsoft can do for you, ask what you can do for Microsoft. Nice. [00:21:59] Per Werngren: We heard that before. It is important to understand that the Microsoft people, they have lot of things on their plate and so many emails are flowing in and there are 500,000 great partner in the world. Yes. [00:22:12] Per Werngren: So you need to make sure that you make it easy for them to understand what you bring to the table. And something that they love is when you communicate wins. Wins with clients. And the best, and you know, that you do it beautifully, is to take care of clients that are underserved. Clients that are kind of forgotten, do a great thing and communicate that with Microsoft. They love that. [00:22:39] Nabil Aitonumeziane: So one of the thing that Per was talking about, it’s uh, the way I work with Microsoft as an MSP, uh, specializing, like mostly in Microsoft, it’s, I work with the sellers. We have a plan together, so don’t go and knock at. A point, or Microsoft or whoever, uh, the, the partner is, and ask for handouts. You need to do some work. So what we do at FSI, we do, we run marketing campaigns for the sellers. Alright? We utilize our SDRs internally to make phone calls for debt accounts. With that, uh, ISV that we’re working with. So [00:23:14] Vince Menzione: you’re generating leads. So we [00:23:16] Nabil Aitonumeziane: are doing the work, we are doing the dirty work as well. We are not, we just, we’re trying to like, what I call it the three Ws, win, win, win. Not only Microsoft wins. Microsoft wins. FSI wins the customers power [00:23:28] Scott Sacket: of three. Power of three. [00:23:30] Nabil Aitonumeziane: Here we go. So it’s, uh, that’s what we’re doing. Like, so my point, don’t go to, uh, a partner. And expect them to just because you are buying a software from them, that they’re gonna be giving you referrals, whatever, do things with them, build a relationship with them. Partnership, I think is one of the most important thing for success for any MSP out there. You need to choose a partner wisely and work with them closely. So this is how it works. I mean, you have to build that. It’s, uh, you’re becoming one because, for example, I’m gonna go back to it again. F point, I’ll sell their stuff for the backup. It’s part of my onboarding. Every customer that we onboard, their backup is going straight to F point. So what? What the whole meaning of this. When FSI wins, F point wins. The customer wins. Yeah. And Microsoft, you have created And Microsoft. Yeah. And the trust. Trust, yes. And the whole, by the way, talking about partnerships, if there is no trust, there’s no partners, there’s no partnership. It’s the same thing. Like in a marriage. Yeah. No trust, no marriage. No trust, no partnership. It, I think it’s for me to succeed as an MSP today because of all the competition out there, you need to choose wisely your partner and partner with them and go all out. I mean, don’t go ask for handouts, do the dirty work, work with the partner. Come up with ideas, you know, be, be the person out there who’s gonna give them ideas to run the marketing campaign for their own customer. ’cause they’re gonna benefit from it. Yep. It’s not only FSI or whoever the MSB is [00:25:05] Per Werngren: and not the person that is being shown on a big screen on a cool, that’s right. [00:25:09] Vince Menzione: So I, I gotta turn to that because that point is, is genuinely probably one of the best at brand and story and getting and, and doing things that are not traditional. Like how do you kind of sit back and wait for things at Point has an incredible reputation for really making things happen. Like really like going out above and beyond. I want. I was hoping, Scott, you could talk a little bit about this as well. [00:25:34] Scott Sacket: Yeah, and I’ll, I’ll, you know, frame it in the lens of the Microsoft story as well. [00:25:38] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And partner of the year for like, seven, eight years, something like that. Maybe nine years running, something like that. Um, [00:25:43] Scott Sacket: hopefully more. Yes, yes. You know, as we go. But, um, you know, similar, similar to, to, uh, everyone, we spend a lot of time understanding Microsoft School. Right, what outcomes they’re looking for. Yeah. And, and we really do build our messaging, our, our stack, even our commercial bundles. Around those outcomes. Right? So, you know, our MSPs, our resellers, ultimately our partners, I mean, everybody, um, needs to understand sort of, you know, we’re revolving around the sun, right? Yes. Microsoft is sort of the center of that, that solar system. And we want to make sure that Microsoft wins, we win, our partner wins, right? That power of three story is really, really critical. Super [00:26:26] Vince Menzione: critical. [00:26:26] Scott Sacket: Um, and when we do that, this, it’s very simple to partner. It’s very simple. Right, because we understand that Microsoft wants everyone to get into co-pilot. Microsoft wants people leveraging AI workloads or, or, uh, Azure workloads and AI workloads. Certainly, yeah. Right. Um, this is what is very clearly written. I mean, we’re in, um, you know, in a new fiscal year, right. Microsoft new fiscal year. Yeah. We’re all kind of unpacking, uh, what the new program is. Right. It’s, it’s not always easy to figure it out. That’s right. Right. But there’s some obvious themes, right. Ai, Azure, right. Building workloads and, and technology on there. I mean, agents are starting to become really prevalent, right? And we have a story around even agents and governance. So there, there’s a lot there that, um, you know, we, we think about it in the, in the Microsoft lens, right? And how we deliver that ultimately to our partners, which empowers them to be successful. Which, ’cause that’s the key here. We can’t, you know, just sell, right? That’s right. We need to enable our partners with technology, with support co-marketing, as Nabil alluded to, right? Co-marketing is so important. Co-sell. Unbelievably important, right? Really important. It’s, it’s really finally, finally, co-sell is so hard, right? We build our whole team around, co-sell with partners. So it, it’s a, it’s a huge opportunity, but you have to think about it in, in sort of the lens of what Microsoft is trying to accomplish. [00:27:49] Vince Menzione: Let’s dive in a little bit on ai. We’ve kind of, we’ve skirted around it as a subject, but let, let’s talk about a couple things. First of all, Nvidia, $4 trillion market cap and growing, by the way, they just, they just got. Entry now into China in a big way. The Trump administration has approved them selling some of their better chips into China, so we’re gonna see this thing continuing to grow. Data center movement is huge. Power companies, utility companies are becoming huge now, by the way, because they’re, they’re downstream of this. Somebody’s gotta drive the power consumption. And we’re seeing big deals right in, in, in the Middle East. We’re seeing big deals here worldwide. Tons and tons of these data centers, big chips. Uh, Microsoft leaning in big with it, with chat, GPT and copilot, but you know, also more, more involvement here. And people are starting to see the benefit finally. Right? Because we talked about the early days, like people overestimated what you would see one year and they underestimate what they see in 10. And that’s what we saw with AI the first year was like, eh, it was underwhelming. And then the first couple years of selling copilot, eh, I didn’t see the results right. Well, now we’re getting to this point where now AG agentic is starting to get layered in. We’re starting to see Microsoft, in fact, creating a separate group for, for startups where they’re gonna be laying in, Jason Grey’s gonna be running this new initiative to go and embed AI into all these organizations. You’re starting to see more of that motion happening, and this means also, this is where the MSPs are gonna come in the, the layering in the, somebody’s gotta layer in all the agenda ai, all the AI across these platforms. And who is gonna do it? Let’s talk about ai. I know we, we all have points of view on it. I think we all are very passionate about it. I believe personally, five years our world is gonna be radically different than it is today because it’s happening so fast. We’re starting to see this hockey stick. What would you have to say to that, Scott? [00:29:40] Scott Sacket: Yeah. I mean, we think about AI in, in really multiple angles, right? We of course think about AI in what we can build into our own technology. Right. We wanna make our technology smarter and leverage best of, you know, breed technology. We think about AI and how we can build a better company. Right. Of course. Right. We’re an organization. Yeah. That wants to be more productive. That’s right. And we think about AI in how we can help our partners get their customers there. So we have like three different work streams when we think about ai and we’re leveraging all three, right? So we build technology that ultimately. Is smart and scales right, and is automated and, and comes up with, you know, suggestions and, and different ideas for the person using the technology ultimately to make the right decisions. Um, we think about AI readiness and security, right? The number one reason why people don don’t. Deploy copilot today is data security risk. Yeah. Right? And, and it’s a really public cloud. I mean, right. It’s a really, really important problem today, surfacing that risk. You know, are you oversharing? Um, you know, do you have proper governance on a, on a team, right? Yeah. All of those different complex issues. Um, and then once again, internally, we’re building agents, right? How do we get smarter? We have something called chat, A VPT, right? And we use that. I mean, I think Microsoft did a really nice, um, case study on us actually. Uh, about how we’re leveraging AI today internally. So we, we, we think AI is once again disrupting everything. It’s changing the way we think about business. I am, you know, just astonished to see what will become right in the next few years, of course. Um, but it, it’s layered everywhere, right? Everything we do should be thinking about, you know, prompts. Yeah. And, and, and, you know, that should be our first, you know, reflex, you know, reflexive ai, right? You know, first thing you think about is, well, how can I use AI to do. Task X, Y, Z. Yeah. Right. So it’s very interesting times. [00:31:33] Per Werngren: So we use, um, ai of course. Um, internally, we want to be a good customer, zero. And, uh, we use it, uh, to, um, make ourselves more efficient, more intelligent. We also use it, uh, when it comes to, uh, operating Azure, and we have our own service called AI Operations, which is about taking care of all these AI workloads and make sure that they run 24 7. That’s a beautiful service. So we live and brief. Ai, but looking outside, um, our company ID next, I think that MSPs in general need to think about how can they swing ai. Um, the low hanging fruit is, of course, using it internally, but then making sure that they are exploring if they can set up services. Subscription services that are based on AI and that leverage this momentous that we got in AI right now. So perhaps we are used to, uh, renting a car at the airport, Hertz rent a car. We, we might see Hertz rent an agent. So like, think about it because if you are not thinking about it, someone else will. [00:32:49] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Yeah. Very good point. Good [00:32:52] Nabil Aitonumeziane: point. Uh, per. But per just said it all, so, but uh, no, the way I look at it, uh, for us as an MSP, uh, when it comes to ai, first of all, we need to drink our own Kool-Aid. Yes. Alright. I think the same thing went with a lot of companies. They were promoting a lot of AI and they were not using it internally. Didn’t even know what it meant. So I feel like for us, uh, at FSI, we already, uh, we are using AI copilot in our help desk. We even moved our, uh. ConnectWise moved it to Dynamics where in the CRM we run our, uh, ticketing system through Dynamics. Uh, we run our sales through dynamics. We run our marketing through dynamics and all that. We have ai, uh, involved in it. I love it. And we are trying to change the culture internally with our people. It’s to push people to, uh, be using more AI because the reason why we are already helping customers. With ai, if we don’t know about ai, how are we gonna be helping someone else with ai? That’s right. [00:33:56] Nabil Aitonumeziane: So what per said, start thinking about it because ai, it’s exactly what happened when the internet came. What year did the internet, uh, uh, appeared? [00:34:07] Vince Menzione: Oh, it was in the nineties. Yeah, in the [00:34:09] Nabil Aitonumeziane: nineties. Yeah. It was the same thing. What’s happening right now. No one knew what was, what was going on, what’s happening, and so my only advice I will give to any MSP. Get on AI because if you don’t, someone else is gonna come and take it from you. Well, [00:34:25] Vince Menzione: you’re gonna [00:34:25] Nabil Aitonumeziane: fall back. Somebody else is gonna support your customers. With ai, [00:34:29] Vince Menzione: I feel like every day you wait, you’re falling a month or a year further behind. It’s happening. Absolutely. So rapidly now, [00:34:36] Scott Sacket: it took chat GPT two months to get to 100 million users. Yeah. That’s crazy, right? I mean, it took cloud Facebook years. To accomplish those things. Yeah. Imagine where we’ll be in a year. You cannot wait and the [00:34:49] Vince Menzione: hallucinations are dropping dramatically. The power and the the quality of the output is so much better than it was even just a few months ago. Go ahead. [00:34:58] Nabil Aitonumeziane: No, I was gonna say, uh, when it comes to ai, we have to learn it because we have to think about it ourselves as executives. It only be makes us better. Absolutely. It’s [00:35:10] Nabil Aitonumeziane: the same message we need to take to the leaders out there. Telling them ai, it’s only going to make you better. Make your business better, think faster. That’s why I’m telling all to all the MSPs out there, learn it, do research, start working on it, because actually, ai, believe it or not, for an MSP, is gonna open up a lot of opportunities. For example, security. Data cleanup, so all that. So you need to be part of this, uh, era. [00:35:39] Vince Menzione: I’m gonna put you on the spot a little bit, NABI. Sure. Because we’ve had this conversation for a while. We’ve been doing Ultimate Partner for years. The podcast, about two plus years ago, we started doing events. We did our first live stream and then our first in person. And we’ve continued down that route. We, one of the things I get from MSPs quite often is, I don’t know where to start. I don’t know what to do. Can you help me? What do you say to some of those MSPs to help them be more successful? [00:36:09] Nabil Aitonumeziane: So one of the biggest advice I will give over here, join a group. Like for example, I joined Ultimate Partner. That’s how, believe it or not, that’s how I’ve met Docs, Scott Pair, and those are the people who became part of my life, my Microsoft life. Yeah. Alright. But I had the exact same question few years back where to start because. For example, as uh, FSI, working with Microsoft, it’s not very easy to work with Microsoft. So I have to start somewhere, right? And my beginning, it all started, believe it or not, it was an ultimate partner in Dallas at Las Colinas. Yeah, when we’ve met the original [00:36:48] Vince Menzione: event, yeah. It was, I think one of the [00:36:50] Nabil Aitonumeziane: best, uh, shows ever and it just opened up my eyes to the Microsoft world because. I was never able to be, uh, anywhere near president of Microsoft or a C-level executive who is in the same room as you. And then you can ask the question or other partners who are just like you, who either they have 20 years of experience and they’re doing $10 billion, or they are five years and doing 5 million. But that’s what I met the people through Ultimate Partner. That’s what I started to meet the right people, the exact people that I needed to meet with Microsoft, for me to start working directly with Microsoft. So that’s what I was talking earlier. Partnership For me, uh, personally, as an MSP owner, it’s one of the most important thing. [00:37:37] Vince Menzione: And you’re not gonna find that surfing the web or going on a LinkedIn profile, right? No. You will [00:37:41] Nabil Aitonumeziane: not find this, these things you have, uh, to meet either the right group or the right people. Yeah, to put you in touch. And there is a lot of groups out there. Like I said, I was lucky enough, uh, to be in Dallas for the ultimate partner and I was, uh, privileged to meet with Kevin Piker at the time, which was a big deal. Was a president of Microsoft. Uh, but yeah, for me, that’s, uh, how we work. I think partnerships are very important. Yeah. And [00:38:08] Vince Menzione: then you met up with Ducks, Raymond Sa, who you knew from many years ago, but you hadn’t seen each other funny enough. [00:38:13] Nabil Aitonumeziane: Uh, the story with Ducks, I think I, uh, keep repeating that story over and over, but it was here in Boca about a year ago. Uh, went to breakfast with Ducks and Per was there, uh, docs opened up a laptop while we’re having breakfast. Like, oh, let me show you a product. We have no joke. Within five minutes I picked up the phone, called my office, I said. You need to see what this company has to offer. And believe it or not, it’s been a year, it’s been one of the best partnerships we’ve had because we also get a lot of support from our partner. So by the way, partnerships is two ways. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That’s why I was talking earlier when I said about Microsoft. For any MSPs out there, don’t go ask for hands out. So, you know. Do something for them. So they do something for you. It has to go both ways. [00:39:01] Vince Menzione: So I was at one of the, on one of the AF point calls just about a month or so ago, and they were talking, they were glowingly talking about your company and how much business you’ve generated for them. [00:39:11] Nabil Aitonumeziane: We actually have generated a lot of business things to, uh, our, uh, partner a point. Uh, and again, a point has been a big help for us when it comes to the whole AI era as well, because. It started all with copilot readiness, which was ai. And through that we got so much going on with helping our customer clean up the data, you know, uh, secure their data. Like all that is created projects for us. And it’s funny because AF Point kind of introduced us to AI and directly ’cause we were doing the copilot readiness. I love it. That’s how it all started. So [00:39:49] Scott Sacket: you’re gonna make me blush. Yeah, please don’t. I love that. I love to see that [00:39:53] Per Werngren: there. You’ve been talking about this. Yeah. A small thing that you said that I want to emphasize a little bit. You made a technical decision, which vendor should we go with? Which vendor’s? Technology. Yep. You made it as a business person, and that is often more successful than technical people making decisions that [00:40:13] Nabil Aitonumeziane: absolutely. Absolutely. I think decisions have to be made in as a business, not as technical. [00:40:19] Scott Sacket: Yes, but, but also, right. The product solves a really hard problem. Of course. That’s right. But what has taken the partnership to another level? Co-sell, co-marketing, personal relationships, advocacy. Yes. Right. That is sort of the difference between when you think about, do I take on a vendor, do I onboard a vendor, or you know, nah, not for me. Right. That’s the piece that separates, you know, many MSPs from Good to Great. [00:40:44] Nabil Aitonumeziane: And they feel like when it comes to vendor, you have to work with the vendor that you love. Yes. It’s like really, it’s like a marriage. ’cause don’t forget that you’re selling this product to your customer. That means you gotta be selling them something that you believe in. And that’s why when you said it’s the trust and that personal relationship with the vendor, because you know why, when you have a personal relationship. You can run ideas with them and they can run ideas with you as well because you are in it together. When you grow, they grow. Your customer grows. It’s everybody wins in here. So, [00:41:16] Vince Menzione: you know, we talk about the principles of success, but it starts at the to top with the growth mindset and the executive commitment, and you see the difference in organizations like a point that maybe some other organizations out there that maybe are not as. Little bit more reticent on the partnering side. Maybe not as, not as the trust is. What [00:41:33] Nabil Aitonumeziane: a good point, Vince. Honestly, it makes all the difference in the world that personal relationships and when you have C-level, uh, executives who are open to talk to any of their customers, whoever, like, that’s what I had my relationship with that point today, uh, I feel very comfortable. If there’s an issue, I’ll call because I have, I feel comfortable to say good or bad. ’cause we’re in it together. [00:41:56] Vince Menzione: Agree. I wanna stay on this topic of communities and a little bit of a call out to p who’s been around for me for several years. We, we started having conversations five during COVID about the fact that we really needed to do something here to bring, ’cause we had the people, we just needed to get them all in the same room back in those days. P So [00:42:15] Per Werngren: what happens when you bring people together is that you build trust. And when you have built trust, you start helping each other and that builds even more trust. And even if you’re not doing business together, you will influence each other’s business. You will help each other, and that’s good for the group. As a whole, and it’s also good for all individual members, but you need to have a mentality where you’re willing to share, where you’re willing to expose yourself and talk about what is not working well and get help from others. And that is the essence of a great community and ultimate partner has really become a wonderful community. Where the trust level is super high [00:42:59] Vince Menzione: because of people like each of you. And AV Point has come on as a big sponsor, a big supporter of our, of our events. I wanted to talk about this for a minute ’cause we are gonna only have a few minutes left. So unselfish, plug here a little bit. Right? So these gentlemen were just at our event in Redmond just a couple of months ago, right? May 1st and second. It seems like it was yesterday. In some regards. And, uh, you’ll be back again. October. We’re gonna be in Reston, Virginia, Washington DC area. Really the tech hub of the Washington DC Metro area, but also [00:43:28] Nabil Aitonumeziane: must attend. [00:43:29] Vince Menzione: Yeah, must attend. And that’ll be on the, we’ll start on the 27th of October with a beautiful reception. And then we have two full days of content at Csof, which at point is responsible for us hosting that event and co-sponsoring the event with us. And then we’re hoping to do something also around the Ignite Conference as well. So we’ve got a, we’ve got a rich fall coming up, and then we’ll be back in the studio in the winter. We’ve, we’ve all agreed that this is our favorite place to come in, like January and February. So we’re probably gonna do a couple of our, our live. And it’s, and [00:43:59] Nabil Aitonumeziane: it’s also, people need to know, I mean, for the MSP uh, community out there, it’s the place where you’re gonna come and learn everything. How to do business with Microsoft, by the way, at those events, this is what I’ve learned. Uh, how to work with Microsoft. It’s through building relationship with people who are coming to the Ultimate partner, uh, event. And this is the place to be. You have to come, there will be Microsoft people, there will be other ISVs who are gonna, uh, share stories with you, other sis who are like, just like you, who can tell you what works, what doesn’t work, you, you know, it’s kind of basically it’s a peer group. That’s why I love it. It’s, uh, I built new friends. [00:44:36] Vince Menzione: And we’ve had some mentors and we’ve had some of the other vendors come in like PAX eight and Ingram in the last event. So we’re starting to see, again, this ties into what App Point’s been doing already in getting, I, I call it the long tail, but it’s the, it takes you all through the mid-market, all the way down to the smallest customers. You need a mechanism to get there, and this is what we’re talking about now. And then even the large organizations need to become more like MSPs. So we’re hoping to get some of the resellers in the room because they, the ones that are successful, the ones that are building their own ms. MSP or they’re a requiring MSPs. We could talk about some of that as well if we had another hour today. But, [00:45:12] Per Werngren: and that blend is beautiful, that you have members that are coming from different corners of the industry and that makes, uh, good network o opportunities. Yeah. [00:45:22] Scott Sacket: Yeah. The, the partner ecosystem is changing rapidly. Um, everyone has to learn quickly how to do service delivery. Um, you know, you, you feel it when you understand, you know, licensing and margins and kind of where the world is going in AI as well. Um, and this is a really, a great community right, to start investing in, frankly, because it, it’s gonna help you on that journey. And I, I love to see, um, distributors and LSPs and all different sorts of partners that we know are doing great service delivery, right? They need to do it at scale, they need to be automated, right? And they need to do it profitably. Um, and this is really a great combination of vendors and other partners to, to kind of have that peer group and no group is greater from a peer to peer perspective than the MSP community. Yeah. I am always blown away with how well everyone works together. Yeah. Well, [00:46:12] Vince Menzione: thank you Scott for that. And I wanna just call out these gentlemen all flew in today just to be here in the studio. I’m just, I feel so privileged to have you as friends and supporters. You came in from New New York area, Stockholm, Sweden. Right. And the DC area as well. And all flew in today just to be here to help you, and I want to thank everyone. I know we’re basically at time right now. I want to thank all of our supporters, what an incredible community we’re building with, with you. Uh, I have a personal mission to help each of you achieve your greatest results. I’m very fortunate to be here and I, I, I don’t discount that in any way. So, uh, come to ultimate. The, the ultimate partner.com or ultimate Guide to Partnering, you’ll find us at the same, I’ll take you to the same website. Um, the event in rest, and the registration is opening either today or tomorrow. So you’ll be able to register. We’re gonna have, these gentlemen will be in the room again. Uh, we’ll have a deep conversation. We’re gonna have an MSP track. We’re gonna be growing that. We’ll have some of the other top ISVs in the room, some of the Microsoft leaders, some of the other leaders in the hyperscaler market will be in the room with us at this event. Helping, nurturing your growth. This is what it’s all about. We also bring the top partner tech companies in the room that support us. Companies like Sugar and Tackle and Work Span all come in and support our events. And then some of the top consulting companies are also in the room, the Carve partners, the the Bridge partners, uh, all of those organizations to help nurture your growth. And so one ticket, a couple of days of time, you’re gonna learn more in that period of time. You heard p talk about that. So come to the ultimate partner.com and then you can also watch us. You’ll wa you can watch this recording. Um, the edited version of this will be on our YouTube channel, ultimate partner.com or ultimate partner YouTube channel. You’ll find us there. And then if you wa would like to listen in your car or while you’re taking the kids to soccer or riding your bike or doing whatever exercise you’re doing, just you can watch this on Ulti, whatever. Wherever you listen to the Ultimate partner or the ultimate guide to partnering, you’ll find us. So I want to thank each of you. For your support, for being so supportive of this. Great, these great gentlemen, this part of this great community that we are building together, and, uh, we’ll hope to see you all in Reston, Virginia in just a few months. And thank you for joining us today. Thank you.

Microsoft’s America’s Partner Leader joins Ultimate Partner Unlock the secrets to explosive growth in the digital landscape!  Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ Is your business ready for 2026? Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. Nina Harding, Microsoft’s partner leader for the Americas, joins host Vince Menzione to discuss the seismic shifts happening at the start of Microsoft’s fiscal year 2026. This isn’t just another discussion; it’s a deep dive into Microsoft’s renewed partner-centric strategy, the transformative power of AI, and the tactical steps partners need to take now to thrive. Nina reveals how partners are now “front and center” in Microsoft’s priorities, how a new industry-based structure is changing everything, and the crucial role of AI in boosting sales and innovation. She shares actionable insights on co-selling, the new “Frontier” mindset, and why being a “customer zero” for AI is no longer optional. This conversation provides a strategic roadmap for every partner looking to align with Microsoft’s vision for the future. Key Takeaways Partners are now one of Microsoft’s top three priorities, with a major focus on tighter integration with sales teams and a “partner-first” tone from leadership. Microsoft is moving to a 100% industry-based structure in the US, with new industries like oil and gas and gaming, to focus on solving customer problems with industry experts and partners. The new “SDC” (Software Development Company) term is more comprehensive and inclusive than the traditional ISV (Independent Software Vendor) term. AI is delivering a 10% increase in pipeline, a 23% higher close rate, and a 9% larger book of business in revenues for sales reps who use it consistently. The “Frontier” mindset is Microsoft’s new theme for FY26, emphasizing the exploration of possibilities with AI, moving beyond out-of-the-box functionality. The most critical advice for partners is to become “customer zero” for AI, differentiating themselves by articulating their value proposition and depth of expertise by industry. 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, Nina Harding, Vince Menzi, Ultimate Partner, partner strategy, fiscal year 26, FY26, AI, artificial intelligence, Copilot, Microsoft partners, co-sell motion, customer engagement methodology, CEM, industry-based, operating units, OUs, Total Addressable Markets, TAM, small medium enterprise, SMC, software development companies, SDCs, ISV, channel partners, account executive, AE, solution areas, Biz Apps, security, Azure, Microsoft field, America’s Partner Brief, APB, agentic AI, marketplace, digital transformation, Frontier, enablement, technical roles. Transcript: [00:00:00] Nina Harding: We’re finding such intense productivity. Um, for example, with our sales reps, the ones that are using AI consistently, we’re seeing, um, about a 10% increase in their pipeline. We’re seeing a 23% higher close rate and 9%, uh, larger book of business in actual revenues. [00:00:25] Vince Menzione: Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi, the CEO of Ultimate partner and your host, and I am thrilled today to welcome Nina Harding, Microsoft’s partner leader for the America’s business. Nina, welcome to the studio here. [00:00:41] Nina Harding: Oh, thanks so much for having me. [00:00:42] Vince Menzione: So excited to have you. Was great. Many of you don’t know this, but Nina actually lives here in Florida. Yeah. We both live in Florida only. Yeah. We live [00:00:50] Nina Harding: pretty close to each other everywhere. Pretty close together. Yeah. What, three and a half miles, maybe? [00:00:54] Vince Menzione: Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. It’s crazy. Yeah. And this is our Boca studio. For those of you who haven’t been here yet, Nina’s gonna be here this, this winter. We’ll have you, we’ll have you on stage. [00:01:03] Nina Harding: Great. [00:01:03] Vince Menzione: In front of our partners, all of our partners that watch and listen to the ultimate guide to partnering, but so, so thrilled to have you join us today. We have such an amazing conversation to have today because. This is an important inflection point in Microsoft’s year, right? The beginning of fiscal year 2026. Yeah. For those of you looking at your calendars and watches. Uh, it’s 2025, but for Microsoft we’ve started fiscal year 26 and so, so many changes that are happening. So much excitement and enthusiasm around the new year. [00:01:33] Nina Harding: Absolutely. We have a lot [00:01:34] Vince Menzione: to cover today. [00:01:35] Nina Harding: Yeah, we do. Yeah, [00:01:35] Vince Menzione: we do. So I thought maybe we’d spend a minute on that, if you don’t mind. Sure. Maybe we’ll start there because there were a lot of announcements made. Sure. And, uh, Judson and Nicole and some others were on the on stage just about a week and a half ago talking him through the changes. Yeah. I thought maybe you could help lead us through some of the conversation Yeah. On what’s changed and what’s stayed the same. [00:01:56] Nina Harding: Right. Um, well, I think the. Biggest change I’ve seen is partner is front and center as one of the top three priorities at the company. [00:02:06] Vince Menzione: I’m so happy to see that. So [00:02:07] Nina Harding: that is really exciting. Yeah. So, uh, we had to start, as you mentioned, a couple weeks ago, and every single. Presentation every, some single executive was talking about our partners. Uh, when Judson normally has like a panel of customers up there. This time he had two partners in one customer. So I love that the tone is really, uh, forward on partners. The major changes that you’re seeing, uh, first is that we’re trying to bring the partners more into the core business. Uh, align them with the sales teams. So what that means is our channel partners are now sitting toe to toe, shoulder to shoulder with the um, sm. C and e folks, right? Yeah. Yep. So, um, what we hope with that is there’s even tighter integration. We get rid of some of that friction that might have been there, and we operate as one. I love that our partners really become that extension of our Salesforce, um, out, out there on the front lines, um, on the, on the other side. We have an opportunity in the enterprise to go even tighter and deeper with our services and what we’re now referring to as our SDC software development. SII [00:03:24] Vince Menzione: know, it’s I know, I know, I know. Good [00:03:26] Nina Harding: old, good old Sandy [00:03:27] Vince Menzione: Gupta and I had a conversation about this at our last event and, uh, it’s so hard it doesn’t roll off the tongue very easily. [00:03:33] Nina Harding: No, it doesn’t, but it’s actually much more inclusive. Yes. So, um, it’s funny, I had a conversation with an Nvidia and. They were the ones that kind of prompted even that opening with me of saying, Hey, we don’t see ourselves as an ISV. And they’re not, they’re not, right? They’re, and so SDC is much more comprehensive, but kind of going back to some of those changes, that’s, uh, that’s where we’re seeing even tighter integration and how that shows up. That shows up in the way. Um, we look at pipeline, how we do reporting, um, in each of the ou, um. Do you want me to talk about the OU as well? I do. Let’s [00:04:11] Vince Menzione: talk about, so just for people that don’t under, don’t understand our acronyms. Yeah. But, uh, so Small Medium Enterprise and corporate is Ssec. [00:04:18] Nina Harding: Yes. Is smec and [00:04:19] Vince Menzione: a lot of partners we’re gonna, we’re gonna talk about where, what partners sit where. Sure. And then the OU are the operating units. Correct. Uh, they are. And what people don’t always realize about the way how Microsoft is structured, because you sit on a leadership team and you’ve got representatives that are very industry focused, right? Correct. Across various aspects of the business. They have their own vp, they have their own marketing organization, they have their own selling organization, and so on and so on. [00:04:43] Nina Harding: Yeah. [00:04:44] Vince Menzione: So talk to us about that. That’s the operating units, [00:04:46] Nina Harding: right? So, um, we affectionately call them operating units, but they’re really, as Judson affectionately calls them tam capture units. Right. So, um, a country, uh, you could have a country, yep. Or, um, an aggregate of countries or you could have division of countries. They’re really based on the TAM capture opportunity. So in the United States and TAM being total [00:05:12] Vince Menzione: addressable market, correct? Most correct. Sorry. No, that’s right. Yes. [00:05:14] Nina Harding: Um, but for example, in the US. We have gone 100% industry based this year. I love it. It’s really, really exciting. Yeah. So we no longer have territories anywhere, and we’ve actually been able to introduce some new industries like oil and gas, right? So I’ve [00:05:31] Vince Menzione: seen that [00:05:31] Nina Harding: gaming, those are real industries that make a difference, uh, to everyone. And so what’s exciting about that? As the conversation is changing, we’re going further and further away around how do we position product to how are we really solving customer problems? And the conversation is all at that industry level, in that language with the experts from the industry helping to solve problems with the customer. And that’s where our partners come in too. [00:06:01] Vince Menzione: It makes such a big difference. And then the partners that are surrounding that, or that sales organization are ones that are laser focused on that specific industry, right? [00:06:09] Nina Harding: Absolutely. And that’s so critical. Um, I think today where our partners and even Microsoft sellers, we. Perhaps we’re comfortable positioning product or doing implementations, [00:06:22] Vince Menzione: selling that ea. [00:06:24] Nina Harding: Right, right. Um, now we’re moving into this kind of imagineering stage. Yes. Where we’re really, where we’ve talked about being the strategic advisor to, uh, a customer. Well, now it’s really here. Yeah. You have to speak their language, you have to understand their business problems, and then you have to help them also reimagine what the future looks like. [00:06:45] Vince Menzione: It’s so critical. Uh, we were the first industry in public sector when I was there, and we were the only ones who spoke a different language. And then the rest of the field organization was territories. And it was, you know, accounts were just split up. They had different sales reps. There was really no knowledge of what that customer did. And like you, like you’re saying here, I mean, it’s so, it’s so critical and important. [00:07:04] Nina Harding: Absolutely. Yeah. [00:07:05] Vince Menzione: So I wanna dive in a little bit on Ssec and the channel and how that integrates. So the OU relies on partners and co-selling is an incredible piece of what they do as well, right? [00:07:16] Nina Harding: Absolutely, absolutely. So, and [00:07:18] Vince Menzione: I know that you, you said that they’re paid a little bit differently. Before we started you were, you were talking about compensation packages. [00:07:23] Nina Harding: Yeah. So we’ve, we’ve really, uh, made an effort this year to make sure that for our enterprise partners, so in particular the services and the. SDCs, right? The ISVs, yeah. Um, that we have a really strong co-sell motion, right? So we’re focused on making sure that we’re understanding all the opportunities together. Uh, we’re looking at propensity maps and that we’re making those introductions at a deeper level from a compensation perspective, um, and even a review. The methodology and making it, um, part of the day-to-day rhythm of the business. As we refer to it as, yes, uh, Microsoft, um, means it even is in the way we do monthly business reviews, how we’re showing up, evaluating the business. What is the partner attach rate? Are we seeing a difference when a partner is attached at stage one versus stage two versus after the deal closes? Yeah. Um, are certain partners performing better? Is the size of a deal getting bigger because the partner is in there? Um, those are the things that we’re able to do now that we have much tighter integration with Microsoft’s SEM model. Yeah, [00:08:36] Vince Menzione: and that’s why I was, I, I knew you were alluding to the sem. Yeah. So a lot of people that have been to our events before. We’ve had, SEM has been repeatedly covered or talked about. [00:08:47] Nina Harding: Yeah, [00:08:47] Vince Menzione: so that’s Microsoft’s customer engagement methodology. [00:08:51] Nina Harding: Very good. [00:08:52] Vince Menzione: And, uh, and it, and what’s really, really terrific about this, this wasn’t there when I was at Microsoft, is really this. Structuring of this is, this is the steps you take in the sales process. These are the things you do. This is when partners get engaged in the process with you. Right, right. It helps the sellers better understand what the expectations and accountabilities look like. [00:09:13] Nina Harding: Yeah. Especially the accountabilities around the different roles. And that’s what I like, is that we’ve actually gone down to the role level and not only what their role is with the customer, but what is their role with the partner. Yeah. And then what role does the partner play at different stages? So the maturation of the model has really opened the aperture, I think, for the opportunity for partners to come in and make a material difference and be part. Of the engagement process. Yeah, [00:09:41] Vince Menzione: that’s so, so critical. And one of the things we do at our events and some of, in fact we’ll cover, we’ll have a co-selling workshop conversation here later this month. We’ll have a couple of experts come in, um, including Jen Weis, who’s one of the partner development managers, uh, well known. And then we have a lot of leaders that come in here to talk about this because partners don’t always, aren’t always aware. Of what their role is, right? Mm-hmm. And May and maybe the partner alliance manager, the leadership does, but within their own organizations, there’s some coaching that they need to do with their As as you’ve had to do with your organization. Yeah. They have to do with their organization as well to make sure that they’re showing up right when they have those conversations and meetings [00:10:21] Nina Harding: and actually in showing up. Right. One of the conversations I’m finding I’m having with a lot of partners, more than I’ve ever had is going back to some of the basics. Like, when was the last time as a partner that you looked at what your internal profile looks like? How are you showing up in our systems? Um, what are the areas of expertise that you have? What are the customer success stories that are associated with you? And I know that that all sounds very simplistic, but we’re also in the world of ai. Yes. And if we’re starting to put agents in front of all this information to help make recommendations to the field. And so I encourage our partners to go back and look at some of the plumbing, look at the basics. We’re going as far as in the Americas we’re introducing something called the A PB, the Americas Partner Brief. And I know it sounds crazy, A PB, [00:11:12] Vince Menzione: this is a new one for, for me. I know, I [00:11:13] Nina Harding: know. Um, it’s just, and what is it exactly? It’s just getting introduced. Um, it is a detailed, much longer profile on a partner, that act that can be built with. The partner, uh, that goes into their industry expertise more around, uh, their customer penetration and what they’ve done, uh, helping to understand the workloads that they really can make a material difference on. It’s not just about migration, but. What release of Oracle can you migrate to Azure? Yeah. That’s the level of detail that our field needs. And as a partner, you wanna differentiate yourself by these types of things. Yes. So these APBs allow us to have that much more detailed conversation about the value proposition and what differentiates each partner. And then in front of that. We have an agent, and so as a sales rep is out there, and maybe they’re in healthcare life sciences, maybe they’ve got an epic implementation, but now they can say, Hey. I, it’s an epic, uh, implementation on Azure and I need to understand which partners can do that migration. Nice. Um, which partners have built, agents have worked with, you know, any plethora of, um, solutions and ideally that’s what comes to bear. [00:12:28] Vince Menzione: So this is happening in partner center, I’m assuming, or is happening outside of partner. [00:12:32] Nina Harding: It is happening internally right now. Okay. Um, as a tool internally. So, so it’s [00:12:37] Vince Menzione: an AI tool. Yeah. We’re gonna talk a little bit more about the opportunity you’re around. [00:12:41] Nina Harding: No, we have not exposed it through partner center yet. This is [00:12:43] Vince Menzione: eating your, your own lunch here basically. Absolutely. [00:12:47] Nina Harding: Yeah. We, we need to be AI first and everything that we do. Um, and I, I have a. Ton of examples of around, around how it’s transformed the way I do business, how I even work with partners, how I prepare to work with partners, how I go to market, or how I even do performance reviews. Yeah, I mean, it’s really fun. That is amazing. Um, what it’s doing to. [00:13:10] Vince Menzione: And then what you’re saying is too, these partners need to show up in a certain way so that they can be identified. Right? You, you need to have the right articulation of what your value proposition looks like. [00:13:20] Nina Harding: Mm-hmm. [00:13:20] Vince Menzione: So that Microsoft can find you. This is, this is almost like SEO years ago with finding a search engines and things. [00:13:27] Nina Harding: Well, it also will highlight their designations and their special specializations, but those are used to really unlock. Access, right? Yes. Um, unlock access to different, uh, incentives or access to EI, right. Or access to the field. But it’s that next click down where the magic happens. And as we all know, there are quite a few people that can get to the designations, but they don’t necessarily have the magic sauce that your. Firm has. Yeah. Right. And that’s what we’re trying to do is make sure that we can help you illuminate that differentiation. [00:14:01] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And, and, and your sales teams are perfectly aligned with the customer and know exactly what the customer is asking for at different levels. Right? Absolutely. And I think a lot of people miss this too, of, I do want to jump in on, on some of this tectonic shift conversation mm-hmm. Because AI and some of the other areas, but I do think that people misunderstand, like, what does an account executive do? What does the sales team look like? Maybe you can just help us double click a little bit on that. I look at the account executive as almost like the quarterback. [00:14:30] Nina Harding: Mm-hmm. [00:14:31] Vince Menzione: And then they have solutions people that support them, right? Yeah. They, whether it’s ai, whether it’s cloud, whether it’s, uh, you know, office and, and other applications. How do you, how do, how should a partner think about engaging with that, that team? [00:14:47] Nina Harding: Well, there are a number, number of, uh, caveats to that. I’m just saying directly engage with that team, right? Yeah. Yes, exactly. The first. The first is, uh, I do recommend that partners, if you have a partner development manager, that you’re working with them on understanding and fine tuning. Your value proposition with regards to a particular opportunity. Um, when we introduce you into the account, it is very effective. And then we’re actually tracking it. And going back to that reporting I was telling you, it’s on the leaderboard, right? And so even leadership is paying attention to all of that. But as you’re looking at the account team, you’re absolutely right. We do have the ae, which is like the quarterback, right? Yeah. They’re responsible for the overall. Relationship. Um, but we now have, this year we’ve moved to just three solution areas. So yeah. Ah, is that ah, is that wonderful? Yes. [00:15:41] Vince Menzione: I’m relieved. [00:15:42] Nina Harding: I know. Well, I think everyone is. Yeah, right. Yeah. Um, so what [00:15:45] Vince Menzione: are they? [00:15:45] Nina Harding: Right? So, so we have, uh, Azure in ai, right? We have our biz apps. And then security. I love it. Pretty straightforward. Very straightforward, right? And then you, you put it all together there. Um, but what’s nice is that then you’ll have the, the specialist by those three different areas. And as a partner, you wanna understand where you fit across all of them, or one or two. Right. Um, and then we also have, um, our customer engagement, right? So they’re looking at the success of the customer and the implementation. Those are actually a really key person for a lot of our partners, in particular, our services partners. ’cause they often are right in their, um, uh, making the recommendations Yeah. On which partners to bring in to help make what we’re positioning real. [00:16:33] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So Azure and ai [00:16:36] Nina Harding: mm-hmm. [00:16:37] Vince Menzione: Which pretty self-evident business applications. Mm-hmm. We double click on that with me. ’cause we always thought talked about dynamics as kind of being its own separate thing, but this is also tying in the, the whole office suite and everything else into it as well. Right? [00:16:50] Nina Harding: Yeah. [00:16:50] Vince Menzione: So there’s everything that’s customer facing. Yeah. Per, [00:16:53] Nina Harding: you know, your stuff. That’s good. Um, yes. We’re in this, uh, this world where you’re seeing the commingling and blurring of the lines Yes. Between productivity tools and actually your Yes. Traditional ERPs, CRMs, right? Um, and that is where we’re unlocking a lot of the magic. There’s a lot of momentum for us, um, right now, um, for our partners as well as, as a lot of the customers are saying, Hey, I want that blending. I want my, uh, end workers to be able to fluidly go between their experience in Outlook. And being in the ERP system. Yeah. Right. Um, I wanna be able to use co-pilots that go across, both generate the emails, uh, you’re, you’re a sales rep. I wanted to automatically send some of these emails or write the emails that then I can add to, uh, before I send it to my customer. We’re finding such intense productivity. Um, for example, with our sales reps, the ones that are using AI consistently. Consistently. So that top quar quarter, shall we say, like in everything that they do, we’re seeing, um, about a 10% increase in their pipeline. [00:18:09] Vince Menzione: Interesting. [00:18:10] Nina Harding: Yep. We’re seeing a 23% higher close rate. That’s interesting. That’s really, and 9%, uh, larger book of business in actual revenues. That’s pretty cool. [00:18:23] Vince Menzione: It’s very, well, it says as a seller it says, I need to get on board. [00:18:27] Nina Harding: You do. [00:18:27] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:18:28] Nina Harding: We all do. Yeah. Right. [00:18:29] Vince Menzione: So, well, let’s, let’s talk about that a little bit too. Yeah. Like ai, we can’t, you know, I’ve talked about the tectonic shifts, right? So we talk about how rapid change transformation has been going on for quite some time. We used to talk about the fact that COVID. Was it an accelerant four, five years ago? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But then this thing called chat, GBT happened. Then copilot happened like three years ago. Let’s call it three years now. And Oh, you’re [00:18:50] Nina Harding: being generous. It’s not that long get that. It’s, [00:18:52] Vince Menzione: it’s, no, it was November of 22. That’s of two. Yeah. [00:18:55] Nina Harding: When [00:18:55] Vince Menzione: chat GBT hit hit the market. [00:18:57] Nina Harding: Yeah. Yeah. [00:18:57] Vince Menzione: And then copilot. The spring afterwards. [00:19:00] Nina Harding: Right. [00:19:00] Vince Menzione: But this accelerant is happening so fast. In the beginning, we overestimated what we expected. The bill Gates comment like, we overestimate what’s gonna happen in the year. We underestimate what’s gonna happen in 10 years. We’re starting to see this hockey stick now. What would you say? [00:19:14] Nina Harding: Yeah, it’s incredible. Um, where we saw customers may be dipping their toe into things like copilot, right? Yeah. Um, now we’re seeing them double down and. Make it pervasive and available to everyone at the company. You’re starting to see it transform the way, uh, we’re setting up, uh, call centers. Yeah. The way HR is engaging, um, the way that we’re putting together sales proposals, it’s in every piece of the business. Now, finance, help me understand what, what are you seeing from my numbers? Gimme some intelligence so I look a little bit smarter. Right. Um, and you’ve [00:19:48] Vince Menzione: been talking about verticals. I think about financial services. I [00:19:52] Nina Harding: think about [00:19:52] Vince Menzione: healthcare. [00:19:53] Nina Harding: Oh, healthcare. Yeah. I mean, the [00:19:54] Vince Menzione: impact in healthcare is astounding. [00:19:56] Nina Harding: Oh, absolutely. Like the going to your doctor now you actually get to have a conversation with your doctor. Yeah. They have Dragon there, right? That’s right. That’s recording the conversation, putting it, putting it into, uh, the system. And I know with my, my doctor, I feel complete transformative relationship. It’s almost like we went back 25 years, but not. With today’s technology in healthcare [00:20:20] Vince Menzione: because now they have Epic or, or Cerner, whatever, whatever the application. But Epic is 90 per 80% of the market right now. Right? [00:20:27] Nina Harding: Yeah. You have [00:20:27] Vince Menzione: a great relationship with Epic as well. [00:20:29] Nina Harding: Absolutely. But what I love is, to your point about healthcare, um, we’re back to like actually caring for the patient. Not having to do all the data entry. [00:20:39] Vince Menzione: Oh, I used to hate it. The doctors just sitting there tapping away. It still happens. By the way, they’re not all using Dragon yet. Oh, that’s blue. They’ll, they’ll get there. We’ll, got some work to do. Partners. [00:20:47] Nina Harding: Let’s get ’em. [00:20:48] Vince Menzione: I’ll give you a list of some of my, my doctors. [00:20:51] Nina Harding: Yeah. [00:20:51] Vince Menzione: But no, it’s fascinating. Um. Agentic ai. Yes. Right. So we layer, we talked mostly about the, the current use and copilot and other, and other uses. But this agentic AI really starts to change the game. [00:21:03] Nina Harding: Mm-hmm. [00:21:04] Vince Menzione: Because now applications start talking to one another, talks about this business applications that all spark start speaking to one another. Yeah. You work with organizations like ServiceNow, as an example, that have been really leaning in on agentic ai. Yeah. Hopefully they’ll be coming. Michael Park will be coming to the podcast here soon. [00:21:20] Nina Harding: Good. [00:21:20] Vince Menzione: He’s also a former microsofty, but um, just this whole agentic piece is really, what are you starting to see there? [00:21:27] Nina Harding: Oh, it’s exciting. Yeah. Um, it’s transformative. So let’s, let’s give a practical, everyday example, right? We’re all partners here, understanding in the partner world, I had someone on my team. In a matter of maybe two hours, build an agent that digested all the information around all our incentives worldwide. Oh [00:21:47] Vince Menzione: my gosh. [00:21:49] Nina Harding: And now you can just ask the agent a question on incentives. Can you believe that? I mean, that’s just a little basic, practical two hour project. What we’re seeing is agents are showing up to help our, our, you know, practical reasons around partners, help our our field find the right partner. Ask really interested, interesting, like kind of nuanced questions and be able to address that. Um, but it is allowing us to have autonomous and semi-autonomous. Workflows, right? Yeah. It’s, it’s really, uh, in incredible what we’re, uh, doing. I’m looking at every part of my business on where can I supplement to create a better experience for our partners or for my team. Using an agent. Yeah. So that they can focus on the value added work. Just like we were talking about healthcare. I want my doctor to talk to me. Yeah. I want him to have a conversation with me. Absolutely. I want my team to have conversations with the partners and explore what’s possible. Not trying to kind of look through the, the minutia detail. [00:22:55] Vince Menzione: Well sit there in partner center and trying to figure out how much business you’ve tracked this year. Oh yeah. They don’t have to do that any longer. [00:23:01] Nina Harding: No, we now have agents that can actually put all of the information together and distill it in one place. I so love it. And then even go out, you can ask it to go out and get market information. Yeah. Or think of new ideas and concepts. What haven’t I considered on doing with X, Y, Z partner? Yeah. [00:23:18] Vince Menzione: Let’s talk about the organization a little bit more. Mm-hmm. I wanna double click on the fact that now you have this separate organization that’s very channel focused and your organization is enterprise partner focused. [00:23:28] Nina Harding: Mm-hmm. [00:23:28] Vince Menzione: Because the two do come together at certain points. Absolutely. Right. The, those channel partners. Selling first party, Microsoft’s first party products into those, uh, into those accounts, as well as selling those partners that you’re working with. So there’s this combination. I see a lot of it happening in the marketplace, right? I see this collaboration happening. What’s your point of view on marketplace and the collaboration with the partners that you work with? [00:23:52] Nina Harding: Yeah. I think, uh, marketplace is a very, very powerful co-sell, um, tool, right? Yeah. It, it, it allows, uh, in particular our software development companies and even services companies and then software development companies can bring in channels, channel partners as well. Yeah. But it allows you to reach out to our entire customer base, um, and have the ability to accelerate the sales. Yeah. And also help highlight what your offerings are. And tailor them. Uh, I think that’s, uh, really important. But getting back to kind of the concept of, of the small SME. And c and, uh, we don’t want to say [00:24:33] Vince Menzione: smec do, right? EPS well, I, it rolls off the tongue sometimes, but say, but those [00:24:38] Nina Harding: are internal organizations, right? And so we really don’t externalize it too much, right? For example, uh, when I do addresses to the America’s partners, it’s across all of, all of the different Absolutely. Areas. And our partners take an ISV, very few ISVs. Only sell into enterprise. Yeah. They’re really across all segments. So we work together and, uh, my tagline internally is that if partner people don’t know how to partner and do business across all sorts of areas that we’re in the wrong business. Exactly. So, um, I’m not, I’m not, so I’m excited about how it’s energizing and connecting with the sales organizations where it’s also. Uh, positioning our products to make sure that they’re segment specific and they’re addressing the needs of the customers in the segments. Uh, as well as that we have incentives that are really geared around the different behaviors that the partners are driving and the benefits that they’re driving for our customers, um, across multiple segments. So it allows us the fidelity to meet. Our customers and our partners where the value proposition is even more [00:25:46] Vince Menzione: effectively. And it makes, it makes perfect sense and you start thinking about the enterprise and how you’re driving across it, and then also against the ous. And then I, we like to talk, talk about the long tail, right? You start getting into even the mid-size market and then into the smaller accounts. [00:26:01] Nina Harding: Mm-hmm. [00:26:01] Vince Menzione: And, and all of the Microsoft toolkit. And the partners toolkit are coming into those customers. We just did a session here last week on MSPs. [00:26:09] Nina Harding: Mm-hmm. [00:26:09] Vince Menzione: Because that whole world is changing because they now need to be ready on Microsoft technologies and understand how to work more closely with Microsoft. ’cause it’s no longer the old days where they were turning the crank and worrying about a laptop computer. [00:26:22] Nina Harding: Yeah. [00:26:22] Vince Menzione: They are really, they’re, they’re doing AI now. Yeah, they’re doing cloud in a big way [00:26:26] Nina Harding: and it’s a different, it’s a different model, right? Yeah. Um, we’re very quickly moving away from this transactional sales approach. Right? That’s right. And I don’t mean to simplify it to that extent, but yeah. The paradigm has shifted to, wow, you’re actually advising a customer on changing their business processes or, yeah. Or, uh, bending the curve on innovation or, uh, what, how do you have more intimacy with your customers? Um, or how do you make. The day in the life of an employee better. Right, exactly. Those are the, those are the conversations you need to be having and that’s very different. [00:27:04] Vince Menzione: Very different than the transactional, I want to sell you an EA or whatever the, whatever that conversation was. And that was the old model. [00:27:10] Nina Harding: Yeah. [00:27:10] Vince Menzione: To your point, that’s how they need to think differently and operate differently. You’re starting to see some acquisitions happen, like some of your partners. Mm-hmm. Like Insight is a good example. [00:27:18] Nina Harding: Yeah. [00:27:19] Vince Menzione: They’ve gone after organizations that did that. Exactly. That understood solution selling. And bringing the whole portfolio to a customer. Mm-hmm. And you’re starting to see more and more of that m and a activity happening in this market? Well, [00:27:30] Nina Harding: it’s critical. Um, it’s no longer go in and position and sell the solution the customer wants you to be. There through the duration to actually have the impact. [00:27:39] Vince Menzione: So critical. You know, it’s almost like Microsoft picks a theme every year. And this year for me, watching start and seeing Judson up there talking about Frontier for the first time. Yeah. Uh, I, I love it. Um, it’s not a novel concept, but I, I think the approach is like, we’re gonna lean in in a way that we haven’t before. Yeah. We’re gonna, we’re gonna. Appreciate partners and customers that also lean in on this frontier. Can you, can you take us through what frontier actually means? Yeah. So we’re [00:28:07] Nina Harding: talking, we’re, we’re really going hard on front the frontier company, right? Yeah. Um, and what that is, is it’s a mindset shift, right? Think about the frontier. That’s where the, it’s the world of the possible. The West, [00:28:21] Vince Menzione: I think about the west. The west, [00:28:22] Nina Harding: right? Um, but it, it’s really around making AI. Absolutely centric to the way ev everything you do. Yeah. Right. So it’s about the, um, the agenta computing, the use of copilot, um, even GitHub as you’re, you’re developing your solutions and it’s really thinking around what is the world a possibility versus being limited by. What functionality came outta the box. Right. In theory. Right. Um, so we’re really excited about it and we’re excited about bringing our partners along on the journey. The conversation is shifting. We’re talking about that all the time with customers. It’s just fundamentally, it’s, it’s about exploration of what we can do together. I love that. Um, as you’re looking at that, we need to almost have the ecosystem in our sellers and every company on the frontier of what is possible, uh, with AI and making sure that we’re as efficient as effective, creating the experiences that are optimal for our clients all the time. And then re-imagining how do you go about serving your customers differently? [00:29:37] Vince Menzione: I love it. I love Frontier. I’m, I’m ready to get my cowboy hat, Adam. Um, I wanted to spend a minute here, if you don’t mind. I have a favorite question I ask each of my guests. Sure. A little bit off the track of partners, but in a way it ties back into it. So Nina, you are hosting a dinner party and. It could be anywhere in the world. We were talking about Denmark earlier. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We’re talking about South Florida, talking about New York City. Mm-hmm. Another great location. Mm-hmm. We both, you lived there and I just came back from New York. [00:30:07] Nina Harding: Yeah. [00:30:08] Vince Menzione: Um, you can invite any three guests to this dinner party. Mm. Your choice. Present, current, or past? Some people have even referred to the, in the future, somebody in the future that they would invite to this dinner party. [00:30:22] Nina Harding: Mm. [00:30:22] Vince Menzione: Whom would you invite and why? [00:30:26] Nina Harding: Ooh, that’s a good one. Um, first I’d invite my mom. Um, okay, so I. I lost her at 26, so she never knew me as an adult. So, um, and she was one, you were 26 at the time? I was 26. Uh, she was 54. Um, and uh, so it would be really interesting to know her as an adult and have an adult conversation around, uh, career family. Children, just the, the way the world works. Uh, she spoke seven languages and watching what’s happening in the, in, in the world today. She was definitely, um, a woman of the world. Uh, let’s see, who else would I, I’d actually invite my grandfather too, so I’m, I’m leaning in on family. I think I love the family [00:31:12] Vince Menzione: conversation. [00:31:12] Nina Harding: Um, the, the reason is I think. Family is so core to who I am. Um, it’s one of my most important values, uh, whether it’s my personal family or my work family. I treat them, um, with that kind of respect. But with my grandfather, the reason why I’d love to bring him into the conversation is, uh, he was in Denmark and very. Involved in World War ii and, uh, he, I found out he wouldn’t talk about it, um, very much about the resistance in Denmark. But, um, he helped with a lot of, uh, getting the Jews out of Denmark into Sweden on boats at night. Wow. And I’d love to have. A conversation now that I understand that. Yeah. About it. Yeah. Um, he was also, uh, involved in setting up the eu. He was on the, uh, tax board in Denmark. Uh, and so just to see things that I’m living and breathing in my world today to, to have conversations on what his thought process, he also did business in Burma. Oh my goodness. Right. And, uh, all over it was a Burma back in the day. Yeah, right. Exactly. And he adopted, uh, a boy from Burma who became my uncle. Wow. Uh, so just the things and the experiences that in today’s world, uh, I never had a chance to explore there. Um, and then in the future. Going back to family. Uh, I have two little boys, uh, four and 13 months. Oh boy. Can you believe that? Oh boy. I know. I crazy boy. Um, I would love to invite, um, their wife. [00:32:46] Vince Menzione: Oh, I love that. I love that because [00:32:48] Nina Harding: I would love for them at this dinner party to meet the previous generations and the roots, um, and have the exposure to the history, the, um, the multicultural nature of our family. Um, but. The reality is I’m also a little bit older. I don’t know if I’m gonna have the pleasure that you just had a few weeks ago. Oh, such a great with the weddings and I’m really looking forward, um, that I’d have a chance to really spend some meeting time with that. I match that though [00:33:15] Vince Menzione: as a young child to meet your future wife, like, and for you to meet their future wife at that point. [00:33:21] Nina Harding: Mm-hmm. [00:33:21] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. And time. [00:33:22] Nina Harding: It would be pretty cool. Yeah. [00:33:23] Vince Menzione: And so cool to have your mom back. [00:33:26] Nina Harding: Oh, [00:33:26] Vince Menzione: and um, and your granddad. My dad was, I lost my dad when I was in my twenties, so I understand that, like, that hole that you feel like you’ve gone many years without. [00:33:36] Nina Harding: Yeah. [00:33:36] Vince Menzione: And he was also World War ii, so, uh, was part, was part of the occu, he was part of the D-Day invasion and the occupation and everything. So, but [00:33:45] Nina Harding: yeah. [00:33:45] Vince Menzione: But that whole generation was so different. They were so quiet about. There, time spent there. [00:33:50] Nina Harding: Very, very, and I think, um, in today’s world, I, I would love to get to some of those core values and those decision and, um, points and what guided them. Yeah. Um, those truths. So cool. That are part of your core. [00:34:04] Vince Menzione: I always like to ask this question. It sets us up, uh, as we finish the conversation today. All of our amazing partners that are watching and listening today. Yeah. [00:34:11] Nina Harding: Yeah. [00:34:12] Vince Menzione: Nina. We’ve got a big year ahead, right? A lot of, a lot of incredible things. Um, Microsoft, in my opinion, has built the most incredible ecosystem, the largest ecosystem by far, and has done the most work here. And I think a lot of organizations, I, I tend to go on sometimes with LinkedIn with people, and they really don’t understand how Microsoft operates, which is why we do what we do. We try to help. Them to better, uh, establish relationships and engage and co-sell and mark marketplace and the like with you and your team, what would you say to them now about what they need to start doing as we get into the, because it’s still the summer here, at least a, a [00:34:50] Nina Harding: few Hey, we’re, we’re, we’re way into Q1 here, right? So it’s [00:34:53] Vince Menzione: Q1. We’re, we’re kicking, we’re kicking into the year in big time. Yeah. What if these partners need to do better, differently? How should they be thinking about fiscal year 26? [00:35:03] Nina Harding: Yeah, well, you’re, you’re hearing it in almost every question you’ve asked. AI is central to everything we’re doing, so, um, get on board, learn. Um, we know that it can be scary in the beginning there, um, there could be some hesitancy from people, um, and. Uh, I really encourage you, we have so much training, uh, but the most important thing is to become customer zero and to embrace that technology. With yourself and then with your, your colleagues and at your company. So, so important because how are you gonna position, how are you gonna evolve with your customers if you don’t inherently know? Yeah. Um, I often recommend to people just start with something that’s personal. Yeah. So I’m Danish. Uh, Danish, uh, at birthdays and weddings and celebrations. You write an a song in honor of the bride and groom where? The birthday. Birthday. Oh, how cool [00:35:59] Vince Menzione: that is. [00:35:59] Nina Harding: And, uh, oh gosh. I would sw sweat having to put these songs together to rubber ducky or, oh, Susanna, I, I can go now in to copilot and it can write me a song in 30 seconds. I mean, it’s awesome. So just start with something that. Doesn’t feel scary. Then very quickly it’ll move to performance reviews. It can, it can move to how you prepare for a customer engagement or a partner engagement. Uh, it can help you innovate on ideas or market opportunities, help you look around corners. So that’s the number one thing. Yeah. [00:36:34] Vince Menzione: And customer zero. People don’t all understand that. That’s Microsoft’s terminology. We used to say eating your own dog. Food, food, food. Right? Yeah. Which we don’t use the term dog food any longer, but essentially like use the technology that you’re selling. [00:36:46] Nina Harding: Absolutely. Absolutely. So that’s the number one thing. Um, because you have to evolve with it. Or unfortunately, I don’t know what that market is gonna look like for you three, five years from now. [00:37:01] Vince Menzione: And you, the leading indicators will. Show us that you need to be on board. You need to be staying trained every day on top of this because it means that your pipeline, your sales, everything is going to be impacted by that. [00:37:12] Nina Harding: Yeah. Uh, the second thing that I also encourage for partners is in this world where, um, everyone wants to do everything. I think the power of differentiating yourself and creating your value proposition is so important. What that means is your value proposition on. Success you’ve had with customers, making sure that that’s tangible in stories and videos, whatever. Um, making sure that you understand by industry what your value proposition is and your depth of expertise. If you’re doing everything right, you know that expression in your peanut buttering peanut butter, you’re probably not showing up as doing something great that. From a field perspective. So that differentiation is really, really important. [00:37:56] Vince Menzione: I’ve worked with some of the large, but when I was doing consulting work back in the day before we started up the, the events and podcast, um, these organizations wouldn’t understand how to engage at the OU level. Mm-hmm. And they didn’t speak the language going into the meetings. Mm-hmm. They’d have, they’d have a healthcare conversation the same as a financial services [00:38:14] Nina Harding: company. Yeah. You can’t do that anymore. Yeah. And these were [00:38:15] Vince Menzione: large ISVs. These are multi-billion dollar organizations that don’t understand that. [00:38:19] Nina Harding: Yeah. Well, and, and that’s what you’re seeing at Microsoft. Uh, in the US we’re a hundred percent verticalized, right? All industry based with Canada, Latin America, but even within the countries you click down one level, it’s verticalized. Yes. So, um, the power of that differentiation and the application to a customer. Pain point, uh, trends by industry Absolutely critical. So, [00:38:47] Vince Menzione: so critical. [00:38:47] Nina Harding: Um, and then the [00:38:48] Vince Menzione: differentiation, I’m sorry, you mean, but like getting, getting people’s attention, right. You need to be able to show up in a way that people understand what your value looks like. [00:38:57] Nina Harding: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. You can’t do everything, but you do these things really, really well. [00:39:02] Vince Menzione: Really well. [00:39:03] Nina Harding: You want something to pop in the, in, in the, in the mind of the sellers when they hear, yeah. X, y, Z scenario. Right? Absolutely. Um, so that’s, that’s really critical. Uh, I enablement. Um, it is, we are, we are evolving so quickly. If you did training six months ago on ai, I hate to break it to you, it’s a new world. It’s old ready, right? It’s old. So make it, make it part of like your Friday mornings or your Friday afternoons. Make learning. An experience. It’s part of your routine. It’s something fun. Do it with your colleagues. Share top 10 best tips and tricks. You need to really embrace the enablement piece, um, more so than I think we’ve ever needed to before. [00:39:48] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And being technical in that regard too. Being, being on top of that. Technical expertise is so critical. Yes. You’ve put more resources there as well. Right. You’ve, you’ve lined up more resources for enablement. [00:39:59] Nina Harding: Absolutely. You’ll see that in our field sales organization, we shifted where our. Resources are. So, um, it was in the news, right? We made some, uh, big changes, uh, in early July, but we also are hiring up in other places. Yes. So it wasn’t a net deficit, it’s actually an increase in technical roles. Yeah. Um, so we’re seeing it speaks [00:40:21] Vince Menzione: to too, as AI has proliferated, uh, our world and our, our movements. Um, we, certain roles are not as important anymore. The roles that are important are the ones that are more specific to executing performance, which are more technical in nature and enablement. So it makes, this makes perfect sense. [00:40:39] Nina Harding: Yeah. For example, in uh, the US we have, what, 350 open roles right now for, um, solution engineers. Nice. Nice. So what you’re seeing is this shift and for our partners, I encourage you to look at where the conversation is going. Um, but what happens is, is that you have to be able to translate between the technology and the business. Yes. And that is what’s so critical right now. Um, I would of course always say, make sure you’re looking at things like your designations and, um, making sure that you’re on top of the incentives and how those are all growing and shifting. There has been a tremendous amount of investment made into partners this year. Very nice. Um, and then, um, outside, outside of that, I think, let’s have fun. Let’s have fun. Let’s go. Let’s go solve some real. Problems together. Yeah. Let’s innovate together. Let’s collaborate. It’s in the conversation that I’m finding the magic now. It’s not just in the routine kind of kind of map and play of of, of, um, mapping an AE to an AE on a deal. It’s actually in the exploration of what’s possible. Yeah. [00:41:53] Vince Menzione: And what’s possible is amazing. We have an incredible year ahead. Yeah. Yeah. And we would love to have you come join us. We’re gonna have a busy. Fall and winter year. So for those of our. Viewers and listeners who haven’t heard it yet, we just opened up our registration for our rest and event. Washington DC area is always a popular spot, October 27th through the 29th. Great. We’ve got an open invitation for you to come. Great keynote for us. Great. Uh, we’ll be doing something around Ignite. We don’t know exactly what that looks like. TBD and then this winter we’re gonna be back here. I’ll hopefully be joining you in January Yeah. With, with what you’ll be doing. But then we’ll have some things going on here as well. [00:42:33] Nina Harding: Great. So [00:42:33] Vince Menzione: I’d love to have you back here in the studio. [00:42:34] Nina Harding: Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity. It’s wonderful to you. It’s so great to make, have [00:42:38] Vince Menzione: you make the trip today and be with us. Yeah. So great to have you with our partners that are watching a lot of, a lot of which you listen, some, we’re starting to get more YouTube now. More people are watching us. But, uh, so great to have you here today. So thank you so much for being here. [00:42:52] Nina Harding: Absolutely. Thank you. [00:42:53] Vince Menzione: Thank you, Nina. Thank you for watching and listening to this episode of The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. We’re online@theultimatepartner.com or ultimate guide to partnering.com where you can find all information about our community ultimate partner experience, as well as our live events. And we’ve got a busy fall plan for you where we’re hosting our live event in Reston, Virginia, in the Washington DC area. On October 27th to the 29th, we’re gonna have an amazing list of speakers and people there in the room. So great way to continue learning how to become the ultimate partner and stay tuned ’cause we’ve got more ahead that we’ll be announcing that the fall continues, uh, possibly another event in the fall, as well as being back here in the Boca Studio this winter. So thank you again for watching and supporting us.

with Leigh Ann Campbell, Ultimate Partner Community Member Unlock the secrets to explosive growth in the digital landscape!  Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ Is your business ready for 2026? Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. In this insightful episode of The Ultimate Guide to Partnering, host Vince Menzione welcomes Leigh Ann Campbell, CEO of Rev Alliances and a seasoned expert in building successful Microsoft partnerships. Leigh Ann shares her remarkable journey, including her pivotal role in transforming Quest into Microsoft’s number one co-sell partner worldwide. They delve into the critical elements of effective partnering, introducing Leigh Ann’s powerful “FAME” framework: Focus, Audience, Message, and Execution (now “E-squared” with Enablement). The conversation uncovers practical strategies for navigating the complexities of the Microsoft ecosystem, emphasizing the importance of sales enablement for your own team, understanding Microsoft’s internal scorecards, and aligning partnership goals with your CRO’s revenue objectives. Leigh Ann provides valuable advice on focusing your approach, crafting the right message for the right Microsoft audience, and executing with precision. She also shares her vision for the future of Rev Alliances, including the exciting integration of AI to scale her proven methodologies and help even more partners achieve their greatest results. Key Takeaways: Sales enablement for your own sales team is crucial for scaling your Microsoft partnership beyond the alliance team. Understanding the tectonic shifts in customer buying behavior is essential for rethinking partnership models. Data quality and a shared purpose between your company and Microsoft are fundamental for a strong partnership. Leigh Ann Campbell’s FAME framework (Focus, Audience, Message, Execution/Enablement) provides a practical roadmap for partnership success. It’s vital to understand Microsoft sellers’ scorecards and how they are measured to align your efforts. Engaging your CRO and aligning partnership KPIs with sales goals is critical for company-wide buy-in and success. Focusing your efforts on a specific area of success within Microsoft and then expanding is more effective than trying to do everything at once. Building trust and making it easy to work with your company are key to successful engagement with Microsoft sellers. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain insider knowledge from industry leaders shaping tomorrow’s digital world. Tune in now for an inspiring conversation that could redefine your business strategy! Keywords: Microsoft partnership, co-sell, sales enablement, partner program, ISV, SI, Rev Alliances, Leigh Ann Campbell, Vince Menzione, Ultimate Guide to Partnering, FAME framework, focus, audience, message, execution, enablement, Microsoft sellers, channel partners, partner strategy, alliance management, tech partnerships, B2B partnerships, software partnerships, cloud partnerships, Azure, Microsoft Marketplace, partner center, co-selling with Microsoft, achieving partner success, partner growth, revenue generation, pipeline development, Microsoft ecosystem, navigating Microsoft, partner of the year, product integration, AI in partnerships https://youtu.be/LcvmtORAV6E 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. . https://youtu.be/s33fltuizEo Leigh Ann Campbell Audio Episode [00:00:00] Leigh Ann Campbell: Sales enablement, uh, not of Microsoft Sellers. This is your sellers. Ah, because it doesn’t, it doesn’t do you any good if the only group within your company who understands Microsoft are the, is the alliance team, right? Because that doesn’t scale. You need your sales people out there doing co-sell with their peers at Microsoft. [00:00:23] Vince Menzione: We believe this time is like no other. We believe we refer to these as the tectonic shifts, [00:00:28] Intro: all the hyperscalers in the world, if you add them all together, managed services will be one and a half times larger [00:00:34] Vince Menzione: because it is the customer buying behavior that has created the need for all of us to rethink our models [00:00:41] Intro: until we have data quality, the effectiveness of AI cannot be realized, and effectiveness of the partnerships cannot be realized. [00:00:47] Intro: 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. [00:01:00] Vince Menzione: Welcome to, or welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi, own your host, and my mission is to help leaders like you. [00:01:08] Vince Menzione: Achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. And today I have for you a leader who’s helped organizations drive their greatest results as Pinnacle Partners working with Microsoft. I. Leanne Campbell was a leader that led one of the largest ISVs to the top partner status working with Microsoft. [00:01:26] Vince Menzione: And today she leads her own company as CEO of Rev Alliances, and I’m privileged to have her join us today here in Boca Raton. Leanne, [00:01:35] Leigh Ann Campbell: welcome to Boca. Thank you so much for having me. [00:01:37] Vince Menzione: I’m excited to have you. You know, you and I have known each other for several years. Yep. And when I first met you, you were leading one of the largest partnerships working with Microsoft. [00:01:46] Vince Menzione: I thought we’d spent some time talking about your career journey and how you got to this point in your career. [00:01:51] Leigh Ann Campbell: Absolutely. So I was born and raised in Silicon Valley, so uh, just kind of worked out that tech was where I wanted to be and where I landed. So I have spent over 25 years. Wow. You’re too young to be 25. [00:02:06] Leigh Ann Campbell: You started 10 years [00:02:08] Vince Menzione: old, I’m sure. Yes. [00:02:09] Leigh Ann Campbell: Uh, working in all types of companies within Silicon Valley. Right. So I’ve done the startup thing, I’ve done the.com thing, like we’ve talked about. Yes. And you know, later in my career I had a great opportunity to lead sales and alliances for companies like PeopleSoft and HPE. [00:02:26] Leigh Ann Campbell: So Very cool. I feel like I’ve seen it all. I bet you [00:02:30] Vince Menzione: have. So tell us about, ’cause the journey to Quest and. My introduction to you was when you were actually leading the alliance strategy for Quest. Mm-hmm. And at that point had taken the organization to the pinnacle working with Microsoft. And I thought maybe you could take us through what that was like, what you, uh, found when you got there, and then how you led the organization into that journey. [00:02:52] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah, thank you. So when I got there, quest had already been around for quite some time. I think they were founded in the late eighties, early nineties. Right. So their claim to fame with Microsoft was their ability to migrate Office 365. Right. So fast forward to when I joined in 2019 ish, they were somewhat struggling to figure out the better together story now that Microsoft had moved on to cloud. [00:03:20] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yep. Right. So my team and I had the opportunity to kind of rebuild that partnership and so we really started. Looking at what mattered to Microsoft, what mattered to Quest, and figure out how we can get best of both worlds. And so, gosh, four years later, we built Quest into the number one co-sell partner worldwide. [00:03:42] Vince Menzione: Wow. That was amazing. And I knew Quest from back in my Microsoft days. And they had gone through several lights, I would say. [00:03:49] Intro: Yep. [00:03:49] Vince Menzione: They were a private company. Then they became part of Dell. Mm-hmm. And they became private again, or I don’t remember the, the, the path exactly. You came, when you came there, they really weren’t relevant in the Microsoft ecosystem. [00:04:02] Vince Menzione: So how did you get them there? Like was there any, any learnings or We’re gonna talk a little bit more about what you do today with partners. Yeah. Is there any specific learnings from that experience that you’ve moved forward with? [00:04:11] Leigh Ann Campbell: Oh my gosh, so many. Uh, I would say overall the value that Quest brought to the table was they really had a wide variety of solutions to help customers, right? [00:04:22] Leigh Ann Campbell: So. They touched all areas of Microsoft except for dynamics. So the message that we were bringing to the Microsoft sellers were, we can do it all. Like just pick, we’ve got 25 solutions in the marketplace. Yeah. And 25 co-sell approved products. Just pick ’cause we can be your one-stop shop. And I thought, wow, they’re gonna be banging down my door. [00:04:44] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yep. For all these opportunities, when in reality nobody needs everything. They have a very specific need. Right? And so we went through several years of kind of rebuilding our messaging to make it be more focused to figure out who within Microsoft would. Care about that. Get compensated on it. Right. And so that we could build a joint go to market strategy. [00:05:06] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Very cool. [00:05:07] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. [00:05:07] Vince Menzione: And then you left to go on your own and you started Rev Alliances. Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about Rev Alliances. [00:05:12] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah, so Rev Alliances really came out after we made it to the top with Microsoft as their number one partner for co-sell. We had won partner of the year rewards, right? [00:05:23] Leigh Ann Campbell: I felt like, wow, we’ve, we’ve really done this. I had a lot of friends and colleagues back in Silicon Valley who were saying, Hey, what were your best practices? What did you do? Could you help me? And I thought, wow, this feels like the logical next step. So, so I made that move and have been helping partners for about two years now. [00:05:43] Vince Menzione: Very cool. And you work with both ISVs, independent software vendors, which by the way, we’re now calling software companies. After my conversation with Jason Gravy, they’re redefining the category. Then you also work with SI organizations. Yep. Can you elaborate on how you’re helping these companies achieve more? [00:06:00] Leigh Ann Campbell: Absolutely. So my learnings from my time at Quest as well as all the other organizations I’ve had the chance to work with, I developed a methodology called Fame, fame, fame. Right. And it’s, it’s a, it’s a great song too, but it is a great song. I will, I will not sing it for you. Nor will I, um, and fame is based on what I saw, you know, at my time with Quest. [00:06:24] Leigh Ann Campbell: But what I’ve also seen across all size organizations, everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame. Yes. Whether it’s your CEO being on stage with Satya Nadella, or your sales executives actually engaging with their peers at a large partner like Microsoft to drive sales, or your salespeople getting. If their phone calls returned. [00:06:45] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. From sellers wanting to drive business together. Right. It’s difficult. Yeah. So everyone wants that 15 minutes or hopefully more with your partner. And so at my time with Quest, I figured out how to really simplify this whole process of how do you build a partnership and get it to market and drive revenue. [00:07:03] Leigh Ann Campbell: Pipeline faster. And so that’s, that’s really what FAME is. And Okay. I wanna know, you’re gonna have to tease this out for me. I will. I would love to. There’s an acronym that stands for something. Yes. So FAME stands for focus, audience Message and Execution. Okay. And so you drill down into each one. But I think focus is, is obviously Yeah. [00:07:25] Leigh Ann Campbell: A hard place to start. ’cause again, if people think I can do it all or they think. I’m a global company, so I wanna touch every continent with my solution. My recommendation is start small. Build your brand with, you know, that sales play or that sales audience or that industry or that location. Okay. And then expand from there. [00:07:48] Leigh Ann Campbell: Got it. [00:07:48] Vince Menzione: And, [00:07:48] Leigh Ann Campbell: and that’s what [00:07:49] Vince Menzione: we had to do. The focus means different things to me. Yeah. Sometimes it’s clarity, like yeah, this is clarity. Like what is the specific thing you wanna go achieve? Yeah. And then I always talk about maniacal focus. Mm-hmm. Which is another execution level of focus, right. Where just the attention to detail mm-hmm. [00:08:04] Vince Menzione: On the execution. But what you’re saying here is. You wanna take and focus in an area where you believe intuitively you can be very successful land That first is what you understand it. Yes. And then build from there [00:08:16] Leigh Ann Campbell: ab. Absolutely. Or, or start where somewhere where you already are successful. Right. [00:08:21] Leigh Ann Campbell: Because it’s, it’s easy to do the win wires. It’s easy to share your success and get people excited about working with you when you’ve already got the demonstrated success. [00:08:30] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Yeah. And then what do you, when you’re working with an organization, how do you help ’em get to that point on focus? [00:08:36] Leigh Ann Campbell: You know, I dive deep into their area of expertise. [00:08:41] Leigh Ann Campbell: We look a lot at, at sales, past sales to see, you know, is there an area, is there an industry where you have strength? Um, and we kind of start with that as well as their product focus, obviously, because Microsoft has individual product groups as well. Right? And so if your product drives a ton of Azure. [00:09:01] Leigh Ann Campbell: Let’s go focus with on my next one, which is audience. Let’s go focus your message on the Azure audience, the Azure sellers at Microsoft. So that’s step two is the audience message. Message is, is tricky. You would think it, you know, customers, my partners think we’ve got a whole marketing department, we’ve got great messaging. [00:09:23] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yes. But is your messaging to your end customer or is it to a Microsoft seller? Ah, to really understand your better together story [00:09:30] Vince Menzione: and what should it be? [00:09:31] Leigh Ann Campbell: It should be your better together story. Better, right? It should be, here’s how I can help the customer and here’s how I can help you, how I can help you land and expand in your business, you know, with the partner. [00:09:44] Leigh Ann Campbell: Let’s go back to audience [00:09:45] Vince Menzione: for a second. Yep. Um, because I, I remember a slide that you’ve shared when we’ve done presentations together and, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s very interesting ’cause I think a lot of people don’t recognize this piece. In that it’s not one person at Microsoft. Right, right. And that’s where you try to get to with the, with the audience component, if I’m not mistaken. [00:10:03] Vince Menzione: Right? Absolutely. Um, and that, I think that’s where I think a lot of partnerships fail in that I’ve got a relationship with somebody and that’s where I’m gonna be successful. Something more about how you help them kind of navigate Microsoft. [00:10:16] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah, that’s a, that’s a tough one. Yeah. I mean, everyone knows Microsoft is one of the largest companies in the world and it’s, it’s really complicated to navigate. [00:10:25] Leigh Ann Campbell: And you know, my first question is always, what’s your scorecard? You know, how are you measured? What does success look like for you as a seller at Microsoft? Because once I understand that, then I can figure out, are you the right person to be working with on this opportunity or not? And I can’t tell you how many times people skip that question. [00:10:45] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yes. And they think, oh, I’ve got a resource. I’ve got somebody who I can talk to at Microsoft, unfortunately, then will get paid on what you’re, you know. Focused on, yeah. Makes it hard. [00:10:56] Vince Menzione: And then also the account executive is not necessarily the only seat at the table with the customer. Absolutely. In fact, in many cases they’re the least frequent seat at the table and there’s a whole team. [00:11:07] Vince Menzione: They’re like the quarterback. Right. And there’s an entire team. There’s a front line and there’s, you know, there’s the whole team is there. Yes. Supporting them. So how do you help them with that component? ’cause that’s also the, a very complex Yep. I think it’s hard for. Other organizations, ISVs and sis alike. [00:11:22] Vince Menzione: Yep. To figure out that PO component of it, [00:11:25] Leigh Ann Campbell: the ae. Everyone thinks the account executive, I just need to get to the account executive, and they’re at that 50,000 foot level, like you said, the quarterback to make sure that their customer needs are being met from a bunch of different specialists. Right. And so when I was at Quest. [00:11:42] Leigh Ann Campbell: We saw, I mean, we sold into large enterprises who had 15 to 20 different sellers. Yeah. Specialists. Across the board. You have Azure specialist, a modern work specialist. The time you had a data and AI specialist. Right. Business applications. Business applica part of the business. Yes. Yes. And so that’s part of the exercise with focus at the very beginning, right. [00:12:04] Leigh Ann Campbell: Is okay, so let’s figure out where your product fits within Microsoft, and then we can dive deep into the right audience and then the connection. Magically happens and people wanna talk to you because you’re speaking their language. [00:12:16] Vince Menzione: So let’s talk about the E in fame. [00:12:18] Leigh Ann Campbell: Okay. E stands, I, I’ve changed it up a bit now. [00:12:22] Leigh Ann Campbell: It’s E squared. E squared. E squared, yes. [00:12:24] Vince Menzione: So it’s fame square, [00:12:26] Leigh Ann Campbell: sort of. Yes. The e, uh, stands for enablement. Okay. Sales enablement. Uh, not of Microsoft Sellers. This is your sellers. Ah, because it doesn’t. It doesn’t do you any good if the only group within your company who understands Microsoft are the, is the Alliance team, right? [00:12:45] Leigh Ann Campbell: Because that doesn’t scale. You need your salespeople out there doing co-sell with their peers at Microsoft. And so enablement is really teaching your sellers how to speak Microsoft, Microsoft 1 0 1. How are they organized? How to prepare for a account planning session with a rep. Uh. The hardest part is helping them understand, to bring an ask with them. [00:13:10] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yes. You’d be surprised how many reps, you know, they get in a room and then the Microsoft seller says, what can I do to help? And they’re like, nothing. I, I’m good. It’s, it’s, no, you need to bring an ask. And so that’s so, so enablement. And then the second part is execution. Okay. And so back to your maniacal focus. [00:13:28] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. That’s here on execution. It’s showing up every day, prepared to have those conversations With Microsoft, it’s. Partner center. Right. There’s a lot being talked about with partner center and Marketplace and it’s a lot. I mean, it’s not for the faint of heart. For [00:13:43] Vince Menzione: sure. Let’s peel back on this a little bit because we’ve both been in the room with these partners. [00:13:49] Vince Menzione: Uh, I went back inside to an ISB for two years. Mm-hmm. And I got to see how difficult it was to get people to understand how to work with Microsoft. [00:13:56] Leigh Ann Campbell: Right. [00:13:57] Vince Menzione: So what do you do there? I know you, I know you had to do it at Quest and now you’ve done it with other organizations, alliances. It is often that the sales team just doesn’t understand, right. [00:14:07] Vince Menzione: Right. What, what their role is here mm-hmm. And their expectations. So I want to, I want to kind of peel back a little bit on the expectation piece. [00:14:15] Leigh Ann Campbell: I think that’s a really good point In my experience, uh, your fastest path to success with your Microsoft partnership is having buy-in from your CRO. Yeah. The CRO if, if you can align. [00:14:29] Leigh Ann Campbell: Your KPIs or your goals and objectives to your CROs sales goals. He or she will be your best friend and your biggest advocate and really drive that message along with you to their sellers, right? Versus if you’re the alliance team saying, here’s something else you need to do and remember, and another group of people I’m gonna help you build trust with. [00:14:52] Leigh Ann Campbell: That’s, that’s a tough road, right? But if it starts with you and the CRO, uh, you know. You’re gonna be successful. [00:14:59] Vince Menzione: So how do you set expectations accordingly with the CRO? Because some of them just don’t get it. [00:15:05] Leigh Ann Campbell: Uh, well, you have to speak their language. Yeah. Which is sales, pipeline and revenue. Yeah. So you start with that, right? [00:15:10] Leigh Ann Campbell: You talk about Microsoft being, you know, in 99% of every account you’re ccro is gonna want to break into. I would start there. I would talk about Microsoft’s ability to influence. Opportunities, which I think it’s overlooked a lot, right? Yes. CROs are saying, I want net new opportunities. Net new logos and pipeline. [00:15:32] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yes, that’s all good, that’s all good. But Microsoft can actually help influence an opportunity for you in a couple different ways. One would be, uh, you know, one-to-one seller prep for an opportunity you could be talking about. You know, they could help you understand the procurement process and some challenges you might face and really just help you. [00:15:54] Leigh Ann Campbell: What other partners are in there that you should be working with, things like that, that you might not know. Right. That’s right. They have situational awareness of the whole customer. [00:16:00] Vince Menzione: Absolutely. From there, the seven Cs at the table we like to talk about. [00:16:03] Leigh Ann Campbell: Exactly. Right. So I think you mentioned setting expectations. [00:16:07] Leigh Ann Campbell: I think if you work with your CRO and help them understand the value that Microsoft can actually bring, which is again, its influence, it’s potentially down the road, net new opportunities, but Right. You have to crawl before you walk or run. Right. [00:16:22] Vince Menzione: I love that piece. And then also, um, you were talking about like some of the thing ways that they help, I mean, I’ve actually seen an account executive go into an account where the customer wanted to go in a different direction and they’ve, they’ve leaned the customer into your direction. [00:16:38] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. Because they felt like you were the better solution if you built these relationships. Right. You talk. [00:16:42] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. And it’s all about building trust. And the, the fastest way to do that with a Microsoft seller is to, a, make it easy. Right. Be a partner that’s easy to work with, um, be able to speak their language. [00:16:56] Leigh Ann Campbell: Again, that’s why the enablement piece is so important for the seller. Um, and execute and follow through. [00:17:02] Vince Menzione: You talked about scorecard and I think that’s an overlooked area as well because, uh, partners show up and they’re like, I got the best solution. I’ve got the most technologically, uh, efficient people. [00:17:12] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. Um, the best price. Like they come in with, especially sis do this, I remember with some of the big sis that I worked with. They just didn’t understand that scorecard component. Mm-hmm. With the, the win Right. For the Microsoft side. Right. Maybe we could spend a few moments on that with us. [00:17:26] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. So all this, we talked about the complexity of the Microsoft sales organization, and so each team, as you know, has a different scorecard. [00:17:35] Leigh Ann Campbell: They’re measured on different, different things right within the account, and so being able to understand that and align yourself. Uh, to that scorecard is ultimately gonna help be a win-win for you and the Microsoft rep. Uh, but it’s also helpful to know if you’re not aligned, right? Because then you’re not wasting your time. [00:17:54] Vince Menzione: So, let’s talk about some of your clients and the work that you’ve been doing at Rev Alliances. How about an example for our viewers and listeners today of how you’ve helped an organization get to that next level? I like to talk about achieving your greatest results. Yeah, because it’s, it’s, it’s measurably different for every organization to say. [00:18:12] Vince Menzione: Growth of 30% or we’re gonna drive X number of dollars in net new revenue and so on. Right. Give us an example of some of the work that you’ve done. [00:18:20] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah, so I, one that comes to mind is a very large enterprise data company. Um, and this is slightly different than what we’ve been talking about with sales, where they were, they had a co-sell rhythm with Microsoft, and, and it was going relatively well. [00:18:36] Leigh Ann Campbell: But what they really wanted was some deeper product integration. That’s really where they felt like that was the next step for them. Interesting. And while they had contacts, they were just struggling to get anything to move forward. Right. And so they brought me in. We kind of revisited fame with them and you know, I think we spent the most time on focus because their data platform really plugged into a lot of different areas within Microsoft. [00:19:01] Leigh Ann Campbell: So we said, let’s hone the focus Right on. What Microsoft really is driving right now, and let’s reach out to the team and try to drive that message together. So, so we worked on that. We did quite a bit of product integration. We also continued to show support through co-sell. There was a, obviously a ton of co-sell engagement, marketplace, all of that. [00:19:25] Leigh Ann Campbell: But at the end of about six months, we had this partner on stage with Microsoft at Ignite. Announcing their new product integration. [00:19:35] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Yeah. And you’re outta work with a different set of, uh, people or even organizations at Microsoft in this case, right? Yes. You’re not just working with the field sales organization, [00:19:43] Leigh Ann Campbell: right? [00:19:44] Vince Menzione: You’re working with the product group. [00:19:45] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yep. [00:19:45] Vince Menzione: What do you, do you find that that’s easier or harder? [00:19:49] Leigh Ann Campbell: Gosh, it’s just different. Yeah. I, I don’t know if it’s easier or harder, but, but what I have learned is that. Don’t assume that because you’re talking to one part of Microsoft, that the other part of Microsoft knows what’s happen happening. [00:20:04] Leigh Ann Campbell: Oh. Or about the goodness that you’re driving. Right. [00:20:06] Vince Menzione: Listen, listen here carefully to those who are watching us today, because this is something I see so often. Oh, we, uh, Microsoft loves us. Mm-hmm. They told us they wanna work with us, right. And they want us to, and then you find out that the people that you were talking to have are totally disconnected from the organization that really matters, that are facing the customer, right. [00:20:26] Leigh Ann Campbell: It happens. And I mean, it happens in all large organizations. It’s not unique to Microsoft. And I think, you know, everyone’s got their priorities and their focus and the product team wants to build the best product with the best integration they can. Yes. And, and that’s what they’re gonna go focus on. So, yeah. [00:20:42] Vince Menzione: So, you know, we’ve, I keep talking about this time of tectonic shifts. We talk about the world has changing rapidly. It’s just amazing. Right? We were living in, uh, 2025 and. I, I fa I go back to October when we did our last event and now to today. And so much has changed even since then. Right? Right. We are in a time new, new administration. [00:21:03] Vince Menzione: We’ve talking about acceleration of change with technology and ai, but even in the last month or two, uh, new administration, uh, Stargate, huge investments in ai. Big changes in the tech landscape. We had the, I call it the deep seek moment now. Like everybody, the world got disrupted. Nvidia lost like an incredible amount of, I think it was $600 billion of value in one day. [00:21:27] Vince Menzione: In one day. It was crazy. And now we’ve almost forgotten about that moment. Right. And you know, kind of anticipating where the next moment’s been. Yep. How are you helping the organizations you work with navigate through the change? [00:21:40] Leigh Ann Campbell: Gosh, there, there’s plenty of it. I would say. Fame. I, you know, just to go back to fame, I would say it keeps you grounded, right? [00:21:50] Leigh Ann Campbell: Because you can build a business plan, you can, you can really understand your path forward with Microsoft, specifically with this framework. And so it’s easy to chase the next shiny thing, right? Or, you know, whatever’s on the horizon. But you, you need to stay focused so that you can show success and then go from there. [00:22:12] Leigh Ann Campbell: Right? So I, I do feel like I spend a lot of time pulling my customers back, right? Keeping, reminding them, remember we agreed on this focus area, and they’re like, that’s right, that’s right. So I, I would say, you know, fame really helps me do that. [00:22:26] Vince Menzione: I love it. I love it. Bring it back to the point, right? Bring ’em back to where the most important matters are. [00:22:32] Vince Menzione: You have to drive and have, and have the framework around it. So there’s some predictability through the change, right? So you’ve been part of our community. Uh, we talked a little bit about this, like I’ve known you for several years now. When we first started up, ultimate Partner, we did the Mastermind. [00:22:45] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. Partnered on that, right? That was the first time I got to see you up on stage and talking about fame, which has been incredible. You’ve been part of our ultimate partner experience community. So, so excited to have you along on the journey. We’ve done some work together over the years. Uh, I know this, but I, I think for our audience, I would love for them to hear from you. [00:23:03] Vince Menzione: What makes Rev Alliances unique. The value you bring to them that is different, I believe, than what a lot of other organizations, consulting organizations or co-selling organizations do different. [00:23:15] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. Thank you. And thank you for, for including me in Ultimate Partner and this, this journey has really been fun. [00:23:22] Leigh Ann Campbell: We’re having fun. It’s very fun. Yeah, so I would say experience is really what’s unique about me and Rev Alliances. So unlike I would say some competitors out there. I’ve personally never worked at Microsoft, which you might think is a, is a negative. I see it as a positive because I had to figure out Microsoft from the outside. [00:23:45] Leigh Ann Campbell: Right. I had to figure out how to break down barriers and how to gain access to places that I couldn’t otherwise. Right? Sure. So. Five plus years of experience kind of hitting my head against the wall, right is, is now, you know, it shows up in fame and it shows up every time I work with a client, so, so my company, rev Alliances, the name Rev kind of plays on. [00:24:11] Leigh Ann Campbell: Uh, revenue. Right. And also kind of [00:24:14] Vince Menzione: important, [00:24:14] Leigh Ann Campbell: kind of important, but also what I think is unique about Rev is that we help customers get there faster. I help my partners get to revenue, get to pipeline faster. Right. And I do that because of that experience that I’ve had. [00:24:28] Vince Menzione: And that’s something that’s a term too, that the CRO. [00:24:31] Vince Menzione: Implicitly understands. Right, right. Because they wanna get to Rev, they wanna get to revenue faster. [00:24:36] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yes. [00:24:37] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Yes. I love that name and I love the branding. [00:24:39] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. Thank you. [00:24:40] Vince Menzione: It’s so cool. So, um, what’s, what’s on the horizon? Like, we have a lot of great things we’re gonna be doing together. You’re gonna be doing more work with us in the community, sharing some more of your knowledges with our, with our Ultimate Partner experience community. [00:24:54] Vince Menzione: But where do you see Rev Alliances in five years? [00:24:57] Leigh Ann Campbell: That’s a great question. Uh, I am. Like a lot of people, I’m thinking about AI and I’m wondering how can I use that right. To really serve more clients? Because right now, a one-to-one engagement, while it’s my favorite thing to do, it doesn’t scale. Right. [00:25:15] Leigh Ann Campbell: Right. To 15, 20, 50 clients at a time. And so I’m in the works right now, uh, to apply AI to my FAME framework. Very cool. So that, yeah, so that. You know, uh, with maybe a lighter touch, I can help more partners, more efficiently, um, as well as, you know, engage one-on-one as needed. So, I’m, I’m excited to roll out something soon. [00:25:40] Leigh Ann Campbell: Very cool. Yeah. [00:25:41] Vince Menzione: So we’re gonna switch to the rapid fire. [00:25:44] Leigh Ann Campbell: Okay. [00:25:44] Vince Menzione: We’re testing this new area out for us, and I, I wanna ask you a few questions that I think might be, I love it. Talk a little bit more about like the, the, the world that you live in and how you got to this point. Okay. So. What book has influenced you the most? [00:25:58] Vince Menzione: Liam, [00:26:00] Leigh Ann Campbell: I most recently read Atomic Habits and that one. Really? James Cleary? Yes. That one. You know, it’s, it’s not often that I, uh, I don’t read, uh, that I would read something nonfiction cover to cover. I. I couldn’t put it down and, you know, the whole idea of habit stacking has, has really helped me kind of, uh, especially as I’ve built out Rev Alliances. [00:26:22] Vince Menzione: Very cool. And what did you get, like from the habit stacking? Was there anything specifically that it helped you improve on? [00:26:27] Leigh Ann Campbell: Absolutely. So as an entrepreneur, right, there’s a lot of things I love to do and there’s a lot of things I don’t love to do, like back office, things that, you know, you don’t really think about when you’re launching business. [00:26:38] Leigh Ann Campbell: And so it’s kind of taught me how to avoid. Procrastinating on those things, right? By stacking something that I love to do with something that I don’t love to do. [00:26:48] Vince Menzione: Yeah, so what’s one habit you can’t live without? [00:26:51] Leigh Ann Campbell: I would say my morning coffee outside on my patio, so rain or shine. Seriously, for the past eight to nine years, I have to have my first cup of coffee outside and I might be wearing like a down jacket or you know, it might be raining. [00:27:06] Leigh Ann Campbell: It doesn’t matter because it’s just that chance to breathe in the new day. Um, you know, and just start the day with, with a positive, fresh look, outlook, you know what I mean? A fresh outlook in life. [00:27:20] Vince Menzione: So is there a mantra that inspires you? Is there something that inspires you? [00:27:25] Leigh Ann Campbell: There is, and I actually recite it when I’m having my coffee every morning. [00:27:29] Leigh Ann Campbell: Um, and so it’s be present, take action, and have fun. Wow. Those are my. Present, [00:27:36] Vince Menzione: take action. [00:27:37] Leigh Ann Campbell: Have fun. Fun. And the have fun part is probably the most important part because, you know, we’re so wrapped up in our to-do lists and you know, overachieving and all those things. And at the end of the day, I mean, life is short. [00:27:48] Leigh Ann Campbell: You need to have fun, [00:27:50] Vince Menzione: which is hardest in the three [00:27:53] Leigh Ann Campbell: for me personally. Um. I would say taking action sometimes is hard. And, and I say that because, you know, we tend to overthink. Mm-hmm. Right. Or, uh, we let trying to be perfect, get in the way of actually executing. Yeah. Right. So, so that’s something I’m working on this year. [00:28:13] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. [00:28:14] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Yeah. So what does mastery mean to you? You know, we’ve had Michael Dravet on the podcast finding Mastery, and what does mastery mean to you? [00:28:24] Leigh Ann Campbell: Mastery to me means simplification. Okay. Right. There’s a saying, you know, if you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough. [00:28:34] Leigh Ann Campbell: Very cool. Right. And I think that’s what I bring to the table for my clients, for my experiences. Right. There’s so much you could do with Microsoft, literally. I mean, there’s new programs every day. I mean, they do so much for their partners. Yeah. Um. If you simplify things right, and if you stay true to your focus, focus, [00:28:57] Vince Menzione: yes. [00:28:58] Leigh Ann Campbell: Uh, you can really simplify and streamline and get to that revenue target, get to your pipeline, get to your 15 minutes of fame on stage with Satya, you can get there so much faster. But you have to, you have to be clear and keep it simple. And I think if you can do that, then you can master [00:29:17] Vince Menzione: anything. So good. [00:29:18] Vince Menzione: So good. So I have a favorite question, can I to ask almost every guest. You’re hosting a dinner party and, um, you can host this dinner party anywhere in the world. We could talk about locations. In fact, maybe Boca may be a good location, but you can invite any three guests from the present or the past to this amazing dinner party. [00:29:37] Vince Menzione: Whom would you invite, Leanne and why? [00:29:40] Leigh Ann Campbell: Gosh, only three. [00:29:42] Vince Menzione: Well, yeah. Well we can, we can talk about changing the rules. [00:29:45] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. Okay. We’ll stick with’s, focus on this. We Okay. Fair. I’ll pick three. Um, okay. This is gonna be a crazy donor party. Okay. Right. So first of all, it needs to be in Hawaii. You like party, like just who knows? [00:29:59] Leigh Ann Campbell: Who knows. But Hawaii for sure. Okay. Right. My favorite place [00:30:02] Vince Menzione: in the world. You spent some time there. I [00:30:03] Leigh Ann Campbell: have. Um, so, okay, so number one, it’s Tommy Lasorda. Oh wow. Tommy Lasorda was the general manager for the Dodgers, and I am a huge Dodger fan and I have been my whole life. Yep. So I’ve heard he’s quite a character. [00:30:17] Leigh Ann Campbell: I did get a chance to meet him once. Did you? Yep. Very cool. Yep. And love him and would just love to talk to him about his management style, and I’m sure he has some crazy stories as well. Yeah, and [00:30:27] Vince Menzione: he’s a, [00:30:28] Leigh Ann Campbell: yeah. Yep. So he is number one. Number two. I am, I’m leaning toward Princess Diane. Okay. I just, you know, she’s so full of grace. [00:30:36] Leigh Ann Campbell: She was a wonderful, uh, mother human, you know, did so much for people. Would love, love to hear from her. And then the last one, you’re gonna laugh, uh, I’m gonna say Eddie Van Halen. Eddie Van. Yeah. Eddie Van Halen. Wow. Yes, yes. I’m a, I’m a huge eighties rock fan. Okay. And, um, hair and everything. Yeah, sure. [00:30:57] Leigh Ann Campbell: Absolutely. And, and he, you know, obviously he’s, he’s amazing tourist, amazing. And I would, you know, he could be the. The musical entertainment for the night. Oh my goodness. [00:31:08] Vince Menzione: What a great group. Yeah. I’m gonna have to come along and bring dessert, a beverage. Please, please. So Tommy Lasorda, I got to see the Yankees and the Dodgers play. [00:31:16] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. When I was young growing up. Yeah. In the New York area and got to see Tommy Lasorda. Yeah. From a distance. Mm-hmm. In the dugout. But, uh, wow. Wasn’t a grit. He always bled Dodger blue. I’m remember read that was his famous saying. Yes. Yes. A passionate human being. Yes. Lady die, of course. Uh, just, you know what an incredible human and Eddie Van Halen like. [00:31:37] Vince Menzione: Yeah. I’m rocking it out. I love that music. [00:31:40] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah, me too. [00:31:41] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Yep. It has been such a pleasure studying time with you today. I’m so glad. Thank you, Boca. Me too. All the way from San Francisco. It’s, yep. A long trip and we do appreciate you doing that. And for our listeners and viewers, maybe some. Advice for them on how they can optimize for success as we really dive in to 2025. [00:32:01] Leigh Ann Campbell: Well, if you’re not working with Microsoft, uh. I definitely would, would recommend looking into that, especially if your product supports any of the Microsoft platforms. Uh, and then going forward, I have to go back to fame. Obviously, stay focused on your strength. Right. Don’t chase too many shiny objects. [00:32:19] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. Uh, and you will be successful. And I will say if your, if your viewers out there, uh, would like to contact me, rev alliances.com or uh, on LinkedIn is, is a great way to connect with me and I would. I’d love to help. And you’re Leon Leanne Campbell on [00:32:34] Vince Menzione: LinkedIn as well? Yes. Are you the only Leanne Campbell? [00:32:38] Vince Menzione: Uh, of course. Okay. Congrats. Wonderful. So I wanna thank you. I wanna thank Leanne, I wanna thank you for joining us today. Thanks for wanting. I wanna thank all our viewers and listeners for following along on our path and our journey to help you achieve more. And if you haven’t done so, are ready, please subscribe to our podcast. [00:32:54] Vince Menzione: If you’re following on Apple or Spotify, you can hit the subscribe button. And we could also follow us on our new YouTube channel. And getting more subscribers to YouTube also helps us get more views and helps us get more amazing guests like Leanne to join us. I want to thank you for following and listening to this episode of The Ultimate Guide to Partnering, and you could also follow along by joining us on our website. [00:33:16] Vince Menzione: There you’ll find information about our events, every episode of the podcast, and you can subscribe to our free newsletter. So join us by coming to the ultimate partner.com. I.

Recorded Live at Ultimate Partner LIVE in Redmond, WA Unlock the secrets to explosive growth in the digital landscape!  Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ Is your business ready for 2026? Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. Join Alistair Butler, Jennifer Weis, and Steve Hale in a deep dive into Microsoft’s Small, Medium, and Corporate (SME&C) business – aptly called the “Acre of Diamonds.” This session unveils how Microsoft’s intentional decision to establish SMEC as its fourth and fastest-growing region, now a $72 billion business, creates unparalleled opportunities for partners. Learn about the MCEM framework, a common methodology for solution selling, and how partners can strategically align their sales organizations, leverage Microsoft’s investments, and build a “win formula” to unlock immense customer value and profitability in this high-growth segment. Key Takeaways: Microsoft’s SME&C (Small, Medium Enterprise and Channel) business is now its fourth and fastest-growing region, representing a $72 billion opportunity for partners. This dedicated SME&C region brings unprecedented consistency, dependability, and investment that did not previously exist across Microsoft’s geographies. Partners must align their sales organizations with SME&C’s customer segmentation and internal structure (ATU, STU pods) to gain engagement from Microsoft sellers. Leveraging Microsoft’s funding and investments, particularly for driving Azure consumption and specific customer workloads, is a critical strategy for partners. The MCEM framework provides a consistent methodology and language for solution selling, enabling partners to fast-track their go-to-market and collaborate effectively with Microsoft sellers. Success in SME&C requires partners to have executive buy-in, build a clear “win formula,” and focus on delivering end-to-end customer lifecycle services, as Microsoft relies heavily on partners for stages like “realize value” and “manage and optimize”. 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. https://youtu.be/a8jwaqWFNAA Key Tags: Microsoft partners, Acre of Diamonds, SME&C, mid-market, channel business, MCEM, Microsoft investments, partner programs, solution selling, Azure consumption, customer value, win formula, executive buy-in, sales alignment, territory planning, ATU, STU, ecosystem multiplier, partner profitability, co-sell, services revenue. . https://youtu.be/s33fltuizEo 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: Transcription: [00:00:00] Jennifer Weis: My recommendation to a partner is if you wanna get serious in this space, go figure out what solution you’re gonna go sell. Build your wind formula, set how many goals you’re gonna do, and then build a territory plan. [00:00:14] Vince Menzione: We believe this time is like no other. We believe we refer to these as the tectonic shifts, [00:00:20] Intro: 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. [00:00:52] 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 Alistair Butler and Jen Weiss of Microsoft and Steve Hale, a partner from suse, brings us to the conversation of the acre of diamonds and how to achieve your greatest results. Working with Microsoft, it’ll bring us to the edge of what’s next. So let’s dive in now. So I’m excited to help lead this conversation with you all. And this is, has a very unique theme. It’s called Acre of Diamonds, and anybody who knows who about acre of Diamonds, it’s actually a fairly common term. It was a thesis. Russell Conwell who created Temple University in Philadelphia, which has become an outstandingly successful university system, wrote this thesis about your acre of diamonds. And I’ve been talking about how Microsoft, especially its S-M-C-E-N-C business, its small, medium enterprise and channel business, that mid-market is really your acre of diamonds. ’cause so many partners tried to focus in on the very top at the tip, tip of the top. And we talked about that. Yesterday, Nicole and I had that conversation about like focusing in this area. So I’m thrilled to welcome on stage. Alistair, Jennifer and Steve, thank you for joining us. Come on out. Come on out. Woohoo. We got some, a kickass team here. Jennifer, so great to see you. I heard [00:02:36] Jennifer Weis: that introduction. I’m a little, I’m [00:02:38] Vince Menzione: sorry. Whoops. I’m dropping things. I’m gonna grab it for you. [00:02:41] Jennifer Weis: Where to go. [00:02:41] Vince Menzione: Yeah. I didn’t want to get. You know, start attaching. Thanks. Good to see Alison. I don’t think I can live up to that side. See my friend introduction. Oh, we know. We all kind of know that. So, um, we’ve got an incredible panel conversation today and I really wanted to spend some time with each of you. I thought we’d take a moment just from a context perspective, have you intro, because I did a little bit of an introduction, but I didn’t do it justice, to have each of you introduce yourselves. Your roles in your organizations, and then we can talk about like, how do we take advantage of this business opportunity. So Steve, [00:03:13] Steve Hale: we’ll start with you since great to see you, Vince. Great to see you, sir. Well, it’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks so much for the invitation. I appreciate it. Real. Uh, quick background. I think I’ve worked in four different buildings around campus here, over my, my career. But, uh, you know, right now I run, uh, software, uh, partnerships at suse. So it’s a really a pleasure to be here with all of you. So great to have you in the room. Alistair. [00:03:35] Alistair Butler: Thank you for the opportunity. Lovely to be here, Vince. So good morning everybody. My name’s Alistair Butler. I run our, um, mid-market West business here in our SME and C [00:03:47] Vince Menzione: business. Right. And you, and you’re even struggling with that we call SMC. I know, I know. We, [00:03:52] Alistair Butler: we, we, on the day it happened, we are, we EC now, but uh, we’ve moved a little bit past that. There was intentionality for it. Yeah, of course. Our mid-market customers, um, you know, we really wanted the enterprise piece in that small, medium enterprise and channels [00:04:08] Vince Menzione: and just to find that. Mar the, the, the scope that you have. ’cause it’s a very significant, you talk about it very casually. Yes. Like you have a lot of customers in that market. Yeah. [00:04:17] Alistair Butler: So, um, I think many of you would understand, um, Microsoft’s regions and SME and C as its fourth Yep. Uh, region. That’s a $72 billion business in, of its own right. Um, you can do the math on roughly what that’s going to be in the us. Um, but for me, I have, um. Um, small, medium, uh, corporate customers or enterprises. 5,000 of those through the western part of the us [00:04:41] Vince Menzione: Yes. That’s a very significant number. Absolutely. 5,000 just in the us in the western us. [00:04:47] Alistair Butler: Yeah. And then I have a peer, uh, Noman Act who has a similar sized business on the east, and then we have a Canadian team in the Latin team and a team. [00:04:54] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And after Jen, I’m gonna ask you a que another question about how your team is organized as well. Sure. But Jen, kick ass, by the way, I do know I’ve known you for many years. Um, you have an excellent reputation from partners about the work that you do in helping organizations, and I got to see up on stage yesterday as well. So, [00:05:13] Jennifer Weis: yeah. Well, thank you for having me. Here I am. My role today is I’m actually A PDM in our global SI organization, but I heard Vince mention some of my history and you talked to Lori this morning and you talked to Alyssa this morning and you’re asking the number of years, and I started counting back and I’m like, I’ve been in the Microsoft ecosystem for. 30 years, so, and we were just joking right? Outta school? Yeah, we were just joking behind back there. I said I was a Microsoft partner when I received a fax to put an internet email. For a company with Microsoft Mail, an exchange for, oh, beta was just coming out. So I’ve been, I’ve been in the Microsoft ecosystem since then and uh, I’ve worked for small sis, I’ve worked for medium size sis working on that. SMC or back then, I don’t remember. It was. Called SMB, I think we know it’s something else. And then I heard you mention CDW as the director of software sales at CDW. And that’s where kind of the conversation today will come in from what I did at CDW to take it from a, you know, 200 million to a billion dollar, you know, Microsoft business there just a number of years. And then went to an ISV. So I got the ISV part of it, a partner to partner part of it. Now I sitting here representing kind of the Microsoft PDM, but a lot of the stuff I do now is all the stuff that I did when I was a partner and how I learned to be agile and really evaluate every year what’s Microsoft doing and how am I gonna have to change the business and change it really quick to drive results. [00:06:48] Vince Menzione: And the work is that you do is very in instructional to organizations like Steve’s. About how to align for success. So I think it’ll be a little bit of a cross conversation here. You bet. But Alistair, I want to spend a moment here a little bit more of a double click. So first of all, 5,000 organizations is fairly significant. Yes. For any of you who don’t know, there’s probably about 11,000 enterprise organizations at the very, very top of the pyramid. Maybe even less than that today. ’cause it, you know, down. So you’ve got a number almost equal to that, just in the Western United States. Yes. And then you have sellers, you have leaders, you have, uh, managers or leaders underneath you as well. Yes. Talk about how your organization is structured a little bit for the, for the partner. Yes. [00:07:32] Alistair Butler: Very, very happy to. So one of the things that, uh, within Microsoft and end caps that the way we try to run the business, of course, is with consistency. So just like, um, leaders in the strategic parts of our business where they have an account team unit, an A TU, um, and then those are supported by our stews. Our, um, uh, specialist technical units we’re exactly the same. We’re exactly the same. So we have an a TU layer, and then we have our stews in the Azure space and biz apps and in modern work and, uh, and security. So, you know, there’s a number of layers to that, to, to get to that, uh, amount of reach or so. But I think one of the things that I would stress as to, um, where we are at now as a company, it was a very intentional decision, um, by Satya and, and, and Amy to, um. Create SME and C as it is now. Yes. This was a decision 18 months ago into Microsoft’s fourth. Region prior to and forever and a day, we were actually part of the geographic regions. That’s right. We would roll up to them, but, um, it’s now Microsoft’s largest region at $72 billion. It’s also, its fastest growing region at $72 billion. So, um, for any of you who have been around us for a while or worked with big companies, when a decision like that is made, it’s. Big. Yeah. All of a sudden we are not sharing resources with strategics. We have our own teams, uh, with uh, GPS, with um, our SE and O teams marketing. And that will take time to mature and of itself. But with the new leader that we have, um, we’re very much elevating, uh, the investment into, into, into the segment. And, uh, that should be opportunity for all of us. [00:09:28] Vince Menzione: And I just wanna differentiate for those who are watching and, and paying attention today. ’cause I, you bring up some interesting points. If you’ve been around Microsoft long enough as I have it, we, it was sort of a, we didn’t pay enough attention. We didn’t have the right rigor and we didn’t have consistency because every region, every geography, every industry, in fact, public sector being one of the industries would treat that part of the market differently. And we didn’t put the right level of investments depending on where the investments got laid across the business. By creating that fourth region, you created a level of consistency, dependability about execution structure, organizational structure, investments that did not exist in Microsoft. And that’s why to me, it has become an acre of retirements, [00:10:13] Alistair Butler: um, completely and. Um, to su to suggest that, you know, our success will, um, come with the partner community as part of that segment is a gross understatement. Yes. Everything that we are, uh, building, um, in our programs, in our M stem phases, in our training and enablement, um, is now going very much through a part lens. And, you know, that’s why it’s so wonderful to be chatting to a few folks here today [00:10:40] Vince Menzione: and. Just a few years ago. In fact, when it was first stood up, it wasn’t getting the same level of attention from the partners. It’s one of the reasons why we have you here. Yes. Uh, and it also wasn’t, um, set up in a way, or the commitment wasn’t quite there. I remember it was about a few years ago, first conversations I had with then the leader of the organization who was Kevin Piker about doubling down. Like it was the first like foot in the ground saying, we are gonna double down now we’re gonna bring partners in. Uh, you mentioned that having the scale of the organization, but you also have, I will say, I’ll suggest, uh. Your organization is structured so that you have maybe, uh, more accounts per rep Yes. Than when you get up to the very largest enterprises account. So I might have Coca-Cola and that’s my only account, but when I get into, which is very, a very significant organization’s, what you call small medium. Enterprise. They’re still very big companies and most companies, they are enterprise big enterprises [00:11:36] Alistair Butler: in other technology companies. Completely. It just speaks to Microsoft’s reach and brand and, you know, what’s over a $200 billion business today. But yeah, so look, the, at the higher strategics, you know, that’s a one to five type ratio in accounts. Then we get into majors growth. Um, that might be anything from five to. To 20. And then it’s our, then it’s our segment that comes in. We top out at 50, 60 accounts per rep, but it’s in that a TU and stew model, which we actually run, um, in pretty thoughtfully designed pods. So small teams are really hunting in those pods with their partners, um, with their partners. And, uh, um, the ability to reach the customers with that is with those partners. [00:12:22] Vince Menzione: I wanna dive in a little bit and I’m going to ask the perspective from the partners in the room. Steve, you and then also get Jennifer’s perspective as a partner development manager. How do you engage, how do you find the engagement? What, what, what is, what is the type of engagement you do? What, what are best practices you can share with our community here? [00:12:40] Steve Hale: Yeah. It’s, it’s a great question. I think, um, if, if I’m sitting in the audience and I, I don’t, I don’t know. What your size and scale is. If you’re a smaller consulting partner or you, you’re a part of a, a larger, you know, technology company, an ISV or who, whomever, the way I look at it is sort of the so what factor, like what we know that we have a huge ecosystem to be able to tap into with Microsoft. And so, you know, at the end of the day, how do we do it? How do we do that in a way that’s gonna help us drive solution selling? So, um, we were talking a little bit earlier. When, um, so I, when I did this at Microsoft, I just remember bomber would, would, he would pound his hand on the, on the conference room table, and he said, the field is always right unless proven wrong. So the business units were already saying, Hey, we’re gonna build these solutions. We’re gonna have this stuff, we’re gonna go to market. Yeah. And he would come in and pound his fist and say, the, the field is always right unless proven wrong. And so what he meant by that, where we’re. You know, preparing for the midyear reviews, right, with the 90 slide deck. And then the, you know, six point font was all about like, how are we gonna drive customer solution value? And that was the part that I loved about it. Right? That’s where. If you think about the history, you’re talking about a TU and the whole design of what happened back in Tailwind and all of that, um, what it was all about was making sure that we have a solution oriented selling mechanism that is integrated with partner solutions. And that’s the part that that’s beautiful about it. Microsoft has always been true to that part of it. And if you think about. The strategy of it is very different than, let’s say, I mean, not to, um, you know, say one is better than the other, but like an Oracle model or whatever, where it was a very direct selling motion at Microsoft. What, what bomber did was, which was cool, I. Was he peeled off a little bit of services margin out of the consulting business and fed it into the ecosystem part of it to help develop ISVs and and integrator partners. We were talking a little bit earlier about, you know, your, your history at Biby and, and you know. That is what it’s all about, is like if you really are in the ecosystem selling business, which Microsoft is, that’s great. Okay. Prove it and then show us that you, you, you have an alignment to that model in terms of how you do investment and help the businesses grow, and that literally becomes the ecosystem multiplier. So what [00:15:12] Vince Menzione: instruction would you have for the partners in the room and those watching us on livestream? How, how to engage with [00:15:18] Steve Hale: Alistair’s organization? Very self, selfishly, I would say figure out how to use their money. [00:15:23] Vince Menzione: Okay. [00:15:24] Steve Hale: Very cool. I mean, to, to be fair, right? Yeah. And, and the reason why I say that is because there, there, if you look at the consumption model that we, that. We want to drive with Azure, right? You want to try and figure out, like, how do you tap into that part of it to be able to drive those? Um, look, at the end of the day, the way I think about it, when I talk to my sales teams, it’s all about the workloads. It’s about what is driving the customer investment? Where is the money coming from? Where is the Vander Gold for, I don’t care if it’s a, a huge, you know, Coca-Cola or all the way down to a, a smaller, uh, a smaller company that’s trying to. Innovate. They want to innovate. They need partnerships that are gonna help ’em go drive this. This is stuff that I did with, um, after I left Microsoft. I was with Bridge Partners here as a consulting firm that’s, that’s, uh, uh, very near and dear to my heart. But, you know, it’s going from a massive company down into, um, a, a consulting organization that’s always thinking about customer value and solutions. So that would be. You, you know, I mean, figure out how to tap into the wealth of Microsoft, but also at the same time be very, very focused on the workloads and the customer solution value. I mean, how do you get [00:16:39] Vince Menzione: relevant? Jen, I want to come to you because I know you spent a lot of time with organizations and, and their lack of relevancy, their lack of engagement models, and I know there’s some points you want to share on that as [00:16:51] Jennifer Weis: well. It, well, it, it. Builds on what you both were saying and and using Microsoft’s money. And to be blunt, so when you mentioned Biby, I was at BUR for years. Biby was acquired by CDW, then I was at CDW, then I went for startup ISV. But that was exactly it. We would sit down every year, first off being relevant as a partner. No offense, it’s not about the partner’s model and what the partner does. If you wanna be relevant to Microsoft. You have to do it the Microsoft Way. Mm-hmm. So every year we knew changes were coming. Microsoft is not simple. It’s complicated, but at the end of the day, it’s not. If you just take that ego out of the way and you say, okay, Microsoft’s gonna come out in the June timeframe and they’re gonna come out with their incentives and investments, and that’s how their sales reps are compensated. So every year I sit down with that plan. And I would go through it and I would say, okay, how am I going to make money? Yeah. Off this plan? And how am am I going to model our win formula to be able to go after you said the solution areas, how am I gonna do that? And I’ll put a plan together. And then I, I think it was Lori Alyssa said, then I go to the executive board and say, okay, I plan to bring in, you know, you gave me a quota of whatever million in profit, right? This is how I’m gonna make a million in profit, but. I’m gonna need to make these three changes. Do I have your buy-in? And every year they’re like, go for it. And we did it, and I would deliver. And then the next year I’m like, okay, here we go again. But if you go into it with the attitude of it is what it is, yes, you can influence changes for future years, but you’re not gonna change it that year. Yeah. So you just accept what it is. And then you build a strategy to maximize the heck out of it and earn, I mean, Microsoft, we, we, when we were at Burbank, they were our biggest customer because we used their funding, but we used it and delivered results and delivered results and delivered results. And so we even went to Microsoft many times and said, I think we can do it better, but we’re gonna need investment from you. You [00:19:02] Steve Hale: bet. [00:19:02] Jennifer Weis: Right? And we wanna bring this program and they’d go. Okay. You did it last year, so go ahead, do it again. So that’s how we built a great strong Microsoft practice in consulting. Then we brought it over to CDW and then we brought it to the licensing piece of it, and we just build kind of a program sales, and there’s really three elements to that. The first element is, uh, someone was mentioning it, the maniacal focus, right? Yeah. The first element is everybody on your team has to know what you’re actually doing. Our goal is to drive x. And this is how we’re gonna do it. We built a win formula. Well, you have to have this marketing funnel. Then from this marketing funnel, you then deliver this and train your sales reps on this. And you just, you build that whole win formula from your account based marketing to your hero offer. And you go through those pieces of it, and then you just turn around and deliver. But you needed that. You needed the executive buy-in, so you had to have from top down if it’s just alliance driven. And it was mentioned this morning. It, it doesn’t work. [00:20:05] Vince Menzione: It doesn’t work. [00:20:06] Jennifer Weis: And so you, that’s what we did is we, and we did it really quick and really agile and we just repeated that motion and created that flywheel. [00:20:13] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And that’s what we did. You got the executive commitment within your organization, right? I got the executive [00:20:17] Jennifer Weis: commitment within the organization. So we’re doing that with partners now. We worked on a majors motion, 15 partners. We walked in, it’s like half the partners got it and they’re like, yep, we’re gonna adopt it. And they’re. Crushing it just in the last two, you know, two months. Some of the other partners are still trying to decide what solution, and so they’re a little bit farther behind. So that’s my recommendation. Build a plan, get executive buy-in. Then build your win formula with all the roles aligned and then just go deliver. But you make it easy and you make it simple. [00:20:51] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And you mentioned all the roles. This is with the Alyssa conversation earlier, right? Engineering go to market, co-selling, your alliance team, your executive team at the executive level to executive [00:21:01] Steve Hale: level. Yeah. What, what I, what I loved about what, um, Alyssa said earlier was, uh, you’ve gotta have the technology piece of it. Yeah. Like once you, if you have that, then you’re good to go. And then the co-selling motion, right? Yeah. Which is what. They’re really, that’s gonna be the next question. That’s where we’re gonna roll into. But I, I loved her point of view on that. And I think it’s like, how do we, how do we connect with the, with the machinery that is happening at Microsoft, it is creates this scale. And how do we do that in a way that’s gonna be profitable for all of us and help our customers? So, Alistair, [00:21:33] Vince Menzione: thousands of sellers, right? Mm-hmm. Within the organization. How do I get their attention? Right? I, I’m one of 165,000 partners in the Americas. Lori Borg mentioned earlier. Yes. So how, I mean, that’s an incredible number of partners. Tapping on the door, on your door. [00:21:48] Alistair Butler: It’s a quest. It’s a question I get a lot and, uh, we still okay on Mike? You can, yeah. Yeah, we’re good. You’re good, you’re good. Um, so it’s a question I get a lot and, um, it’s easier to answer now that we are specifically a fourth region, if you’re serious about that. Customer segment, you really need to think, um, through firstly making sure your sales organization has some dedication to that customer segment. Um, you know, just speaking very openly, if my, uh, sellers are engaged with a partner and you know, the first time they’re together and they have an open discussion, okay, so how do you look at us? And they’ve got seven strategic accounts and four. They turn off straight away. Yeah. Right. Because they’re trying to, my sellers are trying to engage really with anything from two to five partners to run their scale business. Yeah. Okay. So a lot of that’s regionally based. A lot of that, of course, is still into its relationships and connectivity and rhythms that are running in the business. But if you’re serious about wanting to grow with us and SME and C business, really think about segmenting your own sales teams, um, for that. That’s, that, that’s number one. Um. And I can give a very brief example of we had a, we had A-A-G-S-I, huge player. You would all know them. Um, came to, uh, myself, uh, last summer. Um, we’re making plans for six months away. Um, we’re actually going to double down, um, our Kevin Ster and, and create a, uh, a mid-market segment. What’s your advice? I showed them my a TU structure, if you align to that. When you’re ready and you can demonstrate the right skill base and understanding of M Em. I’ll make all the introductions. Ah, M em. Yes. The executive team listened to that. They came back three months later and they showed us the plan and they were activated across my sales team within six weeks. Yeah. [00:23:51] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:23:52] Alistair Butler: It can be done now. There’s an intention to that and I think maybe just the final piece, um, here, Vince, to your go have an opinion. There is in the segment enough white space for all of us have an opinion on what the solution areas that you have, skills and expertise in sustainable, um, and the industries where you have presence. It’s a really difficult thing sometimes for a partner, and I’ve been around partners since the mid nineties to actually be declarative. But when you share that opinion and your value proposition. The connection into the sales team is so much faster. It happens at the first meeting versus folks finding out at the third or fourth, and I’ve just wasted, you know, two months of starting to, it’s much, much better to be cleaner and clearer. Um, all of our growth, um, is in the middle part of our mail even. And, uh, we, Microsoft partner to help us go Microsoft account list, by the way. Absolutely. Now for [00:24:52] Vince Menzione: those who don’t know it, yep. You mentioned M em, I’d like to double click on SEM a little bit. For those who don’t know M em, we’ve actually had speakers talk about M EM specifically on stage. Great. It’s a great topic, but I think we should double click and I think with amongst the three of you, you probably have different perspective on here, but I think I’ll, I want to get all three of your perspectives on M EM and how to engage as a partner to drive msem. [00:25:16] Steve Hale: So at the end of the day, it’s a framework, it’s a methodology to be able to help us be able to, I think, strategically and tactically sell better. Right? So, I mean, we got all the acronyms in the world. Um, at the end of the day, I think it comes down to how do we have a connected fabric in terms of how we do solution selling together and how we deliver. Um, you know, that value and messaging, I, I was, um. It was funny, I was at a, uh, a dinner and a customer came over. It was a partner dinner, and the customer came over and they said, and I’m not gonna say who the partners were, but um, the customer came over and said, Hey, are you guys actually working together? Like we were having a conversation with the technology company and, and, and the customer said to us. I love that about you guys. I love that you’re actually sitting down and talking about technology working together to help us deliver value in my organization. You know, so m sem and, and you’re, you’re the expert on it. It, it’s a framework. It’s a methodology. That’s great. How does it help us? How does, how do we make it real? And how does it deliver customer solution value? Yeah. In my, my opinion. Double click on me. [00:26:31] Jennifer Weis: Yeah. Well, well, with M Sem, I was talking earlier about the wind formula. [00:26:35] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:26:36] Jennifer Weis: The, and, and you mentioned the, the funding programs and different things. Yeah. So within M Sem, there are the five stages. But within each stage there’s specific guidance given to the sellers on this is the ha halo conversation you have, this is the hero offer you pitch, and the hero offer usually comes with funding to deliver something. So, and there’s even, I think [00:26:58] Vince Menzione: we actually have a slide that might help us along here actually. So let’s go. There’s [00:27:01] Jennifer Weis: even campaigns in a box. [00:27:03] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:27:04] Jennifer Weis: Right? That you and marketing materials. I was shocked when I started to work with some of the partners, even some of my own, but the partners that weren’t mine, and I would ask, do you know what M SEM is to their sales teams? And the sales teams are like. No. Yeah. And I’m like, okay. And then I would say, show me your strategy, you know, wind formula for how you’re going to land this. And they’re like, well, here’s our offer. Here’s the technical capabilities. And that’s not a strategy, that’s a, that’s a technical solution. So we would go through the wind formula that you see there. We would go through and say, well, what are you doing at each stage? But there’s, there’s a link on this slide too. I said, Microsoft has this built already. You just need to go get the material and make it your own. Right. Go get the campaign in a box. Go get the, the, the halo conversations and material. Go get the hero offer. Just make it your own. And so we help optimize that. They have a strategy and then it’s like, now we just go land this with your sellers. Yeah. And that’s you. You gotta build that formula to be able to land it. And if you follow the Microsoft methodology, then when you go in and talk to. You know your sellers, it’s really easy because you’re talking the same language. You have the ability to collaborate and sit down at the table together ’cause you’re talking the same thing. And it, it gives the, the partners the ability to, to fast track going to market, but then make it their own. Yeah. [00:28:28] Vince Menzione: And Alistair, this is very deliberate at Microsoft. When, when, when I was a Microsoft gm, we didn’t have this No. Everybody followed their own methodology. You have a common language Yes. That you’re, when you, when you’re having reviews, funnel reviews, any business reviews in your business, you’re talking through this right. [00:28:44] Alistair Butler: Absolutely. So M CAPS is a hundred thousand people organization that is wired to this. [00:28:49] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:28:50] Alistair Butler: And you know, it’s been around a few years, uh, a few years now, but the commitment to it, and I suspect the longevity will, will continue because it really has given so much more clarity and understanding of our own business. As to how competitive we are, um, uh, what the customer experience is. Dare I even say, what’s the profitability profile for our partners in that? And yes, we live by this for any operational review. It is so important that your sales teams have an appreciation of this. Yes, they don’t need depth, but they need an appreciation. But you must have at least one person. Or at least a small team, really understanding the programs, how you leverage the dollars, the timings, the announcements to actually filter all of that into your sales team. That is a, that is a critical point as to doing, doing business with us, really. But yes, for anything that we’re doing on our pipelines and looking at program activations and, and anything that you might imagine on a sales dashboard, um, uh, finds its way back, uh, back to this. [00:30:00] Vince Menzione: Steve, when your sellers, you’re working with your organization and your sellers, how are you implementing em to help them be successful working with Microsoft? [00:30:08] Steve Hale: You know, I think at the end of the day, what, when, when we talk about leveraging our, our partnership and our center of gravity with a partnership like Microsoft, at the end of the day, like what, you know, and I’m not trying to get into like product specific stuff, but. It. What we’re, what we want to do is make sure that our delivery of what we’re trying to focus on, we, we talked about this earlier, which is be be really clear about what we’re going to do, and also be clear about what we’re not gonna do. Yeah, because otherwise we can just be random and we can, you know, say we’re gonna do all these things, but, but, and we’re trying to conquer the world. And that’s why Microsoft did the segmentation in the first place, right? That’s right. And that’s where, that’s right. Trying to get very focused. So if you think about, I mean the orig, the original a TU piece, they used to call it the atomic, uh, unit. And so it became the account team unit, all of that stuff. And now it’s being implemented and they’re doing it for a reason. And, and, and ER’s point is like. Are we gonna focus on mid-market customers or, you know, be dedicated to that. Be clear about what you’re gonna do and be really clear about what you’re not gonna do and prioritize. [00:31:19] Alistair Butler: There’s, um, there’s a, um, little piece here to add as well, particularly for the partner community, for the segment that I’m part of. Yes. Um, different to our strategics who have. Um, the CSUs in stages four and five. You’ll see ladies and gentlemen, realize value and manage and optimize. We have a lot of Microsoft people around, around those, those don’t exist in our, that’s right segment in SM, E and C, we are fully committed to that being partner. A partner delivered. Uh, and lifecycle delivered with your services. Right. So where we coach our sales teams much more in recent years is the connectivity into the partner base such that we are getting actually an understanding of your services. I. And when we’re together in the customer, um, that’s a really positive thing. Yeah. And, um, many, many changes have happened in a very short period of time, uh, that we’re really positive about lots of energy going into it. And, uh, even in our CSP program that plays very, uh, cloud solution partner program that plays very prevalently here. Um, good, uh, profitability and margin for our partners in that aspect. [00:32:32] Vince Menzione: That comes back to the IDC study that we talked about yesterday. And was it $8.65 of services revenue for partners for every dollar of Microsoft. Yes. Commitment. And I think the point you’re making too is there’s, you don’t have this massive consulting services organization. You really need the partners in the room here to drive that. [00:32:51] Alistair Butler: We do. And there was even an organizational announcement where. Um, folks in our global, um, solution partner teams even joined us. So we’re now one organization. Yes. Obviously that cements the, uh, commitment to [00:33:03] Vince Menzione: that part of our strategy. That’s right. So Nicole’s organization absolutely is part of you, same organization that you sit in now. So it’s really intertwined the partners into the business. Anything else we should add? Yeah, [00:33:14] Jennifer Weis: well I was just gonna add, and I talked about it yesterday in the breakout session, if you attended, is the other thing that I’m doing with partners that is coaching them on how to do account planning. Yeah. And you, we were helping them to understand that Microsoft and the enterprise builds these four segments in their account plan, but in the SM. E and C, it just doesn’t roll off the tongue. [00:33:35] Vince Menzione: That’s why they’re using smack. That sounds [00:33:38] Jennifer Weis: terrible. Uh, you build a territory plan and you mentioned another partner that came to you guys and said, we are, we’re gonna invest in this. So my recommendation to a partner is, if you wanna get serious in this space, go figure out what solution you’re gonna go sell. Build your win formula set how many goals you’re gonna do. And then build a territory plan, you know, so that you can come to the teams and say, I’m going after this market or this industry. I have a target list of a hundred accounts. My goal is to close 20 deals. And this is how I am su structuring, accountability and ownership within me, my partner organization. And we’ll align with you on the, the first, the blue stages on there. And then once we’re done with that, then we go deliver the. Purple stages because there’s no CSU. Yeah. So it’s, it’s not complicated. It’s complicated to learn how to put it together, but once you know how to put these things together, it’s [00:34:34] Alistair Butler: not complicated. And then my, my best sellers working with their three to five partners on their territory plans are doing exactly what, yeah, Steve was suggesting where there’s clear delineation on who’s on first, who’s on second. Within that, under a common. Under a common language, it’s, it is designed well. It is designed simply. Um, and the partners where we do it the best with, we just fly. I love [00:35:02] Steve Hale: it. I love it. Yeah. The, the, the, the cool thing about Microsoft is that they will get super, super complex about everything, but then they generally will boil it back up into something that’s executable. And that’s what I love about it. I mean, they wrote the book on co-sell. They did. And so like Howie. You talk about M and all the acronyms and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, they really know what they’re doing. And if you tap into that method and go along with the acronyms and figure out how the machinery works, it’s a great ecosystem be to be a part of it really is. [00:35:35] Vince Menzione: Well, we are up on time. We promised everybody a break. Um, hopefully you’ll all be around if for networking for a little while. I know Jen was leading a session yesterday. There’s a lot of great knowledge in the room here on how to engage with Microsoft. How be more successful driving your business. And if you haven’t, we haven’t. We actually have a double click on M Sem. As a video that’s in our ultimate partner. If you got Ultimate Partner website on YouTube or even the ultimate partner.com and go through our sift through our search on sem, you’re gonna find some in great, some great instruction on what SEM is and how to engage with sem. So, and I know we could, we could spend hours on SEM here and we have some great experts who can take you through this. So I want to thank each of you got great conversation today for our partners. This is, this is how you need to engage this. This is where the acre of diamonds is for each of you. So I want to thank you all for being part of this conversation. Thank you. You, you. Thank you. 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. It’s more than a community. It’s your competitive edge with insider insights, real-time education, and direct access to people who are driving the ecosystem forward. UPX helps you get results, and we’re just getting started. We’ve got big plans for you this summer as we’re taking this studio, and we’ll be hosting live stream and digital events here. And it’s all coming to you soon. So visit our website, the ultimate partner.com to learn more and join us. Now’s the time to take your partnerships to the next level. So visit our website, the ultimate partner.com to learn more and join us. Now’s the time to take your partnerships to the next level.

Recorded Live at Ultimate Partner LIVE in Redmond, WA Unlock the secrets to explosive growth in the digital landscape!  Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ Is your business ready for 2026? Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. This was a fan favorite as I was joined by former Microsoft executive and current Elastic leader, Alyssa Fitzpatrick, as she reveals the strategies behind achieving pinnacle success as a Microsoft partner. Learn how Elastic consistently earns “Partner of the Year” awards by prioritizing technology innovation, fostering deep engineering alignment, and ensuring maniacal focus across all functional teams. Alyssa shares invaluable insights on gaining executive buy-in, establishing clear communication “swim lanes,” and leveraging data to drive impactful decisions. Discover the importance of consistent engagement, human relationships in partnering, and why adaptability is the new IQ in today’s rapidly changing market. Key Takeaways: Achieving “ultimate partner” status requires a deep understanding of how to congruently apply principles across all aspects of the business. Executive commitment is paramount; the entire leadership team must be on board and actively driving the alliance strategy. Aligning functional teams (build, go-to-market, sell) with their Microsoft counterparts through dedicated points of contact ensures effective feedback and execution. Leading with technology and embedding innovation is the “secret sauce” for winning partnerships, going beyond traditional co-selling to integrate roadmaps and push for new functionalities. Resource allocation must align with strategic focus; sometimes trade-offs are necessary to maintain intensity on critical hyperscaler relationships. Data-driven decision-making and continuous analysis of performance are crucial for adaptability and predicting market shifts, allowing leaders to defend and explain their strategies to leadership. 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. https://youtu.be/DgzjeaUiYM8?si=fScjJ-a3QaZlMMh0 Key Tags: .Microsoft partner, Elastic, ultimate partner, partner of the year, cloud go-to-market, alliance strategy, executive commitment, technology innovation, engineering alignment, co-selling, go-to-market, influence strategy, partner resources, adaptability, data-driven decisions, human relationships, BRS, QBR, EBC, channel leadership. https://youtu.be/s33fltuizEo Transcription: [00:00:00] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Adaptability is that has become really the most important thing that any leader needs to do in this, this world that we’re in. Um, it’s no longer one, two year roadmaps. It’s three months. [00:00:16] Vince Menzione: We believe this time is like no other. We believe we refer to these as the tectonic shifts, [00:00:22] Intro: all the hyperscalers in the world, if you add them all together. Managed services will be one and a half times larger [00:00:28] Vince Menzione: because it is the customer buying behavior that has created the need for all of us to rethink our models. [00:00:34] Intro: 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. [00:00:54] 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 fireside chat with Eissa Fitzpatrick, the partner leader for Elastic, an award-winning partner, brings us right to the edge of what’s next. Let’s dive in. So we always talk about like the pinnacle of success, like how do you get to be the top Microsoft partner? And that’s one that we aspire to is where we came up with the term ultimate partner. ’cause an ultimate partner is a partner that she’s their greatest results. They understand how to be part of that 0.001 point. Percent, you’re not in that 99, 9 per percent. And I saw that quite a bit when I was at Microsoft. I got to see the one per the 1% that knew how to, how to operate in a, in a, in a congruent way. They knew, knew how to apply all these principles in order to be successful. So we wanted to have, as our next guest, an organization and a leader that’s been driving that. In fact, this is also somebody who’s former Microsoft who’s gonna be joining us and having a conversation about. How do you get to be partner of the year? How do you get to the pinnacle of success as an organization? And so I’m thrilled to invite, and I think she’s in the back ready, uh, Alyssa Fitzpatrick, I don’t know if anyone knows Alyssa. Alyssa was at Microsoft for many years. She was in the global partner organization. Uh, she’s now running Elastic, which if, if you, if you haven’t been keeping up, like who are the top partners, especially in the marketplace world, elastic is at the very pinnacle of success across the entire ecosystem. Of partners and cloud go to market. And so I’m so thrilled to have her spend some time with us talking about how do you get to that level? How do you become the most successful partner out there? How do you become a pinnacle partner? And so Alyssa, so great to see you, my friend. That’s great to meet. Thank you. Great to see you. Thank you. Great to see you. We were comparing scars the other day. Yes. I had, um, we both had accidents within the last month or two, right? Yes. Yes. Your, yours is much better. You look much better. Mine. Mine was a little bit easier [00:03:13] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: than the getting hit by a car. I, uh, I did it all to myself. Um. When you have low blood pressure, there is a you swoon sometimes, and if you don’t get yourself to a place where you’re stable, you can fall over and the heaviest part of your body is your head. So I broke my fall. Right there. So it was three weeks ago. I’m healing pretty well, but I had a couple of black eyes for two weeks, which was really wasn’t Turn the camera on, I’ll tell you that. But um, but yeah, I was, [00:03:43] Vince Menzione: I wasn’t turning the camera on either, so. Well, it so great to see you. Thank you, dad. So great to have you. Yeah, we’re in, we, we brought the event up to you. [00:03:50] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Yes, you did. We did. I love it. Yeah. Yep. [00:03:53] Vince Menzione: And I wanna sit, I wanna sit down with you and have some conversation’s today. Let do, let’s do, uh, it’s so great to have you. I mentioned the fact that you spent many years at Microsoft. That’s how we first met you were at Microsoft. [00:04:03] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Yep. [00:04:03] Vince Menzione: I knew. I knew even back in that day. You were in the sailing. You were a big sailor. Yeah, [00:04:07] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: I did. But you didn’t grow up in [00:04:08] Vince Menzione: the Pacific Northwest. No. Yeah. So tell us more about your background. I grew up in [00:04:11] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Colorado, actually in Boulder, Colorado. Nice. Beautiful town [00:04:14] Vince Menzione: and, uh, [00:04:16] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: kind of, it was a small town in the seventies. Very, very small town, very different. Um, but I did come to University of Washington for school, but I quickly left because I was only up here for the school year, never spent a summer. Oh, and if any of you have ever experienced a summer in Seattle, that’s why, you know, we live here and I didn’t until 30 years later. When I came back to work for Microsoft and I was like, how did I not know this? I got to work in all these other places. I lived in San Francisco, I lived in London, I lived in New York. Um, finally came back here and, uh, it, it’s outstanding. [00:04:54] Vince Menzione: Summers are beautiful here. Yes, absolutely gorgeous. [00:04:56] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: It is, it’s amazing. And I, yes, I love boating and I’ve taken my passion for sailing, which I’ve been sailing for about 35 years, and I’ve transitioned that into cruisers. Um, there’s a lot that you can accomplish up here and up into Canada and just, it’s the most beautiful boating place in the world. So I love it. [00:05:16] Vince Menzione: I love it. And you know, we had Lori Borg gun just before you. Mm-hmm. Spent 26 years in the Microsoft ecosystem at a partner. You, I know you’ve had several. Points before you got to Microsoft, but you went from being a Microsoft executive. I want you to talk about what you did at Microsoft and then you went back, you went back out now and leading a top award-winning partner. So take us through a little bit of that. Yeah, [00:05:36] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: it’s, it’s actually been a lot of fun. Yeah. Um, and, and I will, you know, kind of caveat it, that you don’t have to come from Microsoft to have a successful partnership. Um, because it was already happening before I got there. It was, it was already in line. And so, um, I can’t take credit. For the, the Partner of the Year awards because I joined Elastic a year ago. And, um, and that motion was already happening and, and what the, what I see is, um. A company that made commitments and followed through on them and was very, very focused in, uh, making the partnership itself work. And so it doesn’t mean that because I’ve got a background at Microsoft that that was the recipe. Um, it really is understanding all of the programs and the opportunities that your partner provides, and then tapping into that, um, being on the Microsoft side, it, I got to see. Who are the partners that were tapping into our programs and how are they working for them? And taking the feedback of, well, this is gonna work if we do it this way. We need to drop the threshold here, or we need to do that. And I learned a lot about how my partners. Worked, transacted, engaged, marketed cosal, and, and that really gave me a different perspective because when I came into Elastic, I, I understood the ecosystem in a way that I, I hadn’t before Microsoft. And so it. Really made it clear how do we go to market as elastic together with our ecosystem because our technology powers, um, all the ISVs out there as well. So we’re, we’re all, we wanna partner with everybody. Um, and so when I look at what I learned at Microsoft and the power of the engines that they build, that we can tap into the partners that do. Are the partners that win. And so that, that really is it. It’s as simple as that. It’s understanding what’s available and then tapping into it. And when it doesn’t work for you, feed it back. Give that feedback so that they can modify because. Coming from Microsoft, I knew I wanted programs that worked for my partners. Interesting. And if it wasn’t, then I wanted the feedback so I could modify. And that’s really important to not just ride along and go, well, it doesn’t really work, so I’m not tapping into it. Mm-hmm. Figure out how to make something work for you or go and give that feedback so that you could say, Hey, what if we did it this way? Yeah. Microsoft will listen. Our partners will listen. We all want to win together. [00:08:10] Vince Menzione: How do you give the feedback in a way that’s both deliberate and diplomatic? [00:08:15] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: So, um, I’ll take a page from what Lori just said, the. Go to market build with go to market, sell with. It’s, um, it’s probably been the mantra here for almost 10 years now. Yeah. And, um, if that is not your mantra in the way that you’re running your partnerships, um, with Microsoft, I strongly recommend that you, you adopt that. Um, and it works for everybody else. And so that’s what’s the nice part about it is every partnership that we run at Elastic, we look at what is the build piece. Where’s the innovation coming from? What’s the solution that we’re trying to build for our customers? The how do we market that? How do we tell the world about what we built together, what we have, and then the sell? How do we empower our sellers to understand how to work together? And so making sure you, you really have that spectrum and, and you’re working that, and then decide what works for you. Yeah. And, and to bring that feedback in, you’re gonna have, you, you need to have points of contact for each one of those, um, those swim lanes and working with [00:09:15] Vince Menzione: those functional, functional areas that I like to refer to as Yeah. You’re working with [00:09:17] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Microsoft. Yeah. And that’s where you give the feedback. [00:09:19] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:09:20] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: If it’s a build, you give it to the build team. If it’s go to market, let’s take the marketing team and show them what we need to do. So it’s really important that you land the feedback in the right place so it can be, um, taken in and then addressed. Um, otherwise it, it tends to float around without, um, [00:09:36] Vince Menzione: yeah. You bring up a really great point, but, well, you brought up a couple, several good points I wanna make sure I want to highlight. First of all, you talked about executive commitment and that’s super critical to success. Like if your executive team is not on board and helping to drive the the alliance strategy all up. You’re gonna lose. Um, but you talked about the, the swim lanes and making sure that you, you’re aligned by role. And one of the things we’ve encouraged organizations to do over the years is not just have one person who’s responsible for the alliance mm-hmm. But to embed leadership from your organization with leadership. At the Microsoft partner leadership level. So your build team and their build team are aligned. Your go-to market and their go-to market are aligned, your co-selling, their co-sell are aligned, and any other areas, right? There are other functional areas that are gonna align with your business. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Is that how elastic Exactly? Yeah. [00:10:26] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: And, and it’s very empowering for the teams because the marketing team, they, they, they work incredibly well together and the rest of us are like, oh, what are they doing over there? Alright, that’s great. And then I get in, you know, information from what’s happening on the build. And you know, we, at every single Microsoft conference or, or any of our partner conferences, we try to release. Um, do press releases on new functionality and that’s coinciding exactly with roadmaps. And so we really wanna make sure that the build team, all they’re thinking about is how do we innovate together and make sure that everything that we’re doing from our roadmap and their roadmap are aligned. Marketing, empower them to go and find those opportunities and drive it. And then the cell team as well, it having each team have a connection versus one person trying to work the, the entire, um, agenda. It really does empower the team and make it agile, quick and innovative at, at the very, um, source. [00:11:24] Vince Menzione: And let’s dive in on executive commitment. ’cause all those things are, all those teams are reporting into a C-suite leader. Mm-hmm. Right. Generally the CEO of the organization or or other role, how do you drive that and how do you drive the communication from your level of role within the organization driving partnerships and strategy there? How are you then communicating with that leadership team and how are you sprinkling in the priorities that you need to drive into the business? [00:11:48] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: You know, I think that’s probably the. Biggest challenge for, um, individuals in the, um, the global channel leader role is getting the buy-in from our executives and getting them to understand the opportunity to the magnitude that, that we see. And they’re very numbers oriented. Yeah. And so it’s a challenge. It’s a, it’s tough to really go in and get the leadership to understand what the opportunity is, because a lot of times it is. Belief, you know, build it, they will come. Well, we do have proof for that. And there are partnerships out there that you can point to and say, look at somebody our size, our scale, and what they’ve done by doing X, Y, Z. So I think the best way to sell your story is to look in the industry at peer group successes or even bring in and, and I know this sounds crazy, but bring an analyst in because. Your leadership, hearing it from you is one thing, but when they hear it from someone else, there is a different impact. And I’ve, I’ve recognized that as I’ve been trying within Elastic to, uh, modify and move our focus going to my senior executive team. By myself is less effective than going to my senior executive team when I bring in outside data or even an outside consultant. Yeah. To really prove the story. And it doesn’t mean that there’s not credibility with me. It’s, there’s so many ways to do partnering. That is your way, the best way. And so trying to find that right recipe for your company, it is important to do the research. Do your homework, make sure you’ve got a financially driven plan, that you have, a metric that your leadership can say, okay, I believe in that metric when it goes up or down. That’s what I’m gonna hold you to. That is really important. Otherwise, you’re asking your leadership to, um, you know, really believe in something that may or may not happen. You’ve gotta prove the story. [00:13:52] Vince Menzione: So what’s the secret sauce? What, I mean, you, you’ve given a lot of it, but Right. But partner, the year status, multiple years. Right? This is, uh, you’ve, you’ve just been awarded again, some of the other cloud, uh mm-hmm. Hyperscalers as well. What is the secret sauce within Alaska? Elastic that helps you become partner of the year? Like what, what do you think it is? [00:14:12] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Well, I actually think, um. Lori nailed it with technical intensity and I do remember when, you know, when Satya said that is the most important thing for Microsoft and our partner ecosystem. What I’ve seen, the way that Elastic engages with our partners is technology first, and that is something that’s different. I’ve been in. Partnering for 35 years, and the early days of partnering was all about co-selling, and it was all about how do we line up our sellers? How do we engage ’em, spiff ’em, do whatever we can do to have a meet in the market. Well, that doesn’t work anymore if you don’t have the technology. Innovation. And so it really does come down to leading with your technology first and embedding your tech in, uh, Microsoft or vice versa, somehow making it hook in and understanding what are the release cycles, where, what is the next innovation and. Until you get deep in, you may not hear what those roadmaps are. And so you’ve gotta build those relationships so that you can become part of the fabric that is doing the innovation. And then you’re actually. Driving Microsofting. So what I’m seeing now is the way that Elastic and Microsoft work is we have these innovation sessions regularly where we look at our technology and we, we compare roadmaps. Yeah. And as we do that, we’re affecting each other’s maps. Um, we ask for functionality in, um, the marketplace. It took a few months, but we pushed and pushed and pushed, and it’s something that we really needed so that we could do multi-year transactions with our partners. Um, they responded and we worked together and, and we made it happen. And so I think the secret is, I. Lead with your technology and make sure that it is something that can really work and hunt with the partnerships that you’re trying to build and then wrap the relationship around that, that’s where you start. Um, and I do think that that is the secret sauce that has made Elastic very successful, is we are fearless in going into the engineering organizations and, and really asking for more. Um. I love it. I come from an open source background, um, at, at Elastic, and it is fearless. It’s like, Hey, let’s build here. Let’s do that. Let’s do this. And it is, um, so it’s a very, it’s fascinating, um, exciting time to watch this happen, but when you think about the partner world. It has changed so much, and yes, co-selling is very important, but if you don’t have the nucleus of technology and innovation together, it, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling out there. [00:16:53] Vince Menzione: So I’m hearing tech intensity, I’m hearing engineering. I’m, I’m seeing, I’m visualizing your engineers in the room with the Microsoft engineers in the room, having very, very deep conversations about product alignment. Mm-hmm. [00:17:05] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: And fit. [00:17:06] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. And, and re-engineering the technologies on both sides. [00:17:09] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: And I think that to get to that point, to be in the room is, it’s important to, to push, to have the conversations, but then do what you say you’re gonna do. Deliver on time, deliver those features and that functionality that you both agree to. And that’s what really proofs it out. [00:17:29] Vince Menzione: You’re speaking my language. I talk about this all the time. Like I would sit in those rooms with the PowerPoint slides. We’d have great meetings, we’d have great alignment. We’d, we’d set goals with one another. We we’re all high fiving each other at the end of the meeting saying, we’re gonna achieve incredible success this year. And then crickets. Yes. We never hear back from them. And it comes back to that maniacal focus. People miss the maniacal focus part of this. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. And it sounds like you’re doing all that, right? Your engineering teams are maniacally focused, working with Microsoft. You’re driving the go-to market strategy. You’re driving the co-sell strategy across the organization. Yep. [00:18:03] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Yep. It. [00:18:03] Vince Menzione: It’s quite a bit. What would you say from a, like a resourcing perspective, how do organizations need to think about their resourcing for a successful partnership like yours? [00:18:12] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: You know, that’s a, that’s a really interesting question because that is probably the biggest challenge that we, we all face every day is, that’s right. Our, our teams are never big enough. Um. When I came into Elastic, I, I was astounded because the partner organization, um, is of size. Um, but for the size of company that we are, it’s, it’s, it’s pretty lean. But the hyperscaler element of our partner organization is about 15% of the org all up. And so there was a clear decision made, and this is before I showed up, that the hyperscaler relationships were king. They were the top, top dogs. We’re going to make sure we get that right. And so that actually for three years, it was that maniacal focus, which did make other partnerships suffer, right? Because we just didn’t have the resources. But that was a choice, and those are the choices that you have to make. Sometimes you can’t do it all. And right now I’m making trade-offs where I’m like, this year. I’m not gonna be able to do that because I’ve gotta get this right and this is going to stay healthy and this is gonna stay strong. And so it is trade-offs. But I would say that if you want to go. Part of the hoop and you really wanna make Microsoft or a hyperscaler relationship work or any partnership, it is focus and intensity around that and putting the resources where your focus is. And that should align all the way up to the the board. Because if they are, let’s make this work and you move your resources and say, look, another part of the partner organization may suffer as a result. That’s understood. Yes, as long as you communicate and you’re clear with that. But I would say that resourcing, um, making sure that you’ve got, you know, the right leadership that’s connecting at the leader level and running those BRS and QBR and making sure that you constantly have, um, you know, an EBC every six months that keeps the executives together and has that rhythm of the business. That’s really important. So you’ve gotta have that executive leadership and that alignment. But then you’ve gotta have folks in the field that are helping your sellers really work the deals. Um, it’s not easy. I mean, it’s not just hit a button and get it done. And so we, we do have to help our sellers get it across the line and drive a marketplace first mentality. In our company. And so it, it is, um, resourcing I think is, is critical to make sure you got the top and the field resources. We have a whole team on marketing and we wouldn’t, we wouldn’t be where we’re at right now without the, um, the incredible focus from marketing and engineering. [00:20:53] Vince Menzione: And I think I heard you say getting your executives aligned at the top. By the way, the upstairs of this building is the EBC, it’s the executive briefing center for Microsoft. I’m sure you use this quite a bit for some of those meetings. What do you find is like the secret sauce or the sweet spot getting the, your executives in, the Microsoft executives at that level aligned? Is there some level of engagement? Executive sponsorship. How do you, how do you do some of those things? Well, [00:21:18] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: so you do need to have executive sponsorship. That’s important. Um, and then you choose where that comes from. Does that come from the partner team? Does that come from engineering? Does that come from marketing? ’cause that sponsorship can come from different parts of the organization and, um, and that, that’s important ’cause that really does kind of give you that north star of what you’re doing. But then, um, in order to make those, those. Consistent meetings, those qbr, those brs successful, you do need commitment from your leadership. And so when we have an EBC or even A QBR, my. My CEO will fly up. My CRO will fly up. We bring everyone here to show the commitment, and we do that twice a year. So Microsoft knows we’re gonna come in. Yeah, we spend an entire day together and, um, there is an entire, um, afternoon of engineering and then they say. Been off and the engineers go in another room and I don’t even know what they talk about. But, um, but we do bring everyone together and it creates the relationship, it creates the consistency and the understanding. ’cause when your CRO hears directly from the top brass at Microsoft about what they’re doing Yeah. He’s motivated. Yeah. And so it is important to not just have ’em dial in on Zoom or teams or whatever, get ’em here. Get them in the room. That’s when it really, the magic does happen. It is human relationships that we do that partnering. I, I’ve been 35 years in partnering and, and my kids ask me what I do and I say, I built human relationships. Yeah. Um, where they weren’t before. And, and then we create business out of that. That’s what it is. But it starts with the human relationships first. And, and so get your leaders here. It makes a difference. It really does. And [00:22:59] Vince Menzione: demonstrating that your leaders are willing to make the commitment to come here. Mm-hmm. And engage with the other executives in the room is critical. Yep. It also takes a lot of the pressure off of you as a leader of the partnership organization to not have to have the, be the intermediary to the conversation about like, we’re not driving the right results on co-selling with our C-R-C-R-O. To have the CRO kind of put in the hot seat in a way. Yep. Right. Yep. It’s okay. It’s okay to have that conversation with the other aligned executives on the other side of that. Mm-hmm. And I think that’s part of your secret sauce. [00:23:31] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Mm-hmm. Yeah. As as long as everyone’s in the know as well, when you hit those roadblocks, which you will hit, having your leadership understand what’s happening in the relationship not only helps you get over those roadblock, it helps. You not get as much and you know, you don’t get on fire as much. Right. You’re not gonna get shot at because now you know, like your leader knows Okay, they can’t transact that way. We have to do it this way. Yeah. And so you’re not in the middle going, wait, wait, wait, let me explain all this stuff to you. They’re in the know. And that’s so helpful to, you know, the, the velocity of the business. [00:24:08] Vince Menzione: So we talk about embracing change. We talk about adaptability. We’ve used the term adaptability quotient, in fact. Mm-hmm. Like that’s, that’s the new iq. And EQ is the aq. Right. It’s, it’s something you really need to lean in on. Right? Yeah. How are you leaning in now? You, you’re sitting here as a. And you work with the others as well, but you’re sitting here with Microsoft being a very significant part of your business, knowing that in a couple of months as things are gonna change, right? We’re at the end of 25. Moving into 26, what are you doing from an adaptability perspective within your own organization and how are you also, uh, how are you in tuned with Microsoft on some of this now so that you are able to get the feedback loop going in a way that you’re thinking about your planning and process. Mm-hmm. [00:24:51] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Um. Adaptability is that has become really the most important thing that any leader needs to do in this, this world that we’re in. Um, it’s no longer one, two year roadmaps. It’s three months and the fourth month something could pop that you didn’t know about. And, and, and. It could derail your strategy. So you, you, you’re constantly adapting. You’re constantly watching. You have to do your homework more than you’ve ever had to do your homework because your homework changes every day. And so, um, being adaptable to what’s happening in the market, but also looking at your performance, looking at how is your relationship actually working and starting to be your own data science scientist and figure out, well, when this happens. And these two things come together, that’s a great opportunity. Or really start analyzing how does the business happen? Where is it good? Where is it suffering? Where can I actually close some of those gaps? And, and looking across the business. At a, a regular cycle. So you’re seeing, um, we used to, we, we called it a correction of error. I don’t know if they still do at Microsoft, but whenever there was something that was kind of going off the rails, we would have a COE, a correction of error. And it was kind of like whack-a-mole. Like whenever something came up, we were like, oh, everyone would jump on it, fix that problem. Something else would pop up over here. That’s the same thing that happens in our world, but we’ve got to be agile in looking at not only knowing those are coming, but predicting them and looking at our business and saying, okay, I’ve seen this, this play out before and I think we’re heading into this kind of, um, gully or whatever it is, moving the boat, getting back on track. And so I do think it is really important as leaders of our organization to know our data, to know what’s happening and really. Wallow in it and, and watch, because the market is changing so quickly, our data is going to tell us a lot of the things that we may are pontificate about and try to give excuses or reasons. Yeah. Focusing in the data is going to help you make Dr. Data driven decisions, but also give you the confidence and the credibility. As to why you did that. And so I really think agility does come from, um, being able to adapt to changes in the market, but doing it in a smart way, in a way that you can defend and explain to your leadership. [00:27:24] Vince Menzione: So that’s your advice for the partners in the room is what I’m gathering, right? It’s that you really need to pay attention to your data. Your data will tell you where you need to go as an organization. [00:27:33] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: I, I, you know, you can get data to tell any story, like everybody knows that. But reading your data and looking at trends and using what you know, you’re in these roles for a reason, using what you know to make those decisions and powering it with what you’re seeing in front of you and how the, the business is actually transacting and actually, um, you know, moving through the cycles. [00:27:57] Vince Menzione: I wanna spend a moment on influence strategy though. Okay. We really, we’ve talked about a lot and I think we’ve covered a lot, and I hope people are getting a lot of great nuggets here today about aligning your business, getting your executive team involved, getting everybody in the right room. Mm-hmm. Doing it on a regular basis. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. How do you think about your influence strategy, like as the leader coming into the organization? Like you said, all about a year enrolled. Mm-hmm. You can’t take all the credit, but you’ve been driving obviously more success on partner of the year award. Um, what is your influence strategy? How do you think about your influence strategy with the. Both your leadership team as well as the Microsoft Leadership team. [00:28:33] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: So, um, I, I do actually think about that quite a lot because, um, I came into role a year ago and we were, you know, it always feels like it’s in a state of emergency. Um, I came in, there were nine different organizations all rolling into different leaders that there had been no one in the channel, um, chief. Uh, had had a channel, no one had been in this role for two and a half, three years. Wow. So it was a little bit, you know, wild out there. Yeah. Um, I had 42 different compensation plans across a team of under 142 comp. [00:29:07] Vince Menzione: You sound like Microsoft with 42 compensation plans. And [00:29:09] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: I’m like, what are these people doing? What? Everyone’s doing something different. Right. So. I had to really bring things together so I had an influence story, so I had a place to start because I really wanted to go to my leadership and say. We’ve gotta bring this together. We’ve gotta be a cohesive team. We’ve gotta have a culture of our own and, and something that we’re striving for. Everyone has a different goal. We need a North star for our organization. Yeah. And so my influence journey started with. I gotta get a number that matters. Yeah. Like what’s gonna matter to my leadership and what’s gonna matter today. That number that I landed on, which was, uh, you know, a specific revenue target, um, will change. And it’s a specific revenue target. ’cause it’s not all of revenue. It’s a kind of revenue that I’m, I’m saying this is most important, this is what we’re gonna go after and I’m gonna fix this. Next year might be a different one, but right now I’m laser focused on showing. Progress and showing improvement and bringing the organization together and everyone rowing the same direction. Um, I’m down to six compensation plans guys, so [00:30:20] Vince Menzione: Very cool. [00:30:21] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Yes, I know. Thank you. That was a lot of, it took a year to get us kind of organized, but now the teams. Understand what they do, and they can cross pollinate, they can work across the regions and actually share best practices. And so my influence strategy started there, which is let’s create a unified structure and then I can start to prove what we’re capable of. Yeah. The part that. Tends to get lost is you need an influence strategy across the entire organization. Because partnering is building a company inside of a company. It is, it truly is. When I love that, when I, when I talk to my CEOI say, we have sellers. And what we do with our own sellers is we compensate them to do the things we want them to do. We give them marketing so they can get demand gen. We give them compliance, we give them, uh, Salesforce, we give them a portal to work in, um, you know, uh. All the things that they need. So we have to do the same thing for our partners, but we don’t get to pay them. To do what we want them to do. So we have to create an incredibly attractive partner program and value for our partners to wanna work with us, and it has to be compliant. They need a portal. They need sales and marketing. They need demand gen. They need everything that we’re offering our entire internal organization. We need that for partner. And don’t let me forget engineering, right? We’ve gotta have engineering as well because our partners push us to do better. And so it is like building a company inside of a company. So your influence strategy cannot stop with sales and it cannot stop with the CMO and the chief product officer. You’ve gotta get into the services team, you’ve gotta get into legal, you’ve gotta get into the IT department because if you don’t have it working for you, your stuff’s gonna be at the. Bottom of the list, right? So your influence has to go all the way across the organization. I love this. I love this. It’s exhausting too. [00:32:20] Vince Menzione: Well, and we could, I mean, I’d like, I’d love to, I know we’re short on time, but, uh, you, I think what you said too is you develop a strong point of view as well. Like you came in and you had to go solve for some real. Nagging issues mm-hmm. Within the organization. And then you develop a strong point of view that you bring into those other organizations. Yep. Because you’re the one beating the drum every day. Yes, yes. Yeah. So you, you gotta come at it with a very consistent theme. [00:32:46] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: And I think the consistency is critical because I, um. I, I’ll, I’ll give you a fail fast. Um, it wasn’t as fast as I’d like it to have been, but uh, when I came in we had a bunch of metrics that we would put up and say, okay, these are our partner numbers. And I started watching my sales team and, you know, they kind of just started tuning out and I’m like, what is going on? Like. What, what’s wrong with my data? Why? Why don’t they like this? And I got closer and closer where I was like, okay, and here is the source revenue. Here’s the deals brought by partners. Here’s the deals we’re co-selling. Here’s the deals that are going into marketplace. And they started to finally clue in and they’re like, well, that number’s not right, or That doesn’t work for me. And I finally got them to wake up and I was reporting partner data. That my partner team deemed important, but my selling team didn’t care at all. Hmm. So make sure your data, your whatever you’re reporting against, lines up to the way that sales reports theirs, because if you’re looking at different slices, you’re gonna lose the audience. I love it. So [00:33:57] Vince Menzione: many great nuggets. It’s really important. So many great nuggets because I did lose the audience, but I got ’em [00:34:01] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: back. But [00:34:02] Vince Menzione: yeah, that was a, that was a surprise for me. But the course correction is important. I know we’re running up on time now, but I think just to the point there is you come into these organizations, the team is already set up line a different way that what they’re reporting is not relevant. And you have, that’s where you have to come in with that very strong point of view. Yep. And go fix it. Yeah. [00:34:20] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: And ask yourself, is this right? Yep. I didn’t do that until it, it was too late. Not late, but it obviously has worked. E so [00:34:28] Vince Menzione: well, I want to thank you. Yeah. This has been a really great tutorial, I think a great instructional, um, we’re gonna, we’re gonna play this again. It’ll probably be on the podcast because I think most of us as leaders in organizations, we miss this. We miss all. How do you get to that pinnacle? Mm-hmm. And there’s so many things you need to do in an organization to drive this level of success that an elastic will drive. Mm-hmm. Within a Microsoft or within the hyperscale community. Yep. So, so thrilled to have you join us. Thank you. Today. You, this was wonderful. Thank, I really enjoyed it. Thank you. So [00:34:56] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: it’s my favorite talk topic to talk about. I love [00:34:57] Vince Menzione: it. I’ll you back again. Thank you all. All right. Well, thank you Alyssa. That was fantastic. Thank you. What a great conversation. Thank you for joining us this morning. 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. It’s more than a community. It’s your competitive edge with insider insights, real-time education, and direct access to people who are driving the ecosystem forward. UPX helps you get results, and we’re just getting started. We’ve got big plans for you this summer as we’re taking this studio, and we’ll be hosting live stream and digital events here, and it’s all coming to you soon. So visit our website, the ultimate partner.com to learn more and join us. Now’s the time to take your partnerships to the next level.

Join Lori Borg, Vice President of Microsoft America’s Go-to-Market, as she shares her evolution from a Microsoft partner to a pivotal executive. She emphasizes the necessity of technical intensity and agility in navigating today’s tech landscape. Lori dives into the vital role of AI in partnerships, stressing how it can drive growth and innovation. With insights on fostering a culture of adaptability and collaboration, she highlights the importance of strategic alignment among partners to succeed within the Microsoft ecosystem.

Recorded Live at Ultimate Partner LIVE in Redmond, WA Unlock the secrets to explosive growth in the digital landscape!  Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ Is your business ready for 2026? Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. Join industry leaders John Janke of Tackle.io and Shane Wilson of Cohesity as they delve into the transformative power of cloud marketplaces. This engaging discussion explores the evolution of marketplace adoption, from its early pioneering days to its current status as a multi-billion dollar opportunity. Discover how buyer behavior is shifting, the increasing importance of channel partners, and the strategies that winning ISVs are employing to achieve unprecedented scale in the cloud go-to-market. 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 https://youtu.be/kydm0sEq6ac?si=XbuyStK3opiB-i6e KEY TAKEAWAYS: The cloud marketplace has evolved from a niche concept to a multi-billion dollar ecosystem, with projections to reach $100 billion by 2026. Buyer behavior is shifting, with a significant increase in buyers utilizing cloud marketplaces for procurement across all software and partner types. The role of channel partners is becoming increasingly critical, with marketplace strategies shifting from ISVs to channel partners who own the buyer relationship. Successful ISVs are integrating marketplace and co-sell motions into a unified company-wide cloud go-to-market strategy, encompassing sales, product, rev ops, and marketing. The concept of “storefront evolution” is emerging, where buyers discover products in new places beyond traditional marketplaces, leading to more specific solutions and bundles. Consistency in strategy, execution, and celebrating wins is paramount for navigating the evolving cloud marketplace landscape and achieving long-term success. 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. https://youtu.be/s33fltuizEo Key Tags: Cloud go-to-market, cloud marketplace, ISV, channel partners, co-selling, procurement, software sales, digital transformation, B2B software, multi-party offers, ecosystem, strategic partnerships, revenue growth, sales motion, alliances, rev ops, marketplace operations, product-led growth, SMB, enterprise, storefronts, cyber resiliency, Microsoft partnership, NetApp, Amazon, CrowdStrike, Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, Wiz, PAX8, Ingram Micro. Transcript: [00:00:00] John Janke: Another big, and this I think trend will be next year. It’s happening right now, but it’s still really early, is this idea of evolution of storefront. So if you want to change buyer behavior, you have to meet buyers where they show up. [00:00:14] 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 [00:00:26] Vince Menzione: because it is the customer buying behavior that has created the need for all of us to rethink our models [00:00:33] Intro: 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. [00:00:52] 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’s 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 on marketplaces featuring John Yanke, the CEO of Tackle. And Shane Wilson from Cohesity brings us right to the edge of what’s next. Let’s dive in and we’re gonna have some other leaders in the room to talk about marketplace. Uh, in fact, we’re very pri privileged to have both. I. As sponsors, but also really partners in driving the success working with the Marketplace organization. Some of the top organizations that understand Marketplace better than anyone, they’ve been at it the longest. I’m privileged to have John Yanke, the who’s been a great friend, a great supporter of Ultimate Partner, the CEO of Tackle io, and Shane Wilson from Cohesity, who’s also been around this partner partnering, co-selling. Marketplace world that we, we know and love so much. So great to see you again my friend. Good to you. Great to see you, Shane. James, how you doing? Thank you. Good to have you both on stage today. So is the world to have you make the trip and to support us. Good to be here. So great to have Cy on stage too, right? So I know you’ve been around, uh, John, you’ve been around this marketplace thing. We’ve been calling it the marketplace moment for some time. Shane, I know you as well from the ISV side, so I thought maybe we take a moment to have you both introduce yourselves. Maybe just spend a moment. I did a little bit, babe. Didn’t do it justice. Maybe a little bit of your background and Sure. And what you all do and, and why you’re here today. [00:02:36] John Janke: Uh, hey everybody, great to see so many friends, familiar faces. Uh, Vince, thank you for all the work putting this event on. I think it’s, uh, tremendous to be able to focus on Microsoft and everything they have going on. So, I’m John Yanke. I’m CEO of Tackle. I’ve been with Tackle since the beginning. We started the company in 2016 with the idea that the clouds would change the way that software was sold and marketplace represented the initiation point of that. That was long before. Really anyone was buying that way. Anyone was selling that way. We were working with some of the 2016 and there were some really early adopters who kind of saw the world the same way and were struggling to figure it out, and we just happened to be able to meet some of those large partners back then and help them find a way to. Launch their businesses and not only launch, but sell and sell repeatedly and then integrate that selling motion into their system. So, uh, I’m a lifelong se. I grew up in se, which is like my default persona. So if you encounter me like either at a customer or at an event, I tend to be just super curious. I call myself a nerdy cloud go to market guy, which kind of route goes back to my se heritage and uh, I mean tackle. We really live to serve the ecosystem and, you know, support not only ics, ICS channel partners as as the marketplace moments. I think it’s been a lot of moments, a lot of moments, you know, the time series of moments is, uh, interesting to see how it’s evolved. But, uh, it’s, it’s not just for ISVs. It’s really all partner types will go to market this new way, and it’s not just about one partner. Working with Microsoft, it’ll be about all the different partners and how they come together and how solutions get integrated together and just how we make that whole process easier. And AI is like obviously dramatically increasing the quantity of software. So yeah. [00:04:26] Vince Menzione: And I have some questions for you as well about what you’ve seen along the way. So we. I know, I know you’ve done some research on this, but super, super. I do wanna give Shane a moment to talk about his background and why he’s up here on stage as well. ’cause you’ve been at this a long time, Mike. We’ve known each other for a number of years. [00:04:39] Shane Wilson: Yeah. Thanks Vince. It’s, uh, nice to see you in town. I’m glad you’re doing, you’re doing well. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. [00:04:44] Vince Menzione: It’s, uh, getting much better. Much better. [00:04:45] Shane Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. So, Shane Wilson, for those who I haven’t had the chance to meet yet, uh, I run, um, Cohesity’s Cloud, cloud business, and, um. Yeah, like John, I’ve been at this for kind of since the beginning of the marketplace, co-sell, sell with, you know, motion, call it like 13 years ago maybe. Um, you know, I got my start sort of working with Clouds, ISVs at NetApp actually. And, um, I was just chatting with John backstage about this, but we were trying to figure out how to put NetApp into the cloud with Amazon and with Microsoft and, and everybody really. Um, and that was more of a, a build with motion of how we’re gonna partner with. Ias PAs and do something new in the market that’s meaningful for customers and for partners. And um, but since then, co-selling marketplace has become a major motion. Right. And so I’ve spent my time post that at a bunch of ISVs, as small as, um, you know, a 50 person, 40 mil, a CB company, um, up to up to, you know, 10,000 plus. I was gonna say some of the largest [00:05:42] Vince Menzione: up there as well. Yeah, yeah. [00:05:43] Shane Wilson: Yeah. So I’ve been fortunate to work with a lot of, uh, great partners and, you know, had the experience of. Trying things and failing and then trying things and winning huge multiple partner of the year awards and all that with the different clouds. And with Microsoft in particular, I’m really passionate about, um, the partnership potential and really the, uh, the selling potential in the field because Microsoft has such a leadership position when it comes to co-selling, engaging with, with ISVs and all partner types, and really helping people evolve how software is bond sold. So. Well, [00:06:14] Vince Menzione: so great to have both of your perspectives and expertise, John. So 2016, like marketplace wasn’t even a thing, in my opinion. Right? It was just really, you, you, you clipped it right at the very beginning. You started off early. Uh, I wanna talk to you about like what you’ve seen, and I know that you spent an inordinate amount of time on the. Understanding what’s going on in the marketplace. And I come to you every year and ask like, what’s happening? What’s changing? I know you, you’ll have, we’ll talk a little bit more about your event that’s coming up. I’d love to get your perspective. We’ve talked about this a hundred billion dollar moment that was, that is, uh, still playing for 2026. Uh, a lot of, uh, ingestion, I would say a lot of organizations getting past that 1 billion Mark. Love to get your perspective on what you’re seeing right now in the marketplace and, and what partners in this room and others need to understand and how they need to embrace it differently. [00:07:03] John Janke: Yeah, it’s been, I mean, it’s been really interesting. We started in 2019 to write research on cloud. Back then it was just marketplace cloud go to market as a term wasn’t pioneered yet. Uh, and we did that because no analysts were covering the space. Yeah. And you know, back then the thing we would hear from partners was like, how big is this thing? Like how like are people selling? Is buyer behavior changing? Are partners thinking about this? And we really tried to. Think about what research we could do that would just help. At that time, mostly ISVs build their justification to create these routes to market. And, uh, we’ve done that. We published the state of cloud Go to market report every year. It’s a really fun research report. People are like, oh, who do you have? Write that. I mean, it’s my co-founders and I write it. Uh, we, we create the survey. We listen to our customers and what they wanna talk about. So if you ever are like, Hey, we’d really love to hear about these trends, please tell me ’cause we’ll, uh, weave them into state of cloud, go to market. And back then it was. Very little dollars were flowing like we were, this was probably, we were in maybe hundreds of millions of dollars were flowing through the cloud marketplaces back in 19. Um, and we played it forward just based upon a lot of different research and, and you start to think about the trillion dollars of B2B software sold, let alone the other trillion dollars of. B2B software sold to the SMB, which is different. Uh, all of that starting to migrate to the cloud. Similar to how infrastructure, like you think back to 2006 or 2007 when the primitives of cloud were created, people are like under, you said the underestimate overestimate in two years, underestimate in 10 years like that, that was kind of the scenario. With, with marketplace back then. Um, and I think a couple years later, we built this a hundred billion dollar prediction for 2026, and it was bold at the time and a lot of people were like, that’s crazy. But when you go back to that $2 trillion of software, it’s really only 5% of software migrating to the clouds and all data points signal that that’s coming through. And there were a handful. Of linchpin moments to enable that volume of dollar shift to start to happen. And I think for a lot of years it was the pioneers who were creating this new movement. And I put Shane in that pioneer category, uh, both with small and medium and large companies pushing the envelope. Uh, like changed the way that you sold along the way and your company sold? Uh, it, it was that pioneer moment, but along the way, that pioneer moment led to larger companies acknowledging the shift and starting to say, wow, something’s happening here. Uh, and as those larger companies started to. Embrace the shift that led to even larger companies and, and I think the thing for me over the last two years, we’ve seen this huge shift from this is not just about cloud technical categories. This is a change in procurement and it’s across all software and partner types. Yeah. So, and there were some big moments. I remember like thinking back in 2018, what would be. A, a, a bellwether moment for the industry. It’s like when the largest software companies in the world start to sell this way. And CrowdStrike was a long time customer tackle. Yeah. We worked with them and they were always the one who kind of set the standard and then someone like Salesforce shows up and Workday shows up and ServiceNow shows up and you’re like, whoa, something’s changing. Uh, not only are they. Monstrous companies with huge ecosystems and large go-to-market systems, but they saw this movement as a way to continue to grow. Yeah. And they were business applications. They weren’t like security, DevOps, storage, infrastructure, so that business applications, large companies showing up. And then I think the multi. Partner, like the evolution of channel has been a huge, and we’ve talked about this consistently over the last few years, but it’s still like the, the quantity of dollars now flowing through channel, with marketplace is, it’s huge. Is staggering. It’s growing faster than direct, which I think is a, a big thing. Um. And it’s still early. Like I think it’s like there are, there are, and there was a recent, a channel partner recently announced they processed a billion dollars through Marketplace, which was I think the first time a partner talked about that the same way a lot of software companies do. And it wasn’t [00:11:15] Vince Menzione: the largest reseller partner out there that did it, right. It was a company that was a little bit smaller, but a little bit more agile and nimble in terms of the way approach to it. So [00:11:23] John Janke: that, that’s a, a second part. And then the third part is like we’ve, buyers do not. Buy on marketplace, which may sound a little controversial, if you’re not really close to this market, it’s, it’s still more of a fulfillment vehicle. Um, that behavior is starting to change and it’s the intersection of everyone’s trying to figure out what is their PayGo product-led growth strategy to complement their traditional selling motion, and then how do they, if cloud. Marketplace has become a component of their system. How do they not only have their like enterprise motion aligned to it, but their kind of user discoverable free trial, PayGo style motion. So that’s been like last year it had started mostly with startups. That is trickling into all companies are thinking about, yeah. This, which I, I do think signals buyer behavior change. I mean, we’ve seen 400% increase in buyers over the last couple of years. So massive number of buyer increase, and that’s wide across the distribution of buyers. So unpacked a lot of data there. Yeah. Uh. Yeah. Happy to dive in deeper as we go. Yeah. And you’re, you [00:12:30] Vince Menzione: know, tackle’s gonna be leading a workshop after, after the main sessions on stage here, so there’ll be some great opportunities to get face-to-face with you and your leadership team. Yeah. [00:12:38] John Janke: Shout out to Colton and Rebecca, who are probably in the audience, who are two practitioners on our team who support large ISVs as they go on this journey. So this will not be me talking about high level. Uh, kind of industry stuff. It will truly be the people who help partners figure this out leading that workshop. [00:12:55] Vince Menzione: Well, there’s still a lot of high level, but I want to give Shane an opportunity here. ’cause you’ve been at the forefront of this marketplace opportunity and, and done it at many organizations that were at the early days of doing it, right? Like kind of a Yeah. The pioneers, I guess, for lack of a better term. Yeah. [00:13:09] Shane Wilson: We, we failed in many ways and one in many ways. And I, I do wanna pick up on the, the partner, uh, reseller, billion dollar milestone too, because, um. When I, I was familiar with this partner, uh, from a couple years ago when they first made their billion dollar commit. Uh, at the time, I think it’s when it was actually Amazon, but when they made their, their billion dollar commit, um, it was the first time I’d really heard about a channel partner, um, going deep right with that. And I was like, really? A billion. You could do it. You got some big contracts and, uh, you know, it was a multi-year commit and they actually hit it faster than than expected. So they, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s probably the first and the biggest, but also they got there faster than they were, they were, um, expecting to, it just speaks to the, not just the volume, but the velocity right behind it all. Um, and then, yeah, from an is SV perspective, uh, yeah. I think if you wind back the clock, I even six, seven years ago, right? Uh, you know, ISVs, were just trying to figure out how to do their first, uh. Yeah. Their first deals, right? Yeah. How to start cashing that cloud, GTM, check how to cash in on the Mac. Uh, that was even before the Mac was, was as big as it is. Um, but I remember doing our, our very first marketplace deal at, uh, it was a, a startup mid-size ISV. And, uh, this is before we were actually working closely with, with tackle, uh, and, uh. It was hard. Yeah. We were, we were literally taking customer demand who wanted to buy software, uh, you know, on the marketplace. Yeah. And trying to figure out how to get it done. So working with engineering and PM to get things listed like a day before we needed to close the deal. And it was one of the largest, um, retailers, uh, in the, in the us. And, uh, so we got it done. It was very challenging and that was the early, early days. But you fast forward to, to the last 3, 4, 5 years and, and yeah. What, what I’ve seen is, um, ISVs that actually. Didn’t have any real meaningful engagement with clouds. Um, start to connect the sales motion, and not just for marketplace, but for co-sell, right? And doing it with, uh, with tackle and core. And, and there’s some history there, like getting, getting sellers connected early stage Yes. Start to get leverage. And there’s so much to unpack behind that, but that, that’s such a meaningful motion where, you know, I took ISVs from essentially zero impact, zero lift with, uh, cloud providers to 500 mil a CV impact annually, right? Getting walked into accounts. By the hundreds every quarter. Right. Um, now it takes, takes work. Um, there’s a lot of things you gotta do from a company buy-in perspective to get there, but, um, yeah, there’s a lot of upside and that’s, that, that’s sort of the ISV story. And then I think what’s more interesting now beyond ISVs is the partner element to it, because where I see the future opportunity is actually with partners doing NPO, uh, together. And so I think that’s more exciting for everyone across different segments and across different, uh, reseller. And even Disney communities. Right. We’ll see how the, the, you know, that, that market evolve. Well, you bring up an [00:15:57] Vince Menzione: interesting point too, because in the very early days, it was really just the largest ISVs that had their own direct selling organizations. They would utilize a core solution or tackle solution together, and they would do face-to-face coverage with the partner sellers and, but that’s not necessarily where the customer buys. And so there were these resellers and we could mention all of their names. A lot of them are here at our event, a lot of ’em are watching today. Uh, that would go after that market. And you would, you would have this tug, this tug of war going on too, like a customer. You’d be educating the customer saying, Hey, you could, you could burn down against your Mac agreement, you, your Microsoft commitment. Uh, and then the, you have a seller on the other side trying to sell a different way because they get paid a different way. So you had this. This tug of war that was going on back in the days and that those seem to be going by the wayside. You, you heard Cyril on earlier right in this conversation saying, we’re gonna do away with that challenge that we have today. We’re gonna get out ahead of it. And John, you saw, you know, you talked about this, uh, you talked about this moment. I guess you’re right, we’re in a series of moments. I think we’re at the next moment, in fact, beginning of the next moment. Um, what, what else in perspective that you wanna share here with regards to. You know, we talked about some of the largest ISVs and some of the smaller ISVs, both you and Shane, probably this conversation here in terms of, uh, uh, you know, the balance of ISVs selling in larger ones can do their own and then channel partners. What, what does that balance look like? [00:17:20] John Janke: Yeah, I mean, maybe, um, pros and cons with success is there’s a lot more competition for attention. Like, uh, cloud sellers have a lot in their bag already. Yeah. Uh, so if you’re a small ISV and you’re showing up, uh, you have to compete with not only the core things that they care about, but all the other ISVs who’ve established precedent with success in the market. Um, so I think. You know, and then there’s, even in the Microsoft world, there’s the managed versus unmanaged, and That’s right. Like your perspective as a partner as to how do you approach Microsoft when you operate in those two camps and they’re different and, and it really does just come down to work. There’s ways to be successful. The playbooks are slightly different. Uh, you probably, if you’re smaller, have to do more work to stand out and you have to be really thoughtful. About the work that you do and when you do it. Um, and a lot of times I, ’cause I, I think there’s still this misnomer in, you know, having been at this closing in on 10 years, it, it’s surprising to me sometimes that people are like, if I list people don’t just buy. Like, I thought that’s the way these marketplace things works, field of dreams. I, I would love for that be true. It’s still not true. Um, but if. If you can refactor that to be like, that’s the starting point in the journey and not the destination, and then what work do you have to do to go build your brand? Help your early customers. ’cause there’s a clear and compelling value prop that you can use independently to go help your customers. That then allows you to show up with the clouds and be like, Hey, I’ve got something to say and the something I have to say is good for you and it’s good for our joint customers and it’s good for me, and why can’t we just do more of that? Yeah. So I think that like. You gotta own it. If you’re small and you gotta put the work in. And if you’re big, you really have to understand like the what works and how to scale it. Where do you focus? ’cause there’s so much, Shane and I were talking backstage about all the, there’s a lot you can take on, uh, at any given time and really like what is the best layer of the go-to-market stack to focus on? A lot of people try to figure out. Like especially large companies, how do I do the bigger deals? How do I tap into the big customers? That seems like the easiest spot to spin the dials. And then how do I layer channel in? If I can add channel to that, then I can maybe double that. And then how do I think about international? How do I think about product-led growth, like SMB? There’s all these different layers of the stack, but you have to prioritize ’em based upon what’s important to you and what’s gonna have the biggest impact for the cloud partner, uh, and not try to do everything at once. [00:19:54] Shane Wilson: Yeah. And I think from a, from a small ISV perspective, um, marketplace sort of is the channel, right? So, and historically they were like, if you’re a small SaaS company, yeah. I just want to get scale at this thing. I wanna list, list and, and sell. Right? Um, so sometimes that’s a more of a challenge for, it’s, it’s an opportunity for the isv, but it’s more of a challenge for say, the partner community at large, right? Yeah. But if you get into this mid-market or enterprise ISV space, the winning opportunity is very clear. Um, you, I think you and I were talking a couple days ago, John, about, okay, the first wave of CrowdStrike hitting a bill was, hey, doing a lot of direct business. But guess what? They’ve accelerated even more and faster by pushing everything. The channel partners and you look across the ecosystem of. The ISVs winning or not, are not doing it in this direct model. They’re doing it in conjunction with channel partners. So, um, so when I look at the segment on a smaller ISV, yeah, you can get scale, uh, through the marketplace and that’s essential. You get relevance with, uh, the cloud sellers as well from Microsoft. But you know, if you’re really looking to go from say, a hundred mil to a billion or more, right? This is where, hey, all this business is channel first and channel best, right? Yeah. And that’s, I think the, the future together. [00:21:01] John Janke: I mean, you, you had an interesting comment where you’re like, is the marketplace. A channel or not, right? Yeah. And I think to some people it is. To some people it is. I’d be like, it’d be interesting just for you to share some of that perspective. ’cause I think there’s probably a wide range of points of view in the audience. Well, there is, [00:21:16] Shane Wilson: and even internally per ISVI think there’s, uh, dialogue around is this direct or not direct. And, um, I’ve started to use language, which is like one tier versus two tier. Um, because. The reality is, um, I’ve been using direct so far today, but I, I like to use one tier and two tier because at least then it, it gets everyone internal to a company. It helps you get buy-in from stakeholders that matter, whether that’s legal or finance or operations, sales, right? You go across the stack of getting company buy-in to go do it. It’s helpful to progress the dialogue if you start talking about one tier and what that means on a per region basis. Mm-hmm. Like one tier in the US maybe it’s not that hard, but if I’m an ISV trying to scale and trying to go. Across Europe or a PJ, uh, basically outside the us Yeah. One tier is hard, right? It is. And so you, you absolutely need the channel partners in there to, to scale the thing. Um, and uh, so yeah, for me, like I said, it’s, it’s a partner game. And, uh, yeah, I, that’s what I try and promote with all of my ISVs to think about being world class is like. Never, never cutting avar out of a deal. Always gr putting a growth plan together with them. And that’s, that’s where you get the, well, it’s multi, well, it’s presumptuous too. We think, [00:22:25] Vince Menzione: like we own the customer, whether it’s us or the, you know, we’re the gateway, the mark marketplace becomes the gateway to the Microsoft seller. Yeah. But neither of you own the customer. The customer makes his own buying decision. And that might be on the third party. That’s why the multi-party offers come into play here. Right. [00:22:38] John Janke: And I, I think that this, some of these signals when you think about what’s happening, yeah. The last three years, the ISV has owned the channel strategy for Marketplace and really kind of pioneered Who are the partners I work with? Yes. Help them figure it out. That’s gonna flip like in the next year or two. That’s right. Where the channel partner will actually own the marketplace strategy for the buyer. Where they own the buyer. That’s right. Which is a change. And I, I, I was talking to someone on Shane’s team and she was like, I spend a lot of time educating our channel partners on how to work this way, which is again, further signal they’re, they’re learning to work in this new way. So some have punched through, the early adopters have punched through and been like, this is a material new business for us. But I think that’s gonna be for all the ISVs in the room, that’s gonna be a shift for all of us where we somewhat relinquish control to be like, okay, you got it. Now what? What target are you gonna drive and we’re gonna manage that differently. [00:23:33] Vince Menzione: And what and what I hear from ISVs, the largest ISVs, in fact, is that they need help building out their channel strategies. Some of them are here, in fact, for those conversations, because it is a multi-party solution that is being offered, the customer is making a decision, not just on the one solution. They’re thinking about a complete solution set, right? If we were talking about data and ai, we’ll have data and AI up here. Next we’ll talk about governance. We talk about all the components of data and ai. It’s not just one vendor that’s coming in to solve for that. Shane, I want to get your perspective on some of that. [00:24:02] Shane Wilson: Yeah, I think multi-partner is huge, right? I, I, uh, I think it’s a little early, but I’m intrigued by the potential, um, of having a couple different ISV segments wrapped into, um. Uh, you know, a multi, multi-party offer, right? That a channel partner can put together. And it, it’s already happening to a degree. I don’t think it’s happening at scale, like it has the potential to, but, you know, being in the space that I am, we’re in, um, sort of a data security space, and the security ecosystem is broad, right? And so there’s a lot of different aspects of cyber resiliency that matter, uh, for our customer base. And there’s nothing we wanna see more than, whether it’s Presidio or CDW, or, you know, you pick here. You, you pick your channel partner then actually putting together a really strategic offer for, you know, their customer, leveraging the Mac to go get the deal done right. And then bundling multiple solutions together, uh, in a portfolio sale for the, for the customer. Yeah. Um, it’s, you know, it’s what they’ve done with Disti in the past, right? Yes. Yes. It’s, but the reality is there’s a lot of mutual value exchange with the Mac, with the Microsoft sellers for the customer, with procurement. Now that buying motion has just evolved, right? And so, um. Yeah, there’s, there’s so much upside for this multi-partner aspect of it. [00:25:10] Vince Menzione: Agreed. Agreed. John, I know you’ve got your event coming up in another week, and I, I don’t want to take away any of the excitement around some announcements that things are going on. What are some of the trends you’re starting to see? I. [00:25:21] John Janke: I mean, a lot of what we talked about is we do this cloud, go to Market xp. It’s a digital event, uh, where we bring, you know, kind of the cloud providers, ISVs practitioners. We break ’em down into categories. Uh, so that’s next week we do a day on strategy. So the first day is really about where the market’s going. The second day is practitioner grade, so there’s a rev ops track and an alliances track because for cloud go to market, to get the super scale, you gotta get the alliance team, the rev ops team, and the revenue team to work together to drive an outcome. And that is what the people who get to a billion dollars do and do well. And then they think about, you know, how many of my reps know how to win this way? Uh, you know, Wiz was an interesting one where they, they published last year, 99% of their sales reps knew how to win with marketplace, which, like that was, they were kind of born cloud go to market native, uh, which was. Really fascinating to see, but that’s a lot of what we’ll focus on next week is kind of that intersection between rev ops, alliances and revenue and thinking about, ’cause there’s a lot of discussion around automation, like how, how do you automate this process? How do I integrate it with systems and automation is totally important, but. Revenue generation is more important. They’re like, that’s what people actually want. Uh, and I, I was talking to an ISV last week and they were like, Hey, you know, we, we did some automation, but we’re not getting the results we were looking for. How can we rethink that? So we’re gonna really try to continue to share examples of people who have cracked the code on not just learning how to win and setting up the infrastructure, but win win repeatedly. Win at scale. Shane, any [00:26:56] Vince Menzione: insights from your side on what you’re starting to see as we enter 26? [00:26:59] Shane Wilson: Yeah, I, I think I’ll take the trend topic and talk about kind of what. What’s most important, which is like the, the trend is that winning ISVs that do it, right. Um, pull the whole company together in one strategy around cloud go to market. And so it’s, it’s, you know, it’s a dovetail on what John was just talking about. Yeah. But if you don’t have sales product, rev ops right? The whole company, even marketing right. Really geared around this motion, it’s gonna be challenging. And so, um, I can share a couple things that I’ve done at a couple companies now to build out teams to sort of, um. Fast track that in and make it more possible, which is, you know, when I think about how to like create partnership teams that matter, it’s like, yes, you need the alliances team in there first. Um, but then you also, I like to have my hands on the actual marketplace operations motion of it too. ’cause how companies do quote to cash. Um, and process orders matters a lot. And, you know, reps aren’t gonna sell in the marketplace if it’s hard. And so we need to be able to make things field turnkey to field sellers. Um. To get to that 99%. Like Wiz, we’re not there yet. ’cause we’re born there we’re, I’m, I’m coming from, uh, hey, no one’s ever done this before, to, Hey, we’re gonna go win in this space. So, yeah, it’s important to get everyone on board. And so it, when I think about how to build an organization, a winning organization structure around this, it’s like the I, the Alliance team comes first, but beyond that, like I need to get a marketplace operations. You know, e either on the team or super, super tight, um, dialed in. And then beyond that, there’s a go to market element of, of selling, right? And so that’s the sort of the third wheel of, I think real successful ISV partnerships is do you have folks focused on the motion helping en enable all the broad, the broad sellers to. You know, do the motion correctly, not to make too many mistakes on first calls with Microsoft and go cash that Mac check. Right. Um, and it sometimes it’s hard to get the internal stakeholders to believe in that quickly. Right. So, but I, I, I’m happy to chat with folks more post session as well on this, right. But I, the, the three legs of the stool are super key with alliances and then the actual marketplace sales motion to make it real turnkey and easy, um, operationally inside the company. And then actually have go to market specialists, right, to go and, and push that. So. Um, if folks wanna talk about your, your company, about that with me, I’m happy to. Yeah, that that’d be great that you offered [00:29:07] Vince Menzione: that time. [00:29:07] John Janke: I like this workflow shift where this used to be about like, Hey, how do I help a deal? How do I win with a customer? Yeah. And it really, I, I had an, you know, again, I, I get to spend a lot of time with ISVs who are. Pioneering this and just really learning from them and then trying to apply those practices to the company and the ecosystem. But someone was talking about from lead to renewal, like that’s really the process that cloud go to market needs to be aligned to. And if you break down your lead to renewal process and then you look at all the different touch points, and then how do you inject, you know, people, process, technology into that entire lifecycle. It will. Change the way you think about this because a lot of people are like, Hey, why don’t I get more leads? That’s right. And when you, when you boil down your lead to renewal process, if you skip all the way to leads and you haven’t done the work in the middle of the funnel to go build a brand, to enable you to go tell a better together story to co-market, I mean, you’re never gonna get the leads. Like, so I think that’s a, a good framing just for all of us to, as we think about the business and where we’re at, like lead to renewal. ’cause you can use a lot of different tools in there. [00:30:12] Vince Menzione: I want to touch on, ’cause you talked about this a little bit earlier too, in terms of the, the framing was, you know, it used to be the largest organizations that had the largest commitments that went after it. Understood it. Uh, in the beginning you had to teach them how to go buy off of it. Right. It seems to be moving down market. Right. And this is, some of this is the channel coming at it. Some of it’s also we’re gonna have PAX eight and Ingram Micro on stage here the next two days. People that have kind of stayed away from marketplace. Right. But in a way saying. Even the smallest customers need access to the same sets of tools and capabilities, and they want to purchase modern technology the same way. And so it seems to be changing things. I know, John, you’ve had it some perspective on some of this as well. [00:30:54] John Janke: Yeah. A, a big, another big, and this I think trend will be next year, it’s happening right now, but it’s still really early, is this idea of evolution of storefront. So if you want to change buyer behavior, you have to meet buyers where they show up, uh, and. Like today, storefront, think Azure Marketplace or AppSource, those are the storefronts, but that’s not where people organically discover. So how do you initiate those buying moments where people organically discover? And that’s gonna be some sort of refactoring of storefronts. Uh, and Jay McBain has talked for years about how they’ll be more marketplaces and more storefronts. That’s right. And, and I actually think that’s really starting to come to life. And PAX eight to me, I think is a great example of that, where they’re a marketplace for MSPs focused on s and b. And they’re gonna need specific solutions that their MSPs can package up to deliver value to their SMB customers. But that’s gonna need to somehow connect to Azure Marketplace and AppSource. That’s, that’s right. Which is like a, a, a fuel system. So I, I think it’s a good signal of this change that’s happening like more storefronts. More marketplaces, more specificity around solution and bundle and what do people need? So I’m, I’m excited to hear more from, I’m excited as well. [00:32:06] Vince Menzione: I also think there’s a level of sophistication happening down market. I call the MSP market that wasn’t there even a year or two ago, right? These were organizations that were used to break fix and now getting involved in a much clearer, uh, ways in terms of driving a complete solution set in ways that they didn’t before. Really, they weren’t involved in that level. [00:32:27] Shane Wilson: Yeah, I would, I would double click on the, um, the storefront idea, right? Because folks are finding products in new places and trying to buy products in new places. So that’s a real deal, um, coming from a security and infrastructure perspective, um, even in today’s world of, hey, there’s a cloud buyer out there and there’s procurement that buys cloud stuff, and we’re attaching to that a, a major part of the motion that we actually have to put. Time and investment into learning on is what I call building a bridge and building a bridge between say, a traditional buyer of software to whoever’s gonna click by on the deal. Uh, who owns, say the, the Azure tenant. Right. For a giving you customers you’re selling to. And so there’s, there’s, there’s topics like, Hey, how is budget attributed across the different, you know, lines of business inside this, toward the Mac? Yeah. And then there’s the very sort of tactical process of like. Does the person that needs to accept the offer even know about what we’re doing in the deal, right? So there’s a lot of bridge building you have to do from an ISV and partner. That’s where partners play a huge role too, is like helping build these connections in and build a bridge early in a campaign, right? In order to have success. So you can actually transact easily when you’re trying to get the deal done, but it goes to the point of, hey, the demand and purchasing, um. You know, center of gravity is changing, right? Yeah. So, [00:33:39] John Janke: and every ISV, whether you think you have a marketplace or you don’t, most people would say, I don’t have a marketplace. But everyone on their website has a tech ecosystem page that shows all of your partners. That’s right. And it shows your technical partners, and it shows your channel partners and your system integrator partners. And effectively that is a catalog and that catalog. Has zero actionability. All it does is you click on it and it takes you to your partner’s website. So if your website is where all of your buyers discover you, why wouldn’t you want to enable them to take some action? Yeah. This is what storefronts will be, and that will not just be your storefront, it will be all your channel partner storefronts, and they’ll all connect together like that. This is a big wave that I think will really play out over the next 24 months. Yeah, I think [00:34:22] Vince Menzione: we’re starting to see that in a big way and, uh. Everyone’s gonna embrace it. [00:34:26] Shane Wilson: Well, you see a consumer grade, right? It’s gonna move from consumer grade on, uh, say social media, buy a thing right into the enterprise space, uh, dramatically, I think the next two years. [00:34:33] John Janke: Yeah. Shopify did this in B2C, like when Shopify and there, there’s really interesting like, um, story where when they were, I. Early raising money. And they talked about how like in B2C e-commerce, there would be thousands of new storefronts and everyone’s like, no way. Like Amazon and Walmart Got it locked up like, this is never gonna happen. This company’s going nowhere. I mean, Shopify’s a hundred billion dollar company now. ’cause they created hundreds of thousands of storefronts for small businesses and entrepreneurs like. I think B2B will look very different than that, but that’s, it’s like B2C always trickles into B2B over time. [00:35:10] Vince Menzione: So, final advice for our partners watching, listening, being in the room here today, and we, I know we’re gonna have some more time for you to talk with them. Uh, appreciate you making time to do that. But any final advice for them as we finish this new fiscal year with Microsoft? We get into 26. And for the, the partner ecosystem in general, how they, you know, you talked about a few things, a few trends happening. Uh, what do you both have to share with this amazing audience? [00:35:33] Shane Wilson: I mean, I’ll kick us off. I think consistency is most important, right? Yeah. So it’s one thing to, um, uh, you know, get a couple wins or, or, you know, know a play, but consistency across the organization and starts at like the C-suite down to the shop floor, right? Uh, of how you’re operating your strategy, how you’re executing on your strategy, and then also how you’re sharing wins. So, ’cause this is a journey, right? And it’s not always, um, say the first month or first quarter that you get all the results that you want. But it’s really critical as a leader in a company to be able to help articulate what the stepping stones and the milestones look like to get to greatness and then to celebrate those wins all along the way. And do that internally and also do it externally with Microsoft and with the partner community broadly. Right? So I would say consistency, that rhythm of business, just being very thoughtful around that is, is, is super important. And then, um, with that, just leveraging. The community. Right. Um, so events like, like up Right. And just, you know, I’m happy to share any of my secrets to success with anyone in the room. Right. But just le leveraging the community and, and folks like tackle and others, right. That have so much experience in this space as well. So, [00:36:36] John Janke: yeah. I, I think the, um, kind of back to the time series of marketplace moments, there is, uh, people who started in 2018. A lot of people failed in 2020. People started. A lot of people failed in 2022, maybe less people failed, but still lots of failures. And there’s some PTSD in the industry around some failures. Like, I thought this was gonna work. I thought lots of people were gonna buy, I was gonna get all these leads. Oh my gosh, co. I was gonna co-sell and I was gonna help my deals go faster and maybe it didn’t happen. The thing I would say is like all of these moments compounded lead to. A difference of experience, and that is like if you’ve struggled, take a step back and be willing to be like, Hey, the market is evolving and there’s ways to take a step back, look at the success or failure you had and refactor your strategy for the future. So I would say, um. And, and it’s fun. It’s really fun to talk to ISVs who are hitting an unlock moment. Like I was talking to someone this morning and they’re like, Hey, like we, we had this major unlock moment. And like things have kind of taken off. ’cause a lot of times in the journey you end up with this like 10 x factor that happens. You struggle consistency’s such great advice. Um, like you set a goal your first quarter, it doesn’t happen ’cause you’re, you’re still like. Trying to teach people second quarter, maybe a little bit happens and you’re like, oh my God, is this actually not gonna work? And then in the third quarter it starts to snap into gear like that consistency’s required and how do you get to that 10 x factor? ’cause they’re there. And this is a little bit about our event. I mean, if you’re interested in joining. A little bit of a [00:38:11] Vince Menzione: segue for you, Jen. [00:38:12] John Janke: Yeah, we’ll have, I mean, we’ll have, uh, and, and again, like on the practitioner grade day, we’ll have some folks from Microsoft joining us, Michael Clark, who owns the co-sell, uh, engineering organization. Ryan, who’s been a long time part of the marketplace organization will join Adam Boyle or head a product just as we talk about how do we, I. Industrialize this for enterprise grade scale. Vince is gonna be on yeah, kind of doing a highlight reel of this week. ’cause there’ll be so much to share with the ecosystem. Uh, and then a lot of really interesting customers telling stories, uh, throughout it that I think, you know, we’ll, we’ll get to take snippets of those and share ’em with the ecosystem. But, uh, if, if you register, you get access to all the content remotely asynchronously as well, so you don’t have to actually show up full time. [00:38:54] Vince Menzione: That’s great. And I do think during this time of rapid change and transformation, it’s important. We had to stay, we had to lean in. We had to continue to lean in. We’re just at the early days of change. Right. We talked about many moments. Yeah. So, so great to have you both here. Um, thank you for making time as well, uh, networking with some of our community here. I know that tackle’s gonna be leading a session, a workshop as well. So Shane, thank you for making time for us as well. Thank you, Vince supporting us. Yeah. Thanks Vince. Great everybody. Thank you. See you through the day. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. 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. It’s more than a community. It’s your competitive edge with insider insights, real-time education, and direct access to people who are driving the ecosystem forward. UPX helps you get results, and we’re just getting started. We’ve got big plans for you this summer as we’re taking this studio, and we’ll be hosting live stream and digital events here, and it’s all coming to you soon. So visit our website, the ultimate partner.com to learn more and join us. Now’s the time to take your partnerships to the next level.

Recorded Live at Ultimate Partner LIVE in Redmond, WA Unlock the secrets to explosive growth in the digital landscape!  Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ Is your business ready for 2026? Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. Join Microsoft’s Sandy Gupta and NVIDIA’s Pat Lee as they explore the monumental shifts driven by AI in the software landscape. Discover why “ISV” is transforming into “SDC” (Software Development Company) , the dramatic reduction in AI token costs and hallucination rates, and the acceleration of cloud migrations. Learn about Microsoft’s commitment to a “marketplace first” approach and a single $1 billion marketplace deal this quarter , and NVIDIA’s vision of embedding AI into every application. This discussion highlights the emergence of agentic AI, the convergence of ISVs and SIs, and the critical importance of embracing AI for all partners to drive significant business outcomes and avoid being left behind. 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 https://youtu.be/ld9h1pZJ_Ro Key Takeaways: The terminology for independent software vendors (ISVs) is evolving to Software Development Companies (SDCs) to reflect a broader scope of software innovation. The cost of AI tokens has dramatically decreased, and AI hallucination rates have significantly gone down, leading to greater democratization of AI. Cloud migrations are accelerating, largely driven by AI, which is broadening opportunities across the entire value chain for the ecosystem. Microsoft is adopting a “marketplace first” approach, with a single $1 billion marketplace deal projected for this quarter, indicating a massive shift in how software is sold and consumed. Agentic AI, characterized by headless agents focused on specific tasks, is a rapidly emerging area with significant potential for business process automation and interoperability across different applications. The industry is witnessing a convergence of ISVs and system integrators (SIs), as customers require both robust software and hands-on implementation and change management support. 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. https://youtu.be/s33fltuizEo Transcript: Key Tags: AI innovation, software development companies, SDC, cloud marketplace, NVIDIA AI, agentic AI, digitaansfol trrmation, B2B technology, strategic partnerships, ecosystem growth, Microsoft Azure, AI monetization, enterprise AI, digital agents, industry foundation models, employee productivity, customer engagement, business process automation, drug discovery, cyber security, financial services, healthcare AI, channel partner collaboration, tech intensity, go-to-market strategy, cloud migration. Transcript: [00:00:00] Sandy Gupta: This space is moving so fast and it’s like I was talking to the Pearson guys. The fastest training that’s happening is people who are learning how to develop agents who are non-technical. [00:00:14] 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. 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 Sandy Gupta from Microsoft and Pat Lee from Nvidia brings us right to the edge of what’s next. Let’s dive in. So I am thrilled to invite to the stage. Uh, first of all, I want, I’m inviting back somebody who was with me in Dallas for the very first time. He was a day number 52 in his new role, Sandy Gupta, who’s an incredible leader. Uh, at the time we called his role infras, ISV independent software vendors. We’re kind of moving away from that. We’ll talk about that. And here’s the other cl. Piece, we’ve got Nvidia up on stage, right? So have anybody here who’s heard the name Nvidia before? Uh, any, anyone there? Uh, we, we think that this is a formative moment in time and we talk about tectonic shifts, right? We talk about the world of ai, we talk about the build out. So I am thrilled to invite to the stage both Pat Lee. From Nvidia who leads the alliances and strategic partnerships and Sandy Gupta, who leads the software development corporations SD get ready to say SDC Software development companies. This is the new terminology we’re getting away from the old world of ISV. So I wanna welcome these two incredible leaders to the stage, Sandy and Pat. Glad to have you. So good to see you, my friend. Uh, so good to see you. I love this guy. So good to see you again, pat. Great to meet you. Nice to meet. Glad you could join us. Uh, Sandy, I gotta say, because I’ve, I’ve told you this before. We’ve had you on stage. We’ve had you on the podcast. I am envious, so envious of your hair. I just think [00:02:49] Vince Menzione: it’s incredible. He’s got, he got the most amazing head of hair. Um, well, you know, just by the way, just looking at. I, I just got a haircut and you, and you got a haircut. Like, and, and Pat, and I can, this will take me a full year to grow and Pat, I, and I can, I love it. So good. So join while we can. So good. So good. Uh, I’m gonna let you both introduce yourselves and then we’re gonna dive into this conversation, but so great to have you back. Thrilled to have you both join us. So I’ll let you introduce yourself and then turn it over to Pat. [00:03:17] Sandy Gupta: Yeah. I mean, Vince, first of all, thank you. It’s an honor to be on this platform. Again, thank you with these incredible partners. But first of all, thank you that you are safe. Thank you. I think, uh, you played down the accident you had, and I’m just so glad you are safe, and I know it’s still not easy, but yeah, you’ll recover and thank you. And, and, uh, you know, that’s, it’s, it’s amazing that you, you’re good. Um, look, I, I lead the global ISVs for Microsoft and so, um, or STCs. Yes, yes. Now it’s gonna take some while because it’s been a 32 years of practice of calling ISVs and. Well, we now see software companies emerge who are not like ISVs, what we used to think about as isv. So that’s kind of the change. So I spent a lot of time working with our ecosystem of software companies, helping them grow their top line revenue. Been 18 years in Microsoft and learning every day. Yeah, [00:04:11] Sandy Gupta: and by the way, one thing also is like incredible partner here, pat Lee. [00:04:17] Pat Lee: Well, thank you first of all, it’s a pleasure to be here, an opportunity to speak to this audience. So I’m Pat Lee. I lead a strategic enterprise partnerships at Nvidia, and I’m focused on really the leading enterprise hardware and software providers and helping them bring AI to their platforms to, and let them enable all the power of the data and, and what they’re delivering to their customers. And I think there’s a great opportunity there, huge. Once they’ve done that, it’s a great opportunity for all of you to help deliver and deploy it. [00:04:42] Vince Menzione: So thrilled to have you both on stage. Um, this is gonna be a really exciting conversation. Sandy, I got to be with you day number 52. Uh, I’d love to dive in a little bit about what you’ve learned from, uh, that was early October of 24. I. It seems like it was last week in some respects, but I, I would love, maybe we could share a little bit with this audience, like how you were thinking about this o other than the fact that we now stopped calling them ISVs and we’re calling ’em SDCs. Yeah. But I know that’s an overall vision for how you’re and how you’re supporting these partners. [00:05:15] Sandy Gupta: Oh, thanks Vince. Uh, look, I think if I look about what I’ve learned both in terms of externally and internally, what has changed and how it’s shaping for us for next year. Um, one is just externally, if you look at it, the cost of tokens have come down dramatically. If you look at that, I mean, I was just looking at a. Uh, report from Stan Stanford AI Index. It just came out. It was like the cost of tokens have gone from $20 per million tokens to seven, you know, 7 cents Wow. Per million token, right? And so, and the hallucination, which is also a big part of, hey, for enterprises, like for them to put an autonomous agent, they need to be very thoughtful about that. If you look at the recent reports, the hallucination has really dramatically gone down. In the same linear scale as the cost. And, and that is because AI is now, you know, really also being trained to look at the outputs of AI to see, hey, is it actually hallucinating or is it not? So there is a lot of democratization of AI that’s happened very, very fast. I will call it almost like a tech intensity. Mm-hmm. You know, when I joined, when we met first is, um, still the ics were connecting and say, Hey, should I do a co-pilot? Should I, yes. Infuse g PT four in my application, or should I develop a co-pilot? Now it’s like the co-pilots are already out there and, uh, for every role you can think of, whether you’re, you’re on a shop floor or you’re a physician, or there is a co-pilot for you. And then a lot of them are now looking at, Hey, what’s going on with, um, with, with, uh, with my agent framework, how am I thinking of monetization, governance, security? Go to market, all of that. So massive shift happening. Massive shift in, in that. Um, I would also say that we’re seeing a massive shift in marketplace. We, we talked about today with Serial and, and also we talked to John and and others about marketplace today. Uh, we are about to drive to a billion dollar marketplace deal this quarter. Wow. Single deal. Single deal. And, uh, that is, uh, so the shift to marketplace is real. And, and I think we are feeling it. Uh, we are very committed to it. Um, so that’s kind of happening. Uh, we are seeing some in interesting things that, you know, cloud migrations are also accelerating very fast and, and I think part of it is AI is driving a lot of acceleration and it’s really broadening opportunity for the entire ecosystem because there’s just so many ways you can think about the value chain that’s emerging as you get to cloud. So internally, I would say that this. Group of companies, the software companies that, you know, I’m managing as go to market is the fastest segment of our commercial business. Yeah. And so, uh, that’s fascinating. Good and bad thing is. Getting a lot of attention. Right. And so the good part of the attention was that Judson was like, Hey, this is important. Yeah. [00:08:21] Sandy Gupta: And here’s some money to go try a few things that you see are important for H two. Nice. So we can shape next year. Nice. So, so I think there is both internally, there is a lot of recognition of what’s going on and, and we need to, you know, invest and, and uh, and in certain specific areas. Uh, I would say, the way I quickly say is that shaping of for next year is we are going to have a really big focus on tech intensity in a sense of, hey, how do we help our customers do a quick fail fast? Hmm. Fail cheap, you know, way of investment because you have to try a lot of things. Right. In ai And we’re [00:09:03] Vince Menzione: saying customers, you’re talking about the ES software development corporations, [00:09:06] Sandy Gupta: companies. Yeah. And with them. For the end customers and for the end customers. Right. As well. And, and because there is a lot of trial needs to happen, there’s a lot of innovation ideas. Some of them will never see the light of the tunnel. But many of them are worth trying. And so we want, want to find a very agile way to invest resources and bring very specialized partners, small or big services companies who are deep in AI to really help our ISVs to do those things. Uh, we are gonna come up with a, one of the most, I would say, competitive migration program. And I’m very about that. Oh, tell [00:09:40] Vince Menzione: us more. [00:09:41] Sandy Gupta: Well, I think we’re still cooking. Okay. But I think this is where we, I feel like. The tam of opportunity for still a lot of the ISVs to go to cloud is huge. Exactly. And, and it’s, I think it’s an opportunity for us. So I, I’m very thrilled about that. Um, that I think that’s gonna happen. And then really next year is a big year for us to take a marketplace first approach. Good, good to hear that. And I can, I hear a roundup applause for that, by the way. I think that’s an incredible, [00:10:10] Vince Menzione: yeah. That’s incredible. [00:10:11] Sandy Gupta: I think those three things I would say, Vince, and, and, and overall, I was just telling Pat in the green room, hey, how we are going to stimulate our sellers to sell more with partners? Yeah. And, and already like, you know, Nicole talked about how we actually put the money where the mouth is today and investing in the ecosystem, but. Making sure that our sellers are really creating the demand that’s out there with our partner. I would love, I want to, I want to give Pat some time as well. Yeah. But I would [00:10:38] Vince Menzione: love to hear from you, like, how are you thinking? When we, when we were up on stage in October, you had basically winnowed down the organization, right? You took the top 30. Directly, and then you push down to the field organizations, the other large, very large, significant ISVs or SDCs. Yep, yep. How are you thinking about the management of this ecosystem? Especially in light of what you just mentioned in terms of the The adoption, the new adoption curve? [00:11:04] Sandy Gupta: Yeah. Do you wanna go to Pat first or do you want, then we’ll come back. Yeah. And then I think we’ll come [00:11:08] Vince Menzione: into Pat. Yeah. So [00:11:09] Sandy Gupta: the way it is playing out is like we are starting to think about what is the right resource model for an ISV. Where they are on the journey. Okay. I think we have had, for the longest time, you know, Microsoft super well, uh, that we had a very inflexible model that basically said, Hey, you can only do this if you have this designation or this or that. Yes, we have partners who are incredibly technical and they don’t need technical support from us. There are partners who are incredibly good at Cosal, say, Hey. I’ve got my customers. Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it. What I need you is innovation and, and help us, you know, but we can do the direct co-sell. We are good. So we’re trying to figure that out. It’s like, hey, where do we meet the partners where they are rather than create a, a very rigid model. I’ll tell you Vince, like I lean in like yesterday, I was in Orlando, just came back last night and we had like a, essentially a late stage startup with big partnership. Jason and I were both there. Very nice. And we are pretty much leaning in, so it’s less about now, Hey, do I have this global partner or do I have a startup? Yeah, that’s what I was getting at. It’s more like, Hey, is the opportunity, is it the right opportunity? Dive into yes. Is it the right opportunity? And we bring, that’s great. The machinery. [00:12:26] Vince Menzione: Well, at our next event, I’m gonna dive in even deeper on this conversation with you. Yes. This is a big one, pat. I’d love to hear your vision. Nvidia is in a juggernaut right now in this industry. Uh, fastest growth of any company, uh, in my lifetime. Uh, we used to talk about compact getting to a billion dollars back in the day. I mean, NVIDIA’s market share and market cap has just been astounding. Uh, we talk about the infrastructure build out, uh, we talk about the, the commitments that are made around cloud. And really AI is being driven from your organization. You really are the leader in driving the technology, and I’d love to get your idea and vision on how you’re thinking about it working with Microsoft. And how and how you’re doubling down and leaning in. [00:13:09] Pat Lee: So from First principles, NVIDIA’s a full stack software and computing company. [00:13:13] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:13:13] Pat Lee: Everybody thinks about us as just providing GPUs. It’s not that. Yeah. We provide the full infrastructure and software stack required to make AI successful and we have partners that take various layers of it and what they need to make their business successful. But that requires partnership. Um, so for EX, and we have a deep partnership with Microsoft and how we work together to provide. The best infrastructure possible for AI to meet the needs of their own apps, their partners apps, and the apps that all of you’re gonna help your customers build. It’s not one thing, it’s all of them, right? And I think what we need to do is make sure that we help provide the necessary platforms that can be used at all three levels. Because what Azure OpenAI needs is very different than what a leading ISV needs. It’s very different than what a GSI needs to deliver a solution to a customer. So we’re really trying to make sure we provide the right hardware and software at the right levels to enable people to be successful across the board. And by doing that, it allows us to help Microsoft be more successful. Great quarter for, uh, Microsoft This last quarter. Yeah. Congratulations. Just watching acceleration growth. I mean, we’re excited to see that because it means more and more people are taking advantage of the power of AI and that is us. If our number one goal for Nvidia is like, I want every enterprise to have AI embedded in their solution. Yeah. That’s it. That’s our vision. AI in every application, that’s what we wanna see [00:14:38] Vince Menzione: moment. Yeah. I, I think we’re seeing it. I, you know, it’s funny because we had this conversation a couple years ago. It was like, it’s not happening fast enough. And I, again, I come back to the Bill g comment, right. ’cause we expect too much too soon. Mm-hmm. We’re getting there in incredible ways. The, the technology is taking off in some, so much more deep and intangible ways right now. [00:14:57] Pat Lee: And as you see with some of these companies, like is v so a number of ISVs in the room here are partners of our ServiceNow. Cohesity. Yeah. Um, we’ve done work, work with help them innovate to help bring their AI into their platforms. Right. If you look at some of their own comments about AI and how it’s growing, it’s a, it’s amazing to see how it’s grown and just the amount of time they’re able to first get into market with a basic solution. And how the technology’s just growing every day. This is not slow. This is not the old days of adding a feature every 18 months, every, every month. Something’s changing, evolving, and people are looking to adopt it. And how do they really bring that power of AI to their customers? Mm-hmm. And then more importantly, figure out in what way Some companies are monetizing it through upsell. Some companies are baking into their base product to drive more people onto a cloud computing model. Everybody’s trying to figure out the business model that makes the most sense for them. What is the metric that’s gonna allow them to be successful? Yeah. And driving the investment for AI to lead to the outcomes they care about. [00:15:57] Vince Menzione: How does your team layer in support for Microsoft then? You know, ’cause you talked about three different areas of growth or growth opportunities working with these partners. Is there a level of specificity working with the Microsoft teams on on, I mean, [00:16:10] Pat Lee: Microsoft’s a strategic partner. Yeah. We have a deep dedicated team focused on, yeah. Delivering what we need at each level at these things. That includes everything from the infrastructure build out across the board to, you know, help helping Microsoft optimize internal applications that were then delivered on the cloud to then now, I mean, we look at that, one of the things that we’re excited about Nvidia from the software perspective. That we’re part of, um, Azure AI Foundry, um, and we have a rich software stack that’s embedded in Azure AI Foundry that can be bought through the marketplace. Very nice to deliver high performance models that can be used to help build applications for your customers and delivered NVIDIA’s pride and joy is delivering the best performance ever. Um, for example, we can deliver LAMA 2.8 times faster than the base solution in Azure AI Foundry. Wow. By leveraging our marketplace solution. It stays in the AI foundry ecosystem, and you can take advantage of that to build out applications to deliver. The best solution for your customers? Yeah. Vince, [00:17:09] Sandy Gupta: just, you know, we, I, my team manages Nvidia as a software partner. I see. Very interesting. Why customer, that’s a different approach. Yes. Which is a very different approach, approach to kind approach [00:17:18] Vince Menzione: frame what Pat is saying. So you’re helping to forge some of these partnerships, uh, from Foundry over to some of these other ISVs that are gonna be building out solutions, ag Gen. I wanna dive in on AG Agentic, ’cause I think this has been a huge topic area. Yeah. It seems to be the area of most growth right now. [00:17:34] Sandy Gupta: Yeah. I mean like if you look at it. The taxonomy of it is like if you have a copilot, it’s specific to a role that’s helping the human. It’s like a AI assistant. Yes. And then if you look at AgTech, it’s about, hey, it’s, uh, it’s headless. It’s specific to a task, and the idea of architecture is make it as narrow to a task as possible. So for a complex task, you can reuse a lot of different agents and, and all of that. I mean, I’d love to like even say, Hey, how many people here use teams? That’s pretty much everyone. Yeah. How many people have added an agent to teams? It’s like 10%. How many people have created an agent in a team? It’s actually impressed. There is actually more than I expected. Four or five. Yeah. Look, it’s uh, this space is moving so fast and it’s like I was talking to the Pearson guys. The fastest training that’s happening is people who are learning how to develop agents mm-hmm. Who are non-technical. Yeah. [00:18:36] Sandy Gupta: And if you look out to teams, and for those who have not done that, it is super easy to go and, and teams and co-pilot studios just. One framework. There’s just so many low-code, no-code frameworks out there, but it’s incredibly sort of, the pace is moving. But I wanna bring back to like, hey, how is it being used and how is it being consumed? So I wanna go back to what Nicole was saying. This, this morning is kind of the frame and Judson talked about it, uh, last week. I don’t know if those who heard in his AI. L uh, tour in London. Yeah. Said, Hey, like there’s a four big pillars of how AI is being consumed. One is how we are using for employee experience, and that is a lot of things like, for example, M 365 co-pilot for knowledge workers, but there are a lot of fine tuned co-pilots in the market for different types of audience. And he was talking about, hey, how, um, 65,000 of his sellers are now using them. And the top quartile of that has kind of seen, like, he’s seeing like a close rate go up 23% and per head revenue’s gone nine 9%, which should multiply by 65. It’s, it’s a, it’s a good number. Uh, so we are seeing a lot of that sort of adoption in the enterprise today on, hey, just employ productivity. Productivity is incredible. Uh, there is a big pivot that is, we have seen a scale is like the customer engagement. And, uh, we talk about like our own engagement. Like we have like 15,000 support people, about 25,000 vendors. And, and Judson pulled like about half a billion dollar cost out. Wow. And the customer experience has gone up in terms of the feedback we are getting because it’s all now the triage is done through a Gentech framework and they, and the triage decides, the agent decides whether it’s, it’s time to go to a copilot with a human or. Pass it to an agent to, to be able to, because they know the, the customer really well. But then I think the two big areas it’s emerging now is the third is like really around the business process automation. I was just talking to a big hedge fund yesterday in Orlando and they were saying, Hey, we’ve got one of the most successful hedge funds. And they were like. We have like 400 business processes that we have identified to really kind of automate over time, but there’s like five that we really are going to really hit is gonna be the biggest, uh, impact for us, and they’re very focused on that. I think like that thing is kind of, I mean, imagine like EIF tomorrow got automated. Yes. I mean this whole entire room will be full of joy and, and uh, and, and the employee no more [00:21:17] Vince Menzione: whiteboards with, uh, calculations on them. Uh, our MDF [00:21:21] Sandy Gupta: here, like, oh my gosh. And the Microsoft employees will play golf every day. Right. If that can happen, no matter what role you are in, you get sucked. EFI is like our investment funds and stuff. So it’s like a business process that nobody knows how it works. Yeah. Uh, and then like, uh, you look at like, but the last thing I wanna say is he, she talked about bending the innovation. Yes. I think it’s the products that are coming in the market now. Like if you look at Siemens, I was in Hanover a few weeks back and Siemens published with us, like a co-innovate, like a industry foundation model. Mm-hmm. Essentially putting all the modalities of engineering and manufacturing in GPT-4. And other models and all, and being able to consume that through hundreds of copilots that the ecosystem can develop. I mean, can you imagine Siemens, like company becoming a software company? Yes. Bringing their really core value to the market through a fine tune, you know, industry specific model. So, so I think there is this way how things are sort of. Like what are the dimensions? But then when you look at, Hey, how’s it been consumed? How the co-pilots and Gentech has been consumed by enterprises in these four dimensions. I would say co-pilot is the best way for diffusion in the enterprise where everyone can touch and feel ai, whatever their role is. And, and most of this, it is no more longer a debate. Everybody has a copilot now, right? For the role, uh, NISV has for their specific role, whether it’s manufacturing, healthcare, et cetera. And then the things that differentiate you. That’s where it’s really about working on, Hey, do I do, I buy and build? And, and that’s where this whole age agent framework is coming to life, which, which can go in more details here. [00:23:08] Pat Lee: And I think with age agentic, it’s very interesting, right? Yeah. I think. A lot of companies are trying to say they’ve got the perfect agent solution, but the challenge you all know is nobody has a single system of record. They’re running their business ons. So what happens when you have systems of record from different vendors? That’s where the fund’s gonna come into play with agent ai, totally and X. One of the things that we’re working with Microsoft on and how do we help agent interoperability standards. So when you want to go, I wanna write an agent in Salesforce and I wanna write one in Microsoft, I wanna write one in ServiceNow. How can you tie them all together? Yeah. In a way to go back to that question, what business process do we need to solve? Because That’s right. It’s never in one app. Totally. Your business process runs across all these different apps. Yeah. [00:23:52] Pat Lee: So the best thing we can do, I mean, one of the things that we’ve talked about internally is like instead of having to learn complex APIs from each different application, you’re gonna be able to speak natural language. To a set of agents and you’ll have [00:24:05] Sandy Gupta: context. [00:24:06] Pat Lee: Then you’ll have context on intention. Intention and, and there’ll be a reasoning agent there. I know this is geeky techy, but you’ll be able to ask questions and it’ll go off and spin up different agents that can talk to different languages and do it all and bring it all together for you across applications. Yeah. [00:24:20] Pat Lee: That’s the power of a agentic ai and this isn’t science fiction. This is, this is happening, and like you’re gonna see more and more over the next 18 months. You’re gonna see this growth and it’s a huge business opportunity because. People who are resellers or system providers, your customers are gonna want it. That’s right. They don’t want end up paying for 12 different applications. They want a single way to solve the problem. Even if they have to pay for them, they don’t want have to interact with ’em 12 different ways. Totally. So how do we help them do That’s right. Yeah. [00:24:47] Vince Menzione: And we’ve been talking about tectonic shifts for years now, but now it’s really accelerating, right? Yeah. And AgTech AI is really, so what are the, the milestones along the way? ’cause we’re gonna be here sitting down from here a year from now, having very different conversations than we’re having right now. What do you see? [00:25:03] Sandy Gupta: Well, I mean, just to bring this to life, if you have a phone, you probably, I have an iPhone where I use 300 applications, right? Yeah. What if you contact switch from one to the other? What if you don’t need to do a contact switch and essentially go, they go to one another? You can, yeah. And, and you have an open table. Agent that goes and reserves the dinner for you and your wife. And That’s right. Without, as long as you have the intention, without having to go from hey, weather application to this. And if you think about that system of intelligence that Pat just talked about, which is no longer this passive APIs, but it’s a system of intelligence that is talking to all these different, uh, different siloed, um, system of records that is a whole emerging sort of ecosystem right now. Say a couple of things, Vince, uh, that’s emerging in the ecosystem that we worth talking about. Yes. You know, we are seeing a lot of convergence of ISVs and sis very [00:26:03] Vince Menzione: interesting to see this. [00:26:04] Sandy Gupta: And, and, and I, as I talk to customers, they say, Hey, um, would love to work with these ISVs, but I need them handhold me. And I’ve been giving that feedback to the ISVs, Hey, it’s not enough to just have build a software right? On the other hand, the sis are having the same thing. It’s like you cannot, because you know for us, we are going and saying, here are the use cases in your industry, in your domain, and you can either build yourself or with the SI or you can buy and configure. And both of them require, there is a convergence of like what your capabilities are as a partner. Even for consulting partners, I, you know, starting to get the feedback from our customers is that, hey, I love the change management because it’s super critical because we asked the, we have put the business process and nobody’s using them, but the change management has to be in the workflow. Not just an outside training, like how do you insert the change management right in the workflow, what you’re trying to do when you’re trying to do, so, it actually leads you there then doing it. So, [00:27:15] Vince Menzione: so we’re gonna see a convergence of ISVs and sis. Then it has to, it has to happen in order to have the velocity that you need to have for these businesses. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a, that’s fascinating. What else are you seeing, pat, on your side? [00:27:28] Pat Lee: I, I think it’s the, it’s, it’s the accelerated growth of ISVs adopting this technology. Some, the, the early ones are getting farther ahead. Yeah. And, but the good news is the technology’s evolving so quickly. It’s time to catch up and it’s not as hard to catch up today. You started two years ago on this journey. It was gonna take you a year to figure it out. Now you can start and have something to market in three months. The opportunity is just there. ’cause the tooling, the technology. Is better. I know you’ve [00:27:54] Vince Menzione: talked about healthcare. Is that one of the areas we’re seeing the most Emergence of health. Healthcare [00:27:58] Pat Lee: is a great opportunity because you know we talk a lot about large language models. [00:28:02] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:28:02] Pat Lee: Those are not the only models out there. [00:28:04] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:28:04] Pat Lee: Large language models are one component of all the models we have. We have a whole division in Nvidia focused on healthcare and by biological models that can be delivered. Bio nimo is actually gonna be coming to Azure AI Foundry. Wow. So you could do drug discovery inside Azure AI Foundry. That’s amazing. Kick off the model there and have it tie into the rest of your business system. So there’s lots of opportunities. More and more models are gonna have across various businesses, whether it’s financial services, whether it’s healthcare, um, and security’s a big area. You’re seeing lots of growth in terms of agentic frameworks, just because the complexity of just providing the security needed in this very rapidly moving world. Is really critical. [00:28:44] Sandy Gupta: Absolutely. I would say cyber and with all this agent, I mean imagine like a, a company with 500 SMB, 500 people with 5,000 agents. Yeah. That’s gonna be the reality and the security, the pri like about governance of all of that entitlements of like which agent can do what. It’s gonna be a, where I think massive opportunity. [00:29:05] Pat Lee: It’s interesting about agents. In some ways HR is gonna be it. [00:29:10] Sandy Gupta: Yeah. [00:29:11] Pat Lee: HR is gonna be in charge of agents. In some ways it is like I take over that IT it’s like it’s building new things out. It’s a very fascinating place. Everything [00:29:18] Vince Menzione: you’ve talked about today has been about outcomes too. I think about healthcare being 19% of gross domestic product in the United States, right. As a, as a, as a recent victim of it, and just, I’m thinking about security. I’m thinking about financial. You start layering in these incredible components of our, of our models today. The outcomes that you’re gonna drive is the derivatives are gonna be so valuable, the creation that’s created. Yeah. So we’re going into, you know, we’re going into Microsoft’s fiscal 26. Yeah. What, what are the things we need to, with this amazing partner organization, these ultimate partners in the room, how do we need to think, what final advice would you give to them? [00:29:52] Sandy Gupta: Look, I, I’ll start is one is, uh, I would say don’t stay back from ai. Just like, really skill yourself. I mean, just get into, build an agent today, just tonight. Just build an agent and, and it’s not that hard. Don’t let the geeks. Frighten you. It’s, it’s actually more easy than you think. Yeah. [00:30:12] Sandy Gupta: And, and it’s helping me. I, I built an agent just to improve my English writing. Very nice. So it’s helping me. Every time I write something, it corrects me. Uh, second is, um, the time has come how the ISVs and the channel partners kind of come together. We talked a lot about in the marketplace session and. We really need, want to go deep into that because if you look at the mid-market and SMB, they’re not gonna consume AI by building it themselves, the solution themselves. And, and I think the market, the time has come now for the, for these partnerships to come together. And, and the P two P and third is, um. I’ll just leave it that we’re gonna have a massive focus on migration next year. Yeah. And, uh, and I wanna make sure that everyone here is part of that, uh, huge opportunity sort of opportunity. Huge opportunity. It lends every type of partner in that. Uh, but most importantly, thank you everyone for being the, being our partner and, and amazing ecosystem and Vince, amazing platform. Thank you so much. Yeah. I, [00:31:18] Pat Lee: I think now is the time. This is not, there’s not a time to wait. Um, and there’s all sorts of ways to get started. You can get started as simply as an agent there, but I think one thing that every business that you work with and support has a mound of business critical data that they need to maximize, to get value out of, to put it, to make their customers get value out of. And if we’re not helping them get there. They’re gonna lose business. Yeah. Other people are gonna come in and take that business. If you can’t maximize the value in these applications, they’ll be replaced. Yeah. So if we don’t make AI the prominent and most important feature of these applications, they won’t be able to keep up. [00:31:58] Vince Menzione: I hear you loud and clear. I hope everybody else hears this loud and clear. ’cause it is important. I think there was a sense of hesitancy in the beginning. Like there was this feedback that was coming from CFOs saying, we’re not seeing the value yet in ai. This was in the beginning. Mm-hmm. [00:32:13] Vince Menzione: And I do think like organizations need to hit the gas pretty hard right now is the impression. And they [00:32:18] Sandy Gupta: don’t need to build everything today. Right. Like I think that’s the key thing is like, and there’s something they should build. So, [00:32:24] Pat Lee: yeah, they, they should build what’s right for their business. What, yeah. Like as I said earlier in SA platform play. Yeah. Yeah. If I look at number of the partners I talked about like earlier, we’re providing the platform. Yeah. [00:32:33] Pat Lee: They’re bringing their business value on top of it. Yeah. And then they’re getting the value out of it. That’s that, that’s the thing. It’s like you don’t have to build all this. There’s a lot of foundation you can build on top of. [00:32:43] Vince Menzione: Fascinating conversation. I want to thank you both, incredible leaders on stage. I hope you all valued as much as I did Sandy, so great to see you again my friend. [00:32:51] Sandy Gupta: I learned so much from you. Every time once we talk, I learned a lot from from you. Thank you, pat. [00:32:56] Vince Menzione: So great to have you join us. Having the video up on stage at our Ultimate Partner event has been of great value for us as well. Pat, thank you so much. Thank you very much, so much for joining us. You’ve both been incredible and I hope you’re staying around for a little while. Yeah, yeah, I will. Uh, there everyone, I’m sure wants to spend time with both of you. Yeah. Absolutely. So I want to thank you so much for joining us at, at our event this year. I will see you at the, at the dinner. Yes. We’re gonna, we’ll see you up on, we’re gonna have a great meal together. Much Thank you much so much. Thank you so Pat, much Pat, so much. Thank you so much. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Ultimate Eye 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. It’s more than a community. It’s your competitive edge with insider insights, real time education, and direct access to people who are driving the ecosystem forward. UPX helps you get results, and we’re just getting started. We’ve got big plans for you this summer as we’re taking this studio, and we’ll be hosting live stream and digital events here. And it’s all coming to you soon. So visit our website, the ultimate partner.com to learn more and join us. Now’s the time to take your partnerships to the next level.

Cyril Belikoff at Ultimate Partner LIVE in Redmond, WA Unlock the secrets to explosive growth in the digital landscape!  Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ Is your business ready for 2026? Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. I’m excited to bring you even more from the Ultimate Guide to Partnering®—and this one’s straight from the main stage at Ultimate Partner LIVE at Microsoft’s Conference Center in Redmond. If you haven’t been in the room yet, these events are something special. The energy, the insights, the access—it’s where strategy meets execution, and the partner community comes alive. In this episode, we feature a powerful session with Cyril Belikoff, Microsoft’s new leader for Marketplace, who joined us to share his bold vision for the future. Cyril dives into: The “lightbulb moment” around AI and why it changes everything How Microsoft is mainstreaming the Marketplace as a core GTM motion What partners need to know about incentives, MCAPS priorities, and the rise of multi-party offers And how the shift to AI and ecosystem selling is redefining what success looks like in this era 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 https://youtu.be/yIfT1HZriGQ?si=yq_hIvNSp1pvrWtS Key Takeaways: AI adoption is creating exponential opportunities for partners, with leading customers seeing 10x ROI in just over a year. Microsoft’s marketplace is centralizing digital transactions, incentivizing co-selling, and simplifying procurement for customers. Microsoft prioritizes its partners, offering the highest compensation among hyperscalers and integrating marketplace deeply into its products. The multi-party offer (MPO) capability is driving significant sales growth, enabling partners to collaborate effectively and increase deal sizes. Microsoft emphasizes a channel-led approach, empowering partners to scale and leverage the marketplace for software and application sales. Microsoft views the current AI landscape as a “light bulb moment,” urging partners to innovate and build solutions within its ecosystem. 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. https://youtu.be/s33fltuizEo Transcript: Key Tags: Microsoft, Partner Ecosystem, AI, Marketplace, Cyril Belikoff, AI Adoption, Digital Transformation, Cloud, Azure, Co-sell, Channel Partners, ISVs, Software Development, Multi-Party Offer, Customer ROI, Partner Profitability, Technology, Innovation, Business Strategy, Future of Partnerships, Microsoft Azure, AI Foundry, Trade Ledger, Content Square, Hyperscalers, Managed Services, Data Quality, Ultimate Partner Live, Ultimate Partner Experience, UPX. Transcript: Cyril Belikoff Transcript [00:00:00] Cyril Belikoff: You know, as the AI adoption increases, the opportunity for partners sort of exponentially explode, customers are seeing almost four XROI on average, and then the, the leading customers who are really leading into AI are seeing 10 XROI. They’re seeing that ROI in like 14 months. [00:00:19] Vince Menzione: We believe this time is like no other. We believe we refer to these as the tectonic shifts, [00:00:25] Intro: all the hyperscalers in the world, if you add them all together. Managed  services will be one and a half times larger [00:00:31] Cyril Belikoff: because it is the customer buying behavior that has created a need for all of us to rethink our models. [00:00:38] Intro: 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. [00:00:58] 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 Cyro Beov, Microsoft’s new leader responsible for marketplaces. Brings you right to the edge of what’s next. Let’s dive in, uh, all up, uh, Cy Beov, I’m so glad to have you join us. So good to have you here today, sir. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. I’m I gonna grab a water here. Oh, please do. Yeah. I’m gonna grab a coffee. In fact, you uh, you were, you’re second next to me here. Great. Perfect. We put you in the center. The hot seat. In the hot seat. Yeah. So, so great to see you. Yeah. Um. Yeah, we were, I was sharing this with, with the audience, but you and I were supposed to get together in person. Exactly. [00:02:00] Cyril Belikoff: We had a snowmageddon here. I think, you know, I picked the heck of the time. You get a dusting of snow and Seattle sort of shuts down. [00:02:06] Vince Menzione: You know, I grew up in the Northeast, we get 48 inches of snow overnight, and everybody would continue on. And I was like, oh, what happened? I mean, I was, I literally was at the hotel going, okay, well I was doing all these, uh. These teams calls because I couldn’t get people in the meetings and that kind of thing, so I’m so glad we could. Thank you. Do this in person. Thanks for the [00:02:22] Cyril Belikoff: invite again. [00:02:23] Vince Menzione: Thank you. Thank you so much. See you, all of you. So, uh, I thought we’d talk a little bit of a broader, uh, conversation too, and then we’ll dive in on marketplace. Great. Because I think it’s a greater conversation. Great. I happen to know your organization. Um, Alyssa Taylor has been a podcast guest here, somebody I worked with at Microsoft. Yes. And who’s taken on bigger, bigger, and bigger responsibilities within the organization. Uh, leading. Leading, I would call it cloud Go to market probably is probably the right term. But, uh, talk to me about your organization because. You, you drive a tremendous amount of the energy and effort around Azure and industry Yep. And partners, uh, even before this marketplace changes. Yes. Or happened recently. So tell us a little bit about your background. A long time at Microsoft Over, yes. Over 20 years. [00:03:11] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. Um, so yeah, I’ve been at Microsoft, I think 27 years. 27, 28, something like that. Right outta [00:03:17] Vince Menzione: college. [00:03:17] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. Lots of different, pretty much. I, you know, I had, uh. I had three days at, uh, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and then I decided, no, no, Microsoft’s my thing. Um, it’s my move. And so, uh, it sort of paid off, I think. Um, so yeah, I, uh, I’m part of, as you mentioned, uh, the commercial, um, cloud and ai, uh, organization. Yeah. Uh, and my particular remit is around solutions and. Partner marketing to really focus on how we take all our products and take them to market with more of a customer outcome solutions basis. And then obviously, how do we enable our partner ecosystem? And that’s where sort of marketplace sort of has now, um, fit, uh, fit in there. So it’s, it’s, you know, it’s an exciting time for software development companies, system integrators, all types of partners really, particularly around this AI transformation. Yes. And what’s going on? Um, you know. And of course being in the, the AI team, I’d be remits to talk a little bit about that and what it really means for partners. I think Please do, please do, please do. Um, for, you know, this is a massive platform shift, I think everyone is, is is talking about it sort of at the same altitude as cloud or mobile or the internet. I sort of prefer the light bulb analogy. Um, and what I mean by that is, you know, back in many, many years before cloud, um, someone invented the light bulb. Yeah. And it, it really changed. Both the con the, the, the life in the home and in the workplace, productivity, you know, sword. Um, but then people were like, well we, now we need sources for that light bulb, so we need to build infrastructure. Yes. And power and then power stations. And then the power station companies built this power stations and then realized, well, we can actually produce more power. So are there other things we can put in a home in a factory? Um, and then. People started to innovate. And then not only were they light bulbs, but dishwashers and washing machines, that’s, and all these sort of innovations came. And so AI is sort of at the same platform level. Yeah. Um, and we are com commit. We are committed in building out tons of data centers. We’re buying. Endless amounts of incredible amounts, AI chip sets, uh, to put into the infrastructure. We are building a few light bulbs, yes. But we need partners to build dishwashers, washing machines, and innovate, um, uh, across the new opportunities for the customers. And it’s just, it’s an exciting time and that’s where sort of marketplace comes into that. Yeah. Portfolio. [00:05:37] Vince Menzione: Well, and I love the fact that it, you, you’ve taken and embraced it in such a more deliberate way. Right? Because when we first started thinking about it, cloud, you mentioned cloud really changed things in a big way, uh, because it, it opened up opportunities and AI of course became that. Yeah. Um. So, you know, marketplace, it felt like it was on an island in many respects. And not, this is not diminishing or just, it was just, I think it just kind of grew up on its own and it was, it was tied into a product team and just now seeing the evolution of where we’re going with this and how it’s more cohesive into this whole cloud go to market. I’d love to get your. Uh, perspective on what is changing and how it’s going to enhance things for, for the partners in the room today. [00:06:20] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah, so if we connect back to AI and, uh, and even back to our history, we’ve always been a partner first company and, and like when we started the marketplace, you’re right, we had to incubate it, we had to build it at many years back now. Um, and we needed to mainstream it into the core business so that it can be part of our product strategy and we’ve. Our products are, you know, we’ve always wanted to be great partners for partners, um, and with our core products. And so marketplace should be no different. And you know, for marketplaces has both the sort of supply and demand side. So we have our classic customers, but then our partners need to. You know, provide supply into the marketplace. And so we want to be awesome partners for those software development companies. Give them a great stack to build on. Um, allow them to innovate and differentiate with ai. Help them to, you know, have amazing productivity with their own developers with things like GitHub copilot. Yep. And then to leverage our own footprint to grow with our sellers. Exactly. With our, with our products and sort of the broad distribution that we have. And so marketplace becomes the center of that. It does becomes the core of how we go to market faster, sell more, uh, and we are investing on the demand side to get customers more to marketplace, right? And so we’ve doubled our marketplace revenue just in this last year. Um, of course. Now much more money is made by partners. Yeah. Through that revenue. Um, and, uh, we have aspirations and on the path that this is the store to buy your AI solutions. Yes. With Microsoft as the platform and then partners providing whether it’s software as a service or agents, and it’s fast becoming that. So we are seeing, even on ai, we’re seeing a hundred, 200% growth on ai, particularly in our marketplace. That’s outstanding. Lots of momentum. You’re right. We, we sort of had to incubate it like any, excuse me, any good product. You want to incubate it so it doesn’t get caught up in. Sort of the requirements of the machine. [00:08:17] Vince Menzione: Yes. Right? Yes. And [00:08:18] Cyril Belikoff: now, now it’s time to mainstream and we want to go really big, as you said. [00:08:21] Vince Menzione: Well, I think what you’re signaling to the audience and to the partners watching today is this, that like Microsoft is doubling down. Right. And I always talk about the seven seats at the table because I’ve always believed, I mean, from the old days, it was like, you know, you get a large GSI in the room and you have one throat to choke, but customers are making and dictating their own decision process, and they’re looking at the seven seats at the table. They’re looking at. They’re looking at data and, uh, AI partners, they’re looking at security and governance partners. They’re looking at maybe systems integrators or managed service providers. They’re bringing it all together. And because they’re buying off of your marketplace, they can do that. They couldn’t do that before. Right, right. And now there’s a new, a new vehicle to get there. So, [00:09:00] Cyril Belikoff: yeah. I, I, I totally agree. I think there’s, um. Lots of opportunity as you talk about the multiple seats at that table. Yeah. And so if you bridge into the connection between a partner and a customer and Microsoft and what that might look like, you know, the marketplace, as I mentioned, is becoming the center for the digital transaction, whether it’s a large customer or small, but also we putting the right levers in place to connect partners with our own sellers. And so if we wanted to be at the center to provide the right solution to the right customer at the right time. We need to make sure that our own sellers have marketplace in their compensation, and we’ve made that change. [00:09:39] Vince Menzione: Nice. Um, so what is the connection point now across Azure Consumer Revenue marketplace? Yeah. And co-sell. So the first is, [00:09:46] Cyril Belikoff: so the first on co-sell is that our sellers are incented to co-sell literally in their compensation plans. Nice. That marketplace can help them retire their quota. Like, it doesn’t matter how much strategery stuff I do in my ivory tower. Yeah. That lever is golden. ’cause sellers follow their back pocket. Fantastic. They’re, we tell them to follow their back pocket. That’s literally how we ask them to, to operate. Um. Then from the customer side, uh, we have this concept called Microsoft Azure Commit to consume or the Mac. Yes, we love our acronyms and so customers will negotiate with their account reps or our executives and they’ll make a commitment to Microsoft for their Azure commitments over a three to five year period, and then they’ll get some sort of discount. Simplistically, I’m just simplifying it. Yes. A hundred percent of the marketplace transactions can retire that customer’s commitment. So if a customer makes a $10 commitment to Microsoft, it’s a little bit more, add some more s zeros. But something like this, say $10 and they’re buying an application through the marketplace and that application cost $2 and Microsoft’s getting, you know, sense and the, the, the software development companies getting much more, uh, percentage wise, they are able to retire them. Full Microsoft commitment on Azure. Uh, based on the full commitment that they’ve bought, bought in the marketplace, including the cost of the, the ISV or software development company application. So we are incenting the seller and we are incenting the customer to get to, to encourage their flywheel to go even faster. And, um, many customers look at that, uh, Azure commitment and that contract as also a procurement, um, accelerator. Yes. So if, uh, software development companies. Have things in the marketplace, the procurement requirement is substantially reduced because. That acquisition has already been approved by the business. Yeah. And as long as there’s a business leader that says, yes, I want you allow, I will allow you to decrement the, the Azure commitment. There’s the procurement side is close to zero in some cases. Now, not all cases, but in many, many customers are going that way. [00:11:55] Vince Menzione: You’ve simplified it, you’ve taken away all the legal language. Correct. You’ve taken away the, the whole, the whole term, the terms, and then worrying about payments. Right. It’s all, it’s all handled now for partners. [00:12:04] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah, and then obviously we incent the seller and then we incent the the customer too. And then lastly, a lot of software driven companies. Sort of on the medium si medium to small size. They love the fact that it’s a global transaction. Yes. They don’t have to deal with taxes across B country boundaries. That’s all handled in the marketplace. And so there’s just so much value to getting scale. Um, I. We’re very excited by, as you can tell. Yes. I’m, I’m, [00:12:28] Vince Menzione: I’m excited with you. I’ve, I’ve talked about this as the marketplace moment, and you know, of course we’re gonna have some of your other leaders up on stage. Right. We’re gonna have Sandy talking, talking with Nvidia and some conversations. We’ll have some of the marketplace vendors that help enable these ISVs or software development companies on how to, how to attract and work with Microsoft. We’ll also have some of the co-selling leaders in the room that will help. How do I, how do I become more relevant with Microsoft? So I’ll have some incredible conversations here. And this all ties in. I, we talked about marketplace, but the Azure consumer revenue number. Um, I think we know that there’s a paradigm between marketplace and channel sales. What’s the advice on how to balance the best of both worlds? This is an interesting conversation I hear all the time. From reseller or channel partners operating in one direction and the marketplace operating in a different direction, or at least that was the past. Yeah, that was the past paradigm. [00:13:19] Cyril Belikoff: Yeah. It’s a, it’s a great question. The first I would say is use it. Give us feedback and we’ll get better. Um, and that’s how we work with our partners. We work for 50 years like that. Um, and so we wanna work for the next 50 years. And so there is no. Either model that we have to crack besides our channel integration with marketplace, it’s just vital. Yeah. Um, we spend a lot of time with Nicole and her team around how we, what we call sort of co-sell at scale and like how do we get scale through our channel without a Microsoft seller involved. That’s right. Um, and so we are, we are thinking deeply about that and, and really working through that. And so it’s really about the channel led sale and how we enable marketplace and transitioning. Um, the classic business where needed to marketplace. Yeah. Now there’s obviously parts of the business that might not be on marketplace, but if you’re selling a software, um, a software application, the marketplace is the right place to do it and then connects to everything that we just discussed on that value that the customer values. Um, and, you know, we want to enable access to the 500,000 partners at scale that rely, uh, on our classic partner, um, engines. On the new marketplace and we, we started to do that. And I guess the, the hero, uh, capability is, uh, multi-party office or NPO. [00:14:43] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:14:43] Cyril Belikoff: Um, the ability to do. Multi parties that this a partner with a software company or or app provider and a customer multi-party offer sort of that capability. And we’ve, you know, we’ve, we’ve launched it in select markets, us, uk, Canada, and already we’re seeing sort of a third of our sales with, uh, almost two times the average size. That’s incredible. With that capability, it’s obvious, like we know, like, yes, we had to incubate the business. Now we’ve gotta mainstream, we’ve gotta mainstream into. Our channel partners too. And so while I don’t have tons to share, you can be sure that we are building more capabilities in the future that. Empower more channel led growth and more partner to partner selling. [00:15:26] Vince Menzione: That’s fantastic. It is an incredible engine, the multi-party offer engine. And then some of the early learnings were that it wasn’t always the largest partners in the world. It were, but it was partners that were closest to the customer providing some capability along with the other solutions that were coming along with the multi-party offer. Mm-hmm. So, um, just in, uh, in, so I think, you know, it is an inspiring time for all of us as we, as we think about this, uh. T we were, we’re at the end of 25. 25. You’re leaning in on 26 in a big way. Yeah. I’m, I’m assuming here. Of course. So I do think it would be great for you to give some of the learnings to this group of leaders in the rooms, all the people that are gonna be attending or watching this on livestream. Um, anything you’d like to leave us with going into fiscal year 26 for this group? Yeah. [00:16:13] Cyril Belikoff: And thank you for, again, for the opportunity. So as we close out here, um, you know, as the AI adoption increases. The opportunity for partners sort of exponentially explode. Yeah. Now I use the light bulb naturally, but I’ll give you some numbers right around numbers. Customers are seeing almost four XROI on average, and then the, the leading customers who are really leading into AI are seeing 10 XROI. Wow. And the amazing piece about that is. In addition to it being 10 x is that they’re seeing that ROI in like 14 months. In typical other IT projects, it’s been like two to three years. And you write a business case and the CFO looks at the business case and they have this, you know, risk analysis and it goes three, sometimes five years. They’re seeing ROI in 12 to 14 months. Yeah, that’s fantastic. And um, it’s not surprising ’cause that’s literally the pace of the industry right now and AI is even. Faster than that. And so there’s, there’s customer, real, customer tangible value. In addition to that, for every dollar that Microsoft makes, our system integrated partner makes almost $9 and a software company makes almost $11. So the, the math on the partner side. Is very good too. It’s very good. And so when you just, just think at a high level of that flywheel, okay, the customer is seeing value, there’s opportunity in the partner. Of course we see value, we are investing that flywheel has to move. Yeah. And if you’re on that bus, you’ll get value if you miss the bus. You don’t get value. Like we try to get on a few buses, many across the years. I won’t mention mobile, et cetera, et cetera, but maybe I just did. I, I remember those days I was in this room. Um, we try to get on a few buses. We have not missed this bus, and we are leading this bus and we want, we need our partners, um, because as I said, we, we are building platforms and so, and the [00:17:57] Vince Menzione: compensation for partners is the highest in Microsoft amongst the three hyperscalers if you do the analysis work that I, yeah, we are [00:18:03] Cyril Belikoff: pretty aggressive. Yeah. Uh, in looking after our partners, and again, all different private partners, channel partners, system integrators, software companies. And really, as I said, the marketplace is the connector for it. If you haven’t engaged in the marketplace, get on, take a look, try it, do a few transactions with some customers and then give us feedback and you know, we will continue to evolve it even deep into our products. For example, uh, it’s a good example. So Azure, AI Foundry. So it’s basically our core product for that customers use to implement. AI applications, whether it’s advanced machine learning or generative AI or AI search, pick your thing. It’s, it’s got all the goodness in there. It’s, you know, confidential ai, trustworthy ai, all all the pieces, AI foundry. So customers literally are going to this product. In the product. It has the most models on the planet, like 1800 large language and small language models. Wow. Customers need to transact those models. Yes. So what we’ve done is we’ve connected that core product. And when the customer is trying to implement it says, do you want to transact this? And it, it’s an automatic behind the scenes link to marketplace. So it gives you a mental model on how we think about this is not just gonna be like a classic partner transaction in front of a customer thing. We are going to embed it in our products more and more and more to, to really encourage that flywheel between customers and partners in a really seamless integration way. Um, so many. Great examples. Yeah, I get super passionate about it. I guess I would, um, before I close out, I’ll mention one or two, uh, partners, so please do. Trade Ledger is a good example that I love. Trade ledger, um, end-to-end like lending platform. They literally did their first go go, uh, COSAL deal with a big bank. And the deal that the previous previously negotiated went from 4 million. To 25 million. Unbelievable. And that might not sound lot, a lot to some Microsoft people. Yeah. But for a company like Trade Ledger on one deal, then they can try do it on 5, 10, 20, and a hundred deals. That’s, that’s real return. Um. I guess Content Square is another one. They do insights, analytics. Yeah. And they’re seeing marketplace help them close deals, 11, 12, 13% faster with more than a hundred percent uplift on on their deal value. And so there, as I mentioned, we are integrating into product, we’re driving demand, we’re getting software companies to build, integrating with channel. And so we are, we’re investing deeply. Right. And I guess I would just close out with where I started. We have a light bulb moment. So let’s go build some washing machines, get it onto the marketplace. I love this. And go [00:20:45] Vince Menzione: learn together. I love that. And this is your first time really, I would say, at an event like this with partners in the room. So, so great to have you. Thank you so much. This effort and having you hope, hope to have you on stage many times. Great. Because I think it is a light bulb moment. I think we are just at the beginning, the precipice of this opportunity and really it’s gonna be an exciting time ahead. Perfect. So, so great to have you. Thank you [00:21:06] Cyril Belikoff: so much. Great to appreciate it. Great to have you. Thank you sir. Appreciate you making time for us. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank. [00:21:11] Vince Menzione: Thanks for tuning into this episode of Ultimate Eye 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 Leaders come to learn from each other. It’s more than a community. It’s your competitive edge. With insider insights, real-time education, and direct access to people who are driving the ecosystem forward. UPX helps you get results. And we’re just getting started. We’ve got big plans for you this summer as we’re taking this studio, and we’ll be hosting live stream and digital events here, and it’s all coming to you soon. So visit our website, the ultimate partner.com to learn more and join us. Now’s the time to take your partnerships to the next level. . Key Tags: Microsoft, Partner Ecosystem, AI Transformation, Nicole Deason, Microsoft Partners, Generative AI, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), MCAPS Priorities, Customer Zero, Skilling, Business Growth, Profitability, SMB, Fiscal Year 2026, Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, Innovation, Industry Solutions, Channel Partners, System Integrators, ISVs.

From Ultimate Partner LIVE in Redmond, WA Unlock the secrets to explosive growth in the digital landscape!  Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ Is your business ready for 2026? Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. This episode is something special. It was originally recorded as the kickoff conversation for our May Ultimate Partner LIVE event—a powerful session that featured none other than Nicole Dezen, Microsoft’s Chief Partner Officer, and a true champion of the ecosystem. Now, we’re bringing it to you, our amazing Ultimate Partner Podcast community. In this candid and insightful conversation, Nicole shares Microsoft’s unwavering commitment to its 500,000+ strong partner ecosystem—especially poignant as the company celebrates its 50th anniversary. We explore how partners are not just part of the Microsoft story—they are the story.From driving innovation to fueling growth in the era of AI, this dialogue makes clear that partners are at the heart of Microsoft’s transformation agenda. You’ll hear about the company’s FY26 strategic priorities—known as MCAPS—including renewed focus and record investment in the SMB segment, and the role of partners in shaping what’s next. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vuEsmcPvD4 Partnerships are Microsoft’s Core: Microsoft’s foundational commitment to its partner ecosystem is deeply ingrained in its 50-year history and remains central to its future strategy. AI is a Partner-Led Opportunity: Partners are crucial to driving AI transformation, with Microsoft actively supporting and incentivizing those who leverage AI for customer solutions and business growth. Substantial Profitability for Partners: The Microsoft ecosystem offers significant financial returns, with partners earning multiple dollars for every dollar of Microsoft revenue, boosted further by generative AI. Strategic Alignment with Microsoft Priorities: Partners can maximize their success by understanding and aligning with Microsoft’s five MCAPS priorities, which guide both Microsoft’s internal sales and partner incentives. Targeted Investments for Ecosystem Growth: Microsoft continues record investments in its partner ecosystem, with a strong focus on empowering partners, especially those serving the high-growth small and medium enterprise (SMB) segment. “Customer Zero” Enhances Partner Credibility: Partners are encouraged to use Microsoft technologies, particularly AI tools, internally (“Customer Zero”) to build authentic experience and credibility for customer engagements. https://youtu.be/s33fltuizEo Transcript: (0:00) So I wanna take this moment to welcome a friend, (0:03) an incredible leader, somebody who leads the largest, (0:09) imagine this, the largest ecosystem in our industry (0:12) is the Microsoft ecosystem, (0:14) with over 500,000 partner organizations. (0:19) Nicole Deason has done an outstanding job (0:22) of taking this organization to the next level. (0:26) In fact, we recognize, Nicole was on my podcast last year, (0:29) we were up here in Redmond, (0:30) we recorded a really great interview. (0:32) If you haven’t had a chance, (0:33) you can find that on our YouTube channel. (0:35) You can find that incredible discussion that we’ve had. (0:38) I’ve asked her back because a lot of things (0:40) are happening at Microsoft. (0:41) And I also wanted to recognize her. (0:43) Like see, we did this Partner Leader of the Year Award (0:46) at the end of 2024, and we recognized Nicole (0:48) for how she’s reshaped Microsoft’s landscape, (0:51) how she’s really tightened up Microsoft’s focus (0:54) and strategy, and I wanted to have her back today, (0:57) A, to recognize her up on stage (0:59) for her outstanding leadership, (1:01) but also have you hear from her (1:03) about her point of view as partners (1:06) and how Microsoft thinks about this ecosystem (1:09) and its approach to support this incredible thing (1:11) that was created over 40 years ago. (1:14) Microsoft was the first company (1:15) to really embrace partnerships, (1:18) and still is at the very forefront of it. (1:20) And so I’m excited to have Nicole join us. (1:23) Nicole and team, but we also have a little something (1:27) we’re gonna bring out here. (1:28) So here comes Nicole. (1:30) Nicole, so good to see you. (1:31) So good to see you. (1:32) Thank you for having me. (1:34) I love having you. (1:34) Thank you so much. (1:35) I love your jacket, too. (1:36) Obviously, I’m really into the green, okay. (1:38) Yeah, I love the green. (1:39) I love the green. (1:40) I need to wear more green. (1:41) We have a little gift for you. (1:44) I try and lift it. (1:45) They told me it weighs about 300 pounds. (1:46) Okay, well, I’ll do it. (1:47) Here, we’ll do it together. (1:48) We’ll do it together. (1:49) So this is just our recognition (1:51) for all the work that you’ve done (1:53) and all the support you’ve given (1:54) these partners in the room, (1:55) and the thousands and thousands of thousands (1:58) that will be watching us, (1:59) listening to your amazing guidance and leadership, (2:03) and so glad that you could spend some time (2:05) with us this morning and kick off our event. (2:07) Thank you. (2:07) This is a really nice honor. (2:09) Thank you so much. (2:10) We’ll proudly put that there. (2:12) You’ve done an incredible job, (2:13) and we’re excited to have you for a little fireside chat. (2:18) We have some people in the room. (2:19) We have a bunch of people on the live stream as well. (2:22) So we got to do this in a studio. (2:24) It’s a little bit different, (2:25) but I wanted to have the opportunity (2:27) to spend some time here with you (2:28) because I think there’s some really incredible things (2:30) we need to talk about here. (2:32) First off, we haven’t even talked about this yet. (2:35) I was saving this for you. (2:37) Microsoft’s 50th anniversary. (2:38) Yeah, so exciting. (2:40) I mean, it is incredible that it’s been 50 years now. (2:43) It’s amazing. (2:44) It’s really hard to believe, (2:47) you know, 50 years of so much heritage. (2:50) And, you know, when I think about our 50 years, (2:52) I think of it as 50 years of partnership. (2:54) So massive, massive thank you to all of our partners. (2:58) Our success is absolutely based (3:02) on all of the work we do with our partners (3:04) and organizations like yours, Vincent. (3:05) Thank you so much. (3:06) Thank you for your support as well. (3:08) We feel that as well, these partners wouldn’t be here. (3:10) We wouldn’t even have this thing called partners (3:12) if it wasn’t for Microsoft. (3:13) You know, we’re incredibly fortunate here. (3:17) The company was founded in this heritage of partnership. (3:21) It’s in our DNA. (3:23) And every single one of our three CEOs (3:26) has proudly focused on partnership. (3:31) And, you know, Satya always says, (3:32) this company has always been (3:34) and will always be a partner-led company. (3:36) It’s pretty exciting. (3:38) You know, when I, if you think about (3:40) where the company started, (3:42) we started with this really bold vision (3:45) that technology could change the world. (3:47) And it certainly has and continues to, you know. (3:52) And I heard your very nice introduction, by the way. (3:55) Thank you. (3:55) You know, Microsoft is so proud (3:57) to have 500,000 partners in our ecosystem. (4:01) It’s remarkable. (4:02) We actually, we grew the size of our partner ecosystem (4:05) 20% year on year in the last year. (4:08) That’s fantastic. (4:08) And there’s a whole bunch of reasons why. (4:11) And, you know, it’s really exciting (4:12) to see the excitement and enthusiasm (4:15) for everything we’re doing. (4:16) And, you know, you and I go way back. (4:19) And it started in this company. (4:21) Well, you know, I’m sorry we were five. (4:22) You were a lot younger than I was. (4:25) But, you know, it started with building (4:28) and selling Windows PCs in the office, (4:32) still going strong today. (4:34) And then we sort of evolved into cloud migrations. (4:37) And then, of course, now it’s all about the era of AI. (4:42) And, you know, our partners are really the backbone (4:45) of AI transformation, solving complex customer challenges (4:49) around the world. (4:51) Microsoft has always been really deeply committed (4:53) to partner success. (4:55) And I love just seeing how amazing it is (5:00) to see our partners thriving in this time. (5:04) We, just last year, we did some IDC research. (5:07) And the research told us that for every $1 (5:09) of Microsoft revenue, our services partners (5:12) earn $8.45. (5:14) Wow, that’s outstanding. (5:15) And our software partners earn $10.93. (5:18) And it’s one of the measures we hold ourselves to. (5:20) It’s really, really important that we can create (5:23) a healthy, thriving, profitable ecosystem for our partners. (5:28) Then you add generative AI on top. (5:30) And, wow, like hockey stick growth in so many dimensions. (5:33) It’s amazing to see just the growth faster (5:37) than the overall IT market, which is amazing. (5:40) Generative AI, fastest platform adoption (5:43) in the history of technology. (5:46) These stats are pretty awesome, if you think about it. (5:49) It took mobile 16 years. (5:52) And then it took the internet seven years (5:54) to reach 100 million users. (5:57) LLMs achieved that in months. (5:59) It’s incredible. (6:00) Right, and we’re just getting started. (6:02) And for me, when I look across our partner ecosystem, (6:06) and I see the demand and opportunity for the work (6:10) that every single one of our partner types is doing, (6:13) it makes me really motivated and excited. (6:16) And then the partners that are betting their business (6:18) on Microsoft AI, those with more than 25% (6:21) of their Microsoft revenue on AI, (6:24) receive higher margins and revenue growth. (6:28) And, you know, I’m just incredibly proud (6:32) to see what we’ve already done in our 50 years. (6:36) And I know so much excitement ahead. (6:38) Just getting started. (6:39) What is it that Bill has always said, right? (6:42) We expect too much in the first year or two. (6:44) We expect rapid growth, but we underestimate (6:47) what we’ll see in 10 years. (6:49) That’s right. (6:49) I think we will underestimate what we see (6:51) in three and four years. (6:52) Oh, absolutely, and I am beyond confident (6:55) that it’s actually our partner ecosystem (6:56) that will lead the way here and teach us all things (6:59) that we never imagined. (7:00) Yeah, it’s going to be an outstanding day (7:02) of conversations around these topics. (7:04) So glad you could join us for this. (7:07) So we’re at the end of 2025, Microsoft 2025. (7:11) People don’t always understand (7:12) the fiscal year differences, right? (7:14) Hey, two months have to go. (7:15) Let’s not forget it’s Q4 at Microsoft. (7:18) Yes, get out there and sell partners. (7:20) We still always get encouraged, that’s right. (7:23) People don’t understand, if you haven’t been (7:24) around Microsoft for a long time, right? (7:26) July 1st is the beginning of a new year. (7:28) Yes. (7:28) And I think it’s a super important time (7:31) to have you here because it is like giving people (7:34) a little bit of a forward glance to what’s happening. (7:37) Like there has been a lot of change, right? (7:38) A lot of change, transformation, (7:40) and I would love for you to share (7:41) with our incredible partner ecosystem (7:44) what you’re seeing and where we’re going. (7:46) I think we’ve definitely accomplished (7:48) more than a year’s worth of stuff (7:50) in the 10 months of this year so far. (7:53) So I’m just incredibly proud and grateful (7:55) for the excellence I see across the ecosystem. (7:59) For Microsoft, it’s been a record year (8:01) of investment in our partner ecosystem (8:03) and I’m thrilled to be able to say that. (8:06) There are several things we’re doing. (8:09) For us, it starts with our five MCAPS priorities. (8:13) Every Microsoft employee sort of has these (8:15) tattooed on their foreheads. (8:16) Yes, right up here. (8:17) And the thing that’s cool is I love it (8:19) when I’m having partner conversations (8:21) and we talk about the work that our partners (8:24) are doing across the five priorities. (8:26) So they’re co-pilot on every device, (8:29) AI design wins, securing cyber foundations (8:32) for every customer’s, delivering the M365 core, (8:37) and of course, cloud migrations (8:39) because customers can’t take advantage (8:40) of all of this amazing AI goodness (8:42) until they’re in the cloud. (8:45) There’s a few reasons why understanding (8:48) these priorities I think is so beneficial (8:50) to our partners. (8:51) Number one, understanding how Microsoft sells, (8:55) how we coach our own sellers, (8:56) I think is incredibly valuable (8:58) because it allows us to go to market together in harmony. (9:03) Excuse me, the second thing is we pooled (9:06) our partner incentives around those five priorities. (9:09) So there’s real economic benefit (9:12) for every partner out there to get after them. (9:15) So important. (9:16) Yeah, and the thing that I’m really excited about (9:18) is these priorities apply to every customer segment, (9:23) every partner type. (9:24) So whether you’re an SI, an ISV, a channel partner, (9:27) a device partner, you name it, (9:29) there’s a role for you to play in these priorities. (9:32) And this is really about how we support your work (9:35) as you deliver value to our customers. (9:38) The next thing is, you’ll hear us talk a lot (9:42) about customer zero, and Vince, (9:44) you’ll remember the days where we talked dog food, (9:46) which I just saw. (9:47) I’m so glad we got rid of dog food. (9:49) We’re so over that. (9:50) Then we were drinking our own champagne, (9:52) but now we’re in the era of customer zero. (9:55) Customer zero really means that we use our own things first. (10:00) And Microsoft has always had this principle of doing it, (10:03) but it’s actually more important than ever with AI. (10:08) And where I’m seeing the most growth, (10:11) the most rapid transformation in our partner ecosystem (10:16) is those partners that are utilizing this technology (10:19) in their own business, (10:20) because that’s when you have the most credible examples, (10:24) the most authentic experiences (10:26) to go have those customer conversations. (10:28) Customers are counting on you (10:30) to help them understand what to do in their business, (10:33) and they’re looking for you to tell them how you’ve done it. (10:36) And when we talk about AI transformation at Microsoft, (10:40) we talk about it in terms of enriching employee experiences, (10:46) reinventing customer engagement, (10:48) reshaping business processes, (10:50) and then bending the curve on innovation. (10:52) And there’s just- (10:53) Oh, I love bending the curve. (10:55) Bending the curve, yeah. (10:56) We love to bend the curve around here. (10:59) You know, it’s really amazing to see (11:02) what each part of our partner ecosystem is doing. (11:05) It’s actually been less than 12 months (11:08) since we launched Copilot Plus PCs, (11:11) you know, near and dear to my heart. (11:14) It’s amazing to see what our device ecosystem is doing (11:17) with the most powerful NPUs in the market, (11:20) you know, provided by our largest silicon partners. (11:23) Our ISV ecosystem, you know, (11:25) this is a place where there’s just, (11:28) we’re just fueling innovation in the market. (11:31) And the things I love the most (11:32) are when I see these solutions come out (11:35) from ISVs around the world (11:38) that are just helping customers solve real problems. (11:43) There’s a really cool example recently from Sitecore. (11:46) They introduced some capability (11:49) that helps marketers pre-test content (11:54) before they publish it. (11:55) It sounds so obvious, right? (11:56) But they didn’t have that capability (11:59) until Sitecore introduced it, (12:01) and it’s running on Azure and Azure Open AI. (12:04) And so I love it when it solves (12:06) really real-world problems for people. (12:09) You know, our systems integrators (12:11) are really leading the way, (12:12) particularly around industry solutions. (12:15) It’s been really impressive to see (12:17) the way that system integrators have paired (12:19) our customer solution areas with AI capability (12:22) across industries, delivering real value. (12:25) And then, last but certainly not least, (12:27) our channel partners. (12:29) You know, the channel is really the face of Microsoft (12:32) in so many cases for the small (12:34) and medium enterprise customer. (12:37) And I’m really, really proud to see (12:39) the way the channel has embraced, (12:41) you know, supporting the entire lifecycle, (12:44) or we like to say all five MSEM stages. (12:47) There’s so much TAM to be captured here. (12:51) $661 billion of TAM (12:53) in the small and medium enterprise segment. (12:56) So welcome, one and all. (12:58) There’s lots to do here. (13:00) And you know, this is a place (13:02) where we are heavily, heavily investing (13:05) in these partners for growth. (13:07) 70% of our investments are pooled toward the partners (13:11) that service the small and medium enterprise segment. (13:14) So it’s an opportunity. (13:14) And we’ll hear from some of your leadership (13:16) on how to best engage with sellers, (13:19) as partners working with sellers in those organizations. (13:22) We’re also gonna hear from the SMB market as well. (13:24) We’ve got both Pax8 and Ingram Micro (13:26) coming on stage here over the next two days. (13:28) What an incredible opportunity now, right, (13:30) to take some of the modernization and marketplace (13:34) and extend it out and be much more deliberate (13:37) with smaller customers. (13:38) Yes, yeah. (13:39) The SMB space in particular is a segment (13:44) with so much growth opportunity (13:45) and so much dependence on very strong, capable partners. (13:51) Yeah, so it’s an incredible, incredible opportunity. (13:53) You’re gonna hear things on stage here. (13:55) They’re gonna hear some more from what you’re sharing, (13:56) but also from some of your leaders (13:58) that are gonna share some more. (13:59) There’s gonna be some very insightful (14:01) and provocative conversations the next two days. (14:04) So let’s talk about 2026. (14:06) So people are like, happy new year. (14:07) Like July 1st is just around the corner. (14:09) So I know you have been incredibly busy. (14:12) I know what this time of year is like, a lot of change. (14:16) Let’s observe what happened in the year so far. (14:18) Let’s address what’s not working right. (14:21) Let’s pivot to what’s working even better. (14:23) And then you’re laying it out, right, (14:25) in the next couple months. (14:26) I’m excited for what you’re gonna be providing. (14:28) These partners need to listen in to you (14:30) on what’s happening. (14:31) Yeah, we’ve been hard at work for planning, (14:34) and you nailed exactly how we do it, by the way. (14:36) That’s awesome. (14:37) I’m really excited about what we’re doing. (14:39) I would start with what isn’t changing, (14:42) because I think that’s really important. (14:44) Our five priorities are enduring. (14:48) We’ve seen really great momentum (14:50) from our partner ecosystem. (14:53) The partners that have embraced these (14:55) are making meaningful progress with customers (14:57) and we just wanna continue to fuel that. (15:01) We will continue significant AI investment, (15:05) and we will do all of this (15:07) through the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. (15:09) And this is where any partner can get the technology, (15:13) the tools, all of the capability (15:15) to build healthy, profitable businesses (15:17) where we co-sell together. (15:20) And so I think that it’s super important (15:22) for partners to understand that. (15:23) I am also going to encourage everyone (15:26) to plan to attend MCAP Start for Partners. (15:29) That’ll be on July 15th, so two weeks into our fiscal year. (15:34) We do this readiness event. (15:36) At the same time, we’re readying all of our sellers. (15:39) So partners get access to the exact same information (15:42) that Microsoft’s entire field sales force gets, (15:45) and it’s all about ensuring that you have access (15:47) to the latest and greatest, (15:49) all the goodies in our toolkit for next year. (15:53) And that’s gonna be digitally available. (15:55) So everybody in the 500,000 can all embrace (15:59) and this change is happening. (16:00) And we will not be shy about letting everybody know (16:03) when registration opens. (16:04) That’s coming soon. (16:05) And one more thing. (16:07) I know everybody’s busy here today, (16:09) but we did publish a blog today, this morning, (16:12) with a lot of new CSP announcements. (16:14) Yes, please share that. (16:15) So don’t distract yourselves from today’s amazing agenda, (16:19) but maybe when you go back to your hotel rooms, (16:21) check out the blog. (16:23) Because we’ve announced a ton of new capability (16:26) for the CSP partners, the Cloud Solution Provider partners. (16:31) There are a couple things I’ll share here. (16:33) Number one, probably the most requested thing (16:36) from every partner and frankly, every employee at Microsoft (16:40) is today we’ve announced we’re introducing (16:42) three-year CSP SKUs for M365 and Teams Enterprise. (16:47) I’m really, really thrilled about this. (16:49) We’ll have some nice promotions to support it as well. (16:52) And the other thing that we’ve been really hard at work on (16:56) is enhancing CSP capability with systems and tools, (17:01) reporting, enabling better upgrades, upsell, renewals. (17:06) As you would imagine, all of this is infused with AI. (17:10) All designed to make sure that we have a healthy, (17:13) profitable, thriving ecosystem. (17:16) We’re also updating some of our authorization requirements. (17:19) We’ll align our incentives to all of that. (17:22) There’s tons of information in the blog, (17:24) so I encourage everyone to go check it out. (17:27) And really, this is all designed to ensure (17:29) that our partners can deliver great success (17:32) to our customers. (17:33) I know your team has been hard at work on this (17:35) and so you have some incredible leaders been driving. (17:38) The system and tools component alone is really enhanced (17:41) and been enriched over the last couple of years. (17:44) Yes. (17:44) Great teams work there. (17:46) Lots of AI capability there. (17:48) We have to be our own customer zero, right? (17:51) Absolutely, yes. (17:52) I love it, I love it. (17:54) So what advice do you have for these partners? (17:56) Obviously the CSP reading all of that, (17:58) what advice do you have for them in terms of leading in? (18:01) We obviously talked about the co-selling, (18:04) the ability to engage, understanding the priorities (18:07) at the SEMCAPS event. (18:09) Anything else in particular we should be aware of (18:11) and lean in on? (18:13) Yeah, you know I like threes, (18:15) so I’ll go with three things. (18:17) Yes, please. (18:18) First of all, I really encourage partners (18:21) to continue to take advantage of all of the skilling (18:24) we’re pumping out into the market. (18:26) Record year of skilling investments this fiscal year (18:30) for really, really good reason. (18:33) I don’t know about you, (18:34) but I feel like the rapid pace of advancement (18:37) of the technology is challenging each of us (18:40) to really stay current. (18:41) Exactly. (18:42) And so, you know, please take advantage of the skilling. (18:46) The partners that leverage our skilling the best (18:48) are also the ones that have earned designations, (18:51) earned specializations, generating more revenue (18:54) and more profit. (18:55) There’s a very, very logical connection there. (18:58) So I encourage everyone to do that. (19:00) The second thing is, obviously I talk a lot about CSP. (19:05) We’re quite excited about the investments here. (19:08) I really encourage our CSP partners (19:11) to focus on developing the muscle of upsell. (19:15) The beautiful thing about CSP (19:17) is that it’s this always on motion. (19:19) So when you’re renewing an ME3 customer, as an example, (19:24) we wanna help you get all of the tools you need (19:28) to do the upsell. (19:29) And that could be attaching co-pilots. (19:31) It could be attaching a mini bundle. (19:32) It could be upsell to ME5. (19:34) There are a wealth of tools available to our partners (19:38) to help you do that. (19:39) And at the same time, we are skilling our own sellers (19:42) to do this work with you together. (19:45) This is the next wave of how we work together (19:48) with CSP as a hero motion in our business. (19:51) And then last but not least, (19:53) I have to say it again, customer zero. (19:55) It’s really, really important. (19:57) The partners that utilize this tech (20:01) are truly the ones that are the most credible (20:04) and really leading the way with customers. (20:06) I would encourage every partner out there (20:09) to go check out CoPilot Chat. (20:11) It’s free. (20:12) So there’s no blocker here. (20:15) And it’s a great way to familiarize yourself (20:18) with the easiest way to experience AI. (20:21) And it also allows you to build agents. (20:25) And the thing that’s really powerful about this (20:28) is agentic is the most asked about topic. (20:33) You know, if you go into the ABC just next door, (20:35) there isn’t an ABC with a customer (20:38) where they don’t ask us about agentic. (20:40) And so we’re in this zone of bringing in partners (20:45) that have already built their own agents (20:46) inside their own businesses. (20:48) Microsoft is doing this ourselves too. (20:51) And so the partners that are customer zero (20:54) on this technology are the best equipped (20:57) to co-sell with us and go to market with us. (20:59) So I’m quite excited about this. (21:01) And Nicole, you could have, (21:02) it’s almost like I gave you a list of things (21:04) to cover for people because we’re gonna cover (21:06) so many of these topics up on stage the next few days. (21:09) That’s awesome. (21:09) So, so great to have you back here. (21:11) Thank you. (21:12) Your leadership is commendable, (21:14) really commendable for what you’ve been driving (21:15) to the organization, (21:17) the alignment of the sales organization (21:19) and some of the work your team has been doing (21:21) just this year alone. (21:22) But everything you’ve done to support this ecosystem (21:24) in such a big way, (21:25) I applaud you for all the work that you’ve done, (21:28) the support of this Microsoft ecosystem (21:29) and these partners up here today. (21:31) So thank you so much for making the time for us (21:33) at a very busy time of year. (21:35) Thank you. (21:35) Thank you for all of your support (21:37) and just a massive thank you again to all of our partners. (21:41) Your success is phenomenal. (21:43) I’m so inspired by it and I’m beyond confident (21:46) in what you’re gonna deliver in the year ahead. (21:48) It’s gonna be an incredible year. (21:49) Yeah. (21:49) It’s just getting started. (21:50) So glad to have you help us kick it off. (21:53) Thank you. (21:53) And coming up on stage with me. (21:54) Thank you. (21:55) I so appreciate you. (21:56) Thank you. (21:56) Thank you. (21:57) I have to take my beautiful award. (21:58) Yes, yes. (21:59) Thank you. (22:00) I love to see it up on your mantle. (22:02) Absolutely. (22:02) Thank you so much. (22:04) Thank you so much. (22:05) How about a round of applause for Nicole? (22:07) Is that incredible?nd some procurement things, right? Because they just went in, did it through the portal with the existing agreement, so it’s a little easier on them. So that’s kind of where you, yeah, they didn’t get the Mac decrement, but it, it is a better story for them . Key Tags: Microsoft, Partner Ecosystem, AI Transformation, Nicole Deason, Microsoft Partners, Generative AI, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), MCAPS Priorities, Customer Zero, Skilling, Business Growth, Profitability, SMB, Fiscal Year 2026, Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, Innovation, Industry Solutions, Channel Partners, System Integrators, ISVs.