256 – AI Trends, Marketplaces & The Future of Partnerships | Insights from Top Industry Leaders

Join Ultimate Partner’s 8th Anniversary Episode.

“This is the era of the fastest technology transformation in history.” – Nicole Dezen, Microsoft

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As we celebrate our 8th anniversary, we’re excited to bring you something truly special. Prepare for an epic video and audio compilation featuring some of the most impactful interviews and insights from the past year. This compilation is a treasure trove of wisdom from the brightest minds in the partner ecosystem.

The future of business is shaped by three unstoppable forces: AI, marketplaces, and the evolution of partnerships. We’re thrilled to feature top industry leaders in this special anniversary episode, including Microsoft’s Nicole Dezen, Cisco’s Rodney Clark, and EY’s Greg Sarafin. They will share groundbreaking insights on how AI drives innovation, how marketplaces are transforming go-to-market strategies, and how customer-centric partnerships are unlocking sustainable growth.

Whether you’re looking to stay ahead of AI trends, optimize your marketplace strategy, or future-proof your partnerships, this episode delivers the insights you need to thrive in 2025 and beyond.

Join us as we reflect on the journey and look forward to a future filled with possibilities. Thank you for being part of our community; your support has been invaluable.

Mark Your Calendars Now

TRANSCRIPT Anniversary Audio MP3

Vince: [00:00:00] What’s the key to driving exponential growth and innovation in today’s fast paced digital landscape? To commemorate our podcast anniversary, we’re diving into some of the most insightful episodes from the past year, focusing on three transformative themes. AI Trends to Watch in 2025, Harnessing the Power of Marketplaces, and How to Unlock Sustainable Growth.

Vince: Let’s dive in and master the future together. 

Vince (2): We believe this time is like no other. We believe, we refer to these as the tectonic shifts. 

Jay: All the hyperscalers in the world, if you add them all together, managed services will be one and a half times larger. 

Rodney: Because it is the customer buying behavior that has created the need for all of us to rethink our models.

Niti: Until we have data quality, the effectiveness of AI cannot be realized, and effectiveness of the partnerships cannot be realized. 

Mike: Can you figure out first what your purpose is and how Microsoft can support your purpose [00:01:00] and how you can support Microsoft purpose? Now we have a partnership. It’s the ultimate partnership.

Vince: Welcome to the Ultimate Partner. I’m Vince Menzione, and my mission is to help leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. Well, we’ve been on a tear this year, as we took this podcast from a spare bedroom to a full production studio. And I’m so grateful for your support and the incredible guests that have made our over 250 episodes possible.

Vince: Three topics continue to dominate our discussions. AI, marketplaces, and effective partnerships. And with over 50 amazing interviews and our live events, we’ve been fortunate to have some of the industry’s top leaders share their insights in our deep dive on AI trends for 2025 will revisit discussions on how AI is reshaping businesses.

Vince: ensuring security and meeting evolving customer needs. Our all star lineup includes [00:02:00] Nicole Deason, chief partner officer and corporate vice president, global partner solutions at Microsoft, as she talks about the immense partner opportunities and innovations brought forth by the recent advancements in AI.

Vince: My good friend, Rodney Clark, senior vice president, partnerships, and small and medium business at Cisco, who says it’s essential to put the customer at the center of everything as shifting customer expectations and buying behaviors necessitate rethinking partnership models and enabling partners to connect seamlessly.

Vince: Jay McBain, Chief Analyst at Canalys, as he highlights the fast growing tech industry and the need to focus on high growth areas. cybersecurity services and a I to achieve significant growth rates. Finally, Ducks Raymond Cy, chief brand officer at AvePoint, who shares the importance of investing internally to embrace a I [00:03:00] preparing customers and partners to optimize their data and developing a I powered industry solutions to address specific customer needs.

Nicole: This is the era of the fastest technology transformation in history. You know, if you think about previous technology shifts, whether it’s shift to mobile, shift to cloud, shift to the internet. You know, the, the platform shift and the transformation shift to AI is just so exciting, and the, the fun of my job is I get to work with partners to help them build solutions, services, IP, delivery practices.

Nicole: On our, on our AI platform, helping them enable customers to participate in this incredible innovation. 

Vince: You know, I’ve been chronicling the shifts. I call it the tectonic shifts we’ve been seeing, right? And it really started before COVID, right? We talked about transformation was happening at a pretty good.

Vince: Pace. Uh, COVID really accelerated things. [00:04:00] Satya said seven years of transformation in seven months. Our lives have changed dramatically. We don’t even recognize that any longer, right? Or the way we operate, the way we work, all those things have changed. Uh, but to your point, like the last 18 months have been an astounding rate of change.

Nicole: Yeah, 

Vince: we go back to the A. I. Moment. It was November of 2022. And then last year, Satya took us through a master class, right? With chat, G. B. T. Open A. I. Microsoft leaned in in a big way here. We can’t have a conversation today without talking about the importance of A. I. Can you expand on this immediate opportunity here for partners?

Nicole: Absolutely. It is really an exciting time. And you’re right. The last 18 months has just been this drumbeat of new innovation, new capability. And with every single one of those announcements, there’s partner opportunity that’s come with that. And it’s, it’s thrilling, truly thrilling. 

Vince: We make the same type of decisions about buying technology that [00:05:00] we do about buying a vehicle.

Vince: Absolutely. Where we talk to the seven or eight seats at the table, our friends, our trusted. To make those decisions. And this is why partnering is so important now and ensuring that all those seats at the table are your trusted as well. Those are the organizations that you go to market with that are surrounding your customers.

Vince: I want to talk about that now and how, how you’re viewing this. I know you know about this and you’re bringing it, infusing it into Cisco. 

Rodney: Yeah, well, it’s important that all of us put the customer at the center of this. It’s because it is the customer buying behavior or the shift in, in, in customer expectation.

Rodney: That has created a need for all of us to rethink our models on at the end of the day, it’s no longer point product. There’s no one thing that we sell anymore that is going to solve a problem at the customer. Data and AI is driving a lot more sophistication in terms of what companies need, and the more that companies invest in data and AI, [00:06:00] they need the assurance that things are going to be connected, protected, and distributed.

Rodney: Uh, and secure. Yeah. And so for us, what we’ve been looking at is how are customers buying and how are they ultimately making decisions today. It’s not even the traditional, uh, you know, I. T. buyer. It’s line of business decision makers. Uh, it can be the marketing department making decisions on something like a demand gen, uh, you know, data repository that then connects back into some I.

Rodney: T. system that they then use to connect it to you. their overall commerce cloud. It can be a number of things, but for us at Cisco, it’s how are we enabling our programs to adjust to those buying patterns and needs? How are we enabling partners to connect to other partners? I was in a conversation yesterday with our good friend Jay McBain from Catalyst.

Rodney: And we talked about the number of organizations, like a midsize organization typically has seven [00:07:00] plus or minus partners or companies that are engaged in helping them sustain their outcomes. When you get into large enterprises, it can be anywhere upwards of 20 to 25. And so for us, as we look to manage and map to those, our program has to evolve.

Rodney: And we’ll evolve so that we’re making those logical connections and creating a scenario where we’re basically serving up those seven entities, those seven companies that are going to go deliver outcomes, or we’re facilitating the connection of more. That’s a really significant shift from years past. 

Vince: So let’s talk about 2025.

Vince: I mean, we’re here now. I mean, I can’t believe that this last half of the decade went so fast. Mm hmm. What, what’s on the crystal ball? What do you see? 

Jay: Well, the numbers speak volumes. The world economy is probably going to grow about 2. 6 percent next year, GDP wise. It’s at 105 trillion right now. The tech industry is going to grow by 8.

Jay: 2%. So more than triple what the world economy. [00:08:00] It will again for the 10th year running be the number one fastest growing industry, attracting even more professional services folks and people interested in these multipliers. But inside that 8. 2 percent growth, we keep asking partners. You know, what are they going to focus on to, no one wants to grow at 8%.

Jay: No. You know, everyone wants to grow at double digits and there’s, you know, certain partners out there looking at triple digit growth next year. So what they want to anchor on is those parts of the market, the buyer, the industry, you know, the geographies, the segments, the product sets that are going to grow by significantly more than eight.

Jay: So the trifecta that’s being built in kind of what we’ll call that core channel, uh, that’s been around 40 years. Is cyber security continues to grow by double digits while it grows by close to 10%, cyber services grow at 13 and managed security services grows at 15. Makes sense. So again, you’re growing one and a half times faster than, [00:09:00] um, than the vendor.

Jay: So in the services market, you know, next year will be about a 5. 4 trillion industry globally, uh, in all of tech and telco, uh, hardware makes up a trillion. Software makes up a trillion, services make up three trillion. So, in that scenario, services are outgrowing products. Partners are outgrowing their vendors.

Jay: Very interesting. And what they’re trying to do is hook their caboose to the vendors that, you know, 

Vince: are growing the fastest. Talk more about how you’re infusing AI into your business and how you’re thinking about the future growth and opportunities. 

Dux: As, as we discussed, right, there’s AI. But specific to us, you know, there’s really Three things we’re doing today that we think will help us grow and maximize this AI opportunity.

Dux: So first, we’re really investing internally, equipping app pointers to embrace AI. I’m not just talking about devs. I’m talking about devs to business teams, you [00:10:00] know, accounting, finance, marketing, and we’re, you talk about drinking the Kool Aid, we’re all in. Like what’s so cool is we use CoPilot, uh, are one of my finance colleagues.

Dux: He’s, he’s like the most power user I know, but it’s awesome. Because to us, sure, we can sell AI related products, but the mindset has to change. That’s right. This is just a totally different way of working, thinking, and coding. And it changes every day. It does. It does. And for example, prompting is important.

Dux: While AI is cool, it’s really not that smart yet. Yeah. You have to give proper prompts, right? So that’s the first thing we’re doing. We’re investing internally, making sure we’re adopting our mindset. will really embrace AI and, uh, how we can benefit from it. Second is to a lot of customers, it’s still a novelty, right?

Dux: It’s new, but we need to help them prepare their data. 

Vince: They’re building their muscle too. 

Dux: They are. I mean, everybody’s excited, right? [00:11:00] But at the same time, people don’t realize is. It relies on data, and we all know that if you lift the hood under the covers, everybody’s a digital hoarder. Their data estate is a mess.

Dux: And the good news is. It’s that draw, that empty draw, that junk draw. That’s right. Well, I don’t know if you’ve seen the show Hoarders. Yes, that’s exactly what it is. Exactly what it is. People don’t want to admit it, but, but that’s what we’re seeing, right? A lot of organizations are piloting co pilot and then suddenly they realize, Hold on number one.

Dux: How come it’s pulling. Information from 20 years ago, or number two, we’re seeing information we’re not supposed to. 

Vince: Yeah, that’s, that’s a big issue, right? That’s right. That’s right. You don’t want people to see what the CFO’s compensation is. Yeah. You don’t want them to be able to see the secrets of the organization hasn’t released yet.

Vince: Right. Microsoft went through an internal challenge with a, with a press release. 100%. That wasn’t ready for release. And then everybody saw it ahead of time. Yeah. Just this year. 

Dux: And, and just so you know, it’s not, it’s [00:12:00] not about people being malicious. Yeah. It’s just that there’s so much information. People don’t know what’s out there.

Dux: Are the permissions set up right? So what we’re doing from an AI perspective, is not only we’re equipping customers, but also partners to get their data prepared, secured, and optimized. 

Vince: As we examine the value of marketplaces, we’ll also explore how changing buying behaviors, the dominance of hyperscalers, and innovative routes to market are transforming customer outcomes and business growth.

Vince: You’ll hear from Cisco’s Rodney Clark, emphasizing the importance of enabling partners to leverage various routes to market, such as managed services and integration services through marketplaces to offer secure networking and AI solutions. Jason Rook, Senior Director, Product Marketing at Microsoft, who talks about leveraging the channel partner sales model and the Microsoft commercial marketplace to capture new opportunities in the enterprise space.

Vince: Aaron [00:13:00] Figer, strategic advisor to Tackle. io and Sanjay Mehta, former chief cloud officer at Tackle. io, as they highlight the evolving marketplace dynamics, where customers seek solutions from multiple ISVs, wrapped with services, driving significant growth in B2B marketplaces, with larger, more complex deals around the world.

Vince: As well as Greg Sarafin, Global Vice Chair, Partner Ecosystems at EY. Who stresses how AI and platform business models are democratizing value creation, reshaping industries, and fostering the emergence of new business models on a global scale. You’re hitting the nail on the head here about getting the partner ecosystem engaged in this whole marketplace opportunity.

Vince: Do you want to expand on that? 

Rodney: Yeah, we, we have to get them involved and engaged. A big part of my business here at Cisco, uh, is in something that we call routes to market. What are the routes to [00:14:00] market that are driving customer outcomes, or how, in essence, are our customers buying, back to your previous question, and what are they buying through?

Rodney: Managed services for our ecosystem is big because our customers are needing and wanting more integration services, especially as they get involved and engage in things like AI. Uh, a route to market could be, hey, does this, uh, do we involve at scale, uh, a distributor who goes through, you know, a second tier of reseller?

Rodney: To get to a point solution, a route to market could be something like, Hey, the ISV as the actual primary integrator. 

Vince: Yes. 

Rodney: Uh, you name it. Our focus is on routes to market. And what we’ve really been building out for our partners is a muscle around this marketplace route to market. You know, what are we doing to help them get ready and prepared for that?

Rodney: Some of it is in just the core, uh, uh, you know, relationship building. Three way between. an AWS, Cisco, and said partner. Some of it [00:15:00] is in getting our partners really, really enabled on our core technology. In order to drive something through a marketplace transaction, uh, transaction, Cisco is double downing, uh, double, uh, doubling down on, on networking and security.

Rodney: And so we’ve got to get our partners really You know, built up around capability so that they can sell secure networking solutions through Marketplace. We’ve got to get our partners really enabled on AI. Yes. And, and, and what it means to be a Cisco AI partner so that they can participate in this opportunity that is Marketplace.

Rodney: So it gets a bit. You know, multifaceted and multidimensional, but it’s all something that’s squarely, uh, you know, a priority for Cisco. 

Vince: We talk about the mid market, the huge opportunity in the mid market. We talk about the marketplace moment, and it’s really driven, not because of Microsoft, Amazon, or Google, so much as the changing in buying behavior.

Vince: All the things that are happening, [00:16:00] right? The dominance of the hyperscalers, the cloud commitments, the role of marketplaces. The decision making process changing and the ability to consume against that, but it’s right now. It’s just a it’s it’s just a one to one between an ISV or an SI. And a Microsoft, Amazon, or Google, right?

Vince: We, we forget about this buying process and we forget about the influence strategy that’s happening. What the customer is really doing is they’re not directly buying from these ISVs necessarily. They’re buying through their trusted relationships, their existing agreements, the people that have been surrounding their organizations for years and years and years, these trusteds.

Vince: And they’re not necessarily somebody at the ISV. So what are you doing to accelerate and capture this opportunity? 

Jason: So me in particular, in the role that I’m serving today, I think. The focus is on this channel partner sales model and the way that we kind of think about Marketplace, we think [00:17:00] about Marketplace as a product and within Marketplace, there’s within that product, there’s a number of features and they’re really kind of two core features that enable a non ISV channel partner.

Jason: We’ll call them a channel partner to go sell Marketplace or an ISV app through Marketplace. And the one is the CSP motion. I mentioned that that’s been around for a long time. I remember when we. When we instituted 

Vince: CSP. 

Jason: Yup. And that ability to attach that third party app has been there only recently. And when I say recently, two and a half years ago, February, 2022, we launched the private offer functionality with that.

Jason: So now you can do a custom deal. The channel partner can earn margin. The customer can pay below list price, all those types of things. And then in July, last July, we launched what we call multi party private offers. That functionally allows. Any Microsoft partner to sell an ISV application through marketplace into an enterprise customer, which where it gets really interesting because the enterprise space we have customers that have cloud consumption commitments, right?

Jason: And they can use those commitments to [00:18:00] purchase ISV apps. So when I say any partner, it really. Like we designed that feature with an incredibly low bar because we want everybody to participate in this motion, right? When I say all you need is a Microsoft AI cloud partner program ID, formerly known as an MPN ID, which you can get one of those.

Jason: I have one. Yeah, you have one of those. So you can go transact the deal today. We should do it. Let’s go decorate somebody’s Mac. 

Vince: Yeah. Well, what’s important here too, is that it means that Microsoft is going to do the direct billing to the customer. 

Jason: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So you don’t have to collect. Microsoft’s going to do the collections.

Jason: Microsoft’s going to pay you on defined terms. I mean, 

Vince: and they’re going to pay you on time, on time, and it might come early with a discount. Firstly, can’t do it alone. We all know that partnerships are important to everybody. Even those of us in the technology side of partnerships. Uh, and then, and then the fact that this journey is, uh, evolving and the role of channel we thought was going to, this is going to kill the channel.

Vince: No, it’s invigorating. It’s sparking the ecosystem. It’s sparking 

Sanjay: the channel. In fact, you can see in marketplaces, we’re going from single [00:19:00] software vendors, selling a single software title on a single deal to a single customer. And that’s great, but it’s not where we need to be. Like ideally, a customer wants to buy a solution that has multiple things from multiple ISVs.

Sanjay: Probably wrapped with some services that potentially come from a channel and might need to buy it with credit terms, or maybe it needs to be metered. You’ve been 

Vince: working with some of the largest ISVs. I want to, I want to go back on this moment and this kind of this, uh, really the evolution of where we are moving from the brochure, brochure where, to where we are today, a hundred billion dollar.

Vince: Potential by 2026 is tackles call. Yeah, whether it’s whether we get there exactly or not, probably doesn’t matter. It’s just that this is a huge opportunity. What are you seeing? You work with some of the biggest and the best ISVs that are out there doing this. Yeah, it’s interesting. 

Sanjay: The first pick a number of 3000 ISVs to marketplace were mostly infrastructure vendors.

Sanjay: What we’re seeing now is more and more business application providers. Salesforce announced late last year that they teamed up with AWS to go through the marketplace. [00:20:00] Um, Uh, we do a lot of work with Zoom Info. So another great business application going through the marketplace. So we’re seeing that the next horizon we think is very likely vertical industry applications.

Sanjay: A little more traditional. Those industries move a little slower. Sometimes they sell 10 year deals to utility companies. So just the evolution of that’s going to take a little bit of time. That’s right. You hear about data marketplaces and ML marketplaces. So I think we’re really. You’re going to see a proliferation of the types of things you can buy through these marketplaces, which is going to be a big change.

Sanjay: We’ve seen deal sizes go up. So there are a lot of myths around these things. Like it’s only really startups selling to small customers. Not true, right? It’s also the biggest company. It’s also the biggest companies in the world and also the biggest buyers in the world and all around the planet, right?

Sanjay: Marketplace is not a U. S. phenomenon anymore. It’s a global phenomenon. The best ISVs in terms of performance are doing 50 percent in the U. S., maybe 25 percent or so in Europe. Another 25 percent in ANZ and APAC. Uh, so we’re seeing that we’re seeing bigger deals like in the early days, it was 20, 000 transactions, 40, 000 transactions.

Sanjay: Now we’re seeing [00:21:00] 100 million transactions. So the, the type of business that’s going through is changing. So I think just the validation, even though it’s early, we think only about 2 percent of global B2B commerce went through these channels last year. We think 100 billion might be under called in 2026.

Sanjay: We’ve seen massive acceleration in marketplace throughput, um, but the validation of this is a channel that’s here to stay and to grow, I think is really firmly validated and now you’re seeing more and more vendors jump on. 

Vince: The emergence of marketplaces, which will be a hundred billion dollars according to Tackle.

Vince: io by the end of 2026, might happen actually sooner. We had five companies go to a billion dollars last year. Yeah. So it’s crazy what’s happening in terms of the change. What would you say about what we’re seeing right now? 

Uh, I’d say buckle up. Buckle up. Um, you know, uh, I think we’re in a tech time. I think we are in a tectonic shift.

I think it caught the first tremor was cloud [00:22:00] when we democratize democratized the globalization global access to infrastructure at a near zero cost to get started. We did something really important in tech. And now I think AI and it’s still early, but I think AI Changes everything. Yes it changes uh The type of value you can create for your customer You know, it’ll fundamentally I think it’ll fundamentally even shift industries.

I think industries that we don’t even know about will exist and other industries that Did exist will become suppliers to those industries. Like I think there’s going to be I can’t 

Vince: Every company is going to be a platform company or they’re going to 

be, 

Vince: we used to say tech company, but I really think that everybody’s changing the models are changing dramatically.

Vince: Yeah. 

And, and, you know, you know what my favorite platform platform company is. What’s that? RYOBI. RYOBI. Go to Home Depot. Oh yeah. Those yellowish greenish [00:23:00] tools with the batteries. That’s a platform. That is a platform company. That’s a platform model. Absolutely. I, I am stuck on that platform. I have more damn yellow tools than you can, anybody ever should.

You’re locked in. And I’m locked in. Locked in. I’m on that platform. And so yes, I think the concept of platform business models creates stickiness. and ease, right? They’re easy and they’re sticky. And so they’re really effective models. Now, not every business will be a platform business or have a platform business, but you will, you will, I think, see that business model be the predominant winner in, uh, unless it doesn’t make sense for a particular use case, right?

Vince: We’ll also uncover key strategies to unlock sustainable growth and innovation, highlighting the shift from traditional sales models. to dynamic trusted advisor roles that will create unprecedented opportunities. We’ll learn from Cassandra Golston, [00:24:00] CEO of PartnerTap, as she and I discuss the shift from vendors to trusted partners and the importance of automating co selling to drive business growth.

Vince: EY’s Greg Serafin goes on to detail the importance of strong risk and controls, frameworks, regulatory compliance, and efficient operational structures in forming successful partnerships, managing complex deals and maintaining transparency to achieve sustainable growth. Janet Shine, CEO and co founder of JS Group.

Vince: Emphasizes the need for a trust driven ecosystem, stressing that true partnerships involves treating partners as part of the team, integrating multiple parties seamlessly, and focusing in on commercializing innovation within the ecosystem. Finally, the one and only Dr. Michael Gervais, founder of Finding Mastery.

Vince: Who discusses the critical intersection of high performance well being, [00:25:00] emphasizing the importance of investing in the psychological well being. Of employees to drive sustainable growth and create an environment where they can both thrive personally and professionally. Getting rid of the old mindset within the organization, the old CRO.

Vince: Right. That used modern marketing like Marketo and Aliqua and HubSpot, and then relied on an SDR, BDR, and a, and a seller at the end of it, that, that, that. That playbook goes away, 

Cass: right? Because buyers are getting younger. They don’t trust sales people. I mean, this is, this is the research coming out, you know, from, from Forrester Maria Chin.

Cass: Um, and, and so. It’s all, so there’s this shift, right, from vendor to partner, and the partner actually oftentimes has that trusted advisor relationship, 

Vince: so. Well Microsoft got [00:26:00] it early, right, so I had it in the DNA of Microsoft, but Microsoft even struggled in the early days. And look at them, the most 

Cass: valuable company.

Cass: In the 

Vince: world. 

Cass: Exactly. Yes. Everyone’s looking to Microsoft going, what are they doing? And I have a little secret to tell you Vince that even at Microsoft, everybody’s operating on spreadsheets when we’re talking about co selling. And this is where, you know, we talk a lot about, um, Co sell and co selling, so co sell being this transaction, this, you know, one and done through marketplace and co selling being this verb where it’s an action and it’s top of funnel, you know, where.

Cass: Should we be running plays? How do we orchestrate those plays before an opportunity is even created? That’s the future of co selling. Could never, [00:27:00] it’s, it’s what we were doing on spreadsheets. Yes. Or trying to do on spreadsheets. Completely not scalable. They’re, the, like, it’s hard to drive strategy around that.

Cass: And so, you have. These co sell desks, which are extremely reactive instead of, you know, where we see this heading is with automation, you know, companies like partner tab have come out, um, you know, and we’ve been around since 2016 building and, you know, enterprise ready for scale. So it’s, it’s, it’s such an exciting time that we can move these companies from, you know, these random backs of co sell, which we call everyone’s.

Cass: Sending spreadsheets around and trying to do this top of funnel activity. Um, and now with automation, with a platform where you can identify securely share account opportunity, date [00:28:00] data, align, um, drive white space plays, drive upsell cross sell plays, drive multi partner plays where you’re engaging top of funnel.

Cass: It’s yeah, that’s. That’s, that’s where we’re 

Vince: going to, yeah, that’s where we’re talking ecosystem, which is why we, we use the term spark the ecosystem. I love 

Cass: that. 

I was very fortunate to, you know, you don’t usually say you’re fortunate when you have an internal audit, but I had three internal audits over the course of seven years.

And each one I was glad for, because when people would say, well, is your data accurate? Yeah, I’ve, I passed internal audit three times. Nice. 

Vince: Nice. 

Right. I love it. Um, internal audit is your friend. Third line of defense is actually your friend. Um, in many instances, particularly when you’re trying to do something where people have disbelief.

So the other piece here is we’re a regulated entity, right? Right. Again, we go back to that. We have the great privilege of creating transparency in public markets, but that is also creates a lot of regulatory, uh, [00:29:00] hurdles that we need to work through in order to do partnering. And uh, correctly so, by the way, uh, so I have to also provide for an adequate first line of defense.

Right. To make sure that we don’t cross any regulatory boundaries. And do something that would harm our clients and harm our enterprise. So I also, that’s one of the less, you know, interesting and fun things, but it also contributed to us creating real structure because we had to have a really strong risk and controls framework, really good processes, great transparency.

We, I mean, we, you know, I’ll give you an example. We had a private equity firm acquire, uh, uh, an entity that we had a relationship with, and because that private entity firm, uh, was restricted, because we audited some of the other entities in the fund, we had to terminate the relationship with this particular firm.

Yep. And. We were able to [00:30:00] demonstrate to the firm. We had hundreds of resale contracts and you know local country addenda You know how there’s a lot of paper a lot of commercial paper a lot of activity in these relationships We knew where every single contract was in every single country and we could show a plan to Shutting all of that down within the transaction window fantastic, right and that’s for 10 basis points Well, you’ve you created an engine We created an engine because you know, and this is the engineer in me.

That’s right. Right building PCs. I’m a dealer I’m a deal person. I’m a deal maker. I think you can tell that the My my oxygen is when I go out and do a flywheel deal with a microsoft or a dell or a service now Right flywheel deals are like I love them But I also know that at some point I won’t be able to do them if the cost yeah And the complexity drags it down.

The ops have to be right. Ops 

Vince: have to partner. Ops have got to be any organization, right? The ops have to be right. So partner needs to be [00:31:00] a standalone organization or thought of that way. That’s 

right. 

Vince: And get your own ops, right? 

Yet it doesn’t own sales motions. The revenue function owns sales motions. It doesn’t own product.

Product owns product, right? It doesn’t own any of these things, but it creates the framework. And the processes to let them all come together and not even know they’re coming together in a sense, because it’s just, which is how we do it. Right. And when people are just like, like, they don’t even think about it, then, you know, you’ve, then, you know, you’ve crossed that chasm and now that organization is unlocked to be able to take that journey.

You know, I talk about things like mindset, 

Cass: commitment, trust, 

Vince: and execution is four areas. When we talk about this CPO role that I think we need a lot of work here. 

We need a lot of work. 

Vince: Uh, go back to Greg and Greg, you’re getting a lot of kudos here today, but I think about the ability that we talked about the influence strategy and the ability to be credible, to have trust.

Right. 

Vince: With that [00:32:00] leader, that partner leader. Correct. It cannot be the person who was the channel chief last week, now just changing their title. 

Well, and that’s, we’re seeing that, right? We’re seeing people say, Hey, let’s do that. And what I’m trying to explain to explain or help the C suite and the board, I sit on several boards, right?

And having that conversation, being asked to present to other boards, being asked to be an advisor to a board on this topic is, it’s not about routes to market. 

Vince (2): That’s right. 

That’s been true. Not to say you’re not going to have routes to market. Right. Of course you are, but your strategy for partnering is not about routes, routes to market.

It’s about commercialization of innovation. 

Vince (2): Yes. 

How will you commercialize innovation amongst your ecosystem? And that starts with a trust ecosystem. So who will you treat as a partner? And this gets them every time as well and as poorly as you treat your own employees. Wow. Because a good partner should be a part of your team.

Vince: Yeah. What’s the answer you get when you ask that question? We 

can’t do that. Right. Then you’re not ready. You’re not [00:33:00] ready. You’re not ready. Right. Right. So how do you make that happen? How do you make it so that your partners, I want people to be confused about who works for which brand. Yes. 

Vince: Yes. This is right.

Vince: This is the joint value proposition. True 

integration. Right. And it’s multiple parties. That’s right. And so what we’re seeing now is some heroes. We’re starting to see the alliance manager who has long been tasked with this. 

Vince: Yeah. 

Webbed, weird, fuzzy roll, fuzzy roll, press releases and product releases and trying to manage one of your biggest.

Customer slash partner slash developer slash slash they’re starting to rise up as heroes because this kind of nebulous territory has been something that they’ve, they’ve broken their teeth on, right? And they do have a little more ability to work in the gray zone and that’s the key. The channel chief, a lot of times, and some of them will retrain, some of them will retrain and be fine.

I have no doubt of that. There’s always the exceptions, but the rule is. The channel chiefs have been in a black and white arena for a long time. 

Vince: And a lot of it is the [00:34:00] vendor partner role or vendor channel role, which is more one sided. 

Correct. And I am not, so that the audience hears me, not saying that the channel chief role goes immediately away tomorrow overnight, because that would be a primary function.

Right. It’s a primary function. It’s like, it would be like saying your direct sales leader’s role is going to go away. Of course, that’s not going to go away. So any significant route to market that you have is still going to have a. sales leader, 

Vince (2): right? 

That makes sense. It’s the layer above that. It’s the understanding that you could be in a, in a sale, right?

There could be 37, as I mentioned earlier, partners. And so in that scenario, you don’t get to be in charge. And this is the hardest conversation I have because the C suite is so used to. We’re going to let the channel sell that product. We’re going to give the channel this discount or give the channel this commission.

We’re going to block the channel. Always my least favorite discussion from key accounts because we own them. News alert. No one owns an account. [00:35:00] Want the audience to hear that. But those tenants, 

Vince (2): right? 

They don’t work in a partnering world and this is where my sales world, 

Vince: this is where the shift in mindset and it’s 

very hard because then, and especially my friends in the European markets, right there, they don’t like stories.

Americans like stories, right? Storytellers, they want like metrics and measurements and like, how am I supposed to measure that? And what I say to them is, look, I read your last 10 press releases where you made an announcement with whoever and your metrics already are messed up because I took your last 10 press releases and then I went and talked to your head of sales.

And I said, they announced 10 things. Ooh, with IBM, we’re doing this. We’re doing this with Microsoft. We’re doing it all over the news. How many sales did you make? Not very many. 

Vince: Goose eggs. Goose eggs. Yeah. 

And so you’ve been doing these press releases, you have been in effect partnering, you haven’t figured out how to commercialize that.

Vince: That’s right. 

And that’s where the alliance leader, the 

Vince: chief revenue officer, the CFO, that’s where everybody, so this [00:36:00] is that whole influence strategy, corraling that whole group together in the right And if you 

really want to see everybody’s eyes roll, then you start to talk about, okay, so advocates. Who might be your advocates?

Who else is there? Who else should you partner with? Some of them are very unnatural. They’re not who you would naturally think. And who are your detractors? And they’re like detractors. What do you mean? Do you not think the CISO is a detractor for you sometimes or whoever their security consultant is a detractor for them making progress?

Vince (2): That’s right. 

Oh yeah. And how about the website guy? Whoever’s running their website and e commerce, do you not think the website e commerce provider is not a detractor for your service? You’re saying we could put chatbots in, they have their own approach to it. Your call center application, your CKAS application fails.

Do you really think they like you when they just did a web campaign and they’re getting judged on ROI? You have detract natural detractors. So partnering is not just about the positivity, right? It’s also about the negativity and how do you manage the negativity? How do you lower the noise and the friction in the system?

Vince: So, uh, we could riff all [00:37:00] day here on this topic. I mean, we can talk about mindset, execution, uh, executive commitment. Cause that’s, this all ties into this. And we divorce some of this from business, right? We think about this as maybe health related. We don’t, we don’t bring it into the room in the corporate world in a way, but you did, in fact.

Vince: And I want to come back to a time when you got to work with us when I was part of the pilot program. I remember you walking around the room that day, and you were coming, we were like in small groups, and you were walking around and checking in on us. And you said, Hey, yeah, I’m going to be meeting with Satya Nadella next week, like first time, right?

Vince: You hadn’t worked with the leadership team. That’s right. Yeah. And so we were already in, I think we were in Northern Virginia at a really nice resort doing this. This thing that we were doing around high performance with you, um, and then, you know, flat, uh, fast forward now, right? It’s, uh, over 10 years. I think it’s been, has it been 10 years?

Vince: It has, 

Mike: yeah. 

Vince: And, uh, Microsoft was at a very different point in time, but Satya [00:38:00] seemed to embrace what you were doing in a big way. And I thought maybe you’d spend a few moments here because a lot of what you just mentioned from a personal performance he took into the corporation. And he asked you to help him align it to his executive team, his leadership team, and embrace around this big mission, their vision for Microsoft at the time.

Vince: I thought maybe you’d spend a moment there because I think it sets us up for the rest of the conversation. So Satya 

Mike: is, I think, one of, if not the, um, most meaningful CEOs of our time right now. So, and I don’t say that because, um, of the working relationship, but the way that he values, the human experience and the solution slash product.

Mike: Um, and, and he’s not wanting to extract the best out of people for. Wall Street or for a better product, he is [00:39:00] fundamentally committed to invest in his people in a way that I hadn’t seen before. And so when we first sat down, um, the idea was how do we create for the 224, 000 people at Microsoft, how do we create an experience for them while they’re here that they will feel like this was an incredibly enriching part of their life?

Mike: Maybe the most meaningful part of their professional career, like how do we create that environment? And the simple. The simple, reflective answer was like, let’s invest in their psychological well being for greater performance. Okay, so wait, how do those two things cross? I want to introduce a phrase, um, which is high performance well being.

Mike: High performance well being. What does that mean? So it’s not, we used to believe that high performance began where wellness ended. And that was something we all swallowed in the elite sport world. You really want to be a high performer. Hey, there’s some sacrifices that [00:40:00] you have to make, like, are you really up for it?

Mike: We were wrong. We were flat out wrong. And high performance well being, the combination of those two words. is the intersection that I’m most fascinated by. To commit to mastery, we need to have a sustainable growth arc. And that sustainable growth arc with as much progression and agitation for growth that you can have requires a base of well being for higher performance.

Mike: And what does that base consist of? Uh, it’s basic recovery, connections with other people, and mindfulness a la awareness practices. So that’s kind of the base of awareness. Uh, We are majoring in the minors, if you will, for much of the best practices for people to be better. So what do I mean by that? The big rocks are the major components.

Mike: Eating right. I mean, [00:41:00] it’s not cool, you know, to get the salad with the light vinaigrette or whatever and while everyone else is grabbing like the really tasty stuff. You’ve got to be really committed. In those moments, because you want something. Um, sleep. There’s so much I want out of life. There’s so much that you want out of life.

Mike: But shutting it down to get your 7. 4 hours or your 8. 2 or whatever the amount of hours that suit you well. It’s a really important, difficult thing to get in. And a world that is on and your second shift starts at like 845, you know, cause you haven’t answered an email yet. Cause you’ve been jammed with, with meetings and preparing for the family, you know, meals or whatever it might be.

Mike: I’m trying to get a little gym time in and the third variable is making sure that your, your carriage is fit to manage the stress required to live a great life. Um, and then the last practice is to knowing, [00:42:00] knowing how to use your mind to eloquently adjust. It’s all the curve balls that come up in life.

Mike: And so those are the big rocks for well being and then you can layer on top of it a psychology for high performance. And so that’s, I didn’t answer your question about Satya, but he wanted to make a fundamental commitment to helping people know how to use their mind well. They’re already really smart.

Mike: Intellectual horsepower, as you know, is through the roof. They’re systems thinkers. They’re trying to solve complicated stuff. It’s a complicated internal ecosystem. They are truly the multinational of multinationals. And, um, so he said, right, but we need to go from know it all to learn it all. We need to know how to use our mind to be great learners.

Mike: And if you want to have a, any type of culture, you can put in any fancy words. Satya chose growth mindset. You want any of those fancy words. [00:43:00] that matter to you and your organization. My proposition is you must train people’s minds to deal with the stress that comes with that aspiration. Because it’s under the moments of stress that we find out what we’re really made of.

Mike: I agree. Do we become prickly, scratchy, irritated, intolerant, frustrated, or do we stay graceful, do we stay connected, do we stay in a learning mindset, in a solution mode? And if you don’t have the psychological skills to stay in those high heat moments, well, people will never know what they’re capable of, is kind of an easy idea, I think, to understand.

Vince: Thank you for watching and listening to The Ultimate Partner. We’ve been on this journey together for eight incredible years. And we have exciting plans ahead for this year, including four live in person events. We’d also love for you to get more involved in our community, and here’s how.

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