Podcasts about Accenture

Everyone agrees we need more distributed energy. The harder question is: who pays for it?That's the question Molly Bauch has been wrestling with.As North American Connected Energy Lead at Accenture, Molly helped develop a new model that connects one of the fastest-growing sources of electricity demand with one of the country's biggest energy challenges.The idea is surprisingly simple.Data centers need community support and faster paths to power. Millions of low-income households need access to affordable solar and storage. What if those two needs could solve each other?In this conversation, Molly explains how Accenture, Grid Alternatives, and a growing coalition of partners are creating a playbook that helps data centers invest directly in distributed energy, lowering energy costs for families today while laying the foundation for tomorrow's virtual power plants.If it scales, this isn't just another financing model. It could reshape how we think about paying for grid infrastructure altogether.Expect to learn:

These tech stocks are buys on the pullback. Plus, is it still a "buy-the-dip" market? … What's driving the outperformance in small caps? … Steer clear of this SPAC… Accenture's (ACN) management should be fired… And the broken housing market. In this episode: Curzio Alpha has launched! [2:56] Is it still a "buy-the-dip" market? [6:30] These stats show just how wild market speculation has gotten [10:36] What's driving the outperformance in small caps? [14:53] These tech stocks are buys on the pullback [19:22] A special deal on your next vacation rental [23:48] This chipmaker is a screaming buy [25:01] Steer clear of this SPAC [33:07] Accenture's management should be fired [39:13] Grand Theft Auto VI will be a boon for Take-Two Interactive [46:17] Why is nobody talking about the horrible housing market? [54:08] This episode is brought to you by Savvy, the direct-booking marketplace for vacation rentals. Savvy helps travelers find the same kinds of homes they'd see on major rental platforms, without the extra markup ($500 savings on average!). Every listing is managed by a professional host, so travelers can book with confidence. And right now, Wall Street Unplugged listeners can get $50 cash back on their first stay with Savvy. Here's how to book: https://www.savvy.com/wsu Did you like this episode? Get more Wall Street Unplugged FREE each week in your inbox. Sign up here: https://curzio.me/syn_wsu Find Wall Street Unplugged podcast… --Curzio Research App: https://curzio.me/syn_app --iTunes: https://curzio.me/syn_wsu_i --Stitcher: https://curzio.me/syn_wsu_s --Website: https://curzio.me/syn_wsu_cat Follow Frank… X: https://curzio.me/syn_twt Facebook: https://curzio.me/syn_fb LinkedIn: https://curzio.me/syn_li

On this week's show special guest co-host Rob Joyce joins Patrick Gray and James Wilson to discuss the week's cybersecurity news. Rob served as an advisor to Donald Trump during his first term as president and also served at NSA for 34 years. While at the agency, Joyce led Tailored Access Operations (TAO), and later became NSA's Director of Cybersecurity. They cover: The surprisingly well done Fortibleed campaign Stolen Klue OAuth tokens lead to Salesforce data theft OpenAI wants to patch the planet runZero gets acquired by Accenture, congrats HD Moore! Much, much more! This episode is also available on YouTube. Show notes FortiBleed campaign used custom FortiGate sniffer to steal credentials | BleepingComputer FortiBleed: Fortinet device credential compromise expands into broader credential-attack guidance | unit42.paloaltonetworks.com Cybercriminals allegedly hacked tens of thousands of Fortinet firewalls used by major companies all over the world | TechCrunch Security Klue OAuth breach linked to 'Icarus' Salesforce data theft attacks | BleepingComputer Polymarket (@Polymarket) on X | X (formerly Twitter) The Korean telecom giant at the center of Anthropic's Mythos controversy | wrd.cm Beyond Fable: Can a Local LLM Replace Cloud AI for Security Code Reviews - SRLabs Research | SRLabs OpenAI Launches Full-Scale Effort to Patch Open-Source Bugs as It Takes on Anthropic's Mythos | wired.com Sponsored: Trail of Bits and OpenAI patch the planet | Risky Bulletin Intel agencies: Frontier AI models will reshape cybersecurity faster than expected | cyberscoop.com Embedding Forbidden Text in Spyware to Discourage AI Analysis | Schneier on Security A new unpatchable flaw in Apple chips opens the door to an iPhone jailbreak | TechCrunch Security USB worm spreads crypto-stealing malware via Windows shortcut files | BleepingComputer Android verification is coming: Google confirms timeline and supported app stores | Ars Technica California water utility probes breach claim by Iran-linked actor | Cybersecurity Dive Suspected cyberattack triggers false emergency alerts across parts of Brazil | The Record Tesco moving 40,000 server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's "abusive conduct" | Ars Technica Trump directs federal agencies to protect US data from quantum threats | therecord.media Accenture shells out $4.18B on three companies in big industrial cybersecurity push | cyberscoop.com

What if the reason your best ideas keep falling flat has nothing to do with the quality of the idea?In this episode, Michael Reddington sits down with John Bates, a globally recognized leadership and executive communications coach who has worked with organizations including NASA, Intuit, and Johnson and Johnson. John has delivered multiple TED Talks, coached executives and leaders on every continent, and built a career around one core conviction: communication is not logical. It is biological.This conversation will fundamentally change how you think about every high-stakes conversation you walk into. John breaks down why the ancient part of your brain makes decisions before your logical brain even gets a vote, why trying to establish your credibility usually destroys it, and why the most powerful thing a speaker can do is stop talking about themselves.John unpacks the neuroscience behind why people say yes, yes, yes and then no, how to build emotional credibility before you say a single persuasive word, and the difference between vulnerability that connects and vulnerability that costs you. If you lead people, sell ideas, or speak in front of any audience at all, this episode will give you a new framework for what it actually means to land your message where it counts.What You'll Learn in This EpisodeWhy communication is biological and why logic alone will almost never win a high-stakes conversationHow the paleomammalian brain makes decisions before the logical brain even registers themWhy the yes, yes, yes, no pattern in sales and negotiations is not a lie but a missing emotional connectionWhat emotional credibility is, why it needs to come first, and how to establish it fastHow insightful vulnerability builds trust faster than any credential or accomplishmentWhy your credibility is already established before you walk into the room and trying to prove it only hurts youThe difference between curating for your audience versus dumping everything you know on themWhy saying "I told you so" is proof you failed to communicate, not proof you were rightHow to reframe public speaking anxiety by shifting your attention from yourself to the people you are servingWhy the best ideas, candidates, and products often lose because communication broke down, not because they were wrongChapters(00:00) Why Communication Is Biological, Not Logical(04:24) How the Paleomammalian Brain Makes Decisions Before You Do(08:08) The Yes Yes Yes No Problem and What It Really Means(13:25) What Emotional Credibility Is and Why It Has to Come First(16:59) Origin Stories and the Power of Insightful Vulnerability(22:06) "Don't Insult the Listening" and the Lesson of Trusting Your Audience(26:56) Why Communication Is a Function of Leadership(28:33) Taking Responsibility for What People Hear, Not Just What You Say(33:05) How to Make the Complicated Simple by Curating, Not Dumping(41:37) How to Beat Public Speaking Anxiety by Serving Instead of PerformingAbout the GuestJohn Bates is an executive leadership communications coach, keynote speaker, and entrepreneur who has spent over 15 years helping leaders, teams, and organizations communicate in ways that actually move people. His clients include NASA, Intuit, Johnson and Johnson, Boston Scientific, and Accenture. He has delivered multiple TED Talks, been featured in media around the world, and built a global practice around the idea that great communication is not about saying the right things. It is about making sure the right things land. John coaches one on one, works with small and large teams, and produces free training content through his newsletter and website.Links and ResourcesJohnBates.com - https://www.johnbates.comExecutiveSpeakingSuccess.com - https://www.executivespeakingsuccess.comJohn Bates | LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbatesSponsor Links:InQuasive: http://www.inquasive.com/Humintell: Body Language - Reading People - HumintellEnter Code INQUASIVE25 for 25% discount on your online training purchase.International Association of Interviewers: Home (certifiedinterviewer.com)Podcast Production Services by EveryWord Media

Critical Minerals, Energy and A.I. – Liv Carroll, Critical Minerals Expert, former Managing Director - EMEA Mining Lead and Global Natural Resources Lead for Data & A.I. at Accenture   "The energy transition is certainly where critical minerals started, but now we're obviously supporting all of the digital technology and the AI infrastructure such as data centers and others…now, there are conversations addressing the minerals required to feed this ginormous population of over 8 billion that we have because that is actually not possible without mining certain minerals that then go into the fertilizers to ensure that we have sufficient yields to feed the population of the planet…There's another factor as well as them being at risk of a supply shock." Liv Carroll on Electric Ladies Podcast   There are uses of critical minerals that we may not think about, such as how they are critical to our food supply. Now we have a huge need for them with the rapid expansion of data centers and A.I. as well as the rest of our electronics, appliances, computers, automobiles, weaponry and aircraft. But they are also at the mercy of geopolitical and economic forces, and the climate. What do we need to know? Listen to Liv Carroll, a top critical minerals expert for over 20 years who recently served as Managing Director - EMEA Mining Lead and Global Natural Resources Lead for Data & A.I. at Accenture in this illuminating conversation with Electric Ladies Podcast host Joan Michelson. Liv has also served on the board of Women in Mining and on the board of the Global Mining Guidelines group for many years. You'll hear about: ●        How critical minerals are vital to our food supply for this massive population. ●        Where and how critical mineral supplies are at the mercy of geopolitical and economic forces, as well as climate change. ●        The role of critical minerals in "responsible A.I."….and so much more. ●        Plus, career advice, such as:   "I think it's really important to gather along the way a number of people that you feel it's not just that they wave a flag for you and they're a cheerleader, but you feel that they seriously, they see you, you don't have to explain yourself for what you meant by something that you said to them…the people who really get you, you don't have to elaborate.… And they are often not in the company you are working in at the moment.  They could in fact be a boss from a previous company….The other piece of advice I would say is continue adding strings to your bow. And they might not be the strings that you think you would want or need, but as you get into later stages in your career, they're the strings that will stand you apart." Liv Carroll on Electric Ladies Podcast   Subscribe to our newsletter to receive our podcasts, blog, events and special coaching offers.   You'll also like: ·       Critical Minerals 101: Abby Wulf, Critical Minerals Expert, Former Head of Critical Minerals at the Dept. Of Energy, & Center for Critical Minerals Strategy ·       The State of Energy Today Might Surprise You - with Lisa Jacobson, President of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy on their 2026 Energy Factbook ·       Managing IT in the Midst of a Tech Revolution - with Elizabeth Hackenson, Chief Information Officer, Schneider Electric ·       What We Can Learn From Canada's Energy Policies – with Claire Seaborn, energy attorney and former Chief of Staff to the Canadian Minister of Energy and Natural Resources ·       Reducing The IT Sector's Carbon Footprint – with Monica Batchelder, Chief Sustainability Officer of HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprises) ·       Making Computers Sustainably – with Page Motes, Chief Sustainability Officer at Dell Technologies Subscribe to our newsletter to receive our podcasts, blog, events and special coaching offers. Thanks for subscribing on Apple Podcasts or iHeartRadio and leaving us a review! Follow us on Twitter @joanmichelson

Patrick Moorhead and Daniel Newman return from a packed week of travel, covering HPE Discover 2026 and Pure Accelerate hosted by Everpure. They break down the government-forced shutdown of Anthropic's Mythos 5, the Apple-Intel foundry signal, the xAI-Cursor acquisition, and whether enterprise AI spending is actually contracting or simply concentrating. Episode 309 of The Six Five Pod covers the week's events, market moves, and the structural questions that follow. The handpicked topics for this week are: Anthropic Mythos 5 Forced Shutdown: The U.S. government issued a 90-minute compliance window and a worldwide kill switch on Anthropic's Mythos 5 and Claude Fable 5 models, forcing them offline across all geographies. Patrick and Daniel examine what this means beyond the immediate headlines: model access has entered the same geopolitical variable set as semiconductor export controls, and every enterprise CIO now has a new on-premises infrastructure argument on the table. The shutdown also surfaced an unexpected counterpoint from the cybersecurity community, which argued that Mythos 5, operating in a defensive capacity, was itself a protection layer against the use of adversarial models. Anthropic's decision to revoke access globally rather than implement citizenship-based authentication reflected both the 90-minute timeline and the practical impossibility of real-time identity verification at scale. (The Decode) HPE Discover 2026: The Agentic Infrastructure Story: Six Five Media spent multiple days at HPE Discover in Las Vegas, live-streaming coverage that drew more than 30,000 viewers across the event. Patrick and Daniel break down HPE's most complete agentic stack story to date, covering its networking-led compute approach, expanded NVIDIA and Broadcom silicon partnerships, autonomous networking through Marvis, and Juniper's integration into the AMD Helios interconnect as a path into hyperscale deals HPE previously lacked access to. (The Decode) Pure Accelerate 2026 and the Everpure Data Primacy Pitch: At Pure Accelerate, Everpure made its clearest case yet for a data intelligence layer designed to reduce token costs in enterprise AI workflows by operating across any storage vendor, any enterprise application, and without being hard-coded into the underlying array. Patrick and Daniel assess the value proposition and the proof burden separately: the concept is differentiated, particularly against Snowflake and Databricks, in that Everpure does not require its own storage hardware, but the company still needs to demonstrate ROI at scale and earn permission to compete in a market where data platform players have already established category positioning. (The Decode) Apple and Intel: The 18AP Signal and What It Sets Up for 14A: The announcement that Apple will manufacture chips with Intel sent Intel's stock up roughly 10%. The hosts parse what that deal likely looks like in practice: 18AP as a test drive for lower-risk logic-layer parts, with the more consequential milestone being a potential M7 SoC on Intel's 18AP process. The underlying driver is the TSMC capacity constraint, with Samsung logic deals picking up across the industry for the same reason. The real inflection point that Patrick notes is 14A: if Intel's backside power delivery process reaches risk production and scales to iPhone volume by 2028, the strategic weight of the Apple relationship will fully materialize. (The Decode) xAI Acquires Cursor for $60 Billion: Elon Musk's xAI acquired Cursor for $60 billion using equity inflated by SpaceX's IPO run-up, a move Patrick characterizes as buying market position in a category where xAI arrived late, having missed the window on thinking models and tool calling. Cursor brought $4 billion in ARR, 7 million monthly active users, and 50% Fortune 500 penetration into the deal. The open question remains whether xAI can convert that installed base into a durable enterprise AI stack or whether it remains primarily a GPU capacity provider selling at well above neo cloud market rates, with the Google-SpaceX deal drawing additional scrutiny as a related-party transaction preceding the IPO. (The Decode) The Flip: Is Enterprise AI Spending Contracting or Concentrating? Patrick takes the position that enterprise AI is entering a rationing phase, pointing to Accenture's bookings decline, Microsoft cutting developer access to cloud code, Uber blowing through cloud licenses, and the emergence of AI cost management as a venture category as converging proof points. Daniel argues the opposing case: dollar volume is growing even as project counts fall, hyperscaler CapEx guidance continues to accelerate across Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta, and what reads as contraction is the market moving from subsidized pilots to production deployments tied to measurable P&L outcomes. Both agree the hard ROI era is arriving, and the real debate is whether that transition reads as discipline or deceleration on the way in. (The Flip) Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's First Meeting: New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh held rates steady in a unanimous decision but delivered remarks that the market viewed as hawkish, sending the S&P lower and two-year yields up 16 basis points before a partial recovery the following day. Patrick and Daniel note the structural signal beneath the reaction: Warsh is establishing the Fed's independence from political pressure while also signaling an intent to move away from survey-based data that arrives three to six months stale, in favor of more real-time economic inputs. Daniel draws a direct line to the kind of forward-looking data infrastructure that firms like Palantir, Databricks, and Snowflake are positioned to provide at the institutional level. (Bulls and Bears) Iran-Israel-U.S. Developments and Oil Below $80: A Memorandum of Understanding between Iran, Israel, and the U.S. briefly sent oil below $80 and signaled a potential opening of the Strait of Hormuz, though by the time of recording, reports were already emerging that the situation may be reversing. Patrick and Daniel keep it brief: the market has largely looked through the geopolitical noise, rallying through the period of conflict, and the oil price signal matters more to the macro environment than the diplomatic specifics. (Bulls and Bears) Accenture Earnings — The Services Layer Faces the Agentic Reckoning: Accenture beat on earnings but missed on revenue. The company reported a bookings decline of 2%, trimmed its 2026 revenue guide by 3-4%, and saw its worst single-day stock reaction in years. Patrick and Daniel use the result as a structural lens rather than a single-quarter data point: agentic AI and enterprise technology vendors are absorbing exactly the work that large professional services firms have historically owned, and the market is beginning to price that displacement ahead of the labor data catching up. Patrick flags this as the canary in the coal mine for the global services industry broadly. (Bulls and Bears) SpaceX IPO Volatility and Valuation Reality: The SpaceX IPO debuted at $135, surged above $210 on its first day of trading, and finished the week around $181. At its peak, the company briefly surpassed the market capitalizations of both Amazon and Microsoft before pulling back. Patrick and Daniel unpack the gap between the premium investors are assigning to Elon Musk and the company's underlying fundamentals. Despite generating roughly $50 billion in annual revenue, SpaceX remains unprofitable, and upcoming lock-up expirations could introduce meaningful volatility, particularly on the downside. Patrick points to long-term comparisons with Amazon and Tesla, while noting that many retail investors are still near break-even. The discussion explores how much of SpaceX's valuation is based on future potential versus current performance—and how much room remains for investor expectations to reset before fundamentals catch up. (Bulls and Bears) Watch the full video at sixfivemedia.com, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode. The Decode  US Government Forces Anthropic to Disable Claude Fable 5 + Mythos 5 Worldwide — First-Ever Federal Shutdown of a Commercial Frontier AI Model; 90-Minute Compliance; EU + UK Sovereign-AI Talks Accelerate https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access  HPE Discover 2026 — Neri Bets the Company on Networking as the AI Control Plane; Juniper Integration Operational; Vultr Standardizes on HPE + NVIDIA https://www.crn.com/news/networking/2026/hpe-ceo-antonio-neri-five-boldest-statements-from-hpe-discover-2026 Everpure - Pure//Accelerate 2026 — First Conference Under New Name; "Data Primacy" Vision; Data Stream Built on NVIDIA AI Data Platform; Data Intelligence GA https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/everpure-unveils-data-primacy-architecture-for-the-ai-era-302803097.html  Apple's Chip Supply Chain Realigns in One Week — Intel 18A-P Enters Risk Production June 16; White House Confirms Apple-Intel Foundry Deal June 18 (INTC +9% to Record $135); Cook Says iPhone/Mac/iPad Price Hikes "Unavoidable" on RAM Crunch https://www.investing.com/analysis/appleintel-chip-manufacturing-deal-reshapes-foundry-race-200682398 SpaceX Buys Cursor for $60B All-Stock Four Days After IPO — Largest Developer-Tooling Acquisition Ever; Cursor at $4B ARR / 50%+ Fortune 500; Musk's xAI Loses the Code War, Buys the Winner https://www.cnbc.com/technology/ The Flip Are enterprise AI budgets contracting — is the procurement boom ending and the rationing phase beginning? FOR: Yes — Accenture cut its guide and bookings declined today; Uber blew through AI budget in months; Meta killed its leaderboard. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260618029271/en/Accenture-Reports-Third-Quarter-Fiscal-2026-Results AGAINST: No — AI infrastructure capex is accelerating; enterprise demand is supply-constrained, not budget-constrained. https://ca.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/stifel-raises-jabil-stock-price-target-to-460-on-ai-growth-93CH-4698089 Bulls & Bears MACRO — FOMC Chair Kevin Warsh's Inaugural Meeting: Unanimous Hold at 3.5–3.75%, Statement Stripped of Cutting Bias; Dot Plot Flips to a 2026 HIKE at 3.8% Median; Warsh Refuses Own Dot; Worst Fed Day for a New Chair Since 1994 https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/17/fed-meeting-today-live-updates.html  MACRO — Oil Cracks Below $80: Brent $78 (3-Month Low), WTI $75; US-Iran 14-Point MoU Signed at Versailles; Strait of Hormuz Reopening; IEA Projects 5.05 Mbpd Supply Glut in 2027 https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/oil-plunge-below-80-already-174253019.html Accenture (ACN) Q3 FY26 ACTUALS — EPS $3.80 Beats $3.70 (+9% YoY); Revenue $18.72B Slight Miss; Bookings DECLINE −2% to $19.3B; FY26 Guide Trimmed to 3–4% Local; Stock −13.3% Open; $9B Cybersecurity Acquisition Push https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260618029271/en/Accenture-Reports-Third-Quarter-Fiscal-2026-Results  SpaceX (SPCX) Post-IPO Trading Action — Melt-Up to $225.64 Tuesday Intraday Briefly Surpasses Amazon at $2.85T; Round-Trips to $192 by Wednesday Close on Fed Hawkish Pivot; Morningstar Fair Value $62 (~69% Implied Downside) https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/15/evercore-isi-says-landmark-spacex-ipo-could-reignite-bull-market-send-sp-500-to-9000.html  

Accenture (ACN) is down nearly 60% from its recent highs, scraping the absolute bottom of its 52-week lows after its June 2026 earnings release. A tech advisory giant that powers nearly every major Fortune 500 company is suddenly being priced by Wall Street like a dying legacy software company.The mainstream narrative is simple: Gen-AI will replace consultants, automating custom software code and rendering Accenture completely obsolete.But when institutional panic overrides quantitative reality, long-term dividend growth investors look at the data. In this video, we strip away the emotional headlines, look directly at my personal portfolio exposure where I am actively doubling down, and open up the dashboard to see why this might be one of the most asymmetric value opportunities of the decade.We look under the hood at Accenture's 92/100 Quality Score, its perfect 100/100 financial stability rating, its pristine ROIC, and a historic 5.22% forward dividend yield that is compounding at a double-digit rate.Is Accenture a structural value trap or a generationally mispriced compounder? Let's dive into the hard math.

What happens when expertise is no longer scarce?In this episode of The Executive Brief, Kelli Jackson explores the “Advisor's Paradox” through the lens of Accenture and the broader consulting industry. As AI makes information more accessible than ever, the real question isn't whether consultants or leaders will be replaced, but how value is evolving.This episode breaks down why execution, judgment, and the ability to drive outcomes are becoming the true differentiators and what that means for senior leaders navigating the future of work.If you're finding value in these conversations, make sure to subscribe to the newsletter and join a growing community of over 15,000 senior leaders receiving weekly career intelligence, market insights, and strategic perspectives designed to help you stay ahead.

Interview with Ankita Gupta, CEO of Akto How to Navigate Shadow AI Risk in the enterprise This week, we discuss AI governance in the enterprise, starting with the nuts and bolts of how to discover and understand shadow AI. Following that, we dive into what security and tech leaders should do next with this information: apply guardrails? Limit vendor options? Ankita has a wealth of experience and anecdotes to share here, from years of working with customers and seeing all the unexpected things that happen with AI in today's workplace. Segment Resources: Website: https://www.akto.io Book a Free Demo: https://www.akto.io/agentic-security-demo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/akto-io YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@aktodotio This segment is sponsored by Akto. Visit https://securityweekly.com/akto to secure your AI agents before attackers do. Topic Segment: Verizon's Breach Impact Study The same team that delivers the DBIR every year gave us a bonus, based on over 70,000 insurance claims! Some of my favorite insights: Cost of breaches, broken out by SMB, mid-sized enterprise, and large The claim amount as a percentage of the company's revenue Losses broken down by loss TYPE This data validates something I think everyone in cyber needs to understand: cyber events are rarely business-ending events. Every cybersecurity professional and vendor, frustrated by companies "not taking security seriously enough" now have data explaining why: breaches don't hurt as much as you thought they did. Maybe you think they should hurt more? Push for regulation/fines/etc. With that said, the report also shows breach costs increasing significantly over the past 6 years and the quantity of incidents shooting up. Specifically, the median impact has almost doubled. Security failures aren't getting any cheaper. Weekly Enterprise News Finally, in the enterprise security news, A $100M seed round! Accenture acquires 3 security vendors Some thoughts on the government takedown of Fable and Mythos One of the craziest security mistakes I've ever seen, in the software FIFA uses to manage World Cup streams! A Critical Copilot vulnerability 75,000 Fortinet Firewalls get compromised Remediation is broken Using guardrails to evade detection All that and more, on this episode of Enterprise Security Weekly. Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/esw-464

At the Eurelectric Power Summit 2026 in Helsinki, Laurent had the opportunity to sit down with Catherine MacGregor, CEO of ENGIE and Vice President of Eurelectric, for a wide-ranging discussion on the key issues shaping Europe's energy future.  We began with the themes at the heart of Eurelectric's agenda this year: security of supply, affordability, competitiveness, and the challenges and opportunities created by the rapid growth of data centres.  One of the most striking insights from our conversation was that Europe does not have an electrification technology problem — it has an electrification coordination problem. This was also the central conclusion of the report Power Couples: Enhancing Industrial Competitiveness through Electrification, launched by Eurelectric and Accenture at Power Summit 2026. The report finds that electrification projects rarely fail because technology is unavailable. Instead, they stall when power economics, grid access, infrastructure delivery, financing structures, and industrial investment timelines are not aligned.The proposed solution is a new delivery model: “Power Couples”, bringing together industrial players, utilities, technology providers and capital partners to accelerate deployment at scale.  We also reflected on ENGIE's remarkable transformation under Catherine's leadership over the past five and a half years. The company's strategy has been defined by two parallel moves: more than €15 billion of divestments from fossil and legacy assets, alongside concentrated investments in renewables, networks, batteries, and regulated infrastructure — all while maintaining strong financial discipline, with net debt-to-EBITDA around 3.  The results have been impressive. Since 2021, ENGIE has delivered the strongest risk-adjusted equity performance among major European utilities, combining substantial dividend distributions with significant share-price appreciation. With an annualised IRR of roughly 20.5% since January 2021, ENGIE has outperformed the net returns of many leading global infrastructure investors, effectively delivering private-equity-style returns with public-market liquidity.  Our discussion also covered ENGIE's leadership in power purchase agreements (PPAs), its support for 24/7 Scope 2 accounting, the recent acquisition of UK Power Networks, progress in EV charging infrastructure, and its fully integrated strategy for data centre development.  Finally, we explored ENGIE's investment plans for the years ahead and the broader structural shift underway across the energy system: the continued transition from molecules to electrons.    Eurelectric Report: Power Couples https://www.eurelectric.org/publications/industrial-electrification-power-couples/

Interview with Ankita Gupta, CEO of Akto How to Navigate Shadow AI Risk in the enterprise This week, we discuss AI governance in the enterprise, starting with the nuts and bolts of how to discover and understand shadow AI. Following that, we dive into what security and tech leaders should do next with this information: apply guardrails? Limit vendor options? Ankita has a wealth of experience and anecdotes to share here, from years of working with customers and seeing all the unexpected things that happen with AI in today's workplace. Segment Resources: Website: https://www.akto.io Book a Free Demo: https://www.akto.io/agentic-security-demo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/akto-io YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@aktodotio This segment is sponsored by Akto. Visit https://securityweekly.com/akto to secure your AI agents before attackers do. Topic Segment: Verizon's Breach Impact Study The same team that delivers the DBIR every year gave us a bonus, based on over 70,000 insurance claims! Some of my favorite insights: Cost of breaches, broken out by SMB, mid-sized enterprise, and large The claim amount as a percentage of the company's revenue Losses broken down by loss TYPE This data validates something I think everyone in cyber needs to understand: cyber events are rarely business-ending events. Every cybersecurity professional and vendor, frustrated by companies "not taking security seriously enough" now have data explaining why: breaches don't hurt as much as you thought they did. Maybe you think they should hurt more? Push for regulation/fines/etc. With that said, the report also shows breach costs increasing significantly over the past 6 years and the quantity of incidents shooting up. Specifically, the median impact has almost doubled. Security failures aren't getting any cheaper. Weekly Enterprise News Finally, in the enterprise security news, A $100M seed round! Accenture acquires 3 security vendors Some thoughts on the government takedown of Fable and Mythos One of the craziest security mistakes I've ever seen, in the software FIFA uses to manage World Cup streams! A Critical Copilot vulnerability 75,000 Fortinet Firewalls get compromised Remediation is broken Using guardrails to evade detection All that and more, on this episode of Enterprise Security Weekly. Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/esw-464

Interview with Ankita Gupta, CEO of Akto How to Navigate Shadow AI Risk in the enterprise This week, we discuss AI governance in the enterprise, starting with the nuts and bolts of how to discover and understand shadow AI. Following that, we dive into what security and tech leaders should do next with this information: apply guardrails? Limit vendor options? Ankita has a wealth of experience and anecdotes to share here, from years of working with customers and seeing all the unexpected things that happen with AI in today's workplace. Segment Resources: Website: https://www.akto.io Book a Free Demo: https://www.akto.io/agentic-security-demo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/akto-io YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@aktodotio This segment is sponsored by Akto. Visit https://securityweekly.com/akto to secure your AI agents before attackers do. Topic Segment: Verizon's Breach Impact Study The same team that delivers the DBIR every year gave us a bonus, based on over 70,000 insurance claims! Some of my favorite insights: Cost of breaches, broken out by SMB, mid-sized enterprise, and large The claim amount as a percentage of the company's revenue Losses broken down by loss TYPE This data validates something I think everyone in cyber needs to understand: cyber events are rarely business-ending events. Every cybersecurity professional and vendor, frustrated by companies "not taking security seriously enough" now have data explaining why: breaches don't hurt as much as you thought they did. Maybe you think they should hurt more? Push for regulation/fines/etc. With that said, the report also shows breach costs increasing significantly over the past 6 years and the quantity of incidents shooting up. Specifically, the median impact has almost doubled. Security failures aren't getting any cheaper. Weekly Enterprise News Finally, in the enterprise security news, A $100M seed round! Accenture acquires 3 security vendors Some thoughts on the government takedown of Fable and Mythos One of the craziest security mistakes I've ever seen, in the software FIFA uses to manage World Cup streams! A Critical Copilot vulnerability 75,000 Fortinet Firewalls get compromised Remediation is broken Using guardrails to evade detection All that and more, on this episode of Enterprise Security Weekly. Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/esw-464

In this exclusive Manufacturing Talk Radio, we look ahead to a critical conversation centered on the latest ISM Supply Chain Planning Forecast. This comprehensive outlook serves as a major barometer for commercial confidence, offering a dual-sector perspective on where the economy is headed, how corporate leaders are budgeting, and how businesses are adjusting their operational strategies. Join us as we break down the overarching trends from this pivotal forecast and discuss what these insights mean for the broader economy moving forward. About this Episode's Guests Susan Spence is currently serving as ISM Manufacturing PMI Chair and is a winner of the J. Shipman Gold Medal Award. Her distinguished career includes serving as vice president of the Sourcing & Procurement group at FedEx Corp. With 28 years of experience at United Technologies Corporation (UTC) in leadership roles across supply management and operations, Spence offers unparalleled insight into manufacturing trends and economic activity. Steven Miller is currently serving as ISM Services PMI Chair and is an accomplished supply chain management executive. His distinguished career includes 40 years of experience in procurement, supply chain management, IT implementation and operations, and operations management consulting at Disney, P.F. Chang's, Accenture, and Kearney. With 40 years of experience in procurement, supply chain management, IT implementation and operations, Miller offers unparalleled insight into services trends and economic activity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

El episodio 119 llegó con historia, escándalo y datos que no te podés perder.Arrancamos con el hito más grande del momento: Elon Musk se convirtió en el primer trillonario de la historia. SpaceX salió pública a 2.3 trillones de dólares y lo puso en una categoría donde nadie más existe. Lucas lo dijo mejor que nadie: él está más cerca de Larry Page que Larry Page de Elon. Un número que no tiene sentido hasta que lo escuchás.Después hablamos de por qué SpaceX no es solo una empresa espacial. Es la única compañía verticalmente integrada de principio a fin para la era AI: tiene datos, centros de cómputo, energía solar, telecomunicaciones satelitales y exploración espacial bajo el mismo techo. El bull case es simple y brutal.Luego viene el escándalo de la semana. El fundador de Cloudflare contó públicamente que Vinod Khosla, uno de los VCs más respetados del mundo, intentó convencerlo de echar a sus co-founders a cambio de quedarse con todo el equity. Y cuando lo negó, publicó el term sheet como prueba. Una historia que debería leer todo founder antes de levantar su primera ronda.También hablamos de un caso cercano que sirve de advertencia real: un co-founder que quiso salirse de una startup que no funcionaba y recibió amenazas legales de sus socios y los VCs para que perdiera su vesting. La lección es clara — antes de arrancar una compañía, hay que tener las conversaciones incómodas.En el frente de IPOs, Anthropic y OpenAI hicieron sus filings privados casi al mismo tiempo y están obligando a los banqueros a elegir bando. Lucas se queda con Anthropic. Cristóbal también, aunque reconoce que la flexibilidad moral de Sam Altman en el mundo de Trump puede ser una ventaja.Después analizamos a Bending Spoons, los italianos que compraron Evernote, Vimeo y WeTransfer entre otros, y los están exprimiendo con AI desde Milano a una fracción del costo americano. Un modelo de negocio que muchos subestiman y que ya factura más de un billón de dólares al año.Cerramos con tres temas que tocan directamente la vida cotidiana. AI destruyó el modelo de las grandes consultoras — Accenture cayó 18% en un solo día y los puestos entry-level están desapareciendo, lo que pone en jaque el ROI del MBA. Los smartphones y la caída global de la natalidad tienen una correlación que empieza a asustarnos a todos. Y los propios CEOs de las redes sociales no le dan pantallas a sus hijos, que es la señal más honesta que existe sobre lo que realmente piensan de sus productos.

Interview with Ankita Gupta, CEO of Akto How to Navigate Shadow AI Risk in the enterprise This week, we discuss AI governance in the enterprise, starting with the nuts and bolts of how to discover and understand shadow AI. Following that, we dive into what security and tech leaders should do next with this information: apply guardrails? Limit vendor options? Ankita has a wealth of experience and anecdotes to share here, from years of working with customers and seeing all the unexpected things that happen with AI in today's workplace. Segment Resources: Website: https://www.akto.io Book a Free Demo: https://www.akto.io/agentic-security-demo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/akto-io YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@aktodotio This segment is sponsored by Akto. Visit https://securityweekly.com/akto to secure your AI agents before attackers do. Topic Segment: Verizon's Breach Impact Study The same team that delivers the DBIR every year gave us a bonus, based on over 70,000 insurance claims! Some of my favorite insights: Cost of breaches, broken out by SMB, mid-sized enterprise, and large The claim amount as a percentage of the company's revenue Losses broken down by loss TYPE This data validates something I think everyone in cyber needs to understand: cyber events are rarely business-ending events. Every cybersecurity professional and vendor, frustrated by companies "not taking security seriously enough" now have data explaining why: breaches don't hurt as much as you thought they did. Maybe you think they should hurt more? Push for regulation/fines/etc. With that said, the report also shows breach costs increasing significantly over the past 6 years and the quantity of incidents shooting up. Specifically, the median impact has almost doubled. Security failures aren't getting any cheaper. Weekly Enterprise News Finally, in the enterprise security news, A $100M seed round! Accenture acquires 3 security vendors Some thoughts on the government takedown of Fable and Mythos One of the craziest security mistakes I've ever seen, in the software FIFA uses to manage World Cup streams! A Critical Copilot vulnerability 75,000 Fortinet Firewalls get compromised Remediation is broken Using guardrails to evade detection All that and more, on this episode of Enterprise Security Weekly. Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/esw-464

„Wir wollen das Zara der Möbelbranche werden: Immer schnell die neuesten Trends bieten, bei guter Qualität und vernünftigen Preisen.“ In dieser Folge von Behind the C begrüßt Franz Kubbillum Stephan Widmer, Gründer und CEO der Beliani Group. Was mit dem Verkauf von Apple-Computern im Jugendalter und ersten E-Commerce-Projekten bei Accenture in den USA begann, entwickelte sich früh zu unternehmerischem Pioniergeist. Gemeinsam mit seinem Bruder baute Stephan die erfolgreiche Auktionsplattform Aktion 24 auf und veräußerte sie nach nur zwei Jahren an Ricardo. Heute führt er mit der Beliani Group eine international etablierte Möbelmarke, die komplett eigenfinanziert in 19 Ländern aktiv ist, rund 800 Mitarbeitende beschäftigt und über 170 Millionen Euro Umsatz erzielt. Stephan erklärt, wie datengetriebene Sortimentswechsel und eine hochgradig optimierte Logistik in Hafennähe die Grundlage für nachhaltiges Wachstum in einem hochkompetitiven Online-Möbelmarkt bilden. Stephan blickt im Gespräch auf eine faszinierende Reise als Seriengründer zurück und berichtet von den kuriosen Anfängen, als die Softwareentwicklung aus Kostengründen kurzerhand nach Sibirien verlagert wurde. Er beschreibt offen die Herausforderungen beim Skalieren einer hardwareintensiven E-Commerce-Plattform und wie sich seine Rolle mit dem rasanten Wachstum der Teams stufenweise verändert hat. Ganz privat erfahren wir, warum der engagierte Unternehmer trotz eines extremen Zwölf-Stunden-Arbeitstages beim Mountainbiken oder Skifahren in den Bergen den perfekten Ausgleich findet und weshalb er heute dank moderner KI-Tools selbst wieder mit dem Programmieren kleinerer Apps begonnen hat. Drei Fragen, die in dieser Folge besprochen werden: - Wie transformiert man ein klassisch saisonales Online-Handelsgeschäft durch intelligente Sortimentserweiterungen und gezielte Logistik-Investitionen in eine paneuropäische Plattform? - Warum ist die kritische Umsatzschwelle von 500 Millionen Euro für die Liefergeschwindigkeit beim Endkunden so entscheidend und wie plant man dafür die europäische Lagerinfrastruktur? - Wie verändern moderne No-Code- und KI-Tools das Einstiegsrisiko für die nächste Generation von Gründerinnen und Gründern und warum ermöglichen sie außergewöhnlich schlanke Lifestyle-Business-Modelle? Kernthemen: - E-Commerce - Bootstrapping - Skalierung ----- Über Atreus – A Heidrick & Struggles Company Atreus garantiert die perfekte Interim-Ressource (m/w/d) für Missionen, die nur eine einzige Option erlauben: nachhaltigen Erfolg! Unser globales Netzwerk aus erfahrenen Managern auf Zeit zählt weltweit zu den besten. In engem Schulterschluss mit den Atreus Direktoren setzen unsere Interim Manager vor Ort Kräfte frei, die Ihr Unternehmen zukunftssicher auf das nächste Level katapultieren. ▶️ Besuchen Sie unsere Website: https://www.atreus.de/ ▶️ Interim Management: https://www.atreus.de/kompetenzen/service/interim-management/ ▶️ Für Interim Manager: https://www.atreus.de/interim-manager/ ▶️ LinkedIn-Profil von Stephan Widmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanwidmer/ ▶️ Profil von Franz Kubbillum: https://www.atreus.de/team/franz-kubbillum/

Process and architecture folks excel at analyzing the as-is and optimizing it. But why? What if we skipped "As-Is" entirely and designed new processes from a fresh perspective?Scary? Our guest, Dr. Michael Rosemann, argues it's scarier to keep optimizing — because eventually you run out of things to optimize. Then what?Michael is the author/editor of twelve books in five languages and over 400 refereed papers. He's globally known for his work on BPM maturity models, context-aware BPM, process innovation, rapid process redesign, affective process design, and process modelling quality. He's presented at major global BPM conferences and delivered keynotes in 30+ countries, with research funded by Accenture, Cisco, Infosys, PwC, Rio Tinto, SAP, and Woolworths.In this episode, we cover:From efficiency to opportunity. After decades of classic BPM work, Michael pivoted from cost-cutting toward "crafting desirable futures" — partly sparked by his father asking if making companies more efficient was really the legacy he wanted. Three drivers of change: urgency (a burning platform), curiosity (testing the unknown), or ambition (a clear destination). Leaders without any of these stay "big, fat and happy" — and stuck.Root cause analysis of success, not failure. Instead of diagnosing what's broken, Michael's team studies "positive deviants" — top performers — and replicates their hidden practices org-wide using process mining.The seven types of opportunity (a counterpart to Lean's seven wastes), including "first data advantage" — examining what data your process already generates and who else might value it (e.g., an airline offering pet-sitting because it already knows who's traveling with pets).Process expansion, attention, and generalization — three opportunity types illustrated by Domino's "pizza tracker" (monetizing attention) and Uber's expansion from people to pizza, patients, and produce."Lot size of one." The goal isn't catching up to best practice — it's building processes so unique that no competitor, and no design thinking exercise, could replicate them (e.g., QUT's "upgradeable degree" concept).Opportunity appetite statements. Just as organizations have risk appetite statements, Michael argues they need the opposite — a deliberate statement of which opportunities they're willing to pursue, partly modeled on NASA's approach to balancing risk and ambition.Make the future tangible. Example: a six-minute video imagining a trauma patient's full recovery journey in 2033, used to rally stakeholders around a shared vision instead of incremental fixes.RX, EX, TX — Revenue Design, Emotional Experience, and Trust Experience. A framework for evaluating opportunities beyond pure transactions, including "transactional benevolence" (e.g., Netflix pausing billing for inactive subscribers, or a retailer refunding a price drop you didn't know about).Reframing the business case. To win leadership buy-in for trust- or future-focused initiatives, Michael suggests shifting from short-term cost to long-term opportunity cost — the price of not acting.AI as a thinking partner, not just a tool. Michael previews a prototype built with SAP Signavio that uses AI to proactively surface opportunities from an uploaded process model — "reverse prompting," where the tool greets you with an idea instead of waiting for a problem.The Future's Triangle. A framework for organizational inertia: the weight of the past, the distraction of the present, and the pull of the future — and why most companies only operate on the first two.Find Michael on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/michaelrosemann/Reach us at hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or subscribe at whatsyourbaseline.substack.com. Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/c/whatsyourbaseline.

Steve Engelbrecht started Sitation from a rental apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts — five weeks after being laid off in the chaos that followed 9/11. Today it's a 62-person commerce enablement firm with a client roster of household names and a defensible niche the big SIs can't easily replicate.Recorded live at Salsify's Digital Shelf Summit in Atlanta, Christian sat down with Steve — founder and CEO of Sitation — for a conversation about building a services-plus-software business in commerce, how AI is rewriting the buy-vs-build equation, and why a 62-person specialist can out-maneuver Deloitte Digital and Accenture Song in product data.What we cover: The Sitation origin story and the early bet on PIM before it was a category, the three pillars of the business today (systems integration, managed services, and proprietary software), why the software-services convergence is playing out in real time, the "headless PIM in 2026" conversation with Salsify's CEO and what AI agents, MCP, and CLIs mean for the future of product data, how AI lowered the bar for participation and changed buy-vs-build, the Philips case study — a 111% conversion lift on a single SKU by optimizing content, not price, why 90%+ of Sitation's team came from industry and how that makes them stickier than the big SIs, and how Steve thinks about Sitation's future: international expansion as a platform vs. fitting neatly into a larger strategic's plans.⏱️ TIMESTAMPS0:26 — Welcome from Salsify's Digital Shelf Summit in Atlanta1:00 — The origin story: first day of work September 10, 2001, laid off five weeks later2:11 — Early to commerce enablement — and Boston as a commerce software hotbed3:02 — What Sitation does today: the three business segments5:25 — The 2019 "pick a lane" problem and why software-services convergence vindicated the strategy6:16 — How AI is changing the buy-vs-build equation7:36 — The "headless PIM in 2026" conversation with Salsify's CEO8:33 — Salesforce going headless and the new customization opportunity for SIs10:00 — APIs, the MCP revolution, CLIs, and why schema matters for AI agents11:05 — How a 62-person firm out-maneuvers multi-thousand-person SIs11:42 — Why this is a massive market, not a zero-sum game12:30 — The Philips case study: 111% conversion lift on one SKU without touching price13:30 — Why multinationals choose a boutique over Deloitte Digital or Accenture Song15:46 — The strategic question: platform play or acquisition target?16:29 — International expansion as the organic (or capital-backed) growth path17:40 — Why Sitation's platform credentials make it an attractive, hard-to-replicate target18:45 — Why you can't build Sitation's early-mover position — you have to buy it

What is Donald Trump good at? In his second administration, he promised lower prices, stronger manufacturing, and an end to foreign conflicts. Instead, inflation has risen, blue-collar job growth has slowed, and the U.S. finds itself involved in another war in the Middle East. But there is one area where Trump has undeniably succeeded: increasing the wealth of the Trump family. Even as his approval ratings have fallen, Trump and his businesses have reportedly received billions of dollars in new investments and deals, raising questions about presidential ethics and conflicts of interest. Today, Derek is joined by Isaac Saul of Tangle to draft the most striking examples of alleged corruption and ethical controversies in the second Trump administration and ask a simple question: Are we witnessing an unprecedented era of presidential profiteering? Subscribe to our YouTube channel here:https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek ThompsonGuest: Isaac SaulProducer: Devon BaroldiAdditional Production Support: Ben Glicksman LINKS: https://www.readtangle.com/the-everything-everywhere-all-at-once-corruption-story/ This episode is brought to you by Accenture. https://Accenture.com/Spotify All Matches Streaming Live. Watch 3 Days Free. Offers are subject to change. See fox.com for complete terms and conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, we highlight another high energy day for the equity market, with semiconductor stocks screaming back higher and the US dollar continuing its move higher post-FOMC, even as we question whether the market is anticipating the future path of Fed policy appropriately. A focus on the worst performer in the S&P 500 today: Accenture, which was pummelled 18% to an almost nine-year low on fears of additional AI disruption even as the company scrambles for a new business model to have an answer for the age of AI. This and more on today's pod, which is hosted by Saxo Global Head of Macro Strategy John J. Hardy. Links John's latest The FX Trader update Accenture knocked post earnings as it is scrambling to redefine itself - good coverage from FT. Izabella Kaminska with more of her usual second order thinking on how to position the USD 300 billion package in the Iran deal. Odd Lots podcast interviews the venerable Jeremy Grantham, who has seen a think or two in his 87-plus years. WSJ profiles the success of the Lynas CEO in building its rare earths capacity. About twice per week (in normal times, hopefully soon to resume), you will find links discussed on the podcast and a chart-of-the-day over at the John J. Hardy substack. Read daily in-depth market updates from the Saxo Market Call and the Saxo Strategy Team here. Please reach out to us at marketcall@saxobank.com for feedback and questions. Click here to open an account with Saxo. Intro music by AShamaluevMusic DISCLAIMER This content is marketing material. Trading financial instruments carries risks. Always ensure that you understand these risks before trading. This material does not contain investment advice or an encouragement to invest in a particular manner. Historic performance is not a guarantee of future results. The instrument(s) referenced in this content may be issued by a partner, from whom Saxo Bank A/S receives promotional fees, payment or retrocessions. While Saxo may receive compensation from these partnerships, all content is created with the aim of providing clients with valuable information and options.

The Investing Power Hour is live-streamed every Thursday on the Chit Chat Stocks Podcast YouTube channel at 5:00 PM EST. This week we discussed: (00:00) Introduction (01:17) Roku's Acquisition by Fox Corporation (10:09) TripAdvisor's Sale of The Fork to American Express (20:55) Exploring the Denmark Index and Investment Opportunities (34:19) Accenture's Dividend Yield and Cash Flow Stability (35:49) Fiserv Executive Departures and Investor Concerns (41:17) Small Cap of the Week: Spectra Systems (47:09) Legacy Education: A Healthcare Roll-Up Opportunity (51:00) Salesforce's Acquisition of Fin (56:14) Snap's New AR Glasses: A Critical Look (01:01:10) Autodesk: Evaluating Investment Potential ***************************************************** Subscribe to Emerging Moats Research: emergingmoats.com  ********************************************************************* Chit Chat Stocks is presented by Interactive Brokers. Get professional pricing, global access, and premier technology with the best brokerage for investors today:  https://www.interactivebrokers.com/  Interactive Brokers is a member of SIPC.  ********************************************************************* Fiscal.ai is building the future of financial data. With custom charts, AI-generated research reports, and endless analytical tools, you can get up to speed on any stock around the globe. All for a reasonable price.  Use our LINK and get 15% off any premium plan: ⁠https://fiscal.ai/chitchat  ********************************************************************* Disclosure: Chit Chat Stocks hosts and guests are not financial advisors, and nothing they say on this show is formal advice or a recommendation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In der heutigen Folge sprechen die Finanzjournalisten Philipp Vetter und Holger Zschäpitz über die Trump-Rallye bei Intel, den Ritterschlag für QuantumScape und eine spektakuläre Hochstufung bei Marvell. Außerdem geht es um QuantumScape, Micron, KLA, Infineon, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Schaeffler, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris Technologies, Kroger, Honda, Applied Optoelectronics, SanDisk, Western Digital, Seagate Technology, Celestica, Vertiv, Argan, NextEra Energy, Dominion Energy, Xcel Energy, Capgemini, Cognizant, Infosys, Wipro, EPAM Systems, Globant, Concentrix, BILL Holdings, DXC Technology, Gartner, Robert Half, ManpowerGroup, Coursera, SoundHound AI, Duolingo, VeriSign, Goldman Sachs, Tata Consultancy Services, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Siemens. Wir freuen uns an Feedback über aaa@welt.de. Noch mehr "Alles auf Aktien" findet Ihr bei WELTplus und Apple Podcasts – inklusive aller Artikel der Hosts. Hier bei WELT: https://www.welt.de/podcasts/alles-auf-aktien/plus247399208/Boersen-Podcast-AAA-Bonus-Folgen-Jede-Woche-noch-mehr-Antworten-auf-Eure-Boersen-Fragen.html. Hier könnt ihr den AAA-Newsletter abonnieren: https://www.welt.de/newsletter/article232797673/Alles-auf-Aktien-Der-taegliche-Boersen-Newsletter-fuer-WELTplus-Abonnenten.html Und - ganz neu: AAA gibt es jetzt auch auf Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alles_auf_aktien/ Disclaimer: Die im Podcast besprochenen Aktien und Fonds stellen keine spezifischen Kauf- oder Anlage-Empfehlungen dar. Die Moderatoren und der Verlag haften nicht für etwaige Verluste, die aufgrund der Umsetzung der Gedanken oder Ideen entstehen. Hörtipps: Für alle, die noch mehr wissen wollen: Holger Zschäpitz können Sie jede Woche im Finanz- und Wirtschaftspodcast "Deffner&Zschäpitz" hören. +++ Werbung +++ Du möchtest mehr über unsere Werbepartner erfahren? Hier findest du alle Infos & Rabatte! https://linktr.ee/alles_auf_aktien Impressum: https://www.welt.de/services/article7893735/Impressum.html Datenschutz: https://www.welt.de/services/article157550705/Datenschutzerklaerung-WELT-DIGITAL.html

En este episodio de El Brieff revisamos cómo el T-MEC concluye su última ronda antes de la revisión formal en julio, BBVA México revisa el crecimiento a 1.2% y ve riesgo de perder el grado de inversión, el Rey Felipe VI se reunirá con Sheinbaum antes del partido de España en el Mundial, cuatro nuevos partidos podrían estar en la boleta de 2027, 20,000 transportistas mexicanos perdieron visas por exigencia de inglés, el acuerdo entre Estados Unidos e Irán levanta el bloqueo en Ormuz, Ucrania lanza 200 drones sobre Moscú, Accenture cae 15% por temores de IA, y Aldi invierte 9 mil millones para expandirse en EE.UU.STRTGY es una plataforma de inteligencia territorial para tomar decisiones más precisas sobre qué construir, dónde invertir y cómo maximizar el valor de cada ubicación. Escríbeme a arturo@strtgy.ai para agendar una conversación o conoce más en www.strtgy.aiRecibe gratis nuestro newsletter con las noticias más importantes del día.Si te interesa una mención en El Brieff, escríbenos a arturo@strtgy.ai Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Das Buch zum Podcast gibt's hier. Aktien hören ist gut. Aktien kaufen ist besser. Bei unserem Partner Scalable Capital geht's unbegrenzt per Trading-Flatrate und auf der hauseigenen European Investor Exchange, die genau auf Privatanleger zugeschnitten ist. Alle weiteren Infos gibt's hier: scalable.capital/oaws. Apple wird teurer wegen Speicherchipkosten. Intel legt zu nach Trump-Post. Alphabet verliert Top-KI-Entwickler an OpenAI. Accenture crasht. Ölpreis fällt nach Iran-Deal. Siemens Energy denkt über Abspaltung nach. Chemie & Autos haben's schwer. Auch durch BYD. Tennant (WKN: 858055) baut Reinigungsroboter für Supermärkte und Flughäfen. Eine ERP-Umstellung legte den Betrieb lahm. Jetzt KGV 15 und wachsender Robotik-Anteil. Chance nach dem Chaos? ASML (WKN: A1J4U4) hat sich 2025 verdoppelt, hinkt aber NVIDIA und Samsung hinterher. KGV 50, dafür stabiler als andere Chip-Aktien. Unterschätzt die Börse Europas wichtigsten Chip-Player? Diesen Podcast vom 19.06.2026, 3:00 Uhr stellt dir die Podstars GmbH (Noah Leidinger) zur Verfügung. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Ant Hopper of the 99ers sits down with ExchangeWire's Rachel Smith and Grainne Reid to discuss the UK social media ban for under-16s, Google's AI search changes and the data landscape as Accenture buys Whalar

En Capital Intereconomía repasamos las claves del día y la evolución de los mercados en Asia, Wall Street y Europa en una jornada marcada por la evolución de la tecnología, los mercados energéticos y las tensiones geopolíticas internacionales. En Estados Unidos, Intel lidera las subidas dentro del sector tecnológico mientras Accenture sufre un fuerte castigo bursátil tras decepcionar al mercado con sus previsiones. La tecnología sigue siendo uno de los grandes focos de atención de los inversores después de semanas de elevada volatilidad y de importantes movimientos corporativos vinculados a la inteligencia artificial. Las bolsas europeas afrontan la sesión con tono negativo y sin la referencia de Wall Street, mientras los inversores continúan evaluando las perspectivas económicas globales, la evolución de los tipos de interés y las consecuencias de los últimos acontecimientos geopolíticos. En el primer análisis de la mañana hablamos con Ignacio Vacchiano, country manager para Iberia de Leverage Shares, para analizar el comportamiento de los mercados tras la reapertura progresiva del estrecho de Ormuz y la consiguiente relajación de los precios energéticos. También abordamos la evolución del yen japonés, la situación de la inflación subyacente en Japón y el balance de las primeras sesiones bursátiles de SpaceX tras su histórica salida a bolsa. En el ámbito internacional, conversamos con Mario Fernando Pérez Melero, director de Inteligencia Geopolítica, sobre el nuevo escenario que se abre tras el acuerdo impulsado por Estados Unidos en Oriente Próximo. Analizamos el debate político y estratégico que se está produciendo en Washington sobre las consecuencias del conflicto, la evolución de la guerra en Ucrania tras los últimos ataques sobre territorio ruso y la búsqueda de una nueva estrategia europea frente a los desafíos que plantean Rusia y China.

La evolución de las divisas, el impacto del nuevo liderazgo en la Reserva Federal estadounidense y la situación de Accenture centraron el análisis de Ignacio Vacchiano, country manager para Iberia de Leverage Shares. El experto abordó el comportamiento reciente del dólar frente al yen japonés, así como las implicaciones que podría tener la llegada de Kevin Warsh a la presidencia de la Reserva Federal, en un contexto marcado por una mayor incertidumbre para los mercados. En el mercado de divisas, Vacchiano destacó la situación del yen y la estrategia monetaria que está siguiendo el Banco de Japón. Según explicó, la diferencia de tipos de interés continúa favoreciendo la salida de capitales hacia monedas con mayores rendimientos. En este sentido, señaló que “los tipos de interés te pagan el 1%, la gente vende esos yenes para comprar otras divisas que te paguen más interés. El banco de japón ha anunciado que seguirán subiendo tipos pero lo están haciendo tímidamente y con perspectivas de inflación aunque hoy veíamos un dato benigno del IPC en Japón que se debe sobre todo por los subsidios a la energía, en cuanto se acaben esos subsidios ya se espera inflación del 3.5%”. Por otra parte, el experto analizó la fuerte corrección sufrida por Accenture durante la última sesión bursátil, cuando sus acciones llegaron a caer un 17%. Al poner la evolución del valor en perspectiva, recordó que la compañía alcanzó máximos cercanos a los 400 dólares por acción en diciembre de 2021, lo que supone una caída acumulada cercana al 70% desde entonces. Vacchiano atribuyó esta debilidad a las crecientes preocupaciones del mercado sobre el impacto de la inteligencia artificial en el negocio de la consultora. En este contexto, explicó que “ lo que le pasa a Accenture es la preocupación de inversores y mercado en cuanto a cómo va afectar a su negocio la IA, lo que es paradójico porque accenture se encarga de implementar la IA en muchas compañías pero al mismo tiempo le está mermando su negocio de consultoría, esto es una advertencia para su negocio y para todos los demás”. Finalmente, la atención de los inversores continúa centrada en la Reserva Federal y en la dirección que pueda tomar la política monetaria bajo el liderazgo de Kevin Warsh. Según Vacchiano, la institución podría adoptar un enfoque más orientado a la acción y menos a la comunicación anticipada de sus decisiones. A este respecto, afirmó que “Lo que quiere la FED es hablar menos y actuar si hace falta,yo creo que puede influir en mercados porque al final le quitas previsión por parte de todos los inversores en cuanto a que movimientos va hacer la FED y esa sorpresa yo creo que en algún momento podrán dar movimientos bruscos de los índices”. Este cambio de enfoque podría incrementar la volatilidad en los mercados financieros, al reducir la capacidad de los inversores para anticipar los próximos movimientos de la autoridad monetaria estadounidense, en un escenario en el que las decisiones sobre tipos de interés seguirán siendo uno de los principales catalizadores para los activos globales.

En La Gran Tertulia de la Economía de Capital Radio, moderada por Laura Blanco y con la participación de Luis Garvia, profesor del IEB; Guillermo de Haro, vicedecano de IE University; y Gonzalo Garnica, consultor empresarial y editor, se aborda esta cuestión de fondo que trasciende el caso particular de Accenture y su reciente anuncio de centrarse en consultoría tecnológica como quinta vectora de negocio.

El responsable de Operativa DAX y analista independiennte examina los títulos de SpaceX, Accenture, Mapfre, Microsoft y fondos indexados, entre otros

Data centers might have a climate problem. With more than 80% of data centers worldwide in regions at high risk of drought, flooding, or wildfires. The implication of these trillions in investment being at elevated risk to weather related disasters could have some major downstream issues. Pluis, a dive into Accenture's earnings and the challenges facing the IT consulting industry.Listeners, we want your voices heard. The SEC is proposing that companies cut their regular reporting in half to two times a year. We think that's a mistake for individual investors.The SEC will take public comments on this issue until July 6th. We want to #savethe10q. Go to https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/06/15/motley-fool-save-the-10q/ to read our full statement and learn how to submit a public comment to the SEC.Companies discussed: META, TSMC, SPCX, TSLA, BMI, ITRI, VRT, ACN, EXLS, GLOB, IBMHost: Tyler CroweGuests: Matt Frankel, Jon QuastlEngineer: Bart Shannon Disclosure: Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. The Motley Fool and its affiliates (collectively, “TMF”) do not endorse, recommend, or verify the accuracy or completeness of the statements made within advertisements. TMF is not involved in the offer, sale, or solicitation of any securities advertised herein and makes no representations regarding the suitability, or risks associated with any investment opportunity presented. Investors should conduct their own due diligence and consult with legal, tax, and financial advisors before making any investment decisions. TMF assumes no responsibility for any losses or damages arising from this advertisement. We're committed to transparency: All personal opinions in advertisements from Fools are their own. The product advertised in this episode was loaned to TMF and was returned after a test period or the product advertised in this episode was purchased by TMF. Advertiser has paid for the sponsorship of this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tim Lidman lives in Denver, CO. He has had an unconventional path to being a Tech CEO. In fact, He moved from London to Sweden when he was 18... to try to be a heavy metal rock star, trying to make it big as a drummer. To earn extra income, he got into tech sales - which went really well. Eventually, he worked with WebEx (around the time it got bought by Cisco), for Success Factors (when they got bought by SAP), and then eventually, doing his own startup (which eventually got bought by Accenture). Outside of his professional life, he is married with 2 girls. From his music years, he extracts skills that drove his success to date, which is the ability to product development and execution down the same way you do music.In the days of his first startup, Tim's solution was used by consulting firms to power client engagement. Post exit, while overseeing things at Accenture, he noticed that the whole industry was powered by Microsoft files (PowerPoint, Excel, Word, etc.) - IE, driven manually. He started to wonder if he could codify the consulting process, to remove the manual burden.This is the creation story of Clyde.SponsorsUnblockedTECH DomainsMezmoBraingrid.aiLinkshttps://meetclyde.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/timlidman/Our Sponsors:* Check out Cash App and use my code CASHAPP10 for a great deal: https://click.cash.app/ui6m/mt82fpxl #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Cash App Green, overdraft coverage, borrow, cash back offers and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures.* Check out Plaud AI and use my code CODESTORY for a great deal: https://plaud.aiAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

David Faber and Sara Eisen broke down the days biggest movers - from a new Apple partnership sending Intel shares surging to another day of losses for SpaceX. Plus: hear a deep-dive on what Fed Chairman Warsh's inflation battle could mean for investors still expecting rate cuts, and more on Accenture's results with the company's CEO - as those shares plunge double-digits and even hit stocks of competitors like IBM. Elsewhere in the hour, the team also discussed the economic impact of the Knick's championship run as their celebration parade kicked off in downtown Manhattan.  Squawk on the Street Disclaimer Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Celso Otero, gestor de fondos en Renta 4, analiza la reapertura de Ormuz y los protagonistas de la jornada en Wall Street: Apple, JPMorgan, Accenture, Kroger...

In this episode of the Future of the Firm podcast, Bhaskar Ghosh, former Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Accenture, joins Emma Carroll, Head of Client Voice at Source, to explore how AI is already transforming the consulting industry and the big mistakes firms must avoid making.  In this episode, we explore the following questions and more:  Will AI shrink or grow the consulting industry? Is the biggest risk to consulting firms not job losses, but loss of judgement?  How will AI impact firm profitability?  How can firms navigate the "Three C's" (cannibalisation, cost structure, capabilities) of AI disruption?  Where will clients really need consultants to unlock value from AI?  What is the biggest mistake consulting leaders risk making around AI? 

In this episode of the Accenture AI Leaders Podcast, Teresa Tung, Global Advanced Data Lead at Accenture, is joined by Russell Smith, VP of ERP Transformation Technology at AstraZeneca, and Nick Tate, Managing Director and Talent & Workforce Lead UKI at Accenture, to discuss how organizations can move from AI experimentation to real business value. Explore why scaling AI depends on people, culture, and adoption not just technology and learn practical insights on leadership and workforce readiness.

Most business owners hear "AI" and immediately think: we need that. Myles Harrison thinks the opposite — and he built a company around it. Myles is the founder of  Praktikai, a boutique data and AI consulting firm whose name literally means practicality. A veteran of Big Five firms like Accenture and PwC, he now helps business owners cut through the noise and ask the real question: is technology actually your problem? In this episode, Myles shares why a bajillion-dollar tech investment can still fail if your people and processes aren't aligned, what it actually looks like to be a "sober, pragmatic" voice in an industry obsessed with hype, and how the best consultants don't make themselves the hero — they make their clients look good. We also dig into: The three-part operating model that most AI projects get wrong Why Myles is still waiting on the paperless office before worrying about the Terminator The farming metaphor that reframes how we think about automation and knowledge work What burnout on the Big Five consulting track actually taught him about limits The airport moment that surprised him most about working with clients in person If you've ever wondered whether AI is actually the solution — or just the most expensive way to avoid fixing the real problem — this episode is for you. Timestamps 00:30 Welcome and introductions 01:15 What is Praktikai — and why "practicality" is the whole point 02:45 From Big Five consulting to accidental entrepreneur 04:30 How to know if you need a consultant: "what part of your job sucks the most?" 06:15 The operating model problem: people, process, and technology 08:10 Why complexity is not the same as excellence 09:45 What makes consulting gratifying — and why the goal is to make clients look good 11:30 Myles' bearish take on AI: signal vs. noise and the paperless office problem 14:00 The farming metaphor: automation, knowledge work, and what actually disappears 16:20 The next five years: under-promise, over-deliver, and do good work 18:00 Finding your limits: burnout, sleep, and what fast-paced consulting actually costs 20:30 The airport moment — what surprised Myles most about working with clients in person 22:30 Where to find Myles and PRAKTIKAI   Learn more about PRAKTIKAI and how Myles helps businesses cut through AI hype and focus on what actually moves the needle: prktk.ai Legacy Podcast: For more information about the Legacy Podcast and its co-hosts, visit https://businesslegacypodcast.com Leave a Review: If you enjoyed the episode, leave a review and rating on your preferred podcast platform. For more information: Visit https://businesslegacypodcast.com to access the show notes and additional resources on the episode.    

Op maandag blikken we in De 7 altijd vooruit naar de week die komt.Vandaag doen we dat met beursexpert Ellen Vermorgen, hier bij De Tijd .Er is een akkoord tussen de VS en Iran over een staakt-het-vuren en om de straat van Hormuz te openen. Dat bevestigen de VS en Iran vannacht. Wat houdt dat precies in?Een aantal centrale banken neemt deze week een rentebesluit, maar de meeste aandacht gaat ongetwijfeld naar de Amerikaanse centrale bank. Die vergadert voor het eerst onder het voorzitterschap van Kevin Warsch. Wat wordt zijn boodschap?En waarom moeten we SpaceX ook deze en de volgende weken in het oog houden?Verder in deze aflevering van De 7: een EU-top, resultaten van Colruyt en Accenture, een beursvooruitblik op de rest van het jaar en de start van de zomerfestivals of toch liever voetbal? Host: Bert RymenProductie: Joris Vanderpoorten See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ https://youtu.be/j0TuosYDQe4?si=7mzUwBe4PrQ-eB2E In this insightful session from the Ultimate Partner Live event in Bellevue, Washington, Vince Menzione sits down with Stephen Boyle, Corporate Vice President for Enterprise Partners at Microsoft, to pull back the curtain on the tectonic shifts redefining the tech ecosystem. Boyle details Microsoft's massive organizational pivot into enterprise and SME/channel divisions , explaining how artificial intelligence acts as the foundational thread unifying systems integrators, software vendors, and digital natives. Moving past market noise surrounding competing foundational models , he highlights Microsoft's strategy to become the ultimate “platform of platforms” by prioritizing user choice, security, and trust. Emphasizing a shift away from infrastructure technicalities and toward practical business outcomes , Boyle delivers an urgent mandate for partners to scale technical talent, eliminate traditional operational silos, and brace for the incoming consumption-driven, agent-based future of enterprise computing. Key Takeaways Microsoft has restructured its global sales divisions into distinct Enterprise and SME/Channel organizations to better target its massive total addressable markets. Artificial intelligence is fundamentally altering the partner ecosystem by dismantling traditional software and systems integrator silos to build interconnected, multi-party solutions. Rather than forcing alignment to a singular model, Microsoft aims to be the definitive platform of platforms by offering extensive choice across over 1,100 language models. The enterprise landscape is rapidly moving past experimental AI pilot phases and entering production setups completely focused on transforming core business outcomes. Tomorrow's service organizations are aggressively evolving into software-minded operations that deploy repeatable, highly specialized internal autonomous agents. Managing tokens and monitoring usage metrics represents the emerging operational baseline for balancing efficiency against the scaling expenses of large language models. 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 AI frontier, platform of platforms, enterprise partners, global systems integrators, digital natives, language models, token consumption, agent sprawl, citizen developers, shadow IT, business outcomes, technical enablement, marketplace growth, hyper-scalers, processing fluency, sovereign AI, industry ecosystems, data governance. Transcript [00:00:00] Stephen Boyle: This is the biggest, most transformative, iterative change in technology we’ve ever seen, where, if you wanna call it a paradigm shift or whatever word comes after paradigm shift. [00:00:12] Vince Menzione: We just came back from Ultimate Partner live in Bellevue, Washington, where we hosted incredible leaders for two amazing days. Come join us for this next session where we explore the tectonic shifts we’ve all been seeing. Uh, I am thrilled to invite our next guest up on stage. I’ve known this gentleman for several years back in my days at Microsoft, and, um, we’ve been friends, actually Microsoft, and then we both went and did different things, came he’s come back to Microsoft in a big way. [00:00:46] Vince Menzione: Uh, Steven Boyle, for those of you don’t know, is recently a named the C. We will talk about it in a second, but I, I need to announce you properly. Is the corporate vice president, which by the way in Microsoft is a big deal for enterprise partners. He and Nicole De and I would say are the two Microsoft leaders in the organization. [00:01:06] Vince Menzione: Nicole is the channel chief. Steven has a, a big remit and we’ll talk about that up on stage. But I’m just so delightful for his support and for making the time in a very busy week at Microsoft ’cause this is CEO summit this week to make some time to come with us and be on stage with me. Please welcome my good friend Steven Boyle. [00:01:29] Vince Menzione: Good to see you, sir. To see. So I’m gonna put you on this side. [00:01:33] Stephen Boyle: Okay. [00:01:35] Vince Menzione: The hot seat. So I’m gonna, I, I didn’t do a justice and I, I wanted you to explain your role. I, I think I know, but I think for the, for the people in the room, uh, talk to us what Enterprise Partners means at Microsoft and what that role remit and remit looks like. [00:01:50] Stephen Boyle: Um, CVPs may or may not be important, but one thing they don’t do is get invites to the CEO summit. So I’m super pleased to be here with you guys. No, no, it’s totally cool. It’s totally cool if that phone rings. No, I’m kidding. Doesn’t. So what does it mean? So I’d like quickly, um. January last year, uh, we split the sales organization into enterprise and small to medium enterprise and channel. [00:02:15] Stephen Boyle: You guys probably familiar with that? Nicole is the, uh, chief partner officer lives in the SMA and C world and drives the channel, um, drives our marketplace business and, and a lot of other things. Um, for that 60 billion, um, you know, total addressable market that we have. Down there in SME and C. Um, at the same time, we established enterprise partner as part of Nick Parker’s overall organization. [00:02:40] Stephen Boyle: Um, but for most of 2025 we ran it as global systems integrators and advisories, ISVs and digital natives. So three separate footprints all focused entirely on, on, on enterprise. Um, in December, January, we talked about establishing an enterprise partner leader that would. You know, aggregate all of this stuff. [00:03:00] Stephen Boyle: Um, I was fortunate to come through, um, some frankly, pretty hairy, uh, experiences, I bet with some of our senior leaders. Um, I, I’ve loved to [00:03:08] Vince Menzione: been in the room for that [00:03:09] Stephen Boyle: questions like, why Steven Boyle and things like that, right? And really have to dig deep to, uh, to justify. Anyway, uh, I’m blessed and honored, uh, to run that entire portfolio of partners, uh, for the entirety of the enterprise partner world, which now from a chief revenue officer perspective, belongs to Deb. [00:03:25] Stephen Boyle: Deb Co. So Deb is the enterprise leader for all of our sales that we do into that space. Awesome. Um, I have three regional leaders, Nina Harding here in the United States, Ehab Ra in in Europe, and Heather Gordon in Asia that mirror and replicate and flow down the things that we decide to do from a strategy perspective for the, uh, for the core. [00:03:45] Vince Menzione: And we love Nina. She’s been, she was at our last event, [00:03:47] Stephen Boyle: super, super lady. And, uh, you know, the US is still 50% of our overall business. [00:03:53] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:03:53] Stephen Boyle: Too big to fabric. Every time I talk to Nina, I’m like, Nina, you’re too big to fail. We can’t cover you anywhere else. So you know, you’ve gotta be successful here in the Americas. [00:04:01] Vince Menzione: So I think just for breaking it up, I, ’cause I do want to like, it’ll lead to the next question, right? So you have the global systems integrators, all these systems integrators. Essentially you have all of the software companies we used to call ISVs, we now call SDCs or software development corporations. [00:04:17] Vince Menzione: And then you also have the AI stack, I’ll call it. Right? So under Jason Grafe. Yeah. Many, many might know. Jason’s been a guest on the podcast and was Satya’s chief of staff at one time, eight years. Eight years. Wow. I didn’t realize there was that many. [00:04:31] Stephen Boyle: Carry carried a lot of bags for Satya over the years. [00:04:34] Vince Menzione: Unbelievable. Well, let’s, I mean, so AI is an important component, right? And you saw Jay’s, Jay talking, just talking about AI and all these things. I would love to start here, right? Because, uh, you’re, you’re, I wanna get your perspective as Microsoft, your perspective as Microsoft on the biggest shifts you’re seeing in defining this we’ll call AI Frontier. [00:04:54] Vince Menzione: We’re seeing right now, how should partners translate that into how they position and go to market externally? How, how do we need to think about this time? [00:05:02] Stephen Boyle: Yeah, that is, uh, that is a huge question and I’m not sure we’ve got enough time to go into the, into all of the detail. Um, so let me sort of up level it a little bit for you. [00:05:10] Stephen Boyle: And I think, look, the move that we meet at made a couple of months ago and pulling together those three aspects. Nicole had already done it in SME and C. Right. One partner organization across the world with a very common set of goals. We were working closely together, Sandy Gupta, on ISV, Jason on ai, and myself on on si. [00:05:29] Stephen Boyle: But we were still working closely together across silos. So the opportunity for me, 60 days into this role is AI just allows you to wire the partner ecosystem together differently. Right? And even if you look at how we’re going to market an AI today, um. You know, with, with, with chat GPT, with Claude, with Anthropic, um, I think there’s something like 1100 different, you know, language models on Microsoft today. [00:05:55] Stephen Boyle: So the way I think about AI is we are absolutely gonna be the ultimate platform of platforms. Yeah, choice is incredibly important. Um. It’s, it’s, you know, turn the clock back 12 months, everybody was chat gpt five point x, you know, and then six months ago it was Gemini and now it seems to be clawed. And honestly I don’t know what it’s gonna be next quarter. [00:06:15] Stephen Boyle: So the only thing I can do is offer you choice. [00:06:18] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:06:18] Stephen Boyle: And from a partner perspective, I think that minimizes or reduces the risk that you have betting on the Microsoft platform because you can go in a multitude of different directions. I know we’re not in Europe, but if you were in Europe and you were worried about G-G-D-P-R and Jay mentioned sovereignty, you’d probably be like lining up really closely to Misra. [00:06:37] Stephen Boyle: Yeah. And a bunch of other Europe, European partners. So wherever you are in the globe, I wanna be that platform choice. Um, and we will lead with our own first party solutions. I hope they’re not coming for me. Um. I parked safely in the hotel. It can’t be me. Um, but you weren’t vibe coding in the room. Um, but you know, wherever you are in the world, in whichever industry you are in, um, it is our intent to, to offer that platform of platforms and to give the broadest set of partners the opportunity to engage with us. [00:07:07] Vince Menzione: I think that’s really important because I, I have found, especially in the last month or two, people are, it’s almost like a knee jerk. Don’t you feel like people don’t know what to do? There’s been so much noise in the press and the media and, and the markets around open AI and anthropic especially. Where do I go? [00:07:26] Vince Menzione: Seems to be like when I, when I sit, I watch everybody in the room here. I think they’re, they’ve all been thinking that as well. So you can, [00:07:31] Stephen Boyle: there’s a, a little bit of a deer in the headlights moment. Yes. And even I like, I get that. Yeah. Um, you know, I saw, uh, Jay slides. Jay, love the presentation. Love the slides, man. [00:07:40] Stephen Boyle: I’m gonna steal several of them. Um, we’ll talk about that later. We, we [00:07:43] Vince Menzione: have the deck, [00:07:45] Stephen Boyle: but, but in all seriousness, you know, this, this is like. It’s a new paradigm. I will date myself a little bit. Some of you might heard me say this. I sold many computers in the 1980s. Mini computers. Some of you in the room are going, what’s a mini computer? [00:07:59] Stephen Boyle: Um, I sold client server for Sun Microsystems in the nineties. I sold an awful lot of Oracle databases in the Auts, I think they’re called, and I’ve done two stints with Microsoft. This is the biggest, most transformative. Iterative change in technology we’ve ever seen. What, if you wanna call it a paradigm shift or whatever word comes after paradigm shift. [00:08:18] Stephen Boyle: Um, and we are building intelligent systems at scale faster than we’ve ever seen. Scalable, mission critical solutions being implemented today inside of Microsoft and with our most important customers. So, and we can’t do it without partners, right? There is absolutely nothing we can do in this industry. I will, I will put the, you know, the elephant in the room out there. [00:08:40] Stephen Boyle: Our ISD organization has between five and 7,000 people. Our forward deployed engineering organization is about a thousand people. [00:08:47] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:08:48] Stephen Boyle: So when you look at the scale of the total addressable market that Jay just talked about. We are gonna service directly like this much [00:08:55] Vince Menzione: used to be 5%. Was it even, is it even that high? [00:08:58] Stephen Boyle: I doubt it’s, I doubt it’s even that. And the billions of dollars that we spend every year helping our customers transform to what we’re now calling frontier firms is gonna be, have to be driven with every single person in this room in some way, shape, or form. Judson is not asking Marla to significantly increase ISD. [00:09:15] Stephen Boyle: Not asking John to significantly increase FDE, although we probably will hire in that area just because of the, the newness and the, you know, bright shiny object that everybody’s like, oh, FDE, I’ve gotta have those. We’ve got a thousand already today that have been around in John’s organization for 10 plus years doing the things that we are doing today. [00:09:32] Stephen Boyle: But we are gonna build out that muscle. But the real way we’re gonna build out that muscle is with all of you in this room. That’s like categorical. That is my like, probably number one goal for the next one to three years is make sure that, that story that Jay just told about Microsoft not being involved in AstraZeneca. [00:09:48] Stephen Boyle: I probably won’t tell Judson that Jay, but I love the story. Um, like if you could all do that for me, like win, um, that is so, you know, from our worldwide learning, through our skilling enablement through our cloud solution architects that I personally own. We are pivoting aggressively towards making sure that the partners understand our platforms better than any other job, number one for me right now, if you don’t understand what I’m selling, like I’m kind of dead in the water obviously. [00:10:15] Stephen Boyle: Well, [00:10:15] Vince Menzione: I was gonna ask you why now? Why Microsoft? Why now? Right? Because there is a lot of noise. You know, Google just announced, you all announced your results on the same day, which was astounding. That was freaky, wasn’t it? It was. It was the first time. And the, the total commitment, customer commitment is over a trillion dollars now, I think 1.2 trillion is what I counted up. [00:10:33] Stephen Boyle: Yeah. [00:10:34] Vince Menzione: But it’s saying a lot about like, what do I do now, like as these partners in the room. Um, how, I think you kind of already, and you’ve talked about this, about differentiating where Microsoft is, I think J Slide does a lot of justice there. It says how, uh, Microsoft Partners came into the room, surrounded the customer. [00:10:52] Vince Menzione: It feels like Microsoft has always leaned in big time on partners. Uh, more so I would say than any other organization out there. What would [00:10:59] Stephen Boyle: you say Joe Roses, my chief of staff, business manager and so many other things was telling me last night that, you know, we used to say 500,000 partners. [00:11:05] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:11:06] Stephen Boyle: it’s a, it’s a significantly higher number than that as well. [00:11:09] Stephen Boyle: So there’s an element of, you know, back to the deer in the headlights, which partners are, are more important. One of my other phrases that I say on a regular basis, the winners and losers are yet to be decided in this next wave. Like, I want all of us to on the right side of that argument. Right? But, but it’s gonna be a challenge and, and companies are going through shifts. [00:11:28] Stephen Boyle: You know, Accenture, maybe, possibly doesn’t need 750,000 employees in the not too distant future. Maybe TCS at 600,000 doesn’t need 600,000 human employees. So we’re going through this dramatic shift of, you know, what’s the right balance going forward. What I would say about Microsoft is notwithstanding the fact that we’ve figured this out for 51 years, which is a little bit mind blowing, um, that you know, all the way back in the seventies we’ve gone through so many iterative changes. [00:11:56] Stephen Boyle: People have questioned just like they’ve questions. A lot of other technology companies, are you gonna be around for the long haul? I think we’ve proven time and time again, and I love Jay’s story. I’ve used that myself about how many companies disappear on a, on a decade to decade, you know, business. 10 years ago I had the opportunity to listen to Craig Clayton Christensen, who’s sadly no longer with us. [00:12:15] Stephen Boyle: Yeah. But you know, the books that he wrote and the story that he told to Microsoft 2014, we were nowhere in cloud. [00:12:21] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:12:22] Stephen Boyle: AWS was so far ahead of us, it was crazy. And he came in and he’s like. You know what? You guys need to be successful. You need to figure out how to cross this chasm again, and we’ve done it time and time again. [00:12:32] Stephen Boyle: You can go back. You know, Microsoft used to be known as a fast follower in ai. I don’t think we’re a fast follower. I think we’re right up there. We’re right at the front, but that race is still being run and the winners are losers are yet to be decided. [00:12:44] Vince Menzione: I was in that room with Clayton Christensen with you, by the way. [00:12:46] Vince Menzione: I remember, I remember that. That was at a Prism conference. [00:12:49] Stephen Boyle: Yeah. Yeah. [00:12:50] Vince Menzione: You men, you touched on this with the GSIs a little bit. How do you see the roles evolving? You know, we, we, we bucketed all, we’ve always been. Fantastic about bucketing ISVs or SDCs and sis and digital natives. Yeah. How does it, how does that all come together? [00:13:06] Vince Menzione: Does it come together any differently in this new AI platform era, or is it the same? [00:13:11] Stephen Boyle: I look, I, I’ve said this for a long time, like if you go into AstraZeneca, the six plus, you know, frontline partners, there’s probably a whole board of second, third tier that, that we don’t know about doing, you know, things across the AstraZeneca group. [00:13:25] Stephen Boyle: It takes several villages and sometimes a small town, especially in my world, in the enterprise world, strategic five hundreds. Yeah. Um, you know, we, we ran some reports a few years ago and it is shocking how many global systems integrators have a footprint in Shell or Exxon or, you know, bank of America or whatever else. [00:13:44] Stephen Boyle: So I’ve always believed that partner to partner is critical. Yeah. I think it became even more critical in the, in the AI world, and I’ll take my new friends at Anthropic. So I went to the first Anthropic partner Summit. Some of you might have been down there in, in San Diego, um, just a couple of months ago. [00:13:59] Stephen Boyle: Same partners, same people from the same partners. In the room, you know, talking about what they’re gonna do together with Anthropic. Um, and I’m looking out across this audience going, okay, well I know him and I know her and I know those guys, and like, I need to figure out how I’m gonna weave this together. [00:14:14] Stephen Boyle: So it’s not just an Accenture and Anthropic or an NTT data and anthropic, but it’s an NTT data plus anthropic plus Microsoft. Story going forward. And then who’s best at delivering those services capabilities? So it’s it at every juncture that I see in the, in the partner community, and this is the, the reason why I argued vehemently with Nick, that it has to be one organization I’m gonna create maybe given a little bit away. [00:14:40] Stephen Boyle: So if you’re recording, stop now. Um, I’m gonna create an enablement organization that is partner agnostic. I don’t necessarily care. I do care about the digital natives, but I don’t care about how I train them. Right. What I’m more important of is how do I train the digital natives in what the sis are doing, and how do I train the sis and what the ISVs Plus digital Natives are doing. [00:15:01] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:15:01] Stephen Boyle: That is my, that’s my game plan. If I fail there, then I think we fail to raise the bar and be differentiated in an AI world, and I’m not set up like that today. [00:15:12] Vince Menzione: I wanna, I wanna ask you, uh, uh, because I was looking at Jay’s slide and the, the managed piece is. And we have a lot of managed service providers in this room today. [00:15:20] Vince Menzione: A lot of them, by the way, come from the old school of managed services. The managed piece seems to be like, if I’m doing something today with ai, we’re gonna talk about security next, uh, up on stage here. It seems like there’s a new set of skills or a different approach to the customer, don’t you? Don’t you agree? [00:15:37] Stephen Boyle: I I [00:15:37] Vince Menzione: think you need to keep your hands on the steering wheel at all [00:15:39] Stephen Boyle: times. I think what it boils down to is you can’t do AI unless you do certain other things. [00:15:44] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:15:44] Stephen Boyle: Right. You could be a modern work specialist and you could make a lot of money being a modern work specialist, or you could be a, a dynamic specialist. [00:15:52] Stephen Boyle: We just held our, uh, inner A in a circle conference last last week, which I was disappointed to miss for the first time in a few years. Those, those days are, are, are fast becoming over. [00:16:03] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:16:04] Stephen Boyle: Um, why? Because everything that I’ve just said is tied together by ai. Yes. And in order to do good ai, you need good data. [00:16:12] Stephen Boyle: And in order to trust everything that you’re getting, as Judson talks about trust and intelligence, you need to wrap that in a really secure [00:16:19] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:16:19] Stephen Boyle: You know, en en environment. Now we will do our best to provide levels of security into how we deliver ai. But that’s not the end of the game, right? You have to take it all, all the way to the edge. [00:16:30] Stephen Boyle: So that’s why a siloed partner or a singular commercial solution area partner in Microsoft’s terms, has got to transform its business. ’cause if you’re gonna do ai, you’ve gotta do those other things as well. [00:16:41] Vince Menzione: Agreed. I must see the model changing, and in fact, I see like bigger organizations becoming managed service providers in many respects. [00:16:48] Stephen Boyle: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, there’s still, there’s still a role for all the old terminology you mentioned is SV to sdc. Yeah. I’m like, I’m been around long enough. Look, it’s ANB still anv, it’s still an isv. Thank you. Independent software vendor. Um, and it’s, you know, where, where AI is allowing software to be, you know, frankly developed in a number of different places. [00:17:07] Stephen Boyle: We are all citizen developers. Um, you know, I was on a call with our internal leadership yesterday, um, and you guys might have heard this story ’cause I think it came out at Ignite. When we turn the agent 365, around and on ourselves. We found 130,000 agents running across Microsoft that had been developed and deployed internally with, I mean, you could call it shadow it. [00:17:28] Stephen Boyle: I guess that would be one phrase that you would use for it, but the reality is if you, if you haven’t got something to do your job today, you have the tools. To build it really, really fast. Um, and that, you know, that’s, that’s a great opportunity for people to be able to do their work, you know, in a better and in a different way. [00:17:45] Stephen Boyle: But it’s also a huge opportunity to make sure that data governance and security and all the other things that we need to deliver are there out of, out of the gate and out of the platform that we deliver. So security’s absolutely critical. Not saying that managed services won’t grow, um, at, at some level as well, but only if they transform into this multifaceted way. [00:18:04] Stephen Boyle: Yeah. Thinking [00:18:05] Vince Menzione: about, well, that’s what I was, I was gonna lead to here with innovating. It’s happening across, I mean, we’re talking about chips, we’re talking about foundational models, LLMs, we’re talking about applications, we’re talking about agents. How should we think about where to play and how to differentiate as partners in this room? [00:18:22] Stephen Boyle: I think. [00:18:25] Stephen Boyle: So look, I mean, one, one of the ways that Judson talks about it is I think silicon’s gonna change over time. Yes. NVIDIA’s definitely the 800 pound gorilla, maybe the 8,000 pound gorilla. Yeah. Uh, but you know, if you read the press, there’s, there’s things happening in, in different places as first party silicon, which we clearly are, are developing, um, in a quantum direction for sure. [00:18:45] Stephen Boyle: Um, there’s lots of different language models that haven’t even been launched on, on, on the marketplace yet, so. You know, Judson’s trying to uplevel our conversations. You’ll hear us talking about conversations more and more as we go into FY 27, um, that obviate all of those layers. Just like even when I was selling Sun Microsystems, it was about the business outcome and the business solution that we were solving for not necessarily the fastest piece of hardware or the best client service solution on, on the market. [00:19:17] Stephen Boyle: So I think what’s gonna happen over the next 12 to 24 months is we’ll have so many different models to choose from. We’ll have more silicon to choose from, but those won’t be the real buying decisions. The real buying decisions of what? How am I trying to transform my finance organization, my HR organization, and my supply chain? [00:19:36] Stephen Boyle: Because the underlying technology, Judson says commodity I, I guess I can go with that. It will be commoditized and we’ll really start to focus back on what the important things are. We’re moving a lot from pilot to production. You guys have probably seen that. The numbers that Jay just showed about how many. [00:19:52] Stephen Boyle: Projects are failing, is getting less and less because we’re getting smarter and smarter about what it takes to actually drive the business outcome. And I need all of us to be talking that same language. Yeah. Having conversations with head of HR about how we’re gonna transform human capital management in the, in the age of agents, if you like, like the underlying platform. [00:20:14] Stephen Boyle: It’s not, don’t worry about it. You wanna be on a secure platform. Don’t get me wrong. But at the same time, I don’t think we, we spent too much time worrying about that. [00:20:21] Vince Menzione: Yeah. We’re not, what you’re saying is we’re not spending enough time on outcomes. On the business outcomes. Right. And that’s where we need to focus. [00:20:27] Vince Menzione: We’re, we’re focusing on, I, I feel like we’re, it’s a signal to, to noise ratio that we’re living through right now. There’s too much noise. [00:20:33] Stephen Boyle: Yeah. [00:20:34] Vince Menzione: And we’re not focusing on the signal. I think that’s what you’re saying. [00:20:36] Stephen Boyle: I, it’s got to be, I mean, to be honest with you, it’s always been, you know, even when I sold what I would perceive, you know, sun in the nineties was a rockman ship to the stars and, you know, kind of sad what happened to that company. [00:20:47] Stephen Boyle: Um, but we, we were, we were fixated on, we had the best client server. But, but nobody was buying, you know, a piece of Sun hardware as a room heater, which is all it did, you know, like for the longest. But if you had SAP, if you had Cybase, if you had Bond, remember Bond, I mean all of those applications that drove the business outcomes, we’ve gotta get back to that kind of mentality. [00:21:09] Stephen Boyle: Yes. And worrying a little bit less about the underlying architecture. Yeah. It needs to be, it needs to be part of the conversation. ’cause it needs to deliver trust and security and intelligence and everything else. Then you need to rapidly move to what are you trying to achieve and how can we ensure the, the, the success of, of your business outcome. [00:21:27] Stephen Boyle: And look, I mean, Palantir pri you know, sort of came out and said, well, the way we do that is through forward deployed engineering. Um, and they stole the show. And, and, you know, they’re, they’re doing very well as a result of doing that. Uh, but if you go and talk to, um, Tom Siebel’s organization at C3 ai. [00:21:43] Stephen Boyle: They’ve had FDS for quite a while. You know, I told you about John Chuchu 10 years ago. John Chu, Chuck’s job was to go and get all the applications that we needed on the Microsoft phone. Remember that? [00:21:54] Vince Menzione: Yes. Um, [00:21:55] Stephen Boyle: you know, so we’ve pivoted John o over the years to doing what he’s doing now, which is to go sometimes in partnership with, with partners into the customer and say, what is it you’re trying to achieve? [00:22:05] Stephen Boyle: Let me show you how I can build that for you in three weeks or three months. That might have taken you three years. We literally just did a hackathon with one partner last, last, last week with, uh, with our ISE organization, the, the, the forward deployed, uh, group that John runs. Um, and one of the big customers said, I’ve just done in three days what would’ve taken me three months. [00:22:26] Stephen Boyle: Now he hasn’t productized it and rolled it out and blah, blah, blah. But the reality is that is how fast things are changing. And this was not a small company. This was a very, very large oil company, and they were like blown away by how much we can achieve. We’ve gotta do that at scale. [00:22:41] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:22:42] Stephen Boyle: You know, we, we have a commitment to scale our FDE community through partnerships to touch all of the S 500 in a very personalized way. [00:22:51] Stephen Boyle: And then, you know, at a slightly, you know, lower ratios down through the, through the majors and into, into Nicole’s SME and C world as well. [00:22:59] Vince Menzione: Jay talks about the decade of the ecosystem. He coined that term back, back on a podcast way back in nine, in, uh, in 2020. Microsoft has been at the, for, we used to call partner to partner back, back in the day. [00:23:10] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. Do you remember those days? How do you think about this ecosystem evolving and what steps are you taking to help bring these organizations together? Because I, I, again, we look at the seven seats or 6.3 seats at the table. The customer has the power now that they didn’t have before. ’cause they have the commitment with like with Microsoft and they can buy off of the marketplace and pull together multiple organizations to go, go do that. [00:23:34] Vince Menzione: How do you think about helping to orchestrate that as the leader of the enterprise partner business? [00:23:39] Stephen Boyle: So I’ll start with a really big example, and I’ll try and sort of scale it down a little bit. But my friends at Accenture, with the Accenture, Microsoft Business Group, we spend an awful lot of time, you know, in, in each other’s pockets, in each other’s deals. [00:23:51] Stephen Boyle: We know everything that’s going on in the Accenture, Microsoft Business Group. And a couple of weeks, or maybe a month or so ago, I was told that the Microsoft Business Group is now larger than the SAP Business group. It probably flip flops. [00:24:03] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:24:04] Stephen Boyle: it won’t be too long before the Anthropic Business Group is bigger than both of those. [00:24:08] Stephen Boyle: So what I need my Microsoft team to do is to not spend all of their lives in the. A MBG, the Azure, the Accenture, Microsoft Business group, but to go make friends in the Anthropic Accenture Business group and frankly still to make friends in the SAP business group and maybe in the Oracle Business Group and the list goes on. [00:24:27] Stephen Boyle: So at a macro 11, in the very largest accounts where we haven multiple practices, where we haven’t spent time before, I’m gonna. Push my people into uncomfortable zones and I’m gonna push them to go into those other areas and I’m gonna load them up with technical talent and cloud solution architects and ai, you know, forward deployed engineers. [00:24:45] Stephen Boyle: And I’m gonna force different people to talk together that haven’t talked together. So I can do that in TCS. I can do that, Capgemini, I can do that. Um, you know, in Europe with Capgemini and Misra is a classic example. Um, with the, with the Indian sis, Indian based sis, they’re all big enough where I know all the practices exist. [00:25:04] Stephen Boyle: I just need to do a better job of, of talking to them. Now, when you downsize that into, you know, into a, a company that doesn’t have all of that scale, this the same truth still holds. I need to talk to people who aren’t necessarily motivated every single day to do something with Microsoft. I need to talk to people who are motivated to do something with an AI partner or even a traditional SaaS partner. [00:25:27] Stephen Boyle: I noticed yesterday, actually no, this morning I got a notification that we just passed, um, a billion dollars in revenue on the marketplace with ServiceNow. [00:25:35] Vince Menzione: Nice. [00:25:36] Stephen Boyle: Um, and I think AWS announced the same thing, by the way this month as well. Um, so thank you to the ServiceNow people. Yeah. Um, you know, that is that there’s a tremendous demonstration of how far we’ve come in marketplace. [00:25:48] Stephen Boyle: ’cause that’s another one where we trailed AWS quite significantly. But with the right partnerships. And driving the right motions, we can, you know, we can definitely catch up and we will continue to pass, uh, some of, some of the other hyperscalers in, in, in that way. So really the bottom line to your question is partner to partner is still real. [00:26:08] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:26:08] Stephen Boyle: how we do it and what we use to tie things together. And I know that compensation drives behavior and we’re not gonna get into a compensation about like how we get compensated and everything else, but the reality is I’ve gotta break down those barriers and those silos and I’ve gotta deliver real meaningful enablement and practice development so that, so that the people who sit in the Anthropic business group and the people who sit in the Microsoft Business Group are spending as much time together as they are with me. [00:26:34] Stephen Boyle: That makes sense. Simply put, that’s what I, I need to achieve at scale rapidly. [00:26:40] Vince Menzione: So to, we’re getting close to time here, but as you look forward, what would define the most successful partnerships in this ecosystem? Is it, is it what you described, the opening up the aperture or for the, for the leaders in the room here today, what should they go do better and differently? [00:26:58] Stephen Boyle: Um, so obviously we’re closing out this fiscal, we’ve got Microsoft start and Microsoft start for partners coming up in July. Um, I mentioned the fact that we’re, we’re driving. Cu customer engagement through the lens of conversations and how do we achieve business outcomes? I would encourage you to, to gravitate, if you like, above the commercial solution areas where you might have understood, this is how I interact with Microsoft today. [00:27:23] Stephen Boyle: Um, and abstract it up to that AI layer. You know, think about trust, think about intelligence, think about business outcomes, and how do I potentially weave together a story? If I’m in the dynamic space, how do I get better in data? If I’m in the data space, how do I get better in. In that modern work environment, but really use AI as the overlay to, to help tie that together. [00:27:44] Stephen Boyle: That’s one thing. The second thing is if we’re not training you in the right direction, it’s stevenBoyle@microsoft.com. Let me know. Awesome. Um, we’ve got programmatic stuff, um, you know, and we’ve got high touch stuff as well. So I think this is, this is another time where Microsoft is gonna over pivot on all of the training and enablement that we need to do to make sure that you’re, you know, you’re grounded in our platform. [00:28:07] Stephen Boyle: Um, I think there’s a huge opportunity with this agenda future to become more of a software partner. You know, even the deepest services organizations are going to need agents, and the more successful ones will be the ones that can turn on those agents in a repeatable way. So. Our agents, the new SaaS. I’m not exactly saying that, but I think that the agen future is one where even the more services oriented companies will, will have teams of agents that they’re deploying. [00:28:35] Stephen Boyle: In fact, I had a very, very large systems integrator, um, in, in the EBC just about a month ago, three weeks ago. Um, and I was sat next to their head of consulting and he showed me what he called his God dashboard. Uh, and right in the middle of his God dashboard there are like 450 accounts. All of whom I recognized, ’cause they were all in the enterprise, right in the middle of his dashboard was, how many tokens am I spending? [00:29:00] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:29:01] Stephen Boyle: Like, not like what’s my daily runway? You know, not am I making a profit on that account or anything else like that is like, how many tokens have I consumed? Yeah. Because there is an awful lot of, that is the new juice, if you like. That’s, that’s driving the success. You can have the smartest people on the planet, but you’ve got to still arm them with all the best tools that are available out there. [00:29:22] Stephen Boyle: So it’s fascinating to listen to him, how he had gone through that thing of, you know, agent sprawl, how many are really working, how many are not working? How can we prove that? You can prove it through, you know, managing your tokens. There’s a new version of. Finops for tokens, for want of a better phrase, that’s gonna be critical for us all to understand. [00:29:40] Stephen Boyle: ’cause they’re not cheap, they’re not free, that’s for sure. And, and they might not be cheap if you’re not, if you’re not managing them and using them effectively. Yeah. So that’s the other thing that I would really get on top of. And, you know, we’re gonna make some announcements in the not too distant future about the consumption driven future. [00:29:56] Stephen Boyle: Um, that, that we will, that we will deliver with our first party and third party platforms going forward. So that’s another. Another critical thing [00:30:03] Vince Menzione: sounds like some exciting announcements. Pretty soon. [00:30:06] Stephen Boyle: Yeah, could look close. Quarter four, help me close. Quarter four. Yes. That’s priority number one, two, and three right now. [00:30:12] Stephen Boyle: Uh, but get ready for some, you know, for some new announcements in July. Um, look, the future is incredibly bright with Microsoft. It’s incredibly bright in the industry as a whole, right? I mean, let, let’s be honest, the, the growth targets that we will have for ne next year are astronomical, and we will not make them without the partner community that we have, without training and enabling the partner community that we need for tomorrow. [00:30:34] Stephen Boyle: So like, stay close, you know, stay engaged. Talk to your partner development managers, talk to the talk to field reps, talk to the accounts that that, that you are in, and stay as close as you possibly can to our emerging strategy. And, um, you know, look, I, I think if I had fivefold or tenfold the people I have today, I still wouldn’t be able to touch everybody that I would like to touch in the partner community. [00:30:58] Stephen Boyle: So I’ll apologize in advance. Um, but we’re gonna have some, you know, some really cool ways of learning. Um, and we’re gonna make sure that they’re available to the widest possible audience. [00:31:07] Vince Menzione: Well, we bring the practitioners and the experts in the room to help with that as well. Right? Yeah. Because you can’t always have a partner development manager tied to everybody in the room. [00:31:14] Stephen Boyle: I, I would do hackathons on AI every week with every partner and every part of the world, but I can’t. [00:31:19] Vince Menzione: Yeah, exactly. Well, so good to have you today. Thank you. So good to see you again. I don’t know what your schedule is like. I, we didn’t, we don’t have enough time for questions. [00:31:28] Stephen Boyle: That’s cool. [00:31:28] Vince Menzione: From the audience. [00:31:29] Stephen Boyle: I’m gonna stay around for a little [00:31:30] Vince Menzione: while this [00:31:30] Stephen Boyle: morning and I’m coming back [00:31:31] Vince Menzione: for cocktails. Alright, terrific. So. Stephen Boyle will be here for cocktail hour. Thank you. Four 30 and uh, I wanna thank you, sir. So good to have you. Thank you. Good to see you. Absolutely. [00:31:42] Stephen Boyle: So much. Absolutely. Hey, thanks everybody. [00:31:43] Stephen Boyle: Thanks for what you do today, and hopefully thank you for what you do tomorrow as well. [00:31:46] Vince Menzione: Thank you. An incredible leader. [00:31:49] Stephen Boyle: Don’t forget, ultimate [00:31:51] Vince Menzione: partner Alive is coming soon, June 18th at our executive breakfast in New York. I hope to see you there.Description The Future of Tech is Here. Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ I

YouTube is bringing back DMs, and it could completely rewrite how the algorithm pushes your content. Plus, Accenture's massive acquisition of the Whalar influencer agency to CAA's newly formed $250M fund for creator-led businesses, and Hollywood's sudden embrace of TikTok-style short-form series highlighted by a new partnership with the Sundance Institute.00:00 The Power of Video Clipping04:36 YouTube Brings Back DMs07:04 Is YouTube a Social Network?08:00 How DMs Drive the Algorithm10:20 TikTok Partners With Sundance12:38 Hollywood Embraces Vertical Dramas15:46 Accenture Acquires Whalar Agency18:38 CAA Launches $250M Creator Fund19:56 The Social Reckoning TrailerCreator Upload is your creator economy podcast, hosted by Lauren Schnipper and Joshua Cohen.Follow Lauren: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schnipper/Follow Josh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuajcohen/Original music by London Bridge: https://www.instagram.com/londonbridgemusic/Edited and produced by Adam Conner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamonbrand

A month forecasted that Accenture was about to make a material acquisition in the creator space. This week it happened. Accenture Song is acquiring Whaler Agency — the most awarded creator agency in the Western hemisphere in a carve-out plus three-year partnership that's far more interesting than the headline.But is it really "the largest creator economy transaction ever"? Christian runs the math. The claim doesn't survive contact with a calculator unless there's a lot more going on than a simple agency purchase.Christian and Ayelet break down the structure, what Accenture actually bought (hint: it's the $600M in media spend and the measurement layer, not just the creators), and why this probably isn't the end of Accenture's media buying spree.⏱️ TIMESTAMPS0:39 — Welcome to Market and Deals Friday, June 121:20 — The victory lap: our Episode 61 Accenture prediction came true2:06 — Why the deal took longer than expected (deals just take time)2:20 — Why we didn't name Whaler at the time — protecting a people-heavy business3:05 — When and how to tell your team you're selling: a real consideration for owners3:46 — What happened: Whaler Agency joins Accenture Song, terms undisclosed4:28 — The $44B creator economy and why Whaler sits in the middle of it4:50 — The real prize: $600M in media spend + the measurement and data layer5:33 — Reading it against the holdcos: consultants are coming for creator businesses6:16 — The math problem: can this really be "the largest creator economy deal ever"?6:50 — Why a $500M price on ~$12M EBITDA (40x) doesn't add up for the agency alone8:00 — The carve-out + call option + licensing theory that makes the number work8:30 — Is Whaler Agency just step one? Why Christian doesn't think so9:46 — Accenture Song's creator build: 9 acquisitions in 2024 alone10:16 — Why $600M in media spend is the growth-acceleration play vs. single-digit agency growth12:28 — Moelis advised Whaler; Accenture Song's corp dev ran it in-house13:46 — Why this is a planned (not closed) deal — and what shareholder disclosure will reveal14:35 — Quick hit: Walker Sands acquires Rev Partners (Mountain Gate turns on the engine)15:35 — Why Mountain Gate is already doing M&A less than a year into Walker Sands16:00 — Quick hit: Channable acquires Metreon — server-side conversion tracking16:41 — Quick hit: Sitecore acquires Scrunch — AI search optimization beyond traditional SEO18:16 — The connective tissue: four deals, zero disclosed prices, all capability buys18:31 — Why AI won't kill feed management anytime soon (the 20-30% false positive rabbit hole)20:11 — The bet: Accenture's next move is about media, not agencies20:38 — Structure over headline EV — the drum worth beating for every smaller shop21:06 — Wrap and a Knicks championship wish

The BPO Industry Isn't Dying. But It May Need to Reinvent Itself Faster Than Anyone Expected. Yuma AI CEO Guillaume Luccisano argues that customer experience providers must evolve from labor arbitrage specialists into AI orchestrators and systems integrators—or risk becoming irrelevant. For years, critics of the business process outsourcing industry have predicted its demise. First it was robotic process automation. Then conversational AI. Then Generative AI. Yet the industry survived every previous wave of disruption because technology changed the way work was delivered rather than eliminating the need for the service itself. In episode 420 of the CX Files, Guillaume talks to Mark Hillary about these changes and how BPOs may need to adapt. https://www.linkedin.com/in/guillaumeluccisano/ https://yuma.ai/ -------------- Summary: Mark Hillary and Peter Ryan discuss the impact of AI on the BPO industry, featuring Guillaume Luccisano, CEO of Yuma AI. Luccisano argues that traditional BPO models are outdated, emphasizing AI's potential to automate 100% of customer service within 2-3 years. He highlights Yuma AI's success in deploying AI agents since 2023, achieving automation rates up to 89%. Luccisano predicts a significant shift in the job market due to AI, suggesting BPOs must evolve into systems integrators to survive. He also notes the cost efficiency of AI, with interactions costing under $1 compared to $4-$8 for human agents. ---- The BPO Industry Isn't Dying. But It May Need to Reinvent Itself Faster Than Anyone Expected. Yuma AI CEO Guillaume Luccisano argues that customer experience providers must evolve from labor arbitrage specialists into AI orchestrators and systems integrators—or risk becoming irrelevant. For years, critics of the business process outsourcing industry have predicted its demise. First it was robotic process automation. Then conversational AI. Then Generative AI. Yet the industry survived every previous wave of disruption because technology changed the way work was delivered rather than eliminating the need for the service itself. But according to Guillaume Luccisano, founder and CEO of Yuma AI, this time may be different. Speaking on Episode 420 of the CX Files podcast, Luccisano argued that the traditional BPO model—selling customer service through large pools of human agents—is facing a challenge unlike anything it has encountered before. His view is stark: AI is no longer just helping agents do their jobs better. It is increasingly capable of doing the job itself. And if that trend continues, the industry will need to redefine its purpose. The End of the "Cost Per Interaction" Era Luccisano's company specializes in AI-powered customer service automation for retail and e-commerce brands. He claims some clients are already automating the vast majority of customer interactions. What has changed, he argues, is that AI is no longer limited to answering questions from a knowledge base. Modern AI agents can access customer records, understand context, follow workflows, execute transactions, and complete tasks. In other words, they are moving beyond information retrieval and into operational execution. This matters because the traditional BPO business model has largely been built around charging for human effort—whether measured in agents, hours, seats, or interactions. If AI can handle increasing volumes of customer contacts at a fraction of the cost, then the economics begin to shift dramatically. A contact that once required several dollars of human labor may eventually be resolved for a few cents in computing costs. Even if those figures are debated, the direction of travel is becoming difficult to ignore. The Problem Isn't Technology. It's Incentives. One of Luccisano's most interesting observations is that many outsourcing providers are already talking extensively about AI. The question is whether they are deploying AI to genuinely transform operations or merely adding enough AI to satisfy customer demand while protecting existing revenue streams. That creates an uncomfortable tension. A provider whose business depends on thousands of agents has little incentive to aggressively deploy technology that could reduce the number of agents required. As Luccisano noted, many providers find themselves caught between serving today's business model and preparing for tomorrow's. The challenge is not technical. It is organizational. And perhaps even existential. Why Investors Are Nervous The sharp decline in the share prices of several publicly traded CX providers has fuelled speculation about the sector's future. Luccisano believes investors are not simply reacting to hype. They are attempting to price in a future where customer service becomes significantly more automated, more efficient, and therefore less dependent on large labor-intensive operations. Whether investors have overreacted remains open to debate. But the market is clearly asking a difficult question: What happens to a company built around managing tens of thousands of customer service agents when customers increasingly expect AI-driven efficiency? The answer remains uncertain. But it is a question every provider now has to confront. The Hidden Complexity Most Critics Ignore To his credit, Luccisano does not dismiss the value that BPOs create today. Customer interactions are only one piece of a much larger operational puzzle. Large CX providers manage compliance requirements, regulatory obligations, security controls, multilingual operations, workforce management, governance frameworks, quality assurance, and complex integrations across dozens of markets. Replacing an individual customer service interaction with AI is one thing. Replacing the entire operational framework surrounding customer service is something else entirely. This is where many simplistic predictions about the "death of BPO" fall apart. The institutional knowledge accumulated by major outsourcing firms still has value. The question is whether that value can be repackaged. From Outsourcer to Systems Integrator Perhaps the most important idea from the conversation was Luccisano's belief that the future role of the BPO may look less like a labor provider and more like a systems integrator. Rather than selling headcount, providers could sell expertise. Rather than managing agents, they could manage AI agents. Rather than staffing operations, they could design, orchestrate, govern, optimize, and continuously improve AI-enabled customer experience ecosystems. This is a subtle but profound shift. It moves the provider higher up the value chain. The emphasis shifts from execution to orchestration. From labor to outcomes. From workforce management to intelligent systems management. Ironically, this would bring some BPOs closer to the role that companies like IBM, Accenture, and other major technology integrators evolved into years ago. A Difficult Transition The challenge, of course, is that transformation is easier to describe than to execute. Reinventing a startup is one thing. Reinventing a global organization employing hundreds of thousands of people is another. Many of today's largest CX providers are highly successful businesses with established customer relationships and predictable revenue streams. That success can become a barrier to change. The dilemma is obvious. How aggressively should a company invest in technologies that could cannibalize its own business? History suggests that incumbents often struggle with precisely this problem. The Bigger Question Perhaps the most controversial part of Luccisano's argument extends beyond outsourcing entirely. He believes AI is creating a broader economic transformation that will affect many knowledge-based professions, not just customer service. Software engineering, consulting, administration, legal services, and customer experience are all beginning to feel the effects. If he is right, then the debate is no longer about whether AI will change customer service. The debate is about how quickly institutions can adapt to a world where intelligence itself becomes abundant and inexpensive. The Future May Belong to the Adaptable The most important takeaway from this discussion is not that BPOs are doomed. In fact, Luccisano repeatedly acknowledged that some providers will survive and potentially thrive. But survival may depend on abandoning the assumption that customer service is primarily a labor business. The providers that succeed could be those that become trusted advisors, AI operators, governance experts, and systems integrators. The providers that fail may be those that continue selling people when customers increasingly want outcomes. The outsourcing industry has reinvented itself before. The question now is whether it can do so again—at the speed AI demands.

In today's MadTech Daily, we look at MENA becoming the fastest-growing advertising market, Whalar joining Accenture in an acquisition deal, and VCCP unveiling a new retail media offering alongside an ECD appointment.

Show Summary:    Mudita Khurana — Tech Lead at Airbnb and the person who always says, “I got this” No Password Required Season 7: Episode 6 - Mudita Khurana   Mudita Khurana is a Tech Lead for Automated Tooling and Vulnerability Management at Airbnb, where she focuses on building modular, scalable security systems in an era of rapidly evolving AI threats. Before Airbnb, she spent nearly a decade in security roles across Accenture, Meta, and PwC, making bold career pivots along the way, including turning down a PwC return offer to join Facebook's product security team. In this episode, Mudita shares her journey from a family of doctors in India to Carnegie Mellon and into the heart of Big Tech security. She discusses what it means to thrive as a non-traditional engineer in a deeply technical field, why she stepped back from management to get closer to the work, and how she thinks about building security tooling that won't be obsolete in three months. Jack Clabby and co-host Kayley Melton, recording live from Tampa B-Sides at the University of South Florida, talk with Mudita about imposter syndrome, AI's curveballs for security teams, leadership without a leadership title, and the importance of community in staying on top of a field that never stops moving. She also reflects on what great mentorship looks like early in a career and why clarity, ownership, and consistency are the leadership qualities she keeps coming back to. In the Lifestyle Polygraph, Mudita firmly plants her flag in the Harry Potter universe as Hermione, explains why Deadpool doesn't qualify as a superhero, debates gym vs. nature as a reset strategy, and reveals her dream remote work base: a high-altitude Buddhist mountain town in the Himalayas.   Follow Mudita on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/muditakhurana/     In this episode: Mudita shares her unconventional path into cybersecurity, highlighting the importance of mentorship and curiosity (0:25 - 1:37) The significance of mentorship, especially Vandana Verma, in her career development (2:26 - 4:00) Transition from management to technical IC roles and why staying close to technical work matters (9:29 - 10:23) The influence of her education at Carnegie Mellon and how it broadened her problem-solving skills (6:23 - 7:41) Navigating imposter syndrome and embracing challenges as growth opportunities (3:26 - 5:29) How AI is changing cybersecurity strategies—building modular, layered systems for agility (15:31 - 16:26) The importance of community, trust, and consensus in cybersecurity decision-making (17:06 - 17:47) Mudita's favorite places for remote work and balancing planning with spontaneity in travel (23:01 - 24:13) Her personal approach to wellness, exercise, and resets during busy days (21:32 - 22:36) Her unique perspective on superhero characters, favorite places, and cultural roots (18:54 - 19:36, 25:19 - 26:21) Timestamp Highlights: (00:25) Mudita's 10-year journey into cybersecurity starting from India (02:26) Mentorship's critical role in her growth and her admiration for Vandana Verma (09:29) Transition from management back to technical roles and why staying close to the work matters (15:31) How AI fosters layered, modular security systems for faster adaptation (17:06) The importance of community and trusted information sources in security (21:32) Reset routines—gym versus nature hikes—and staying grounded during busy days (25:19) Leh, Ladakh: Mudita's ideal remote work location nestled in Himalayan beauty Resources & Links: Vandana Verma - Influential mentor in cybersecurity ThreatLocker - Supporter of this podcast Cyber Florida – The Mother Ship

What if the secret to staying irreplaceable in the age of AI isn't working harder — it's getting more creative? That's the central argument of SuperCreativity: Augmenting Human Creativity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, the new book by global keynote speaker James Taylor. In this episode of the Business of Story, Park Howell sits down with James to explore how the world's top communicators are using AI not to replace their stories — but to tell them with far greater precision, resonance, and impact. From managing Rolling Stones members at the Royal Albert Hall to speaking for Apple, Cisco, L'Oreal, and PwC across 25+ countries, James brings a rare combination of creative instinct and strategic intelligence to the AI conversation. In this episode you'll discover: • Why AI is fueling a New Roaring Twenties — and what that means for entrepreneurs and business leaders • How James uses psychometric AI analysis to profile audiences before he ever steps on a call or stage • The 250-story story bank system that powers his hyper-personalized keynotes • Why your emotional promise matters even to the most analytical, data-driven audiences • What a live StoryCycle Genie® brand analysis revealed about James's Visionary Magician archetype and emotional promise of "possibility" • The standing ovation story from a billionaires' bank in the UAE that proves emotional storytelling transcends every culture and industry • How to build a speaker brand with the same discipline James learned managing rock stars About James Taylor James Taylor M.B.A., F.R.S.A. is an internationally recognized keynote speaker on creativity, innovation, and AI. He has spoken for Fortune Global 500 companies including Apple, Cisco, Deloitte, Accenture, L'Oreal, EY, Visa, and Dell, and was recently the subject of a 30-minute BBC documentary. He has personally interviewed over 750 of the world's leading creative minds and reached hundreds of thousands of people in 120+ countries. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts — alongside Benjamin Franklin, Bob Dylan, and Nelson Mandela. His new book is SuperCreativity: Augmenting Human Creativity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Connect with James Taylor:

Description The Future of Tech is Here. Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this presentation from Ultimate Partner Live, industry analyst Jay McBain breaks down the monumental macroeconomic shifts rewriting the tech sector in 2026. https://youtu.be/r0qTDyw97Gs As the industry rapidly approaches a $6.07 trillion valuation, driven by massive AI infrastructure investments from Sam Altman and the “Magnificent Seven,” traditional sales and channel models are fundamentally collapsing. McBain reveals how buyer demographics have transformed to an integration-first millennial base, why marketplace ecosystems now command over half of all partner-funded deals, and how a tiny elite of just 1,000 tech service providers control two-thirds of global tech revenue. Learn the exact mechanics behind how Microsoft out-partnered AWS to win 26 straight quarters of dominant growth and how your business can deploy an algorithmic early warning system to capture massive wallet share before competitors even step into the boardroom. Key Takeaways Over half of the Fortune 500 companies vanish every 20 years because their leadership fails to anticipate macroeconomic technological cycles. The true opportunity in the $6.5 trillion AI boom lies not in single vendor products, but in the hardware, software, services, and telecom ecosystem surrounding them. Indirect tech sales are undergoing a structural shift toward direct cloud hyperscaler models driven heavily by Nvidia's core infrastructure client base. Modern business deals are won or lost months before the point of sale based on the average of 6.3 partners surrounding a customer’s environment. Over 51% of tech buyers are now millennials who prioritize software integration capabilities and digital marketplaces over traditional human sales interactions. Tech service economics are pivoting aggressively away from upfront margins toward point-based multi-partner funding across subscription cycles. 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 Nvidia AI buildout, $7 trillion AI opportunity, cloud ecosystem decade, Microsoft vs AWS growth, multi-partner cloud deals, digital marketplace migration, millennial B2B buyers, B2B tech subscription economics, tokenized micro consumption, tech services wallet share, hybrid cloud infrastructure, 28 customer moments, IT services industry growth, telecom spend breakdown, channel chief strategy, managed service providers MSP, global systems integrators GSI, software integration first, point-based vendor incentives, automated co-selling workflows Transcript JAY McBAIN AUDIO PODCAST [00:00:00] Jay McBain: So to go back to that story about the 53% of companies who are gonna fail, one of us is gonna be asked to write the book, but chapter one is always you Blame the CEO. [00:00:13] Vince Menzione: We just came back from Ultimate Partner live in Bellevue, Washington, where we hosted incredible leaders for two amazing days. Come join us for this next session where we explore the tectonic shifts we’ve all been seeing. With that, I am incredibly blessed to invite a friend of mine to the stage. I have a quick little side note, like I found an old LinkedIn post from this gentleman from like many years ago, like 20 years ago. [00:00:39] Vince Menzione: And I wasn’t really that nice to you on that LinkedIn post. Like, oh, like this is before Jay became the Jay, that we all know Jay to be j. But he was in the space and I was at Microsoft doing something and he reached out about something. It was kind of rude, Jay. I was like, oh my gosh. I can’t believe. But Jay has been a great friend. [00:00:54] Vince Menzione: When we started the podcast back up, uh, during COVID we started doing podcasts together. When we moved to the studio, Jay was the first person in the studio. He’s always got a spot, uh, at our events. He’s s Spot Art, and, and he’s a great friend and supporter of Ultimate Partner Jay McBain. For those of you who don’t know him, Jay, welcome. [00:01:13] Vince Menzione: Thank you, sir. [00:01:22] Jay McBain: 31 days ago, we landed Artemis two. The furthest humans have ever been away from the planet Earth 57 years ago. We landed on the moon in the 56 years. Between those two moments, the tech industry has been the fastest growing industry in the world. Every single year we moved from the space race to the technology race, and we’re just getting started. [00:01:46] Jay McBain: If you’re old enough, you’ll recognize the mainframe and mini era for 20 years. You’ll recognize a young disheveled Bill Gates showing up in Boca Raton, Florida for, uh, August the 12th, 1981 launch, where Bill thought that every one of us would’ve a PC in our home, and IBM thought they were gonna sell 10,000 of them to hobbyists. [00:02:12] Jay McBain: 1999, a small startup from an executive who just left Oracle in San Francisco named Mark Benioff. A couple of years later, Jeff Bezos went into a boardroom and said, listen, we’ve spent a lot of money building infrastructure to our busiest day, Christmas, black Friday. You’re telling me this stuff sits idle 10 or 20% for the rest of the year. [00:02:35] Jay McBain: Why don’t we rent that out to others? Got laughed outta that boardroom and then got made of fun of on magazine covers. Maybe you should just tend the store, let the adults talk about technology. In March of 2023, our neighbors, our friends, our family saw DeepFakes. They saw poetry, they saw music, and they came to us as tech people and said, did we just light up Skynet? [00:03:03] Jay McBain: Now every one of these 20 year eras, this is the Taylor Swift version of our industry. Every single one of these eras triggers the fastest growing product in history. Today it’s actually Chacha bt first to a billion users. It triggers a new, richest person in the world, bill Gates, to Jeff Bezos. Now, Elon Musk is the first to sign a trillion dollar pay package, and it’s not for car. [00:03:27] Jay McBain: It’s not for cars. It also triggers a most valuable company in the world change. And today that’s nvidia. These are monumental changes in our industry and they’re monumental changes in partnering every single time. And it also links to our customers. If you take a 20 year view of business, one era, and, and think about the AI era, you know, at the start of it here, if you’re to grab the Fortune 500 magazine from 20 years ago and start to flip through it, 53% of the companies in there no longer exist. [00:04:06] Jay McBain: Every 20 year cycle, we lose over half of the biggest companies in the world. These are the companies that have very deep pockets to buy their way outta problems. If you’re not in the Fortune 571% of tech companies don’t make it 10 years. These are the changes that cost industries. There are changes that cost really big companies and the decisions we make, the trends we’re in right now, in 2026 will be written about in the future. [00:04:39] Jay McBain: This new era, a lot of big numbers being thrown around. Vince’s best friend talk about a six and a half trillion dollar AI opportunity, but it’s not Microsoft’s tam. Microsoft is chasing about a trillion dollars of this. And the ecosystem, the hardware, the software, the services, the telecom is gonna make up the rest. [00:05:04] Jay McBain: It is an ecosystem. Every time these big numbers are thrown, the word ecosystem is always thrown around it. Not to be outdone, Sam Altman’s talking about a $7 trillion build out. The world economy this year, the world GDP will be 126. These are material numbers to world GDP, but even better, they’re both larger than our entire industry is today. [00:05:27] Jay McBain: So what took 56 years of the fastest growing industry this year will be $6.07 trillion. Big numbers, but it’s easier to think about it in terms of a dollar that our customers spend in that dollar. They’re gonna spend 25 cents on hardware. They’re gonna spend 25 cents on software. So for anyone that read the memo 15 years ago, that software’s gonna eat the world, there’s still a dollar a hardware to run every dollar of that software. [00:05:57] Jay McBain: And whether you’re thinking humanoid robots or whichever future you’re envisioning, there’s going to be a dollar of hardware to run every dollar of software for the next 20 years. There’s over 25 cents now in IT services, and in many cases, these services are growing faster than the product categories and just under 25 cents in telecom, that’s how it breaks out today. [00:06:19] Jay McBain: And this industry, which took 56 years to get to this point, is gonna double in size in the next three to five years. We already have two and a half trillion of that seven raised and being spent. Part of the reason Nvidia is the most valuable company in the world. Now our industry, uh, you talk about ultimate partnerships. [00:06:40] Jay McBain: Our industry traditionally, and world trade by the way, is 75% indirect. The dealerships, the agencies, the brokers, the resellers, the retailers, the franchisees, the gas stations, the grocery stores, the pharmacies, all 27 industries sell indirect. You gotta think back the last time you bought something direct. [00:07:01] Jay McBain: Well, I bought a Dell from that dude in the nineties. Cool. Well, Dell Technologies is now 60% indirect. Well, I bought insurance. Direct is 15 minutes. Could save me 15%. Well, Geico last year sold more insurance through agencies and brokers than they did direct. This is the world now. We used to be 75% indirect four years ago. [00:07:26] Jay McBain: Then it went to 73.2, then it went to 70.1 and it then it went to 66.7. By the way, marketplace is in these numbers indirect. It’s not marketplace causing this change. It’s one company, Nvidia. Nvidia has seven customers. The magnificent seven, uh, half of them are in the room right now that every morning we wake up to a hundred billion dollars press release about this $7 trillion buildout. [00:07:56] Jay McBain: What’s interesting is indirect sales in our industry is growing by revenue. It increases every year, just not at the pace that this AI build out is happening direct with seven companies. But the reason we’re all here, and I think the core reason that Vince is building this community is this, you know, Microsoft forever has measured and been very vocal. [00:08:21] Jay McBain: About 96% of their deals have partners in them. Kind of who cares, who collects the money. We care about the moments, the 28 moments before the customer makes a purchase. We care about every 30 days forever, because two thirds of our industry, over $4 trillion now is subscription consumption based. Winning a customer today is only winning the first 30 days. [00:08:46] Jay McBain: We care about this cycle. We care about who surrounds our customer. So six years ago, I stood on a big stage and said, you know, we went through a decade of sales. You know, in 1999, you thought you were born to be a salesperson. You’re managing your territory with your gut. Well, a few years later, you were introduced to the science of selling. [00:09:07] Jay McBain: You know, 10 years later you thought as a marketer, you sit around a cocktail party joking with your friends, 50% of my marketing dollars are wasted. I just don’t know which 50%. Really funny. In 2009 until every 58-year-old CMO got replaced by a 38-year-old growth hacker. Coming in with Marketo and Eloqua and Pardot and HubSpot, and 15,505 as of yesterday, MarTech and iTech tools, ninjas in marketing, they wouldn’t let a nickel go through without measuring. [00:09:43] Jay McBain: Now we understand 96% of deals and partners that surround it. No deal is gonna be won or lost in this era without partnering effectively. So we had to have this decade of the ecosystem. One of the ways we’re tracking is by outsiders. You know, Salesforce every year publishes the state of sales and they’ve got, you know, the number one CRM in the world. [00:10:05] Jay McBain: So they get to go talk to all the CROs, all the salespeople in the world. And as of this year, a couple months ago, 94% of every salesperson in every industry in the world uses partners every single day. You wanna see what this number was six years ago. Also, 89% of salespeople around the world don’t think they’re going to club this year without partners. [00:10:29] Jay McBain: So this is a big moment for us, halfway through the decade ecosystem, but we’re only halfway through. We’re starting to understand now at a more granular level. What partnering means. It’s not theory, it’s not flywheels. It’s not really cute. McKinsey slides that we keep showing to our board saying how important partnering is. [00:10:51] Jay McBain: We’re trying to get to the very specific level of the 6.3 partners on average that surround the deal and what they’re doing. How their business model works, and that’s average if I’m working on a public sector deal. I was at a Red Hat conference yesterday talking sovereignty. If I’m in an enterprise or a large public sector deal, it’s north of 10 partners in the deal. [00:11:15] Jay McBain: So we’re starting to understand what used to be this, this, you know, you’ve been the fastest growing industry for 56 straight years. Every single professional services person in every industry has come in to join the fund. Over 90% of accountants are tech services firms. Over 90% of marketing agencies are tech services agencies. [00:11:36] Jay McBain: All of this 250,000 software companies, a million emerging comp tech companies, the half a million VAR that have been in that traditional channel. The managed service providers, all of these 20 different partner types, millions of companies, tens of millions of people competing for 6.3 spots. Around the customer. [00:11:58] Jay McBain: That’s it. Luckily, there’s 141 million global customers to compete for. There’s, there’s some open slots that you can go find, and that’s the point. Our industry never had our own Fortune 500. We always talk to, you know, these partners and GSIs are doing this and SI are doing that. And we never really had a view of capability and capacity or what our own TAM was inside of that partnering. [00:12:25] Jay McBain: And so we set out and we would’ve loved, you know, chat GPT or Gemini or Claude or any of those tools to do this. But there’s one problem in partnering with AI is that it doesn’t know one partner from the next. There’s a big digital sameness problem in our industry that every single partner, whether it’s Larry in the White van or Accenture, with 786,000 employees all say they do all things to all people all the time. [00:12:53] Jay McBain: 98% of them, 99% of them are private companies that don’t share their p and l. You can’t go into Microsoft’s LinkedIn system and find out how many employees, ’cause it’s a block system, it AI can’t see into it. So it just sees, and it’s a great pattern matching. Google, SEO can’t figure out who’s who, nor today can the large language models. [00:13:14] Jay McBain: ’cause all the things they’re trying to match, the transformers are trying to match. It all looks the same. Every tweet, every ebook, every website, every digital history looks the same. So this took us thousands of people hours across two years to do, to dig into every p and l to dig into every dollar of what they’re doing. [00:13:33] Jay McBain: But what was interesting is only a thousand partners in our industry do two thirds of all tech services. When you get into enterprise, it goes up to 80 to 90%. The partners in the middle, in Blue do more tech services. The 30 of them than the 970 partners in white on the outside, the 970 partners in White do more tech services than the next million combined. [00:14:03] Jay McBain: This is our industry in a nutshell. Every time we talk to a a vendor, every time we talk to a partner, every time we talk to a distributor, we’re now talking names, faces, and places. You you wanna talk sovereignty. Yesterday in Atlanta, 90% of sovereign conversations in public sector in the globe is handled by these companies here. [00:14:26] Jay McBain: Forget about how much you do with these partners today. You wanna chase the next column, which is the wallet share. And I was a channel chief for 17 years. I get the weekly report and I see a million dollar partner, another million dollar partner, sorted top to bottom. You don’t know which partners which, which of those million dollar partners is doing 1.2 million in your category. [00:14:46] Jay McBain: They deserve a baseball cap and a front row seat at your event as an MVP. The next partner right next to them is doing 10 million in your category. They’re only doing a million with you. ’cause customers are pulling them into it. Nine times outta 10. They’re leading with your competitor. So I don’t want that list anymore. [00:15:03] Jay McBain: I want the new list, which is showing me those $9 million opportunities. And I as a board member, as A CEO, as a CFO, as a CRO, I wanna see this list. And then I want to talk people, processes, programs, technology. What are we gonna do to go get our fair share of that 9 million? Where’s our lowest hanging fruit? [00:15:24] Jay McBain: How do we double our pipeline? How do we double the size of our company in three years? It’s all right here. Let’s have very specific conversations and move away from flywheels and move around from force multipliers and and things like that in partnering. Let’s figure out how this partner community is surrounded. [00:15:45] Jay McBain: What do 10 million people who have to be smart in front of their customers every single day, what do they read? Where do they go and who do they follow? It’s the law of a few. This is the old Malcolm Gladwell of tipping point 10 million people in the broader channel. A hundred percent of our TAM comes down to only a thousand watering holes. [00:16:08] Jay McBain: 12% of that entire audience. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s over A million. People love podcasts. Number one way they learn the Joe Rogan effect. In our industry, there’s 121 podcasts. These are all public lists. You can go get on my LinkedIn newsletter on canals, oia. But there’s 121 podcasts that drive him forward. [00:16:28] Jay McBain: Really high up on that list, actually number one on the list is ultimate partner, Vince. That’s how I met. ’cause I asked people, 10 million people, you love this. You walk your dog, you drive to work, you listen to podcasts. I’m not the biggest podcast fan. It’s not number one on my list, but it’s number one on theirs. [00:16:44] Jay McBain: They say, you know, you gotta meet this guy, Vince. It’s unbelievable how great these podcasts are. They’re ultimate. [00:16:54] Jay McBain: Then I talked to Vince and said, but Vince, you know, 35% of your community, the 10 million people love to come to events like this one. The hallway conversations, the hotel lobby bar last night. This is what we love to do, especially post pandemic. It’s the number one way we learn. We learn from our peers, we learn from those around us, and, and the learn from the conversations we have here. [00:17:17] Jay McBain: We always remember these moments, you know, years and years later. There’s 352 choices. I’m going to five of them this week in five different cities. It’s a lot of coverage, but again, it’s a tighter li list of how people work. The magazine lists 106 of them associations like Conter. Now the GTIA peer groups, there’s 15 different spheres of influence, but only a thousand places. [00:17:43] Jay McBain: I could walk you through billionaire, after billionaire, after billionaire in this industry and show you how they did this. How did Arne Bellini at ConnectWise? How did Austin McCord at Datto, how did Nerdio become a unicorn? How did threat locker and huntress move away from 6,500 cyber companies and become unicorns over and over and over again? [00:18:05] Jay McBain: It’s only one slide. Unicorns and billionaires are made here, and a lot of people don’t get it. So walking away from Bellevue, a thousand partners, top down, a thousand watering holes, bottoms up. You’ve covered a hundred percent of your tam. You do it better than 10% of your competitor, 10% better than your competitors. [00:18:27] Jay McBain: You win. You carry that on your resume into the next company. You get a bigger job at a bigger pay scale. Let’s just walk through some examples. Cyber 91.7% of it goes through the channel. Huge channel audience. You know, if you’re in MarTech, it’s only 10%, but this one happens to be all channel, but that’s not the story. [00:18:48] Jay McBain: For every dollar that the 6,500 cyber companies are trying to close, there’s $2 in services. Plot twist, the products are grown at 11, the services are grown at 12.6. Your partners are growing faster than you are, and they will continue to for the next, at least five years, probably 10. So when I’m here, five years from now, you’ll hear in me talk about a three to one split in cyber and then a four to one split in cyber. [00:19:18] Jay McBain: Now, when we’re in Miami a couple days ago is CrowdStrike, they’re talking about a $7 and 5 cent multiplier, chasing that two to one up higher. You look at managed services. Here’s a fun story. Managed services. 82% of customers who are man, uh, outsourcing more this year than last year. 650 billion in size. [00:19:38] Jay McBain: This is bigger than the entire SaaS industry. Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, Marketo, NetSuite, HubSpot, 250,000. Others. This is bigger. It’s also bigger than all the Hyperscalers combined, not just AWS, Microsoft and Google, but Alibaba and Oracle and everybody down the list. This is a massive market also growing at double digits. [00:19:59] Jay McBain: So these are some big things and obviously we’re watching, you know, week in and week out, quarter in, quarter out, the Battle of Software and Battle of the Hyperscalers and things like that, and who’s growing at what pace and, and how partnering is connecting to all of this. You know, we watched a moment really early in the pandemic where Microsoft started growing faster than AWS and they haven’t stopped since 26 straight quarters. [00:20:27] Jay McBain: And you ask customers and say, you know, does Microsoft have a better product? And in most cases they say no. You know, AWS had a five year head start. Well, did they have a better price? Well, no, actually most cases Microsoft’s more expensive. Well, did did they have better promotion? Was their Super Bowl ad better? [00:20:44] Jay McBain: No, they’re both kind of crap. So you kind of ask the questions of what’s the only difference that could create growth above the leader in the market? Well, it’s place. More of the 6.3 partners are walking into those keyboard room meetings and drawing clouds up on the wall and labeling the Microsoft than they are AWS. [00:21:03] Jay McBain: Very simple. It’s never been about product. The best product in our industry has never won. And now the best way forward is that partnering moment, and this is the moment. So to go back to that story about the 53% of companies who are gonna fail, one of us is gonna be asked to write the book. And it could be the book like Kodak, they invented the product that ended up killing them. [00:21:26] Jay McBain: And it’s a woe is me story, but chapter one is always you blame the CEO. How could they not see those trends happening in 2026? How could they, you know, were they blind? Were they stuck in their own, you know, innovation chamber? Innovator’s dilemma, were they stuck in their own boardrooms? Why couldn’t they see? [00:21:46] Jay McBain: Well, chapter two, you, you blame the board. They have fiduciary responsibility, outsider view, and how could they not see it? But really, this is the future right here. If you take this slide and apply it 10 or 20 years from now to every failure and every success, these are the chapters of the book. Your buyer is now a millennial. [00:22:05] Jay McBain: As of last year, the 51% of our market is bought by people born after 1982. Different psychology, different behavior, different journey, different criteria, their integration. First buyers. The buy a product, 80% as good as the next one. If it works better in their environment. 94% of people won’t buy a car unless it has CarPlay or Android Auto. [00:22:26] Jay McBain: New Buyer. You have to be more integrated than your competitors. That’s a partnering story. The 6.3 partners. If you heard cyber, you need some great channel partnerships, but you need the other 5.3 partners as well, the consultants, the advisors, the designers, the architects, the implementers, the integrators, the manner service, all of the other partners. [00:22:44] Jay McBain: You need to know more of them than your competitors do, and have them label clouds with your name in them. You need better alliances. Even if you compete, you only compete in the morning. You’re best friends by the afternoon. You have to be tight with the hyperscalers, tight, with the big SaaS platforms, tight with cyber, tight with distribution, there are layers, seven layers to every deal. [00:23:04] Jay McBain: You gotta be tight in and have better alliances than your competitors. And then it all comes to the 28 moments, which I’m gonna end on, but the go to market of all of this, the co-selling, co-marketing, co-innovation, co-development, co keeping. This is it. Your product has to be good enough that somebody’s gonna renew it. [00:23:21] Jay McBain: Your Super Bowl has to be, you know, ad has to be good enough that people don’t, you know, shame you on social media. Your pricing has to be somewhere in a country mile of the bell curve of what the customer wants to pay. But successor failure is just here and platforms are synonymous with partnering. [00:23:40] Jay McBain: It’s our role now in the decade of the ecosystem to drive our companies forward. Marketplace. It’s probably the most predict, you know, great prediction we ever made. You know, growing at 82% compounded, it’s hard to predict ’cause it doubles almost every year. We were almost exact to the decimal point. Five years later now till 2030, we’re watching a second story, which is more interesting. [00:24:02] Jay McBain: If 96% of all deals have partners inside of them and there’s private offers and multi-partner offers and distributor sellers record all these funding mechanisms or services as a product. As of last week, over 50% of all deals in marketplaces now have partner funding. It means that while money changes hands differently, the respect and the recognition of what partners do is in the deal. [00:24:26] Jay McBain: We think that’s going to 59, but at some point, that’s gonna have to hit 96. ’cause to run the best programs, whether it’s an indirect sale, whether it’s a direct sale, whether it’s a marketplace deal, it doesn’t matter how money changes hands. What matters is we recognize the 6.3 partners. They’re not only making the deal happen bigger and faster, but renewing and enriching that every 30 days forever. [00:24:48] Jay McBain: When we watch, you know, billion dollar clubs and when we read all the press releases and all the hubbub about how fast this is growing and who, which companies are behind all this. When I’m quoted in some of these press releases, it’s because of this. You know, CrowdStrike, you know, brags are a billion dollars in a single year, but inside of that, they’re showing that 91% growth in marketplaces, which is pretty phenomenal for any company to almost double in size every single year. [00:25:17] Jay McBain: What’s more phenomenal is they’re growing the channel piece of it, 3548%. That green part of it is growing. Companies that understand platform and have people and processes and programs and technology to do it are winning. And they’re getting recognition and partners are starting to join the Billion Dollar Club who don’t sell a product, but are also winning at Extreme Scale. [00:25:44] Jay McBain: So talk about those partner 1000 and who are leaning in to win at this level. As well as everything changes, traditional billing moved into subscription models, moved into consumption models. Now we’re being tokenized to death multi it’s, it’s in this mode of micro consumption. There’s no chance there was little chance in subscription consumption that would be resold. [00:26:09] Jay McBain: You don’t buy Netflix from the cable guy in the white van. There’s zero chance when you’re buying tokens at a buck a piece that that’s going through any indirect sale. This continues to grow. Now the tectonic shifts is what happens when money changes hands differently. These old programs that we used to all write hundreds of different boxes, we checked every day on deal reg and trainings and all the other things are changing. [00:26:35] Jay McBain: To this, you’ll get these slides, by the way, in high res, inside of this now is the customer. For the first time ever, 45 years later, we have the customer in the middle of what we do, the 28 moments in green before they buy the seven layer stack and the partners inside it. The implementation. The integration, the managed services in a cycle that never ends, and two thirds of our industry. [00:26:55] Jay McBain: With the customer in the middle, we can now move money around to the different moments. It’s not all landing in front or backend margins or market development funds or new customer bonuses or spiffs. It’s landing where it needs to land. Over 400 companies now, pretty much led by Microsoft 400 companies are in a point system right now and 400 more. [00:27:18] Jay McBain: We’re working kind of behind the scenes to get that announced in the next 12 months. This is a total changeover in terms of how economics work and partners are yelling over half of us. I don’t care. Don’t call me a VAR anymore. Don’t call me an MSP. Don’t call me a regional system integrator. I do the consulting over half the time. [00:27:36] Jay McBain: I do the design, I do the implementations, I do the managed services, and 44% of us are vibe coding. On weekends. We’re not happy. Just on the services side. We wanna join the seven layer tech stack as well. These are partners growing faster than their vendors by understanding this cycle and where to show up and where the money is in ai. [00:27:56] Jay McBain: And the number one thing they’re asking for is not more leads, which they did for 45 years. The number one thing is now recognized for what I do. I’ve never just been a cash register. We’re completely now past this idea of a channel being a channel of distribution, and now a channel being this platform for the future. [00:28:16] Jay McBain: As we lay that on top of ai, the first couple of years of AI has really been consumer driven. The 95% failure rate that MIT reported last year is now 70%. That’s the failure to get from proof of concept to production. That 70 will be 50 by the summer we’re moving now in business, the maturity rates are going up at the end customer and in 88% of cases, that’s because of the channel. [00:28:43] Jay McBain: They’re working with partners. They’re not vibe coding themselves and working in little skunkwork groups. They’re working with partners to make it happen, and it now becomes the partner’s number one growth opportunity. I can grow at 11 or 12% in cyber every year. Compounded I can grow in 10% in managed services. [00:29:03] Jay McBain: You know, those are great double digit growth ’cause my customers are growing at 2.7% and I can go four x my customer, but I can go 10 x my customer if I have the right services built around ai. And this compounded growth rate and that big number in 2 20 32, 267 is what’s got those top 1000 partners obsessed. [00:29:25] Jay McBain: And your companies are leading with ai. Now you need to connect to those AI services. You need to get partners on this scale of growth. And they will be adding your name inside every cloud. They write on every whiteboard, but 82% of partners around the world, you know, we survey 25,000 of them aren’t ready, and they’re blaming vendors for not being ready, and they’re telling them exactly the workshops and the training that they need to get ready for this cycle. [00:29:53] Jay McBain: 82% of our entire partner, tens of millions of people, aren’t ready to grow at 35% and they need our help. Last thing I’ll say about AI is it’s the first time from client server to cloud, edge to cloud that it’s been segment driven. SMB alone has one, you know, six different segments, one to nine, 10 to 24, 25 to 49, et cetera. [00:30:18] Jay McBain: Mid-market into enterprise. No one that runs a restaurant is calling Jensen to buy a GPU to put next to the stove. No one’s calling Sam or Dario or anyone at Anthropic or OpenAI directly. They’re waiting. If you run a restaurant with all the people running around with tablets, you’ve invested in toast or square or clover or one of the platforms to run your business. [00:30:41] Jay McBain: A hundred different things. And you’re gonna wait for toast to work with a hyperscaler and build out the capabilities genetically. So when they see a spike in Uber Eats orders, they automatically place a food order and automatically change the staffing to deliver on it. That’s what the restaurant’s waiting for, and there’s no one calling and having a big a agent conversation. [00:31:03] Jay McBain: But even if you go into hundreds of people in medium sized business, every one of the vice presidents have their tech stack already built. I talked about the marketing person already, but the HR leader has one, and everybody’s got their seven layer stack. They’re not calling to buy a GPU and they’re not calling to, you know, bring in open AI directly or, or anthropic. [00:31:22] Jay McBain: They’re waiting for the platform they built to integrate together ag agenta capabilities. Everybody’s in wait mode up until enterprise and public, large public sector. So we are looking at this market and at 90% of that AI market is run by those thousand companies, and the rest of the millions of partners are helping in terms of how these businesses are gonna change at that level. [00:31:46] Jay McBain: Here’s where I end. You know, the 28 moments used to be a theory. It used to be a flywheel. How do we buy a car? [00:31:55] Vince Menzione: Well, we Google it, [00:31:57] Jay McBain: 81% of us now, 94% of us use large language models. We find out that there’s 365 brands of car. I’d have to test drive one every day of the year to get through them all. So we start narrowing these things down. [00:32:09] Jay McBain: We configure it. We put our rims on it, we color it. We download the invoice price. We download the backend rebates this month, whether I buy it in May or June, we find out what 5,000 people paid for our exact car within 50 miles of us. And then we don’t wanna go to the dealer because we know more than the salesperson, the manager ever will. [00:32:26] Jay McBain: We know what we’re gonna pay within, you know, dollars or cents. Just carvana the car. Hand me the keys. Let’s just forget the whole eight hour back and forth. I’ll get you a deal thing. I’m smarter than you in technology. Our customers are smarter than us, smarter than salespeople. That’s why 75% of millennials don’t wanna talk to a salesperson. [00:32:48] Jay McBain: They want to end digitally, and by the way, they’re not gonna send a fax after 28 digital moments. They’re gonna end on a digital marketplace. This is all demographics. It’s not hard to see where it’s going, but we’re getting into names, faces, places again. What if every dollar of your tam, the board, the CEO, runs around with their big multi-billion dollar number, they’re chasing? [00:33:09] Jay McBain: What if every single deal looks the exact same? This is a deal with AstraZeneca, A real deal, real customer spending millions of dollars. We know it starts in October, it ends in April. It’s a six month cycle. We see what they read, the MQ ls at the beginning. We see the sales demo moments. We see ISV, but we’ve never had the light blue boxes. [00:33:30] Jay McBain: What if we as a team could overlay the 6.3 partners in this deal? And when you find out a couple things. Here’s where I end. In December, five deals were one, three of them by NTT. The person at NTT probably coaches AstraZeneca’s, you know, kids’ soccer team. They probably have a cottage together at the lake. [00:33:50] Jay McBain: For the last 20 years, if the person at NTT worked at Deloitte, Deloitte would’ve run this deal. But Software One and Yash are both there, so we understand that when they were drawing clouds up on the wall in the boardroom in December, this deal was won and lost there. It was not won and lost at the point of sale. [00:34:09] Jay McBain: So what if you knew more about this and could see every dollar in your tam? You had an early warning system that this was happening. Two things jump out at this now that we’re in Bellevue. AWS was touched twice in this deal, directly in the marketing cycle and the sales cycle. AWS lost this deal. Here’s an example of Microsoft winning a deal with Microsoft never being touched. [00:34:34] Jay McBain: For some reason, NTT who won, who won AWS’s partner of the year a couple years ago led with Microsoft, so did Software one, Microsoft’s biggest reseller in Europe, and as did Yash, they all led with Microsoft and without Microsoft, knowing Microsoft took a multimillion dollar deal away from their competitors by winning in December. [00:34:53] Jay McBain: That’s one. Second. These partners didn’t just show up other than soccer and cottages. They didn’t show up in December. It went closed one in their CRM system. Back in the summer, August, September, we already knew AstraZeneca was in market, spending millions of dollars. We didn’t need them to read an ebook or go to an event to find that out. [00:35:17] Jay McBain: We knew it because it was closed one. They’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars times five in December to know what to do at the end. This is an early warning system that’s better than any MQL, better than any SQL. And if you could give your company these level of view into their pipeline with an early warning system that I can work with those partners for months before they ever show up at the customer’s boardroom. [00:35:44] Jay McBain: This is it. Talk about 47% winners. This takes you from not only surviving the AI era to being a top five platform winner. Thank you very much. [00:36:01] Vince Menzione: Until next time, we’ll see you in person. Hopefully at our next event.

Founder of Upshift, Shawn Yeager, joined me on Ditching Hourly to talk about how AI is killing the billable hour and what professional services firms can do about it. Jonathan and Shawn dig into judgment versus execution, what firms should commercialize after AI, why cost-cutting is only the first move, and how agent workflows change what small and midsize firms can do.00:00 - Introduction01:54 - AI and the billable hour03:56 - The judgment sandwich05:19 - Strategy, execution, and hidden value09:06 - Client conversations about AI pressure13:26 - Validating AI output15:29 - Judgment, marketing, and cost of being wrong17:07 - AI transformation and commercialization20:08 - The hard parts big firms still need humans for22:20 - Cost recovery versus new offerings25:35 - Agents as extra employees26:40 - Interns versus chiefs of staff28:44 - Scaffolding agent workflows30:12 - From chatbots to delegated workflows37:00 - AI adoption inside firms42:01 - Closing remarksShawn Yeager runs Upshift, a firm focused on helping professional services firms understand what they sell after AI. His career has focused on emerging technology and getting it to market, including work on Microsoft's first browser team, the SaaS/cloud wave, mobile, Bitcoin, and AI. His background is in computer science, and his work has included sales, marketing, partnerships, consulting, Accenture, early-stage startups, and his own ventures. Learn more at upshiftco.com. (00:00) - Introduction (01:54) - AI and the billable hour (03:56) - The judgment sandwich (05:19) - Strategy, execution, and hidden value (09:06) - Client conversations about AI pressure (13:26) - Validating AI output (15:29) - Judgment, marketing, and cost of being wrong (17:07) - AI transformation and commercialization (20:08) - The hard parts big firms still need humans for (22:20) - Cost recovery versus new offerings (25:35) - Agents as extra employees (26:40) - Interns versus chiefs of staff (28:44) - Scaffolding agent workflows (30:12) - From chatbots to delegated workflows (37:00) - AI adoption inside firms (42:01) - Closing remarks ----Do you have questions about how to improve your business? Things like:Value pricing your work instead of billing for your time?Positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space?Productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours writing another custom proposal?Book a one-on-one coaching call with me and get answers to these questions and others in the time it takes to get ready for work in the morning.Best of all, you're covered by my 100% satisfaction guarantee. If at the end of the call, you don't feel like it was worth it, just say the word, and I'll refund your purchase in full.To book your one-on-one coaching call, go to: https://jonathanstark.com/callI hope to see you there!

We read the internet so you don't have to. There Are No Girls on the Internet is a weekly podcast and newsletter hosted by Bridget Todd covering the tech, internet, and culture stories that deserve more attention — especially when they're about AI, power, gender, race, and who actually gets hurt when systems fail. This week: Meta's AI chatbot helped hackers steal Instagram accounts, a debate over who owns the phrase "Hot Girls Read," new AI legislation, and more.

Artificial intelligence continues to dominate supply chain conversations, but why are so many organizations struggling to move beyond pilots and into enterprise-wide success? In this episode of The Buzz powered by APL Logistics, Scott Luton and Alex Pradhan explore the latest research and developments shaping the future of supply chain leadership, AI adoption, omnichannel fulfillment, workforce transformation, and decision intelligence. Special guest Arash Aghlara, Founder and CEO of FlexRule, joins the discussion to share why better decisions—not just better data—may be the key to unlocking supply chain performance. From AI pilot purgatory and omnichannel profitability to talent shortages and protein supply disruptions, this episode tackles some of the most pressing challenges facing supply chain leaders today. Scott, Alex, and Arash dive into new research from leading organizations including MIT, Accenture, GEP, and the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. Along the way, they explore the growing importance of governance, the role of decision intelligence in modern operations, and why organizations must move beyond visibility alone to create smarter, faster, and more effective business outcomes.   Key Takeaways: Why nearly three-quarters of organizations have yet to move AI initiatives beyond planning and pilot stages. How decision intelligence helps organizations bridge the gap between data, visibility, and action. Key findings from MIT's latest State of Supply Chain Omnichannel research. Why supply chain leaders must rethink workforce development amid a projected talent shortage. The critical role governance plays in scaling AI and improving operational decision-making. How organizations can identify and manage interconnected decisions across planning, logistics, inventory, and customer service. Why practical execution—not hype—is essential for successful digital transformation.   If you're navigating AI adoption, digital transformation, talent challenges, or increasing supply chain complexity, this episode delivers practical insights and actionable strategies from experienced industry leaders. You'll walk away with a deeper understanding of how decision intelligence can help organizations move beyond visibility, improve execution, and build more resilient supply chains in an increasingly complex business environment.   Additional Links & Resources: APL Logistics: https://www.apllogistics.com/ With That Said: https://bit.ly/WTS-31-May-2026 5 Signs Your Supply Chain Has Outgrown How It's Managed Today: https://bit.ly/5-signs-your-SC-has-outgrown-mgmt Supply Chain AI Is Stuck in Pilot Purgatory Because the Operating Model Is Missing: https://bit.ly/4u4dPyj GEP Webinar: https://bit.ly/10-June-2026-Webinar State of Supply Chain Omnichannel Report: https://bit.ly/3RUcHju Turning the supply chain talent shortage into strength: https://accntu.re/4vkqNZQ Protein powder shortage threatens America's biggest food craze: https://bit.ly/3RIkrFd Upcoming Live Programming:  https://supplychainnow.com/upcoming-live-programming/ Supply Chain Now Resource Hub: https://supplychainnow.com/resource-hub/ FlexRule: https://www.flexrule.com/ The Supply Chain Whisperer on Why Practicality Still Wins: https://bit.ly/Why-Practicality-Still-Matters Connect with Arash on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arashaghlara/ Connect with Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandrapradhan/ Watch and listen to more Supply Chain Now episodes: https://supplychainnow.com/brands/supply-chain-now/ Subscribe to Supply Chain Now: https://linktr.ee/Supplychainnow Check out the Supply Chain Now Resource Hub: https://supplychainnow.com/resource-hub/ Work with Us! Download the Supply Chain Now 2026 Media Kit: https://supplychainnow.com/media-kit/ WEBINAR- From AI Pilots to Performance: How Supply Chain Leaders Are Scaling Agentic AI: https://bit.ly/49hCqIq WEBINAR- Amazon Supply Chain 101: Enabling efficiency and growth for businesses everywhere–and everywhere they sell: https://bit.ly/49r8N7D WEBINAR- The Expanding Role of Supply Chain Optimization Teams in Driving Business Impact: https://bit.ly/3PHRAAf WEBINAR- AI that moves at velocity: Cut through latency with agentic workflows: https://bit.ly/4x4626t For everything else, start here: https://supplychainnow.com This episode was hosted by Scott Luton and Alex Pradhan, and produced by Trisha Cordes, Joshua Miranda, and Amanda Luton. For additional information, please visit our dedicated show page at: https://supplychiannow.com/buzz-how-decision-intelligence-transform-supply-chain-performance-1592 The content in this episode, including all audio, videos, visuals, and graphics, is the property of Supply Chain Now and is protected by copyright law. Unauthorized use, reproduction, distribution, modification, or re-uploading of this content in any form is strictly prohibited without explicit written permission from Supply Chain Now.For licensing inquiries or permissions, please contact us at production@supplychainnow.com© 2026 Supply Chain Now. All rights reserved. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What happens when organizations become so focused on speed, efficiency, and AI that they slowly lose sight of people? In this thought-provoking conversation, Dr. Kelly Monahan shares insights from her years studying the future of work inside organizations like Deloitte, Accenture, Meta, and Upwork. Drawing from her upcoming book, Reclaim the Plot, Kelly explains how leaders and organizations gradually “drift” away from the human purpose of work, often without realizing it. We explore the pressures leaders face today, including complexity, investor expectations, technological disruption, burnout, and the temptation to prioritize performance over people. Kelly also shares a deeply personal story about recognizing her own leadership drift during the pandemic and the intentional steps she took to reconnect with her team. This conversation offers both a warning and a hopeful vision for leaders who want to strengthen human judgment, curiosity, wisdom, and principled leadership in an AI-driven world. You'll discover:Why leadership drift happens slowly and invisibly inside organizationsHow pressure, complexity, and exhaustion can cause leaders to lose empathy and perspectiveThe difference between using AI to augment people versus replace themPractical ways leaders can rebuild trust, psychological safety, and human connectionWhy curiosity and feedback are essential for avoiding leadership driftConnect with Kelly Monahan on Social MediaLinkedInInstagramWebsites Dr. Kelly Monahan Beyond the Desk BookReclaim the Plot – (release date September 2026)Check out all the episodesLeave a review on Apple PodcastsConnect with Meredith on LinkedIn

On this episode of What Are You Good At (a THINK Business & Sales series)… Jeff Gunsberg and I sat down with Henry King, author of Autonomous: Why the Fittest Businesses Embrace AI for Strategies and Digital Labor, for one of the most eye-opening AI conversations we've had on the show. Henry has spent years inside Accenture, Salesforce, and the consulting world — giving him a rare lens on how fast business is changing and what leaders must prepare for next. We talked about: Why the last 3–6 months of AI adoption have moved faster than the last few years. Why most people are still using ChatGPT like Google, and what that's costing them. Why the companies that win will be the ones bold enough to rethink everything: org charts, workflows, roles, and the relationship between humans and machines. And Henry breaks down exactly why we're about to see AI as digital colleagues, not just productivity tools. Top 3 Takeaways 1. Generative AI is not the finish line, it's the warm-up. The real disruption is agentic AI that performs work, makes decisions, and becomes part of the workforce. 2. The human advantage is shifting. We win with curiosity, imagination, empathy, and better questions, not effort or years of experience. 3. Leaders must design for movement, not stability. The dust isn't settling. The organizations that thrive will be the ones built for flexibility, experimentation, and constant reinvention. --- Henry King Innovation Strategist and Advisor | Co-author of best-selling books BOUNDLESS and AUTONOMOUS | ex-Salesforce, Deloitte Consulting, Accenture Leader in Innovation, Transformation and Technology. 30+ years experience helping companies meet their growth and transformation goals, both in the US and internationally, with expertise in i) Innovation Strategy and Management, ii) Digital Transformation, iii) Information Technology Leadership, Strategy, and Full Lifecycle Management iv)Thought Leadership, Writing and Teaching Co-author of the best selling book ""Boundless: A New Mindset for Unlimited Business Success"". Co-author of the upcoming book ""Autonomous: Why the Fittest Businesses Embrace AI-First Strategies and Digital Labor"". Specialties: Innovation Strategy, digital Transformation, Concept Development and Implementation, Customer Experience Optimization and Innovation, Capabilities Development, Organizing for Innovation, Innovation Management, Chief Information Officer, IT Strategy, Systems Development Connect with Jon Dwoskin: Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejondwoskinexperience Website: https://jondwoskin.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin Email: jon@jondwoskin.com Get Jon's Book: The Think Big Movement: Grow your business big. Very Big! Connect with Jeff Gunsberg:Website: https://title-connect.com Connect with Henry King:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henry-king-88ba109/ *E - explicit language may be used in this podcast.