Podcasts about isvs

In this episode of Cents Chat, Kitty and Jason sit down with Jordan Thaeler, founder of POS+, to talk about one of the biggest tensions in embedded payments: the difference between a preferred payments partner and a payments prison. For years, ISVs have built real revenue streams by integrating payments into their platforms, and when done well, that model can create a better experience for everyone. The trouble starts when “preferred” quietly becomes “mandatory,” pricing drifts out of line, functionality lags, and merchants realize they are not choosing a payments provider so much as being cornered into one.Jordan breaks down how POS+ is pushing back on that model by giving merchants more payment choice without forcing them to rip out the software they already use to run their business. The conversation gets into merchant frustration, ISV monetization, payment flow workarounds, AI-driven adaptability, and why the smartest platforms should stop treating friction like a moat. The takeaway for ISVs is simple: pick a great default payments partner, make the economics fair, keep the experience strong, and give merchants a reasonable path to alternatives. Most merchants will choose the preferred option if it actually earns the business. But nobody likes being trapped.

Send us Fan MailThe Salesforce job market is finally showing a pulse, but it is not a comeback story. We sit down with Sasha Semyonova, a leading tech journalist at Salesforce Ben, to unpack what the latest hiring signals really mean for Salesforce careers, from admins and developers to architects and ISVs. If you have been watching job boards fill up with “unicorn” roles and deflating salaries, you are not imagining it, and we explain why it keeps happening.We talk candidly about the realities candidates face right now: market saturation, ghost jobs, layoffs, and the growing influence of AI on staffing decisions. Sasha shares what she is seeing across the Salesforce ecosystem, including the shift toward specialized specialists who can blend platform knowledge with business analysis, architecture thinking, and practical AI skills. We also dig into why blasting out AI-generated resumes is a losing strategy for most people and how being undeniably human can still cut through the noise when everyone else looks the same on paper.Then we look ahead. Headless Salesforce, a Slack-first workflow, Agentforce, and rapid UI changes are reshaping how users interact with the platform and what employers will expect next. For ISVs and partners, we cover the pressure to build agent-oriented solutions and the simple question that matters most: what do customers actually want from AI?Subscribe for more honest market breakdowns, share this with someone job hunting in Salesforce, and leave a review with your biggest question about where the ecosystem is headed next.

In this episode of Cents Chat, Kitty and Chris sit down with Sean Ogden, Co-Founder of GiveTech, to talk about one of the least glamorous but most important parts of payments: merchant onboarding. GiveTech's mission is to make giving so simple it can happen at a stoplight, but that kind of frictionless donation experience only works if the platform also has strong controls behind the scenes. The team digs into how GiveTech replaced clunky PDFs, DocuSigns, and awkward PII collection with a branded, mobile-first onboarding workflow that feels simple for customers while supporting underwriting, KYC, and fraud prevention.The conversation also looks at why onboarding has become a bigger responsibility for ISVs and platforms. With card-network monitoring expectations increasing, fintech regulation shifting, and donation platforms becoming attractive targets for fraudsters, getting merchants live is no longer just an administrative step. It is the front door to trust, risk, compliance, and money movement. GiveTech's story shows how better onboarding can reduce sales friction, protect sensitive information, validate identities, and help legitimate organizations start accepting donations faster without making the platform easier for bad actors to exploit.

This episode of the How We Got There podcast features a conversation with Mark Rutledge, Chief Storyteller | Global ISV Partner Solutions at Salesforce. The builder advocacy program that he works on is one that every ISV should learn about and explore if they might be a fit for working with them.Fun fact - I worked with Mark Rutledge when he as a client of my former business, GTM Guides, while he was building on the Salesforce platform for at Moody's. Thanks to Codescience (now Bridgenext) for bringing us together.Mark shares his journey of being in the ecosystem to working at Salesforce to bring the human aspect to partners - contemplate who we are building for vs. just what we are building. PDOs are an essential part of the ecosystem as they have a view of the technology and the market to help an ISV's vision come to production - especially important for composite apps who don't have Salesforce dev and architecture talent internally.One of my favorite parts of the conversation was hearing Mark talk about constructing a hero story around the pain end customers will be feeling all the way to “the universe has been saved” in the narrative. It all starts with spending time listening to customers, approaching it with empathy. If you're just getting started, try to end a demo of a feature with “…so you can _________” as an easy way to integrate what it actually means to your customers.We touch on the shift from per-seat pricing to consumption-based pricing and how ISVs should be looking to adapt to the model where Salesforce is goring towards.This episode is brought to you by ISVApp. ISVapp the usage analytics platform built specifically for Salesforce ISV and OEM applications. ISVapp is your central toolbox for reducing churn, increasing renewals, uncovering upsell opportunities, and closing more deals. #salesforce #isv #gtm #salesforcepartners #appexchange

Cents Chat is back with a new format, sharper opinions, and a very clear mission: help ISVs, PayFacs, marketplaces, fintech teams, and payments operators make sense of the messy parts of modern payments.In this relaunch episode, Kitty kicks things off with Jason, Steve, and Chris to explain what the new Cents Chat is all about: real pain points, practical payments strategy, current industry changes, and conversations with ISVs solving actual operational problems.The team covers why payments can no longer be treated like background plumbing, how API integrations, onboarding flows, merchant risk, compliance obligations, contracts, and interchange fights are becoming platform-level issues, and why future episodes will focus on the problems payments teams are actually trying to solve.They also preview the first ISV guest conversation, which will dig into onboarding flows and how one company streamlined a process that had become too slow, manual, and messy.If you build, operate, support, or monetize payments inside software, this is the reset episode. Payments got messy. Good.

A “credit card fee” can protect your margins or quietly create compliance risk, and the difference usually comes down to one word: clarity. We sit down with Jim Oberman, CEO of Payroc, to unpack credit card surcharging in a way that merchants, software platforms, and payments teams can actually use, without hand-waving and without confusing it with every other fee customers see at checkout.We start with the fundamentals: what surcharging is, why it exists, and why it applies only to credit cards, not debit or prepaid. Then we cut through the biggest source of mistakes by separating four commonly mixed concepts: surcharging, dual pricing, convenience fees, and service fees. From there, we get practical about the rules that matter in the real world, including Visa's 3% surcharge cap becoming the de facto standard, Mastercard's different limit, and how brand enforcement programs and secret shopping can expose sloppy implementations.The bigger story is why surcharging has taken off so fast. Technology now makes it possible to present buyer choice at the exact moment of payment, across online and in-person experiences, with options like debit, ACH (electronic check), and emerging rails like real-time payments. Jim explains why embedded payments and ISVs increasingly treat surcharging as more than cost recovery: it can be a strategic feature, a trust-builder, and a way to keep reconciliation and settlement clean for merchants at scale.

Today’s headline news for Canadian IT solution providers: inforcer launches Copilot Manager: inforcer has released its new Copilot Manager feature, giving MSPs in-depth visibility into Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption and shadow AI usage across customer tenants. According to the company, as many as 80% of SMB employees are using unauthorized AI tools at work, and IBM research cited by inforcer suggests organizations with high shadow AI exposure average $670,000 more in breach costs. The tool builds on the company’s earlier Copilot Readiness Assessment and has already been trialed in beta by more than 200 MSPs globally. SUSE launches Sovereign Partners Specialization: SUSE has announced a new Sovereign Partners Specialization at its SUSECON 2026 conference in Prague, designed for MSPs and channel partners operating in sovereign cloud environments. The specialization is structured as an agile layer on top of SUSE’s existing partner program, targeting partners who already hold sovereign field certifications and know the SUSE technology stack. For Canadian solution providers, the timing aligns with accelerating data sovereignty requirements under OSFI E-21 and Quebec’s Law 25. Cayosoft launches Microsoft Migration Services: Cayosoft has launched a full-cycle Microsoft identity migration service delivered in partnership with XMS Solutions, covering Active Directory, Entra ID, Microsoft 365, Exchange, SharePoint, and Teams. According to the company, the offering addresses the security exposure that persists after migrations that close on schedule but leave behind broken permissions and unmanaged identity drift. The service spans pre-migration assessment through post-migration monitoring and governance. Kaseya unveils Agentic IT Management Platform: Kaseya has announced what it is calling the first Agentic IT Management Platform, powered by a proprietary dataset the company calls Kaseya Intelligence, combining real-world IT data with an execution layer designed to act autonomously on behalf of MSPs. GuidePoint Security wins CrowdStrike Americas Partner of the Year: GuidePoint Security has been named CrowdStrike’s 2026 Americas Partner of the Year after the two companies surpassed $1 billion in cumulative joint sales, a milestone the company is positioning as validation of its managed security practice. Dyna Software showcases Platform Copilot at Knowledge 2026: Dyna Software is demonstrating Platform Copilot at ServiceNow Knowledge 2026, positioning the tool as a way to generate ServiceNow environment configurations from natural language inputs and images, reducing prototyping time for implementation partners. Kyndryl pushes AI deeper into IT operations: Kyndryl has announced updates expanding autonomous AI capabilities across its global IT operations practice, extending AI-assisted resolution workflows for its managed services engagements. Upwind adds Windows Server runtime visibility: Upwind has launched runtime visibility support for Windows Server virtual machines running across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, closing a cross-platform gap in its cloud-native security coverage. Read Full Transcript Welcome to The Buzz from ChannelBuzz.ca, I’m Robert Dutt, today is Friday, May 8, 2026, and here’s what’s happening in the channel today. Managing Microsoft 365 Copilot is becoming a genuine operational challenge for MSPs, and a company called inforcer is positioning itself as the answer with the launch of its new Copilot Manager feature. The company, which makes Microsoft 365 multi-tenant management software for managed service providers, says Copilot Manager gives partners in-depth visibility into Copilot adoption trends across all client tenants, and – critically – the ability to monitor shadow AI usage. According to inforcer, as many as eighty percent of SMB employees are bringing their own AI tools to work, using unauthorized or open-source applications that increase the risk of data leakage. The company cites IBM research suggesting one in five organizations have experienced a breach due to shadow AI, with those carrying high shadow AI exposure averaging six hundred and seventy thousand dollars more in breach costs. The business case here is straightforward for solution providers. Copilot has crossed twenty million paid seats. The licensing is in motion. What most MSPs lack is the infrastructure to make Copilot governance a repeatable, billable service rather than a one-time check-in conversation. Copilot Manager has already been trialed in beta by more than two hundred MSPs globally, and the company says it builds directly on a Copilot Readiness Assessment tool released last year, giving partners a documented progression from pre-sales evaluation through ongoing managed AI services. SUSE has launched a new Sovereign Partners Specialization as part of its channel program, a move that carries meaningful implications for the Canadian market. The announcement came at the company’s annual SUSECON conference in Prague last month, with details emerging publicly this week. SUSE is positioning the specialization as an agile layer on top of its existing partner program, designed specifically for early-mover partners who already hold sovereign field certifications and are invested in the sovereign technology market. According to Hayley Wienszczak, SUSE’s head of global partner programs and success, the initial go-to-market will focus on existing SUSE MSPs who know the technology stack, working jointly to onboard the first reference customers onto a full SUSE sovereign stack. More than ninety-eight percent of SUSE’s business runs through partners, and the company is framing the sovereign play as an opportunity to lock in that partner ecosystem around an emerging but fast-growing requirement. For Canadian MSPs, the timing aligns with accelerating regulatory pressure around data sovereignty – OSFI’s E-21 guideline on technology and third-party risk, Quebec’s Law 25, and federal Protected B requirements are all pushing enterprise buyers toward environments where data residency is a verifiable, contractual commitment rather than a vendor promise. SUSE is also opening co-sell registration to ISVs and system integrators alongside MSPs as part of the same program update. Earlier this week, Cayosoft launched a full-cycle Microsoft identity migration service that it says is designed to address the ongoing risk that sits inside most Active Directory and Entra ID environments. The offering, called Cayosoft Microsoft Migration Services, is being delivered in partnership with XMS Solutions, a long-time provider of migration and cybersecurity services. According to the company, the service covers Active Directory, Entra ID, Microsoft 365, Exchange, SharePoint, Teams, and related identity infrastructure, and spans the complete lifecycle from pre-migration assessment through phased execution, data integrity validation, and post-migration monitoring, governance, and recovery. The launch targets a specific and frequently mismanaged problem: migrations that declare success on go-live day while leaving behind broken permissions, duplicated identities, and poorly governed access that creates security exposure for months afterward. Cayosoft is specifically calling out M&A, divestitures, and consolidation scenarios as high-risk contexts. For Microsoft-focused channel partners, the model Cayosoft is describing – migration as the front door into a longer-term identity management and recovery engagement – represents a services motion that can extend well beyond the initial project. Partners who have historically treated Active Directory migrations as one-time engagements may find this a useful framework for repackaging that work as an ongoing managed practice. In Brief Kaseya has unveiled what it is calling the first Agentic IT Management Platform, powered by a proprietary dataset the company calls Kaseya Intelligence.  GuidePoint Security has been named CrowdStrike’s 2026 Americas Partner of the Year after the two companies surpassed one billion dollars in cumulative joint sales.  Dyna Software is showcasing its Platform Copilot at ServiceNow Knowledge 2026, positioning the tool as a way to generate ServiceNow configurations from natural language and images.  Kyndryl has announced updates pushing AI deeper into its IT operations practice, expanding autonomous resolution capabilities across its global managed services engagements.  Upwind has launched new runtime visibility support for Windows Server virtual machines across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, addressing a gap in cross-platform endpoint coverage.  Full details and links in the show notes or the blog post. Later today on In The Channel, we continue our Knowledge 2026 series with Cristin Gooderham, area vice president of Canada enterprise sales at ServiceNow, on what the shift to agentic business looks like from a Canadian market perspective. And if you haven’t heard it yet, yesterday on In The Channel we published my conversation with Michael Park, ServiceNow’s global channel chief, on why the company put its AI product leader in charge of the channel – and what that means for how partners get built and compensated going forward.  That’s how we’re seeing the headlines today. I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, thanks for listening. Have a great day.

In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we sit down with Andy Yen, Director of Partner Marketing for Global System Integrators at ServiceNow. Drawing on seven years at ServiceNow across ISVs, hyperscalers, and now some of the world's largest consulting firms, Andy shares what makes high-stakes partnerships work, and why the human side of the job is becoming a bigger advantage, not a smaller one.Andy starts with what a global mindset really looks like in partner marketing. Each country has its own language, its own business culture, and the real opportunity comes from building genuine relationships market by market. He also shares how he adapts his communication style to each person, not just each persona, and why that human-first approach has helped him build trust with partners across regions. We also get into what makes a GSI partnership thrive. Andy describes how he builds joint value props where one plus one is greater than ten, creating the kind of stories that pull ServiceNow into deals alongside its partners. He shares how ServiceNow's industry GTM motion has opened up bigger conversations, with partners and account executives moving from product features to outcomes that resonate in the C-suite. The result is broader engagement, larger deals, and a more collaborative model across the ecosystem.Andy closes with a reminder that feels even more relevant in the AI era: authenticity is your greatest strength, and the best partnerships are still built on real human connection._________________________Learn more about Channext

Master the Microsoft co-sell evolution today. Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this deep-dive panel discussion, industry experts Erin Figer, Erika Irby, and Reis Barrie celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Microsoft Co-Sell program by dissecting its evolution from its 2016 inception to today's data-driven, outcome-focused landscape. The group explores the critical shift from transactional sales to modern, frictionless co-sell motions, emphasizing the importance of signals, intentionality, and building credibility with Microsoft field teams. Whether you are navigating the complexities of the marketplace, struggling with reseller enablement, or looking to integrate AI into your sales process, this conversation offers actionable insights to align your organization's go-to-market strategy with Microsoft's evolving priorities and achieve results. https://youtu.be/KV1MGSoyWbQ Key Takeaways Effective co-selling has shifted from autonomous, fragmented motions to a highly collaborative, data-driven approach essential for modern cloud GTM strategies. Credibility is the currency of partnership; without trust from vendors and customers, technical go-to-market motions will fail to produce long-term outcomes. The “REO” (Reseller Enablement Offering) model is an operational unlock for ISVs to go global and sell local without the friction of multi-party private offers. Integrating AI into CRM systems is vital for identifying total addressable market (TAM) signals and maintaining sales velocity. “Don’t automate a bad process” remains the cardinal rule; technology should be used to refine existing, successful motions, not to propagate inefficient ones. The human element—community, in-person events, and empathy—is a necessary differentiator in an increasingly digital, automated B2B landscape. If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags Microsoft Azure, Co-sell evolution, Hyperscaler strategy, SMB partner investment, Cloud Marketplace, Veeam GTM, Partner Center alignment, Channel enablement, REO, Cloud consumption, ISV scaling, Go-to-market optimization, Partner-led growth, Azure consumption, Channel friction reduction, Outcome-driven sales, Microsoft ecosystem, Revenue acceleration, Partner alignment. Transcript Erin Figer Panel For Cut Out [00:00:00] Vince Menzione: So when we, so, uh, this all started ’cause I was trying to figure out what was next when I left Microsoft and I had this woman who was doing work, actually starting the co-selling process when we first started doing co-selling. And she was working with one of our partners and she was working with my team when I was at Microsoft. [00:00:17] And then I said, this lady knows a lot about this stuff. So I reached out, I left Microsoft, I said, I think we can help each other. Like, I think we’re gonna, I got these companies that I spoke at Microsoft’s conference. They’re like, can you come help us out? And we teamed up. And, uh, we’ve been friends and doing fun stuff ever since. [00:00:34] And she’s spoken at just about every event in some capacity or another, whether it was on stage or a workshop. Aaron Feiger. And then, uh, I, I found, I also, through Aaron, I met this other gentleman who had another company and he was doing amazing work with ISVs or SDCs, uh, Reese Barry from Carve. And then, uh, when I think we started up the event, I mean, Erica Irby came to one of our first events and spoke on stage. [00:00:58] I was like, yeah, this. The person knows what she’s doing. So I’ve asked the three of them to come up and kind of round out and end the day, but all three of ’em have a tremendous, uh, background in this whole process of co-selling go to market strategies. And I thought you, you can, I’m just giving it over to the three of you. [00:01:17] Erin Figer: I we don’t need [00:01:18] Vince Menzione: a, you don’t needer you don’t need a clicker and you, you know what you’re all gonna be talking about. But these are some really smart people about how to partner with Microsoft. So, yeah. No, thank you for having us. [00:01:27] Erin Figer: Um, hello. Hello. I think this is on. All right. So actually we’re gonna do an exercise. [00:01:32] Um, I want everyone to close their eyes. Close your eyes. Close your eyes. All right. I want you to think back to January of 2016. What were you doing? Where were you in your career? What company were you working for? What was going on in your Microsoft partnership in January of 2016? Okay, Erica, what was happening for you? [00:01:59] Erika Irby: So, uh, is this on? Sorry, I cannot tell. Um, I was at Veeam for the first time. We had just launched our first, uh, endpoint backup, uh, product in April of the previous year because nobody knew what cloud was yet, and people were scared. So we had to launch that product. And we had a relationship with Microsoft in a sense that about 20% of our business sat on Hyper V. [00:02:25] That equated to about, I think like around 90 ish million dollars, which at the time was incredible for us. But to Microsoft was, you know, like, who are you guys again? And, um, we begged and begged to have any type of communication with them. Events. Funding nothing. We did not know what Azure consumption was. [00:02:43] We didn’t have any of that information. And if somebody would’ve told me at that time that nine years later we would sign a five year contract with them and have multiple products dedicated to Microsoft, I would’ve been like, y’all are bananas. [00:02:58] Erin Figer: Reese, what were you doing in January of 2016? [00:03:00] Reis Barrie: Uh, let’s see, Jan, 2016, I was moving from Orlando, Florida to Seattle, Washington, uh, sight unseen with no place to stay. [00:03:10] Uh, to take a job at a place called Microsoft or Consulting Gig, a place called Microsoft. Um, kicking off some of the cool motions that we’re, uh, we’re gonna talk about today, I think. [00:03:20] Erin Figer: Does anybody know the significance of January, 2016 in the audience? Any takers? It was the launch of Cosell officially for Microsoft. [00:03:31] Congratulations. We’re celebrating 10 years of officially. Problematizing how you connect with the Microsoft sales organization in a programmatic at scale way. And try to build meaningful relationships. And I have been helping partners since the inception of Microsoft’s Cosell program. Um, I was on the partner side, Reese was on the inside. [00:03:59] You were at a partner. So we have all seen the evolution of Cosell across all three hyperscalers launching, you know, their co-sell initiatives. So I just wanted to take a moment to recognize. I didn’t know how many people realized that it’s been 10 years, it’s 10 year anniversary. I think it’s a big milestone. [00:04:15] Huge. So. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we, you know, when they launched it, I went, I was consulting for a startup outta Boston and we were trying to get Microsoft’s attention, competitor to fame, and I went to the business development guy and said, uh, do you, did you just see this program that Microsoft launched? I think we should include this in our branding strategy and we should use co-sell as a way to get our brand out to Microsoft and be able to tell our story of who we are and what we’re doing and that we’re in their accounts and they don’t even know it. [00:04:55] ’cause we’re the startup out of Boston who switched over from AWS to Microsoft. And we did, and I put every single opportunity in the system I could for the first six months, which was the last six months of their fiscal year. We go to partner of the, we go to, what was it called? Them WPCI think at the time. [00:05:13] Mm-hmm. Uh, in Vegas. And Nasuni won wins like all four wards worldwide. US Education, healthcare Partner of the year because I put 117 deals in the system and then it seeded Na Sunni’s Marketing for the next two years. ’cause Microsoft gave them tons of money and attention and we were off to the races. [00:05:35] Right. And then it was, can you repeat that? And we went and repeated it with Red Hat and Rubrik and Nintex and Quest and. I don’t know, lots more. But it was, it’s been fun journey co-selling. And it’s interesting to see now, um, how we continue 10 years later to evolve co-sell. And so Erica, what were some of the takeaways you had today listening to the conversation about how co-sell, how you’re modernizing and co-sell is changing inside your organization, especially now being a boomerang. [00:06:08] Erika Irby: Yeah, well we call it a Veeam ring ’cause everything a veer ring, everything has to start with with Veeam. Well, one thing I was gonna comment on, I think I’m sitting here thinking how wild is it that back in the day we actually had to define that co-sell was an action that, that, you know, partners and vendors needed to take or, and different vendors and alliances. [00:06:25] I mean, now we can’t even imagine going to market without, you know, that, that attach. But at the time, we were just very autonomous and everybody sold their own product and it, it took like this actual motion, um, to get us working together. But now look at us. I mean, this community is incredible. And we can also see this by, and even when AGU was mentioning earlier, all the bosses he had in his room, I mean. [00:06:47] How many people like know each other. I mean, this is like part of that, that ecosystem. But today, um, a couple of things I took away, and by the way, we want a lot of interactions, so we’re going to kind of throw it back out at you guys. But for me, um, outcomes came up repeatedly that was mentioned multiple times about outcomes. [00:07:04] Um, speed with intentionality. I think that was super critical. We have to go to market. There has to be a sense of urgency, but if we’re not intentional, it’s like, what are we doing? It’s just like a big mess. Um, and then credibility. And this is something I think is super important, regardless of, um, all of our emotions, all of our go to market, all of the, the things that we do, if we are not credible or not building trust with our vendors, our, our co-partners, our customers, we will never be successful. [00:07:35] Um, so those are the three main things that I took away from, from everybody talking today. And I, I thought, I mean, to me personally, I thought those were pretty powerful. [00:07:42] Yeah. [00:07:42] Erika Irby: So we’d love to hear. [00:07:43] Erin Figer: Yeah. And I know Reese, you have been doing a lot around outcomes and changing kind of the cosal, um, intention. [00:07:54] Reis Barrie: Yeah. The, uh, the, just thinking back to today, like that was like such a, it was really a, a big key theme of today. Like everyone talked about, whether it’s pivot of, of sales, partnership, um, even when you’re talking about AI and some of the, the, uh. POC discussions. So the live like type of stuff, everything was centered around that narrative. [00:08:17] And so, um, and it’s the same with, it’s the same with partnerships. It’s the same with your co-sell motion, same with your benefits utilization, um, and the way you’re utilizing partnerships. And so that’s, that’s a huge, huge component of, um, what I also took away from today. Um, and then somebody, I think it was Mark who said it that I’m gonna, I’m gonna steal this because the, the whole, um. [00:08:40] Near and dear to my heart of like, don’t, don’t scale automate ai, A-I-F-I-A bad process. Like as someone who deals with like, for the most part, bad processes, like day in and day out, um, and trying to refine them and improve them. Like, that’s one of the first things that we, uh, that we talk to partners about when it comes to their partnership and, and the processes they have in place. [00:09:03] So those are like two really big, just takeaways from [00:09:06] Erin Figer: Yeah. Nice. So we’re here to learn from each other, right? Like this is an ultimate partner community of learning from each other. So I’d really love to hear from the audience, like what are some of the things you’re doing in your cloud? Go to market approach and co-selling that you’re trying out. [00:09:23] Either you tried it, you failed fast, you learned from that, that you can share those lessons learned or like what’s working and how are you changing to be more outcome driven in your cloud go to market, uh, approach. Any takers in wanting to experience share? Great. Give that man a mic. [00:09:50] Audience Member: The SMB investments. Um, these, these new, I don’t know what they are. I partner accelerators, PBAs, uh, there’s kind of something going on in the SMB space where it just seems like they’re coming outta the woodwork to come help. On deals. I’ve never seen Microsoft really embrace the customer that they, the way they have in SMB in the cos sells. [00:10:10] I’m not sure if anybody else is seen that, but seems to be working. It’s two things. One, you at Data 60 [00:10:22] America. [00:10:54] I think, I think part of the rarity there is that. Typically you wouldn’t get a seller attached, right? They’re unmanaged that they’re kind of in the nobody cares category, but, [00:11:06] um. So Microsoft made a huge investment in the distribution space saying we’re gonna lean on distribution to help enable our 165,000 indirect resellers that we have as a business. And part of that enablement goes back to field sales alignment. So there’s these roles, ca roles called um, partner Solutions Sellers, PS. [00:11:30] And so they’re aligned by, um, solutions architecture, if you will, for Microsoft. So, or cloud solution area, whatever the new term, modern work, uh, or, uh, AI work, AI workforce, um, data and ai. And so they are there to help support your deal. So it’s, it’s a huge investment and one that I would just can say continue to advocate for it if you’re seeing success with it, because I mean, we’re heading into FY 27 planning for Microsoft. [00:11:58] So. Like there, there could be role changes. So I would say if it, if it’s helpful, like make sure you’re talking positively about it. [00:12:05] Reis Barrie: Yeah, yeah. Just to, to your point, like I, I’d say like, um, in the last six to 12 months, like that’s been a, a thing that’s like we’ve to go back and like, I mean we manage a portfolio of a couple dozen, dozen partners at this point, and so we’ve had to go back and rewrite some of our playbooks, reeducate some of. [00:12:26] Uh, some of the partnership folks that we use because, um, historically you kind of get into this like void of, you’re in partner center, you’re picking, you know, account alignment and it’s not managed. And so it’s like, okay, I expect to do nothing with this deal on the Microsoft side from a co-sell standpoint. [00:12:42] Um, but that’s kind of, that’s changed quite a bit, um, in the last six months where, um, it’s not like a, it’s hard to create, it’s hard to create processes and dependence around it ’cause it’s not like a guarantee that you’ll get, you get engagement, but. Uh, you see more eng engagement, more on more and more deals. [00:12:58] Um, and so we’ve had to go back and work with some of our partners to rewrite some of our, uh, deal sharing playbooks to account for, uh, things like that, which is, it’s super cool to see, frankly, um, to see engagement on these, like predominantly. [00:13:12] Erin Figer: So in that motion. So first off, for the folks that are on the other side of this black curtain by the food station, if you guys could please stop the conversation. [00:13:19] It’s really hard to pay attention to what’s going on in this room. Um. Thank you. Thank [00:13:25] Erika Irby: you for saying that. [00:13:26] Erin Figer: That was a great, that was a great, that’s a great point. And what I wanna talk about next is like in order to kind of continue to evolve the playbooks and they’re changing and people are changing, and priorities are changing, what are some of the signals that you guys are using internally in your organization, whether you’re building or buying, um, but would love to learn from all of you. [00:13:46] What kind of signals are you looking at to help you continue to like co-innovate, co-sell, co-market? Um, in your go-to market strategies? [00:13:58] Audience Member: Yeah, [00:13:58] Erin Figer: please. Um, [00:14:00] Audience Member: well, I’m, I’m, we’re building everything from scratch right now because we’re brand is integration. [00:14:39] Like having our, our engineer be able to interact with product [00:14:43] Erin Figer: engineer. [00:14:50] I’m gonna pick on trend ’cause I had just spent last week with them and Sanjay, I think like what you guys are building internally, um, using signals, building it into an AI agent. To help you understand your tam, you wanna share a little bit. [00:15:06] Audience Member: Happy to, and I’ll disclose. The first thing I did was hire Aaron Feiger to run my co-sell operations, uh, for the, for the second time. [00:15:12] It’s [00:15:13] Erin Figer: nice to be a GDI again [00:15:14] Audience Member: for the second, so well planted. Um, but honestly, like I can’t have an environment where I fail my sellers, like this process has to be frictionless in co-sell and marketplace operations. Or I lose trust in my own house, let alone in my channel and in my customer base. So. Uh, building that strong foundation is like job number one. [00:15:34] I’ve been, I spent a decade at Trend. I’m back, uh, five weeks on the job now. Um, but I’d say we’ve built a multi hundred million dollar cloud marketplace business thinking highly transactional. And what we’re trying to pivot to is a highly dated driven approach where we can look at any cloud in any region around the world, figure out roughly how many accounts they have. [00:15:57] Figure out what those customers are spending and things that we can protect from a cybersecurity standpoint, knowing that four or 5% of that total spend will be spent on cybersecurity, doing an overlap of where I have existing customers in that drawing a tam, overlapping that with my incumbent partners to get the Venn diagram of like, where’s my sweet spot to move this forward? [00:16:18] And then where’s my blast radius? So when I sit down with a guy leading France, or a person leading healthcare. I can have a really specific opportunity about how to leverage my cloud partnerships to accelerate deals and expand growth in a very surgical, data-driven, propensity driven way. And it like totally changes the conversation. [00:16:40] And the other thing we’ve done because you get a lot of pushback and when you’re working with Microsoft, uh, I was chatting with a few folks today, like if you’re in cybersecurity, it’s not easy. They got a 25 billion ish dollars cybersecurity business. So you gotta find your swim lanes. And the dialogue I have now internally with my sellers is a major League baseball analogy, which is, if you play major league baseball and if you hit the ball 30% of the time, you’re gonna go to this little thing called the Hall of Fame, right? [00:17:07] If you bat 300, if you’re in sales and Microsoft, or Amazon or whoever helps you, 30% of the time, you’re gonna go to this thing called President’s Club. That’s the difference between sitting at home in Ohio and sitting with your beach. You know, your, your toes in the sand. So it’s, we’re really trying to change. [00:17:25] Uh, one of the first things I ask my team is, what’s our brand promise to our sales leaders and our sales team? And if you don’t know that answer, you got a fricking problem. So you gotta get that. What’s your Brene Brown would call it? What’s your North Star? What are your values? Whatcha are you gonna deliver? [00:17:38] Right? So you gotta get that right and then you gotta be relentless in making it frictionless. And then you gotta hire Aaron Fier to run your co-sell. [00:17:46] Erin Figer: Okay? Okay. And so, I mean, I think like that’s a trend that I’m seeing across the partners that I’ve been working with is how they’re using data and doing more data driven, um, decision making and getting to their TAM faster so that as they start to then look at this pathway of, okay, now I’m trying to go to market, what. [00:18:11] Programs does Microsoft have or my other partners have that I can use to move me down that path faster. But getting that tam and feeling more confident about it, like, this is the group, this is the subgroup that I’m gonna start with until I see something that says, oh, I need to deviate and do something different. [00:18:30] Um, so I’m definitely seeing that trend. Like what are you seeing, uh, what are you guys doing at Vem? [00:18:35] Erika Irby: Um, so a couple different things. So like you were saying, we, we do leverage, um, AI more, uh, recently for New Deal Reg, um, automation. And we lit, literally just launched it this week. So this is the week that it’s exciting until the, someone tries to use it for the first time and then for. [00:18:52] Um, so I can’t wait to see my emails later, but, um, it, it’s, we’re seeing like that, that that movement, which is, uh, definitely good for that. We have a task force internally for marketing, so trying to figure out how we’re gonna, um, you know, leverage that, uh, um, internally. And I think that Veeam, you know, they, they have been on the forefront of technology for, for a while. [00:19:12] You know, they were the first with the. Virtual backup and, you know, all these things, you know, really trying to be ahead of the thing, ahead of the game. But, um, one thing I, I, I love how many people brought up the intentionality and the mindfulness because I think sometimes we can easily. Put out a whole bunch of tools. [00:19:28] I love that you called out the point about the bad processes, um, because it actually, I think, can just create more confusion, more of a mess, and that, um, really mindfulness will be so much more beneficial, you know, down the road for your partners, for your customers, for everybody that has to, you know, do that interaction business with you. [00:19:47] I did wanna call out that I thought it was lovely that you had a positive comment about Microsoft. I dunno if I, [00:19:53] Audience Member: yeah, [00:19:53] Erika Irby: I like rarely hear that. So like, awesome. I hope that does get back to Microsoft. I hope that they do, um, continue that. I’m sure their SMB is quite a bit bigger than maybe others, but that is a massive install base for, for Veeam as well. [00:20:07] And even though we’re driving and trying to push into the enterprise, protecting that install base is just absolutely critical for success. [00:20:15] Erin Figer: What about you race? [00:20:17] Reis Barrie: So if I’m looking at like signals, I, I think. Uh, I’ll focus on too, I think you mentioned, uh, the, the cycles of change at Microsoft. Like it used to be an annual thing and now it’s like a, then it was a half base thing, and then it was a, now it’s a quarterly thing basically. [00:20:30] Um, but there’s also like, there’s, there’s big signals and small signals, and so annually we still get like that, like the, the, the guiding direction so that we can align. How we talk about ourselves, how we talk about our partnership, how, how we enable our sellers and whatnot. And then we got a lot of programmatic shifts from a, from a quarter to quarter standpoint. [00:20:50] Um, and so focusing on the, like these, um, these signals so we can align our, our messaging and our frameworks to align with, with, with our partnership, um, is, is one thing that’s, you know, super, super important to keep, keep tabs on. Um, and the second one, I’ll, I’ll give, you’ll. Mention is more on the cus sorry, uh, customer side, but like the seller enablement. [00:21:15] And so how is your, on the marketplace side, how, how are your sellers talking to your customers about marketplace? Um, are they, are they bringing up earlier in the, in the qualifying discussions of how does the customer prefer to buy? Um, are there fire drills with two weeks to go, um, till the, till the deal closes and now the customer wants to go marketplace and, and no one knows how to do it? [00:21:37] Um, seen that way too many times. Um, and so, but how, how, like studying kind of the, uh, maturity of our sales org to see well, like where, where, where is our, our, where are our sellers competent to have this marketplace discussion? Um, because I often relate, like, this is kinda a silly analogy, but I, I, simple stuff works really, really well with me. [00:22:00] But I like, have you ever been to a farmer’s market and you’re like nervous to buy something? ’cause you don’t know if they take credit card. [00:22:07] Audience Member: Yeah. [00:22:07] Reis Barrie: And so like to me, I’m like, okay, well, like it’s the same thing with Marketplace to me. And so like, it’s, it’s the same concept of you want your customer to be able to buy, they want the way that they would like to buy. [00:22:19] Um, and you want the person that they’re interacting with to be able to, um, facilitate that, that transaction in, in a way that feels frictionless. Yeah. Right. Uh, and so that’s a lot. Like, those are the kind of, the really two deep signals, um, that we, we look at a lot. [00:22:37] Erika Irby: I wanna make a comment on the marketplace. [00:22:38] So I don’t know if anybody else is experiencing this, you know, Veeam being an ISV, we have a really strong traditional, traditional channel motion. So, to your point about how sellers are, are managing the marketplace, to be totally honest, we struggle on, um, that, because right now it feels like a deal that goes to the marketplace is taken away from a reseller, and that reseller loses out then on that upfront margin and. [00:23:06] Um, there’s not a clean path necessarily for, you know, just because the, the deal happened there. They really, they still need to maintain that because they’re the one pri providing the services. And somebody had brought up earlier that, um, A SMB customer will never be successful without a partner. And I, I totally agree with that, but it’s like that part is missing. [00:23:26] So we almost need like a mindset change. In the channel where the marketplace is just a route to market and how the customer receives the product. It shouldn’t totally matter because at the end of the day, the, they still have to provide the services. It’s like, I could go to Home Depot and purchase a bunch of pipe for my house, but can I install it a thousand percent? [00:23:49] No. I would destroy my house. I used to have to have a plumber. So I think there’s, we could help our channel by changing that mindset, and at the same time, we, we need the marketplace owners to, to provide the benefits so that it is still very attractive for those traditional. Partners to, to push their customers there or else I, I think we’re just gonna constantly have that strife. [00:24:11] Erin Figer: Yeah. Does anyone in the audience, has anyone in the audience activated REO with Microsoft? You have? Yeah. So how’s it, like, how’s it going? Yeah, there’s Bump. Yeah. [00:24:32] Audience Member: How that shifts making people more effective in their roles individually. So we’re early stage of it, but it’s, it’s been a good experience. [00:24:42] Erin Figer: Has it helped to kind of unlock some of that friction with the resellers and continuing to include them to get to the s and b customers? [00:24:49] Audience Member: Yeah, I think the, the challenge that we’re working through right now is, you know, Erica may have said it, but it’s. [00:24:56] It’s not just the, the view of the marketplace taking people out of the equation, it’s how do we use the marketplace for, for co-innovation to keep people in it. So if, if, if it’s gonna take three to five of, of us in this room to deliver that spectrum to innovation for the customer. Um, how do we use the marketplace as a force multiplier of bringing that together and making that transaction easy? [00:25:21] Yeah. If, if our consumers are more and more influenced by Instagram and TikTok Shop Now buttons, like my husband’s texting me about my stuff that showed up today, [00:25:31] Erika Irby: which is none of his business. [00:25:32] Audience Member: None of your business. That’s right. Just put it [00:25:36] Erika Irby: in my room. Thank you. [00:25:37] Audience Member: If people are, people as consumers in the, in the u, us consumer based economy is driving more and more people through like that social experience of purchasing, that is an area where I do think Microsoft could help us and we could help ourselves in marketing how that, how we leverage it to be a force multiplier versus another omnichannel. [00:25:58] Well, [00:25:58] Erin Figer: so on that note, how many of you have put a button on your website? Click to buy? Yeah, [00:26:02] Audience Member: that’s, that’s where I’m at with our marketing team. [00:26:04] Erin Figer: Right? [00:26:04] Audience Member: Yeah. That’s, I think, the next evolution for us in the, in the REO piece. [00:26:08] Erin Figer: Yeah. Yeah. [00:26:10] Audience Member: I, I don’t want it on our website. I want to, I want it on my Instagram, my LinkedIn, my TikTok reels. [00:26:15] That’s, we’re going to, sir, it’s coming next week at our sales kickoff. Yeah. [00:26:21] Erin Figer: Nice, nice. Anybody else? Uh, activated. REO [00:26:28] besides the, you know, RE speed wagon? Uh, it’s the Microsoft Reseller Enablement. Um, offering, so like you activate your resellers to just take your listing and be able to do a private offer so that you don’t have to do multi-party private offers anymore. Your resellers can just take the listing and sell it directly, and they don’t have to wait for you to send them the offer. [00:26:52] Then they have to go do, so it takes out some of the steps and that friction in the process streamlines it and it allows them to like. Add on and do their own pricing. And then the reseller, however you have your arrangement with that reseller, continues to pay you in the back end for, um, selling that through the marketplace. [00:27:11] Erika Irby: I think I’m going to have you come and do a webinar for our Veeam partners to, to help them with that, because to your point, I don’t, I don’t think it’s as prevalent yet. It’s, it hasn’t really caught on. [00:27:21] Erin Figer: Yeah. It’s been really an unlock of, I had a large, um, ISV that I helped. We implemented REO internally, so they have 34 marketplace offerings and they have this initiative. [00:27:36] They wanted to go global, sell local, and so they launched five more publishing accounts and they came to me and said, we need to replicate our catalog five times 34. And I was like, oh God, please, no. And luckily like two months later, Microsoft, like GAed, uh, REO, and I was like, here’s your answer. We’re not going to do that. [00:27:58] We’re going to enable each of your publishing accounts to be resellers of your quote unquote gold standard publishing account, and that we actually implemented REO as an internal mechanism for them to issue their own publishing accounts, to resell private offers in local currencies. Um, and that was really an operational unlock for them. [00:28:25] All right. Anybody you wanna ask a question to the audience? [00:28:29] Audience Member: Okay. I’ll just keep going. [00:28:32] Erin Figer: Um, all right. So what are some other, um, signals or ways that you guys are evolving the way you’re co-selling? Um, does anybody else have some experience shares that they want to, to share with the audience? We’ve got, we’re using data, uh, we’re using some ai, we’re helping us get to our audience faster. [00:28:51] I really loved work span, um, building in an AI tool inside your CRM system, um, so that you can get some of those signals. Any other signals that you guys are using, uh, to change the way you’re co-selling? [00:29:07] It’s quiet on [00:29:07] Reis Barrie: Maybe, maybe I’ll share one, but Yeah. Yeah. So, um, just when it comes to, like, for us, account alignment to me is like one of the most important things and consistently doing, uh, you know, account planning and account alignment against Microsoft their accounts. Um, now it’s a bit interesting ’cause you can include some s and b stuff in there. [00:29:27] Um, but also, uh, Jason you mentioned up there, the. Uh, marketplace rewards, having the propensity mapping. And so looking at not only from an account alignment, um, what Microsoft accounts are, we, um, you know, areas are we most penetrated in, but also of those accounts, which ones are already buying on marketplace. [00:29:47] Uh, maybe have a commitment to Microsoft in, in some way to help us just further, uh, further target and focus on, you know, if we have 500 opportunities that we’re trying to, um. I’m trying to work through, um, to Sanjay’s point, like what’s, what’s the 30% that I’m gonna get my batting average on? Um, and so that constant account alignment to us is like a, is a huge, huge signal, um, for us to focus on. [00:30:14] Um, and then you can even take it a layer deeper to identify, okay, well if I’m looking like, do I have density within Nina had the, the ou up here on the screen. So do I have densities with density within like specific. Uh, verticals or regions, um, or segments that I should maybe if I just focused on that one segment or one vertical, um, you know, then all of a sudden I, I’m super successful having an executive sponsorship in that, uh, in that ou, something like that. [00:30:44] Um, and, but that, that’s all starting with, um, the foundations of that being that consistent account alignment and leveraging some of the, some of the propensity stuff that Microsoft is, is providing. [00:30:56] Erin Figer: And then making sure you’re like bringing it back into your CRM and storing it so that you can continue to use that information ongoing. [00:31:03] And we’re trying to figure out how to embed more and more. [00:31:37] And are you integrating like. Microsoft and other partners into that data as well. It’s like, this is a great partner. Incorporate them at this point in the journey. Yeah, we um. [00:31:50] When [00:31:50] Audience Member: you’re in the process with, with Microsoft, we haven’t opened it up externally, so that’s our crawl, walk, run is we’re, we’re trying this out internally. Let’s see if we can work the bugs out, get the agents working, and then how do we now go to our MSP community and offer this up as an agent they can use within their sales team. [00:32:08] And on the end of. We’re still working in the middle, but front end profiling, it’s helping a ton, um, and giving us a lot of good intel that the sellers are driving through the agent on the back end. It’s, it’s giving us not, um, just propensity data, but what’s resonating. So if we launched 12 products this year and we trained sellers on. [00:32:28] What’s hitting, where’s my pipeline velocity coming from? Where’s my close rate coming from? So that every month when we have our sales town hall, it’s like, here’s the top three sales motions that are actually driving pipeline and fast to cash close rates. [00:32:42] Erin Figer: And I gotta imagine that helps you get to your differentiators. [00:32:45] Audience Member: Oh [00:32:45] Erin Figer: yeah. And refining your superpower story. [00:32:48] Audience Member: That’s right. That’s. Yeah, because it’s for, for our sales team. I mean, we were talking about it earlier, it’s all about simplification. There’s so many options, so much noise. It’s like, just go focus on these three things and this is where you’re gonna deliver impact and outcomes to your customer. [00:33:01] And if we’re doing that, we’re all winning. [00:33:03] Erika Irby: Yeah. I, I, um, just recently, this is why one of the coolest things that Veeam has done, we just launched this tool called, um, expansion iq, and it’s part of our command, the expand motion this year where we’re really. Upselling and cross-selling our, um, install base. [00:33:17] This tool takes all the partners individual propensity data, puts it against four solution plays that we think are the main plays, and then provides them, this is what you could be earning if you took this motion. And then from a marketing perspective, we provide them. And to do this, here’s your campaign. [00:33:37] Here’s your this, here’s your that. Step one, send this email. Like very, very, you know, just, uh, planned out. And I loved what Nina said earlier today when she shared that, um, org chart. Essentially with all the different, um, industry focuses we are driving. One of our go to market actions is a Microsoft healthcare campaign. [00:33:56] That is like very, very specific, but it’s helping our partners in that manner. Could they go to their own database and pull their own and do all this stuff? Of course. But for our sellers to go blink and then give them a report and be like, here it is. It makes it so much more relevant. And then the steps just, they just hand that to their marketing org and then they’re just off and running. [00:34:18] Going back into your team to say, Hey, we rolled out these 12 things, only three landing. You gotta go back to the drawing on the other side. Or We need more money for these three. Yeah, but let’s figure what’s not with customer [00:34:38] to record the. [00:34:47] Audience Member: A better, faster, uh, listening post for, uh, can I talk really loud? Um, it’s, it’s, it’s helped turning on a listening post for our engineering, our marketing, our service delivery organization that would’ve taken months or quarters to get spun up in an executive board meeting or something. Right now they get it real time every week. [00:35:09] Okay. [00:35:09] Erin Figer: So what I’m hearing, like the theme here is to really like. Understand your sales process. Also, your co-sell sales process that runs in parallel with that. And how do you continue to serve up the right data at the right time to help your people take the right next action to continue to drive those outcomes that you’re looking for, but then also using data to circle it back, to say what’s working, what’s not working, to continue to refine that whole motion. [00:35:43] Um, so if you’re not doing that, I think that’s a big aha moment and takeaway, uh, from today’s session or from here today is like, okay, am I really identifying all the opportunities in my process to involve data to help my people continue to drive outcomes? [00:36:04] Audience Member: You [00:36:04] Erin Figer: have a, [00:36:05] Audience Member: you have your head in up back there, Gary. [00:36:06] Yeah. I, I couldn’t tell if, uh, you were prompting me when you asked that question and I, I didn’t want to, you know, do a shameless plug for cloud, but I think everybody [00:36:15] Erin Figer: should shamelessly plug, plug away. [00:36:16] Audience Member: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, you brought up a mitt and, uh, the co-sell thing, but it, it does relate to what Reese had said about, um, you know, the being at the farmer’s market and. [00:36:26] Not sure what, you know, can I use a credit card or not? And I think that, um, or [00:36:30] Erin Figer: can I use Apple Pay? I still ask. I’m like, do you, do you accept Apple Pay? [00:36:32] Audience Member: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it’s like, I think, uh, a lot of times you don’t understand the seller in that situation is not sure how to handle that conversation. So, and there’s not a lot of information about their, about that. [00:36:44] Like how to, when it comes to a seller talking about marketplace and asking about the commit. Because the commit obviously is one of the main drivers, right? 900 billion out there. And committed spend across all the hyperscalers. So how to actually bring that up with a customer and what if they don’t know, right? [00:37:05] So there’s a whole process that, you know, they, they need to be taught this. But the first thing that’s also come up multiple times is activating them also means how to engage them. So an approach there of how to engage your salespeople is critical because if salespeople aren’t in it, they’re nothing’s happening. [00:37:23] You’re not gonna do well with marketplace. And on the co-sell part, it’s kinda the same thing. The typical thing, and I remember talking to Aldo Desal about this at another Ultimate Partner event, but uh, you bring your salespeople into a call, like you set up a call with, with Microsoft and the seller comes in unprepared. [00:37:42] Typically they’re not sure what to say and it’s a little bit intimidating. How, how, how do I, you know, what do you do in this situation? Like, so you start talking about product ’cause that’s what you know, and it’s the last thing you want to do. You, you want to understand what they care about, like em stage and, and, uh, what’s your consumption story and what kind of MRR impact you’re gonna have. [00:38:03] So it’s, these things are just unusual topics for the salespeople to be prepared, uh, to talk about. But it’s critical if your salespeople are gonna be enabled that they can do that. So I think from a co-selling standpoint, that’s just what I want to mention. And by the way, we offered a tool that does that. [00:38:20] Erin Figer: Nice. Awesome. Thank you. Uh, I mean, I don’t know about you. Reese Cloud Atlas. Every time we helped an ISV with their cosell motion, we would say, okay, we’re ready to go share cos sells and drive introductions. Have you done your sales enablement? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve enabled the sellers we have, and then we launch like the first batch of cos sells and then they immediately come back. [00:38:43] Stop, stop, stop. Don’t share any more deals, like we’re causing too much confusion. Uh, we didn’t do our sales enablement. Wow. Grace, [00:38:52] Reis Barrie: I mean, sound [00:38:53] Erin Figer: familiar? [00:38:53] Reis Barrie: It sounds very familiar. It sounds too familiar. Uh, P-T-S-D-A little bit there, but the, uh, sorry, [00:38:58] Erika Irby: but that’s why you guys have jobs. [00:39:00] Reis Barrie: Yes. Go on. It’s, it’s, um, but this, you know, I, I always come back to the, the concept of like, if we showed up to a Microsoft co-sell call the way we do to a customer call, like, oh. [00:39:14] Erin Figer: It, [00:39:14] Reis Barrie: it would, it would be night and day difference of the value you’d get outta your Microsoft partnership and co-sell. That’s all. It’s [00:39:20] Erin Figer: Well, [00:39:20] Reis Barrie: but I think people [00:39:21] Erin Figer: forget Microsoft is your customer too. [00:39:23] Reis Barrie: Yeah. [00:39:23] Erin Figer: They’re your partner, but you have to sell to before you can sell with and through. So you first gotta like master the sell to. [00:39:30] Reis Barrie: Yeah, a hundred percent. So there, there’s there like, and then to your point, [00:39:34] Erin Figer: it’s still true. 10 years later, people, it’s still true. Back to the fundamentals, right? [00:39:39] Reis Barrie: Yeah. It’s, [00:39:40] Erin Figer: yes. Go for it. [00:39:44] Audience Member: The, um, Microsoft being customer, right? So, and I love what you said about sem uh, alignment. So we actually made it a point, um, in our co-sell process, we have a validation checkpoint with Microsoft. If we build a co-sell packages, um, we are an si We’re not primarily ISV, but I think that’s shifting as well gradually. [00:40:10] And ESI kind of becoming a little bit of ISV. Um, so why it’s important, I think like Ree said, like you come up, you show up to co-sell call and you just pitch your services or say, well, let’s do account planning with this and that. Right? But what if it doesn’t work in the field? So that validation became critical for us, and I can tell you that now we have success stories that are actually proven based on that multifaceted feedback, uh, as to it’s one thing to build it. [00:40:46] Yeah. But is it useful for seller, for Microsoft sellers actually in the field? Can they actually position it and help clients to be more successful? Because that’s the ultimate goal. So that validation became, uh, an important checkpoint for us, uh, to make those packages repeatable and successful for customers at the end of the day. [00:41:06] So when we talk about signals, you absolutely right. It’s not just customer signals like we use ZoomInfo, we use all this data points, et cetera, but it’s also signals from the field because while Microsoft is a huge organization, they’re also very dynamic. On very regular basis, a lot of things changed. So taking those signals into account, uh, has created that, what we call like, more of a holistic approach for us, uh, to make it more meaningful. [00:41:33] So [00:41:34] Erin Figer: I like it. And you made it sticky by making it like a required point in the sales process? Absolutely. That everyone stops. Take a moment. [00:41:41] Audience Member: Yeah. [00:41:41] Erin Figer: And make sure that we’re all on the same page. [00:41:43] Audience Member: Yeah. And I think for us as si it’s even more critical. Like I, I, I think there is a lot more to happen in marketplace as, as, as much as we talk about it, but being in si I, we still kind of figure it out, like how Mark marketplace actually becomes a place of transaction for a size. [00:42:01] Yeah. So that’s why, you know, we’re passionate about packages and it’s not just a matter of publishing it and say, oh, it’s co-sell ready? Then what? Yeah. Right. So yeah, so, so that’s why that, that checkpoint is very important for us. So [00:42:16] Erin Figer: definitely, definitely. I think you ladies over here in the corner had some, some hands up, Michelle and, and the other Michelle, Michelle Squared. [00:42:26] Audience Member: Thank you. Michelle Squared. I like it. Um, so. I’ve been a little quiet because I wanna just give my background. So I’m a global VP of channels and alliances and, um, I think it’s a bit of this, uh, the movement, right? So I love your farmer’s market analogy so much. I’m gonna steal that. Thank you. But the reason is because you don’t know unless you’re gonna meet your partners where you are or meet your customers where they are in that journey. [00:42:53] So the first time that they’re selling whatever their goods or wares are, and somebody says, do you take Apple Pay? That’s a clue. And then when you hear it over and over again, you realize there’s a correlation that there’s a need in the market. So in In my life, all roads read to Romes, right? Reseller and VARs, OEM, alliances, MSPs, MSPs, ISVs System integrators. [00:43:17] And as a partner leader, you wouldn’t necessarily think marketplace is first because you feel like you’re going around your partners. But am I meeting my partners where they are in their journey and choosing to procure the way they want to procure? And I think that’s the notion that I have a lot of learning from this team and everyone in this room to understand how do we in a company. [00:43:38] Prescribe the right solution to, to meet our partners in that journey. And I’ll use, kind of circling back to the MSP space, PAX eight, one of Microsoft’s largest partners created a marketplace dedicated to MSPs. And while I was the global Channel chief of SonicWall, a lot of partners said to me, I like you. [00:43:56] I like your products, I like your firewall, but unless you’re on the park, PAX eight Marketplace, I’m not gonna buy from you because they make my life frictionless. And easier to do business with. And I think that’s the motion that every vendor in this room needs to understand is, are we truly meeting our partners where they are? [00:44:14] PS I work for Carrero DDoS Solutions and come to talk to me about that. Thank you. [00:44:18] Erika Irby: Well, and a Guo owes you some money for that commercial right there. [00:44:30] Audience Member: From, we’re actually community first. Um, as an MSP, even though we’re national, like we really focus in on community local touch. Um. Like you said, um, um, Southern seldom me in a southern way. Like that’s what we focus on. I’m your [00:44:45] Erin Figer: huckleberry. [00:44:46] Audience Member: I love that. Exactly. Um, and we’re seeing a ton of success with actual in-person events now. [00:44:53] Like the majority of our business is come in, leads are coming from that right now. And even though, like I, I truly believe in digital first motions, we need to be on Instagram and have that self-serve motion as the next generation comes up in our. Buying and transitioning to their kids or whatever that looks like. [00:45:14] Like we have to remember that there’s also a trend of tactile in person people first coming with it. And so like we, I, I feel like there, there has to be that motion engaged and I would love to hear your thoughts around how are vendors thinking about engaging in that community driven approach, not just the platform itself. [00:45:37] Erika Irby: Yeah, I, I personally also, this is hilarious ’cause we’re like best friends, so we can talk about this later, but, um, from a Veeam perspective, Michelle, um, we are seeing a resurgence in like these thought leadership type of events. And I think there’s, this is, this is sort of related, but just to, this is kind of how I think about this. [00:45:57] Um, Barnes and Noble’s business has like gone through the roof lately, and they are, they’re actually like opening more stores, which is bananas because at one point they were like going outta business because nobody wanted to go and like, touch a book or talk to somebody. But that is changing, thank God. [00:46:11] Right? That is like changing and people are actually like becoming more social because they’re missing this. Um, my kids’ generation refers to places like Barnes and Nobles as the third place. Like this magical place that exists where you can talk to a real human that’s not on your phone. Like it’s, it’s amazing. [00:46:28] But anyways, we’re, I think we’re starting to see this in marketing. We used to like pump everything out digitally, but after a while people get that form and they’re like, I am not putting my dang information in this form. And then your ability to capture that lead completely dissipates. All it is, is, is now an impression, which is. [00:46:47] Fairly worthless. You can have millions of them and nothing happens. So we are definitely investing more into, um, uh, live events, but also with the live streaming because then people can, they’re still watching it live. They still have to register for it. They knew they couldn’t make it. So I think that there’s definitely that digital aspect that’s super helpful. [00:47:05] But a purely digital, you will never make that connection. [00:47:10] Erin Figer: Yeah, I mean, I think. Unfortunately, COVID made us, you know, all do things digitally. But now that we’re past that, getting back to that multifaceted approach, I think if we think about what’s going on in the B2C world, lots of communities within communities, there’s whole company’s getting created, like women are bringing women together to do craft circles. [00:47:37] And literally. Okay. But like I did that digitally. That was pretty awesome. I was like three years. That shameless plug. No, I, no. But like then now there’s like companies that are actually like renting space, bringing people together, like crafting and while they’re doing the activity, um, if anyone’s ever done therapy, a therapist will say. [00:48:01] You know, if you wanna get your kids talking, get them coloring, like distract them and they will start to open up. And so you distract people with an activity and they start to open up. And what they really are, thrive, like what they really need is in this digital world where we’re getting so much information, we still need. [00:48:22] The next layer of filter to help us vet out and validate and confirm like our thinking or like our suspicions on things like, am I in the right going down the right path? Is this the right direction? So there’s still a human element that needs to be involved in that buyer journey, and you’re seeing that with these little micro communities inside communities. [00:48:45] Um, and so I’ve. I mean, I love micro communities inside of bigger communities. I’ve started two of them, three of them. So I, it definitely, like, we need still that in person, uh, interaction and I love seeing it coming back in our space. [00:49:04] Erika Irby: I, I was just thinking about ear, the, the previous panel and the, the topic came up about who can assist partners as they transition from that direct to CSP motion. [00:49:15] And I mean, yes, it, I think Microsoft plays a role there, but I think it would behoove Microsoft to invest in these communities and they would enable that change. Yeah, [00:49:26] Erin Figer: yeah, yeah. There is a person inside of Microsoft who has that remit, but she’s like one person, one person trying to do that. I was like, wow. [00:49:36] Okay. Grace, what are you seeing amongst your partners and also your perspective with working with Microsoft? [00:49:42] Reis Barrie: Yeah, yeah. Um. There’s a really good, uh, the frontier study, the work like door work study that they did, um, which talks really heavily about just like in this, you know, post 20, you know, 2020 culture, how like the amount of busyness has just increased in an insane amount and how a, a really strong use case for AI is to buybacks from that time essentially, um, for us to, you know, return back to a, a normal state and I think social creatures, right? [00:50:10] And so, um, in this. I run a fully remote company, which is like a blessing and also like really interesting to try to create a really strong culture within people that are, you know, 13 times zones apart times. Um, and so it’s uh, it’s a really interesting thing and coming together and, um, into an in-person space or a place here or a place where you can actually talk to your customers, talk to, um. [00:50:39] Step away from that, like that busy day to day where like, I, I can’t even fit a 15 minute break in to grab lunch. You know, days like how much, supposed to find 15 minutes to just have a, a casual conversation and these types of events, which I’m sure Vince is cheering back there that we’re talking about this right now. [00:50:57] But the, uh, but these type of events, they let you decompress from that day and they let you kind of just have these really important conversations that, you know, bring us back to just being humans To me. [00:51:10] Erin Figer: And being human and co-selling with each other. And on that note, we’re 44 seconds over. Yeah, we’ll give it back to Vince, [00:51:18] Reis Barrie: but we were plugging Vince’s events, so I think we’re okay. [00:51:21] Vince Menzione: We One more question. We have one more question from, sorry. Oh yeah. [00:51:23] Reis Barrie: It’s [00:51:23] Audience Member: maybe more a, a shared just as we’re talking [00:51:25] Vince Menzione: by the clip, right. [00:51:27] Audience Member: And to compliment everything that you guys have been talking about around co-sell and. Getting ready in line with Microsoft to speak to the customer and speaking. So the signals that we’re going after are on the actual conversations that are happening in the conversation. [00:51:41] So aside from all the planning, which I agree on, we’re building agents to hear what’s going on on the calls with Microsoft, on the calls with customer, and grab those actual signals. Are we answering the questions in the right way? What types of questions are coming back to us that we weren’t able to answer. [00:51:58] Maybe we forgot some information that we planned on and thought about can we signal and provide that feedback to the user, the seller, or whatnot on the call. And so as we’re doing this, ’cause we’re in the communication space, so we have some self-interest here ’cause that’s sort of the future of our business. [00:52:12] But it’s a really interesting opportunity for us to grab these signals to improve how we’re selling with our customers, how our partners are selling with our customers, with Microsoft. It’s just an interesting way with everything that’s going on full circle, we’re trying to complete that sort of sales journey with AI and, and grab those signals and keep getting better all the time. [00:52:32] Erin Figer: Yeah, I love that. And I think it’s like the ongoing balance of people, process and technology and how do you continue to keep the human in the loop? It, as we continue to introduce and evolve AI and use of data in our companies is like continuing to be mindful about the human in the loop. Um, part of that journey. [00:52:54] So thank you all. [00:52:55] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Great conversation. [00:52:56] Erin Figer: Thanks for all the audience engagement. We appreciate it. [00:52:59] Vince Menzione: Co-selling the house, co-selling the house. [00:53:02] Audience Member: Thank you, Vince. [00:53:02] Vince Menzione: Thank you. And I remember that January, 2016. Yes.

One IT department expected 50 agents in their tenant. They found over 500. Welcome to agent sprawl — the SharePoint site sprawl story, just faster, more autonomous, and with a billing model nobody fully understands yet.In this episode, Christian Buckley and Ragnar Heil sit down with Timothy Boettcher, SVP Go-to-Market & Global Product Marketing at AvePoint and fellow Microsoft MVP, to talk about what governance actually looks like when agents start creating other agents.

Benjamin Yerushalmi, senior vice president of partners and alliances at OutSystems OutSystems launched its redesigned Elevate partner program in late February – a ground-up rethink that moves away from volume-based incentives toward a point-based earned level model weighted toward AI credentials and delivery outcomes. To walk through what changed and why, I spoke with Benjamin Yerushalmi, OutSystems’ senior vice president of partners and alliances and a three-time CRN Channel Chief, who came to OutSystems from Automation Anywhere and before that spent seven years at Salesforce building global alliance teams. That arc across three major technology waves gives him an interesting vantage point on what actually gets partners to invest – and how the pitch changes when you’re not working for a juggernaut. The most substantive part of the conversation is about where the services work is moving. Ben describes a clear shift toward front-end advisory – design, architecture, change management, understanding how AI agents will function alongside people – and away from pure back-end implementation. Partners are also doing more objection handling earlier in the cycle, including making the case against what Ben calls “vibe coding tools.” His line: you’re using a vibe coding tool, you’re gonna get vibe code. We also got into the Elevate mechanics: the Elite Delivery Partner credential (earned per individual, not per organization, which changes the calculus for smaller shops), how OutSystems is weighting points toward Agent Workbench and ODC to drive partner behavior toward newer AI products, and Ben’s framing of the competitive landscape as convergence and coexistence rather than zero-sum competition with Microsoft, ServiceNow, and Salesforce. OutSystems is an enterprise play, and not every shop in our audience is landing these deals. But the conversation about where partner economics are heading in the agentic AI era applies well beyond any single vendor’s program. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca, and your host for the show. My guest today is Benjamin Yerushalmi, senior vice president of partners and alliances at OutSystems, the enterprise low-code and AI development platform. Ben is a three-time CRN channel chief who spent the last decade-plus building partner ecosystems at Salesforce, Automation Anywhere, and now OutSystems – three companies that each represent a different wave of technology transformation, from cloud CRM to intelligent automation to what’s now being called the agentic AI era. OutSystems recently launched Elevate, a ground-up redesign of its partner program that shifts the incentive model away from volume and toward outcomes, customer satisfaction, and AI credentials. Now, OutSystems may not be a name that’s top of mind for a lot of solution providers in our audience, but the conversation we had touches on questions that are very much in play for every partner right now. What does an agentic AI engagement actually look like from a services standpoint? How is the work shifting from implementation to advisory? And what do you do when a customer asks why they shouldn’t just use a vibe coding tool instead? Let’s get right into it. My chat with Ben Yerushalmi. Robert Dutt: Ben, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it. Ben Yerushalmi: Thank you for having me. Robert Dutt: The last time we spoke, you were at Automation Anywhere – it was their event in Austin a couple years ago. Before that, you were with Salesforce, now OutSystems. Three very different platforms, but in all of them you’ve been building or revamping a partner ecosystem around a technology wave. What’s the thread that connects those experiences for you? What have you learned about what actually works when you’re asking partners to bet on something, especially when it’s early innings of that particular wave? Ben Yerushalmi: Great question. It’s interesting, because three very different experiences. When you’re with a company like Salesforce, Salesforce is a juggernaut in a lot of respects. There are a lot of partners who are very invested in your success. They’ve got big business units, big practices, and there’s a clear ROI. Salesforce is creating a lot of demand in the market. When you’re with a mid-sized software company like Automation Anywhere or OutSystems, the challenge is still the same – you have to present them with a reasonable business case for investing in your technology and then going to market with you. Because you don’t have a shiny blue cloud on your business card, I think it’s a much bigger challenge. You have to do things like build a partner program that’s designed for growth, build a partner program with clear benefits to the partners about how they’re going to lean in, why they’re going to lean in, how they’re going to engage with your brand. It is a slightly different challenge – or a vastly different challenge. And when you’re with the smaller companies, the need to move fast is so urgent, especially where we are right now in this market with AI impacting everything we do. Messaging is changing, the go-to-market models are changing, the expectations of our customers are changing. Building a program that can be flexible, fast-moving, and built for growth is just super critical. Robert Dutt: OutSystems has been around for 25 years now, but Elevate feels like a pretty significant rethink of how you engage partners. I suspect your previous answer may have covered some of the territory, but what was broken – or not working well enough – about the old model that made you say, “All right, fresh sheet of paper, let’s do something new here”? Ben Yerushalmi: Look, nothing was broken. We had a functioning partner program that evolved over time, and none of the iterations it evolved through looked like the market we’re in today. We really needed to take a step back and strategically look at the program, think about what needed to be built in that could move at the pace of the market and give the ecosystem the things it was going to need to grow. For example, if you look at the old program – big emphasis on new logos, big emphasis on partners that had the implementation skills. Both super important, but only a fraction of how our partner ecosystem adds value to our brand, to our customers, and in the things they do to drive outcomes. We really had to reposition the program. First, pivot everything toward AI – everything from how we measure financial impact, to how we reward training and enablement, to how we measure CSAT and outcomes. Everything had to shift to AI. We also had to acknowledge all of the different ways that partners add value. Not just sourcing new logos, but co-sell, resell, managed service, MSP, ISV – and not just new logo acquisition, but growth in our existing accounts. Partners source business in our existing accounts. Partners are the best set of people to go in – especially when they apply their AI expertise, their industry expertise – and really grow our footprint at those accounts and truly drive outcomes and value for our customers. We had to acknowledge that. We also had to think about what we could build into the program to incent our ecosystem to be thinking about industries, to be thinking about agentic solutions, and to drive that behavior. Robert Dutt: One of the things that jumps out about Elevate is the shift toward earned levels based on outcomes and customer sat rather than just volume. That’s a trend we’re seeing across the industry. But it does raise the question: does that model inherently favor larger partners who can invest in multiple certifications and have that CSAT infrastructure, or is there a path for smaller partners as well? Ben Yerushalmi: There is. We have a number of examples of smaller-scale partners that have achieved some of the higher levels in the program. We also have examples of smaller partners who are on path to achieve Elite Delivery Partner status – because it’s not one credential per person. One person can have multiple credentials across the different disciplines. It doesn’t necessarily favor large partners. Now, when we launch Global Strategic – which would be a tier sitting above Platinum – that may, just because of sheer scale, favor larger partners. That said, our company is going to run on the strength of our Silver partners, our Gold partners. It truly takes partners across all of those levels to build a healthy go-to-market. I’m not terribly concerned about where smaller partners are going to find their place in the program. The other thing – and I’ve gotten a lot of questions about this – the Premier level in the old program basically maps to Gold in the new program. Platinum is effectively the level above that for partners to strive for. Robert Dutt: You’ve weighted agentic AI credentials pretty heavily in the point system, for obvious reasons. How are you credentialing something that’s that new and that quickly evolving? What does an agentic AI competency look like for a partner today versus what you expect it to look like a year from now? Ben Yerushalmi: You tell me what the market’s going to look like a year from now. What we’re doing right now is putting emphasis on our AI-built components. For example, Agent Workbench is going to carry a higher number of points in the program than O11. ODC is going to have a higher number of points than O11. As we continue to release additional AI-built products, we’ll continue that over-weighting. It’s simple – it’s trying to encourage a behavior. Staying at pace with the market is a massive challenge. One of the things we need to make sure is that as fast as we’re moving, as fast as our messaging evolves to meet the demands of the market, our partners have to come along with us. Partner enablement is one of the most important things we’re going to do this year – around messaging, around hands-on product enablement on all of the innovation we’re bringing to market. Because we want to encourage partners to go out and get those credentials, we’re putting the weighting in the program. It’s also a faster path to up-leveling within the program. Retooling all of your practitioners is something we need all of our partners to do – it’s a big undertaking. Robert Dutt: Everyone in the industry is talking about agentic AI. You touched on the role of Agent Workbench and how it’s a core piece for you. Curious what you’re hearing from a partner economics standpoint – when a partner takes on an agentic AI engagement, what does that actually look like? Is it a dev project, a consulting engagement, something that becomes a managed service? What are you seeing as the motion for partners today? Ben Yerushalmi: That’s a great question. We’ve historically had – maybe a small army, but a really great ecosystem of – partners with strong technical skills that did a really great job of implementing. We were a leader in the low-code space, implementing rapid application development and doing great things for our customers. We had a lot of folks that were really strong on the back end of a project, on the implementation side. What we’re seeing now with agentic is that there’s a lot more work for partners on the front end – on the design, on the architecture, on thinking through the downstream change management implications, the way agents are going to have to work within the current corporate and IT environment. Just to use the most common example: if you’ve got an agent working alongside humans with humans in the loop, that impacts how an organization functions. You need to be thinking through those things on the early side of these engagements. So we’re seeing a shift to more work on the front end, because you’re not just thinking about how do I architect the solution and how do I build it – you’re thinking about all of the downstream impact on how an organization functions. We’re also seeing a lot more experimentation. What can these tools do? What can these agents really do? Our partners are being asked what the best technology is. Our partners are being asked to evaluate us alongside other technologies. We’re seeing competition from all directions, and our partners really need to understand how to sell the value of our platform and handle a lot of the objection handling earlier in the cycle. Why can’t I just use a vibe coding tool, for example, versus Mentor or Agent Workbench? We always go back to the platform messaging – if you’re using a vibe coding tool, you’re going to get vibe code. At the end of the day, you still need a platform that takes care of governance, security, privacy, compliance. But our partners are being asked all those questions up front. There’s a lot more advisory that now goes into any level of engagement. Robert Dutt: Along the same lines but with a slightly different take – where are you seeing partners actually generating revenue with agentic AI today, versus where is it still more of “we see the opportunity, we’re investing, and expect the payoff in a year or so”? Ben Yerushalmi: Look, I think the end state for a lot of this is envisioning multi-agent systems operating within our customers’ technology and corporate environment. We are starting to see that emerge, and we’re starting to see our partners build multi-agent workflows – not just one-offs. These are starting to look like repeatable solutions, which is really great. Think about areas like claims processing – that’s one where you see a lot of examples. You’re starting to see people build claims assessment agents, claims orchestration agents, claims adjudication, and these are repeatable solutions. You’re also starting to see a lot of things, especially on consumer-facing apps, where digital agents are handling a lot of the customer interface. Those are things that are repeatable and can be used across industries. You’re starting to see really interesting things with voice-enabled agents. I listened to a demo just today where it was every bit as good as talking to a human – a natural language conversation, all built on the core components of OutSystems, and it can be used across industries. You’re also starting to see complex industry use cases. As we go to market in finance, in manufacturing, in public sector, we’re seeing our partners bring repeatable solutions for a joint go-to-market. In addition to the things we’re building, we’re starting to see our partners lean into those industries, bring those repeatable solutions, and color outside the areas where we’re investing so we can cover off other industries. We’re also launching a program within Elevate that contains the framework for industry-focused go-to-market programs. Robert Dutt: A bit earlier, you mentioned there is a space and a motion for the smaller deep-dive specialist kind of partner to succeed with you. Given that a lot of our audience – especially here in Canada – is smaller solution providers, MSPs, VARs, people who live in the Microsoft ecosystem and serve the mid-market, can you elaborate on what makes for a successful partner for OutSystems in that space? What are the common threads you see, and what do those partners typically get out of it? Ben Yerushalmi: One of the things we’re seeing is partners investing in getting the Elite Delivery Partner status. Before, we just had Delivery Partner – a fairly low threshold. Now we have the Elite Delivery Partner threshold, which is an indication to our customers that our partners, big and small, know our platform every bit as well as our professional services team. Reaching EDP is something that can be done by large and small partners alike, and that’s where we’re going to tend to recommend partners who have achieved those higher levels. Those are the partners that will likely get subcontracting work from us – that becomes super important. It also doesn’t take a large partner to invest in an industry solution. You need to be thinking about the demands of the market you want to serve and where you want to make those investments. It doesn’t take a large partner to offer a managed service. Those are all things that drive faster time to market and faster time to value for our customers. Having a niche in a market where you can sell is also important, because financial impact is a big component of how you level up in the program. We have small to mid-sized partners that have achieved the top tier. You need to be thinking about the buckets of contribution – co-sell, resell, anything adding financial impact, new logos, credentials, CSAT, program track. All of those buckets contain a lot of different areas to earn points for partners that don’t have a giant GSI logo. It was really designed for partners of all sizes. Silver, Gold, even Bronze partners are adding a ton of value to our customers. Our sellers recognize who they need to align with in a given market. We’re also putting tools in the hands of our PAMs and sellers so they can understand the capability, capacity, and competency of every partner in our ecosystem – who knows how to sell our platform, who has flawless delivery, who has expertise in a given industry or geo or domain – so that we can really arm our sellers with the information they need to align with the right partner. Robert Dutt: For a partner who’s living in that Microsoft-centric world and has started delivering Power Platform to their customers, what’s the conversation? Is there a both/and at different tiers of the market, or do you see OutSystems occupying a fundamentally different space? Ben Yerushalmi: Great question. Look, just about everywhere I’ve worked, I’ve competed with Microsoft – I’ve never worked for Microsoft. They’re a great company. Here, as at Automation Anywhere, the question of how we compete with Microsoft has come up. I think at the end of the day, it’s going to be co-opetition in a lot of ways, because there is room for coexistence at a lot of our customers. If you step back and look at the competition – from vibe coding tools to a lot of the traditional players – I think where we all converge is around agentic. The Gartner BOAT quadrant – Business Orchestration and Automation Technology – came out about nine months ago. It has the automation players, the low-code players, some of the big ISVs like Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Microsoft, and the process orchestration players like Pega and Appian – and where we all converge is around agentic. I need to be able to compete and win against each one of those players and understand exactly how I’m going to do that. But I also have to understand that in any enterprise architecture, we’re going to need to coexist. We have partnerships with a number of the companies we compete with in that quadrant. I always want to win when we’re going toe to toe, but the right solution for a customer may have one, two, or more of those players in a given solution. There are some great companies in that mix, and we’re going to need to work alongside them. Robert Dutt: You’ve now built partner programs across cloud CRM, RPA, and low-code/agentic AI – three waves of technology. If you had to tell a solution provider today where to place their bets for the next three to five years in terms of building a practice and generating new service revenue – not necessarily OutSystems-specific, but across the industry – what would you tell them? Ben Yerushalmi: Flexibility has to be inherent in everything people do. The ability to move at speed and adapt has to be critical. Every company is under pressure to do something with AI – not I think, I know. So people who are investing need to be thinking about skating to where the puck is going. I woke up too early this morning and was reading the news, and there was a fully AI-enabled humanoid robot at the White House. You see stuff like that and you think, where is all of this headed? But you know there is a world of changing work patterns, a world where AI touches every aspect of everybody’s job. You’ve got to think about the technologies that are going to help companies get to that clearly agentic future. And at OutSystems, we obviously believe we are well positioned to tackle that challenge. But you also have to think about this: it’s not just having those hands-on keyboard skills anymore. Customers want people who can take them on that journey. They want partners who can help them think about what are the high-value use cases, how are we going to architect that into our existing enterprise architecture, how are we going to build the applications – and then also manage all of the downstream implications and continue to evolve what we’ve built. Because if you look at a lot of the technologies out there today, they’re cool, they’re exciting, but the second you roll them out, you’re creating technical debt. You need to be making bets in platforms that are going to evolve with the market. Robert Dutt: Last question. A year from now, what does success look like for Elevate? What’s the number or the outcome that tells you this worked? Ben Yerushalmi: What we rolled out in February was half of the vision. There’s still a lot coming. Working through the roadmap of additional elements to Elevate is going to be really important – everything from how we leverage MDF and rethink that model, to how we rebuild our resell model to promote growth in the market, to continuing to stay ahead of the enablement challenge. But if I step back – when I originally talked about Elevate, it was about building a program built for growth. As we continue to be a partner-first organization, success looks like seeing partners successful in the program, being able to level up to wherever they want to be contributing, having partners invest in solutions that drive faster time to value for our customers and really help them move into this agentic future, and having our partners clearly driving successful outcomes with AI and agentic for our customers. At the end of the day, it’s not about Elevate partner program success. It’s really about OutSystems, and OutSystems customer and partner success, that matters. If we can sit quietly in the background and see our partners successful, see us continue to grow, and see our customers realize amazing agentic outcomes on our platform – that’s success. And then I can just sort of ride off into the sunset. Robert Dutt: Sounds like a plan – although it sounds like you’ve already got phase two well in mind, so I don’t think you’re riding off any time soon. Ben, thank you for taking the time. I appreciate it. Ben Yerushalmi: Thank you. Robert Dutt: There you have it, Ben Yerushalmi from OutSystems. I’d like to thank Ben for his time – and I thought it was a pretty candid look at how a vendor thinks about structuring a partner program in a market that’s moving as fast as this one. And I want to thank you for listening, as always. A few things that stood out for me from this conversation. First, the shift Ben described from partners doing mostly back-end implementation work to doing a lot more on the front end – design, architecture, change management, helping customers think through how AI agents are actually going to work alongside their people. That’s not unique to OutSystems. If you’re a solution provider building any kind of AI-adjacent practice right now, that front-end advisory is where the value is moving, and it’s a different set of muscles than a lot of partners have built over the years. Second, his point about the Elite Delivery Partner credential being something an individual can earn – not something that requires organizational scale – was worth paying attention to. As the industry moves toward outcome-based partner programs – and it is, across the board – understanding which programs are genuinely accessible to smaller firms and which just say they are is going to be a real differentiator in where you invest your time. And third, the convergence point. Ben talked about the Gartner BOAT category putting low-code vendors, automation vendors, process orchestration players, and the big ISVs like Microsoft, Salesforce, and ServiceNow all in the same quadrant. His argument is that agentic AI is the thread that ties them all together. Whether that’s true or just convenient framing, it’s worth thinking about – because wherever you sit in the channel, you’re going to be navigating that convergence whether you planned on it or not. If you’re enjoying the ChannelBuzz.ca podcast, you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and most podcast directories. Ratings and reviews are always appreciated – they do help people find the show. Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.

Unlocking the Power of Frontier Partnerships Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this compelling discussion from the Ultimate Partners Winter Retreat, Microsoft GM Katharine Kennedy joins Vince Menzione to break down the operating models of “Frontier Firms.” Katharine shares her incredible journey of scaling the ServiceNow partnership from zero to $1 billion in TCV and reveals her current mission: building Adobe into the next great frontier firm for Microsoft. The conversation dives deep into the necessity of AI-led innovation, the critical importance of placing trust at the center of every technological stack, and why traditional quarterly business reviews are being replaced by real-time, constant connectivity. Whether you are an ISV, SDC, or channel partner, this session provides a roadmap for navigating the tectonic shifts in the AI ecosystem through organizational alignment and shared vision. Key Takeaways Frontier firms integrate AI up and down the UI, agent, and data layers while evolving their internal operating systems. Successful partnerships require a shared vision at the highest level that melds two mission statements into a single belief system. The traditional QBR is becoming outdated, replaced by real-time, constant communication across engineering and product teams. Trust must be the primary pillar of AI development, supported by core principles like fairness, reliability, and accountability. Leading with co-innovation and customer-centric data solutions is more effective than leading strictly with revenue goals. Strategic use of the Microsoft Marketplace remains a “hidden gem” for achieving scale and high-velocity growth. https://youtu.be/OU22MIfs-1A 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: Frontier Firms, SDC, Microsoft GM, Adobe Partnership, ServiceNow, AI Operating Model, Responsible AI, Co-innovation, Partner Value Chain, Organizational Alignment, Microsoft Marketplace, TCV, Data Sovereignty, AI Agents, Adobe Firefly, Azure, Ecosystem Growth, Digital Transformation, AI Governance, Strategic Partnerships, Tech Leadership. Transcript: Katharine Kennedy Vince Menzione: [00:00:00] Honestly, it’s people. Yes, with agents. Um, and I know we hear that and it’s very like, oh, what does it mean? Are we really using it? I cannot tell you how many agents I use in a day. We just finished Ultimate Partners Winter Retreat here in beautiful Boca to a sold out crowd. Come join me now for a compelling discussion on the impacts of the tectonic shifts we’re all seeing. We, we’ve talked about MSP, we’ve talked about channel. We’ve talked about marketplace. We haven’t really dug deep into the SDC conversation, and I still, that doesn’t roll off my tongue. I still say ISV in my own mind, but the software development corporations, um, we’ve had several executives from that, from that world. Sandy Gupta has been. Um, many time guests, uh, at, at, at our events and we really wanted to double click. And I was so fortunate to meet Katherine Kennedy several months ago and learned about what [00:01:00] she’s doing and what the work that she’s driving. So I wanna invite her on stage ’cause we’re gonna have a very intimate conversation by Yeah, we call these so great to have you here. And, uh, you’re a GM at Microsoft, which is a big deal, by the way. A lot of people don’t know that. Thank you. And you’re running, uh, two of, I’d say two of the most significant partners within the Microsoft ecosystem. I would say obviously two. Now. Just one. Okay. We’re doubling down on focus. So nice to meet everybody. I, I wish there was a fire ’cause it did. What you Well come on. This goes off heat by the way. We get back off a little bit. This goes off our, so all good. So tell us, give us your, yeah. Give us your background and your role. Katharine Kennedy: Sure. So Catherine Kennedy. Nice to meet you all. Um, I’m a GM at Microsoft previously overseeing both the ServiceNow and the Adobe practice. Um, spent the last four years building ServiceNow too. What now our previous guests got to refer to as our REO, you know, exciting, uh, big growth [00:02:00] partnership. Um, so we took that from, for them from $0 in terms of shared revenue to a billion dollars in TCV. Um, and they have one of the largest Macs now with Microsoft. And we did that over the course of three years. So we’ll talk a little bit about. Um, the mindset, uh, and the operating models and things that we implemented with ServiceNow. Um, and then at the time, um, they asked me to take on Adobe as well. And when we saw the opportunity at Adobe, we said, wow, we really need to focus here. And so I have the privilege of being able to focus on Adobe this year. And, um. What I’m most excited about is the ecosystem and the ecosystem opportunity with Adobe as we build them into the next frontier firm or Microsoft. Vince Menzione: And of course we use the term spark, the ecosystem, so yes. Um, so let’s, let’s dive in [00:03:00] here. Use the term mindset. I was thinking about mindset. Market shift, frontier Firm, how do those things align together? Microsoft has been talking, I mean, Judson up on stage and Ignite talking about frontier firms. Nina’s talked about frontier firms. This is a shift in how organizations operate. Yes. In for some, yes. Uh, for others. I was thinking, what are you seeing across the SDC community specifically where you’ve managed before, where you’re managing now, but with ServiceNow and Adobe as an examples? What defines a company that’s truly making this leap? Katharine Kennedy: So as we’re looking at these frontier firms, uh, especially in the S-D-C-I-C spaces, we’re looking at, um, how do they implement AI up and down their stack, but then across the operating system, um, and. I refer to it in our business as the partnership value chain. ’cause we look at our SDCs and ISVs as partners. Um, and so the partner operating model between Microsoft and in this [00:04:00] case, Adobe or ServiceNow, has to be solely in lockstep and moving at warp speed. It’s as, as we’ve been talking about all day, it’s just moving so fast and so the tighter. We’re connected. The Cohesity across the company, um, is absolutely critical, but it’s AI up and down, AI across, um, and what I mean by that is, uh. That’s from the UI layer to the agent layer down to the data layer. So unlocking all of the layers of the stack. And then across the operating model, how are we empowering each executive to buy in on that North star or that strategy that we have jointly? And then how do we drive that operationally to execute at the field level? And that’s. Probably the biggest undertaking, um, I’ve ever done because it’s really you, your team becomes, uh, [00:05:00] these we’re like ants running between two giant companies. I mean, it’s just back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And um, that’s really the art and the science of it is that honestly it’s people. Yes. Um, and I know we hear that and it’s very like, oh, what does it mean? Are we really using it? I cannot tell you how many agents I use in a day. It’s truly remarkable. Vince Menzione: You mentioned North Star, so I wanted to Yeah. Can I double click on it? Katharine Kennedy: Please do. Yes. Happy to. Vince Menzione: Yeah. I think about mission and purpose and all that tying into North Star. Are, are you implying that an organization needs to get its North Star, right? First and then how, how, and what, what are most of these organizations you’re seeing today, not the ones you manage, but other organizations in the SDC portfolio? Like where are they in terms of the continuum? How are, how are they moving along and what’s your guidance to them? Katharine Kennedy: It’s a good question. So I’ll start by saying my observation, my opinion is [00:06:00] as I’m looking across the companies that are successful and the ones who are yet to be successful, um, the key differentiator is that there is a shared vision at the highest level of the company that drives all the way down to the field. And what I mean by that is we’re taking two mission statements and we’re melding them together. Then we’re creating a belief system and it becomes a cultural shift across two companies versus, Hey, we’re gonna have all of these siloed, tactical, yeah. Operating units and they’re gonna do their own thing and maybe they’ll be successful over here. Maybe they’re doing something different over here, but we’re really. I think I heard Nina say this also, we’re pulling that red thread through the company. Yes. Um, which is critical. And I’ve seen so many companies just show up for the revenue. And yes, that’s an absolute outcome and it’s a [00:07:00] tremendous outcome if you do it right, but you have to do it right. You have to pull that red thread and you have to have every single part of the. Partner value chain buying into this strategy and this North Star, and if they don’t, if one piece of that chain is not bought in, you fail. Yeah. Vince Menzione: Organizational alignment is what you’re saying and what, what I’m hearing is in order, in terms of getting the AI Strat, the North Star aligned. Yes. You’ve gotta get the, I call the C-Suite aligned. Yes. You need to get all the functions of the organization aligned to the thread that you talked about. Yes. And then what does that look like? What does that North Star look like? What is it, what is the ideal example of what the North Star would look like? I’m, I’m a frontier firm. I brought in on ai, music agent ai. I’m doing all the things that we’ve talked about earlier. Katharine Kennedy: Yes. Um, so I think it, so operationally, um, it’s moving the operational rhythm from what used to be [00:08:00] qbr. Frankly, I think that’s outdated. Yes, it is. It is real time, constant communication. And yes, there will be checkpoints and they could be weekly, they could be monthly, they could be quarterly, but this is just real time constant communication because the pace of business, the pace of innovation is going so fast. We have to have that direct line of communication product to product team. We have to have that direct line of communication, engineering to engineering, because with everything going in on. Everything going on in the macroeconomic climate today, especially given concerns around sovereignty. Um, I run a global business, so we have customers saying, Hey, I don’t wanna host my data in a place where I don’t align with the values. That’s a real situation. That was actually a topic at Davos, as you mentioned, um, Nina. And so, um, we’re rapidly addressing these concerns with our customers and meeting our customers where they are. [00:09:00] Um, but it’s that real time constant connectivity. Um, and we’re frankly. We’re seeing it across the board. Um, but the operating model has to change. We have to look at more advanced, modern models, uh, for these partnership businesses to sustain in this next wave of transformation. Frankly, Vince Menzione: you know, it’s, so, you talked about values? Yes. This is, this leads into another conversation, right? When we talk about ai, we talk about, we talk about AI and the use, use cases. We skip over things like values and trust and governance. Katharine Kennedy: Oh, good segue. This is, this is my passion, please. Oh, I get so worked up about this. Good. So I, I had the privilege of, um, sitting, uh, with our SLC community a couple weeks ago, and, uh, they introduced, oh, here’s our amazing new, uh, pitch. We were just [00:10:00] speaking about it in the back actually. And, and it is, it’s amazing. And, uh, they said, do you have any feedback? And I was like, oh. And I waited and I saw everybody, every, you know, oh, we need to change this or tweak that. And I, and I waited. And then at the last moment I stood up. I was like, okay, I gotta say it. I was like, you say intelligence and trust. I, this is a small tweak, but trust has to be first, foremost, first, last, center, everything. Trust has to be everything. And, um, and I truly mean that. And I think, you know. Of all the companies I’ve worked for and I’ve worked for quite a few, um, Microsoft is the company that I believe in the most that can do the most good in society and in the global. Macroeconomic economy, a anything right in the world, in your communities. Um, and so one of the things that really struck me, and I keep coming back to with Microsoft and the, the topic of trust is how Microsoft, [00:11:00] um, was first to the table in this, in this, um, moment of ai. You know, introduction a few years ago to say, Hey, we need a set of core values and ethics and principles that we’re all gonna, we’re all gonna marshal around and I haven’t heard it as much recently, and now it’s coming back. And, uh, you know, the, the six core principles that Microsoft used is, I’m just gonna tell you right now, our fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusivity, um, transparency and accountability. And it’s not. Just six principles that you see on a poster in the offices. These are embedded, again, back to the operating model across every single aspect of our business. So within our product, within our engineering, even just in our collaboration tools, you could be sending a teams message and you’ll get a notification, Hey, this is not aligned to the Microsoft. Core [00:12:00] values of ai. And so there are gates and governance and guardrails built into every layer of our technology stack and then across the company in our operating rhythms. And that is what gets me so excited and gets me up at, at out of bed in the morning. Um. I actually got a call from Sila. No one wants a call from Sila. Does anybody know Sila? Uh, yeah. Yes. Okay. That’s our legal, that’s our legal team. Legal affairs. Sila. Yeah. No one wants that call. Uh, I actually, I got so excited. I was like, are you calling about responsible ai? ’cause I was one of the first, um, I was one of the first to raise my hand to say. We will sign up. Was it Brad Smith calling you? Oh gosh. Oh, that would be a dream. I think he’s so, I’m, I love him. I think he’s so cool. Um, I love that you actually, sorry, side, I’m gonna take you on a side tour. Next slide. Um, my favorite thing to do is pull up the news and you’re seeing something from the Prime Minister in, you know, Germany and Brad [00:13:00] Smith’s in the foreground Yes. Of every photo. You’re just like, wow, we’re influencing at such a global. Um, base that I could just, it’s hard to wrap your head around sometimes, but, so anyways, going back, I’m gonna take us back to trust. Um, please. Vince Menzione: Well, I just think we need to apply it back to ai, right? Because it is so important. It is. It is. These agents are out there and if they’re not governed and if you don’t Yeah, yeah. Katharine Kennedy: I’m so, so, yeah, thank you. Keeping me on track. So, so why I am excited about it is, is because, um. As we’re going out into our communities, um, we’re here in the southeast and one of the biggest issues that comes up over and over again is, how do I trust that AI is not gonna learn off my data? How am I gonna trust that it’s telling me the right information? And so on and so forth. And that’s when I get to this great conversation about trust and our responsible AI pact and, um. This is, this is truly what I mean, that it can be a force [00:14:00] multiplier, but it can be a force for good. And if you don’t have those guardrails and that governance and those principles aligned across the companies. You fall down, right? You fall down with the customers, you fall down with the organizations you’re serving. And so going back to our North Star two, we align there, we align with the values and the ethics, and then we can start to really build a business together. And that’s how we were able to do it so fast. And so, um, at such scale, at such global scale, um, with. ServiceNow, but now we’re going to take a mature partner in Adobe and we’re gonna take them to the frontier in a way you haven’t seen before. So. Just a little commercial. Adobe is gonna be announcing their Adobe marketing agent. I love it as GA next month. So they are a frontier firm for us. Yes, very exciting round of applause for Adobe there. For Adobe. Yeah. And more to come. So we’ll be [00:15:00] having, uh, their firefly, uh, video models coming out on Azure and available through Marketplace as well, um, coming soon. So lots of exciting things happening. Vince Menzione: Sounds exciting. So let’s talk about those partner big wins that you’re saying. Give us some examples of those. Katharine Kennedy: Now are you talking about from a Microsoft and Adobe co-innovation perspective? Yes, from the co-innovation perspective. Okay. Yeah. Um, so from a co-innovation perspective, this is. This is a labor of love. Um, I approach it in a very disciplined manner. The way that we look at, um, these frontier firms is we’re leading with co-innovation versus leading with revenue. And it’s a, it’s, it’s a paradigm shift that takes everyone to buy in back to my earlier point, but also, um, the hardest part is. Teaching companies, um, to do things differently. Uh, so we start with [00:16:00] engineering and product. And actually before we get there, we start with customer and we sit with our customers. We understand what our customers are asking for. We’re understanding the value that they need unlocked, and typically it’s at the data data layer. And so what we’re doing is we’re seeing, okay, what are the data things? What are the data silos that need to be unlocked? And so we start to kind of build up from there, taking the customer perspective. Then we sit with engineering and product and we say, okay, what do we have on the truck today? How can we elevate this to an AI led AI first motion that meets our customers where they are in their AI journey? And delivers value and business outcomes day one versus, hey, we have to go through this laborous process. One of the other things we’re seeing is forward deployed engineers. Um, so thinking about, Hey, how do we sit with our customers and start architecting. What they need to address their business challenges today, um, because AI [00:17:00] can solve a lot of this, right? And so it’s a really interesting model shift that we’re seeing across the board within Microsoft, within our largest ISVs, and within our customer and our, um, ecosystem community with our GSIs, our sis, as well as our channel. Vince Menzione: So I know we were. You’ve had a lot. We, we had Jason up here talking about marketplace. Yes. And Jason Grey, Ja. Oh no, Jason. R Jason. R Jason. Yeah. We’ve had Jason Grey. He’s had Jason Grey. Yes. Well, we, um, you’re, you ServiceNow got called out in that last set session. I know. I was thinking about marketplace and co-selling. Yes. And then ecosystem. So I wanna like tie those three things together if that’s possible with you. Like what are you seeing from a best practice perspective. Obviously ServiceNow has been a top a top partner. We’re starting to see a lot of, well, channel D, channel [00:18:00] resellers, and the like. What are you seeing from a best practice perspective and is there yes. Central opportunities there? Katharine Kennedy: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. Three things. Um, one is AI led innovation. First and foremost, you gotta have the solution. You gotta have it. If you don’t have the solution, you don’t have something to sell. Second is a, um, AI led go to market hero motion. And what I mean by that, so in the, I’ll use ServiceNow as a, as a. Example ServiceNow. We created a, the first, uh, copilot plus, um, ServiceNow assist agent to agent go to market hero story. It landed really well with our customers and so we started to build off of that and we integrated across, um, up and down the stack. Like I mentioned, the data layer, the agent layer, and the ui. Um, and our customers were thrilled. They were like, wow. What else can we do with this? Can we unlock HR with this? Can we unlock. [00:19:00] What else can we do? Finance? Can we do finance? And so we started to see these, these moments in time where our customers were taking the technology and taking it to places we just hadn’t even thought about yet. Um, so I would say those two. And then the third would be, uh, making sure that we’re enabling the field. In a way that they know that story, they can tell that story, and then they have access to people to support that story. Um, and then wrap that in marketplace leverage micro, uh, marketplace as a scale motion. And now I know we still have opportunities to continue to improve around marketplace. Um, but we’ve come a long way and we’re seeing tremendous growth and scale out of this engine. So it’s, it’s definitely a hidden, um. I would say honestly, it’s still a hidden gem in the Microsoft. Uh. Bag, if you will. Vince Menzione: $300 billion in total.[00:20:00] Katharine Kennedy: Yeah, I seriously, yeah, but not anymore, I should say. Yes, I’ve been to Singing from the Rooftop. Yes. Vince Menzione: And you’re gonna be back this afternoon, right? Yes. A session with Ashley, so, oh, okay. I think, was it with Ash? Maybe? Oh know, maybe. I don’t know. Maybe. I’d be delighted it’ll be back the same. I’m happy to be back. I wanna make sure, I do wanna make sure, we’ll, we’ll cover some more of this there. Katharine Kennedy: And then the last thing, yeah. Shared KPIs. Yes. Shared KPIs. We gotta track it. We gotta be accountable. So get your vision aligned. Get your vision, get your organizations across all of the disciplines aligned. Yes. And then have a set of shared KPIs and owners for each of those KPIs. Yes. Right. And govern it. And govern it. Govern it, yeah. Report up to the CEO on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, on a quarterly basis. I started reporting up to our CEO and he was like. What is she doing? He’s like, this business is going really, it’s growing fast. What is she doing? Can we do this somewhere else though? Um, it’s, you know, making sure people know the story, um, [00:21:00] and everyone’s buying in and they’re accountable. It’s, um, it’s a simple thing, but it’s powerful. Thank you for having me. Vince Menzione: Thank you so much. I really, yeah. Appreciate it. Thank you everyone. Alright, thanks. You don’t forget, ultimate Partner Live is coming soon, May 11th through the 13th in beautiful Bellevue, Washington. I hope to see you there.

Just like everything else, AI is profoundly transforming the security landscape. It is increasing the attack surface, sophistication, and impact. while also providing more potent tools to increase security.  In enterprise PCs, security and device management apps (as part of the Corp Image) significantly reduce performance. AIPCs promise to run apps more efficiently on NPUs. In the episode, I talk to Nima Baiati, VP of Commercial Software and Security at Lenovo, about the evolving PC security landscape, the impact of AI, and the challenges of migrating security apps to the NPU.  We also delve into how to incentivize ISVs to prioritize migration, how Lenovo can serve as a model for the industry, and the expected timelines for the NPU migration. Index: 00:00 - Intro 02:10 - Guest intro (Nima Baiati) 03:17 - Changing landscape of endpoint security, especially with the advent of AI 02:23 - How is Lenovo addressing the changing landscape, both from traditional and AI-enhanced threat vectors? - ThinkShield - a comprehensive platform ensuring security from the supply chain, hardware, and software 11:01 - AI: the double-edged sword- tremendous capability to both create & fight security risk 12:53 - AIPCs and the promise of NPU for running security and device management functions more efficiently 14:00 - NPU migration challenges - Three forks ISVs should run through: 1) Re-architecting and optimizing ML models; 2)Instruction set variability between NPU vendors; 3) Testing and performance optimization. How Lenovo helps ISVs in migration 16:36 - Awareness about the benefits NPU among the stakeholders (ISVs, CIO/CSO/IT Managers, OEMs) 19:20 - Business model challenge of ISV in migrating security applications to NPU - Lots of work but no new revenue.  22:26 - Do enterprises (CIO, IT Managers) have to do anything to accomplish migration to NPU? How Lenovo works closely with ISVs and enterprise customers to bring mutually beneficial solutions 25:31 - How to incentivize ISVs to prioritize migration, e.g., include it in their KPI? 28:03 - How Lenovo's size and scale uniquely position it to be the leader and drive this for the industry, and pave the road 29:01 - Should the NPU migration be driven as an industry initiative? Is there a need for standardization, etc.? 31:08 - How is Agentic AI affecting security? - Huge role for automation, rapid response, but agents completely taking over security is a fantasy. Human intervention 35:01 - Latest trends in the security landscape - AI privacy, AI Governance, automation detection and remediation, management and orchestration of devices and environments, etc. 36:47 - What is the timeline for the industry to substantially migrate security apps to NPU? 39:50 - Closing     

In Episode 152 of “The Trusted Advisor,” RPOWER President Jami Interdonato, BlueStar CMO Dean Reverman, and RSPA CEO Jim Roddy analyze the 2026 RSPA Retail IT Channel KPI Study. Interdonato, Reverman, and Roddy discuss the resurgence of partnerships, the resiliency of high-initiative VARs and ISVs, the short- and long-term benefits of recurring revenue, and more.  To download your copy of the 2026 RSPA Retail IT Channel KPI Study, visit: www.GoRSPA.org/blog-2026-rspa-retail-it-channel-kpi-study/  “The Trusted Advisor,” powered by the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA), is an award-winning content series designed specifically for retail IT VARs and software providers. Our goal is to educate you on the topics of leadership, management, hiring, sales, and other small business best practices. For more insights, visit the RSPA blog at www.GoRSPA.org.  The RSPA is North America's largest community of VARs, software providers, vendors, and distributors in the retail, restaurant, and grocery verticals. The mission of the RSPA is to accelerate the success of its members in the retail technology ecosystem by providing knowledge and connections. The organization offers member-to-member warm introductions, education, legal advice, industry advocacy, and other services to assist members with becoming and remaining successful. RSPA is most well-known for its signature events, RetailNOW and Inspire, which provide face-to-face learning and networking opportunities. Learn more by visiting www.GoRSPA.org. 

Master the $500B Cloud Marketplace Engine Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this compelling discussion, Vince Menzione sits down with Dexter Hardy, founder of Ntegral and the visionary behind Spark, to deconstruct the massive transformation happening within the cloud ecosystem. Dexter shares his journey of evolving from a traditional systems integrator to a marketplace powerhouse with over 300 solutions and customers in 100 countries, revealing the “Marketplace Operating System” that drives global sales without a massive headcount. They dive deep into the Spark GTM methodology, discussing how companies can bridge the gap between building a solution and actually driving “Get It Now” transactions while navigating the $500 billion committed cloud-spend landscape. From the nuances of multi-party private offers to the critical role of AI in becoming a “frontier firm,” this episode provides a high-level masterclass for any partner looking to turn the marketplace into their most effective revenue stream. https://youtu.be/VLkkuHPpYuk?si=x03Odt2UsCjhtVf4 Key Takeaways The cloud marketplace represents a potential $500 billion in committed spend that partners cannot access without MAC-eligible, transactable solutions. Marketplace as a Service (MaaS) helps traditional SIs pivot to becoming SDCs or ISVs by providing a strategic roadmap for IP conversion. Successful marketplace strategy requires a “Marketplace Operating System” that aligns digital sales with your internal operations and business goals. The “Get It Now” economy allows for 24-hour global sales and lead generation without the need for traditional manual email or phone chains. Becoming a “Frontier Firm” means combining human experience with AI to do things faster, better, and more efficiently than the competition. Co-selling is evolving beyond just the hyperscalers to include rich, multi-party private offers involving resellers and distributors. 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: Integral, Spark, Marketplace as a Service, MaaS, Marketplace Operating System, Marketplace Strategy, Transactable Offers, Get It Now button, SI to ISV pivot, SDC, Microsoft Marketplace, AWS Marketplace, Google Cloud Marketplace, IP Co-sell, MAC eligible, Multi-party private offers, REO, Reseller enabled offers, Cloud Committed Spend, Frontier Firm, AI agents, Spark GTM methodology, Marketplace Optimization, Digital Sales Flywheel. Transcript: Dexter Hardy Audio Episode [00:00:00] Dexter Hardy: AI in the hands of someone who has no idea what they’re doing is just a, it’s a faster way to failure, right? Yeah. ’cause they have, they [00:00:06] Vince Menzione: still don’t understand the concepts. [00:00:11] Vince Menzione: We just finished Ultimate Partners Winter Retreat here in beautiful Boca to a sold out crowd. Today I’m joined by Dexter Hardy, the founder of Integral for a compelling discussion. Dexter, welcome back to the podcast. Great to be here, Vince. It’s [00:00:29] Dexter Hardy: always a pleasure. [00:00:30] Vince Menzione: It is so good to have you back in Boca. [00:00:33] Vince Menzione: Uh, we just wrapped up our ultimate partner executive winter retreat. We call it the Winter Retreat now. [00:00:39] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:00:39] Vince Menzione: It’s still February when this airs. It’ll probably be March or April. [00:00:43] Dexter Hardy: Okay. [00:00:43] Vince Menzione: But, um, yeah, the weather in the north has been, they’ve had a tough winter. [00:00:49] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. It’s been brutal [00:00:50] Vince Menzione: for, it’s been brutal. Even, even Atlanta where you are. [00:00:53] Vince Menzione: Had a little bit of winter this year as well. [00:00:54] Dexter Hardy: I was happy to get on the flight. Yeah. It was like 29 degrees the day out, so, [00:00:59] Vince Menzione: so, um, this is your second time Yeah. On Ultimate Partner. And we’ve been friends for, we’re just talking about this. You’ve been to every single one of our Ultimate Partner events. [00:01:10] Vince Menzione: Nine events, [00:01:12] Dexter Hardy: yep. [00:01:12] Vince Menzione: Three times here in Boca and then in other cities like Dallas and Las Colinas. Seattle, Seattle and Reston. Oh my goodness. And we’re back in Seattle again in May. So, uh, we’ve been, we’ve been busy. We’ve been busy. Both of us have [00:01:27] Dexter Hardy: Scott Myer [00:01:28] Vince Menzione: up and we’ve been, and we were introduced. We’ve been friends and worked together. [00:01:31] Vince Menzione: And so I would love to get caught up on you and Integral. [00:01:35] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:01:36] Vince Menzione: Um, the first time we sat down, we talked about Integral as a marketplace. Uh, customer base or, or, or vendor supporting the marketplace. [00:01:45] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:01:46] Vince Menzione: And you were, you’ve been, uh, showcased at Microsoft with the Marketplace organization. You’ve done some astounding things in terms of driving business without like a big sales force, you know, and driving marketplace sales, uh, to very high levels. [00:02:02] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:02:03] Vince Menzione: And, uh, and now you, I’ll call it a little bit of a twist and turn, but now. You’ve taken all the great learnings, and I’m probably sharing some of your thunder here, but you’ve taken all the great learnings that you’ve had in marketplace and your business [00:02:16] Dexter Hardy: mm-hmm. [00:02:16] Vince Menzione: And now you’re like looking at all these other companies, they’re probably trying to do the same thing and finding ways to help them. [00:02:21] Vince Menzione: So let’s, let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about where you’re going. [00:02:25] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. So, so thanks for that. And it’s always a pleasure to be, you know, in the room with you, especially on the podcast, uh, seeing it grow over the years. And, um, to kind of double click on. How did we get to where we are with, uh, spark Bi Integral? [00:02:40] Dexter Hardy: Um, it’s our marketplace as a service offering. Um, we [00:02:46] Vince Menzione: marketplace as a service. You get that? I just wanna make sure people are listening and watching. Get that. That’s a, that’s a new acronym for me. [00:02:53] Dexter Hardy: That’s a new one. But, but what we, how do we get there? So to your point, yes, we. We’re a, um, marketplace first organization looking at the digital sales leaned in heavily on marketplace. [00:03:08] Dexter Hardy: Um, and what we were doing internally was we created our marketplace operating system. Like literally, how do we run our business? How do we digitize, how do we get those, uh, how do we turn the marketplace into our 24 hour sales guy? Yeah. Taking all those lessons learned how you deal with the hyperscale or how do you understand, you know, the, the signals that’s happening in the market. [00:03:33] Dexter Hardy: Uh, coupling that with, because we’ve been a member of this wonderful organization and getting into the partner community ecosystem, we get asked a million times, I bet. What do you do? How do you do it? That’s help us understand marketplace and so what we. What we saw there was an opportunity to both lean into the challenges that other partners are facing. [00:04:00] Dexter Hardy: If you’re an SI that’s trying to pivot [00:04:02] Vince Menzione: yep, [00:04:03] Dexter Hardy: and be in the marketplace, you’re already established company, how do you create Transactable offers? How do we take the the marketplace opportunity and leverage AI and put our agents in the marketplace? Our aha moment was this is, this is an en enablement opportunity that we can get into and basically be the first ones in because we leaned into it, we understand it. [00:04:35] Dexter Hardy: What makes us different from the other companies is we actually use that methodology every day. [00:04:43] Vince Menzione: For those who maybe didn’t listen to the last podcast we did together, I know this story, but I want others to know the context of it. Tell us about your transformation to a marketplace firm. [00:04:54] Dexter Hardy: Okay, for sure. [00:04:56] Vince Menzione: Maybe the shorter version. [00:04:57] Dexter Hardy: The shorter version, [00:04:57] Vince Menzione: but I, I do know that there was some, you were in business for a long time before this became the business strategy. [00:05:03] Dexter Hardy: Yeah, so the shortened version business founded 2002, Microsoft partner for many years. Yep. 2020. Si. Si as an si. 2020 COVID. [00:05:16] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:05:16] Dexter Hardy: Consulting 2.0. [00:05:17] Dexter Hardy: How do you do what you do at scale for others? Taking your ip, converting it. We did that at 2020. Embraced the marketplace. We created our solutions, deploy them to the marketplace. The rest is history. We leaned in how [00:05:32] Vince Menzione: many solutions in the [00:05:33] Dexter Hardy: marketplace, over 300 solutions. I wanna [00:05:35] Vince Menzione: make sure people [00:05:35] Dexter Hardy: got that. [00:05:35] Dexter Hardy: Over a hundred, 300 [00:05:36] Vince Menzione: solutions. [00:05:37] Dexter Hardy: Over 300 solutions. Yeah. Uh, we have. Customers in over a hundred countries. I mean, and [00:05:42] Vince Menzione: yeah. [00:05:43] Dexter Hardy: You know, continuing to build and expand our customer base on a daily basis. And so, [00:05:48] Vince Menzione: and they’re, and they’re buying when you, while you sleep. I mean, we, we’ve known each other pretty well for a number of years. [00:05:54] Vince Menzione: And [00:05:54] Dexter Hardy: yeah, [00:05:54] Vince Menzione: you have customers like, um, I’ll throw out a number, like 25,000 customers, probably, maybe beyond that. And these customers are buying your solutions. All hours of the day and night, [00:06:06] Dexter Hardy: right? Yeah. I I love the get it now button in the marketplace. Literally all they have to do to work with us or transact with us is click on, get It Now, and that’s the transactable offer that everyone, there’s this mystique around. [00:06:19] Dexter Hardy: People are like, well, we don’t have any leads. We can, you know, our, we have an offer in the marketplace and nobody’s clicking on it. And I’m like, Hmm, [00:06:27] Vince Menzione: yeah, [00:06:27] Dexter Hardy: we can help you with that. Right? And so, um, you know, that’s how we. Our, our story with that, our background with that was it’s our 24 hour sales guy. We drive our campaigns, we align with the solution plays. [00:06:41] Dexter Hardy: We’re getting those clicks with, to your point, without this huge army of people. Yeah. And so now we’re saying from a marketplace strategic advisory, a lot of people were saying it earlier, like, you know, marketplace isn’t this adjacent thing to business. How do you strategically think about it as. Um, part of your business all up. [00:07:03] Dexter Hardy: How do you add that as a revenue stream, uh, for your organization? And yeah, there may be some changes that you need to make, you know, how do you incorporate the channel? How do you add in all of the things that you’re currently doing, but create that as a flywheel for this. Get it now economy. [00:07:22] Vince Menzione: So all the, I’m, I’m thinking out loud, like there’s probably a lot of people watching you up on stage at these events talking about how you evolved your company and grew it. [00:07:31] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:07:32] Vince Menzione: Going, that’s me. [00:07:33] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:07:33] Vince Menzione: That’s me. The old, the old version of you absolutely is them. [00:07:37] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:07:38] Vince Menzione: And they all, they all want help. [00:07:39] Dexter Hardy: They all, [00:07:40] Vince Menzione: everybody wants help in marketplace. [00:07:41] Dexter Hardy: Right. And [00:07:43] Vince Menzione: yeah. [00:07:43] Dexter Hardy: And, and to that end. Because I was them. I understand how their mind, it’s a mindset shift, right? You’re saying, okay, we have these traditional sales, we’re a systems integrator, we have all this ip, these, there are all these things that we can do. [00:07:57] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:07:58] Dexter Hardy: I don’t, how do we convert this to transact ability? How do we get our sales teams enabled to sell it? And I was, and my, my feedback and my response to that is, well, one, we have a service for that. It’s our marketplace advisor services. I’m sorry for the plug, but not sorry. [00:08:16] Vince Menzione: No, we’re, no, we’re gonna plug today as well. [00:08:18] Vince Menzione: Much as you want. [00:08:19] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:08:20] Vince Menzione: And then I think about this too, because a lot of these sis are developing, we’re just, uh, talking with Agua about MSPs, developing agents for their customers and then making ’em repeatable. [00:08:30] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:08:31] Vince Menzione: And so you have other sis that are creating AI tools and agents. Microsoft is created and the, and so has AWS and Google, they’ve created space in their marketplaces for agent AI tools. [00:08:44] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:08:45] Vince Menzione: And so now you’ve got all these companies that were traditional sis that are now becoming what we would call ISVs or, or SDCs. And they need help in getting these solutions to the marketplace. [00:08:57] Dexter Hardy: Absolutely. [00:08:58] Vince Menzione: So, so talk about what you’re doing with Spark. [00:09:00] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. So our concept with Spark is. When you look at enablement, so you’ll have platforms that are enablers and a lot of people will say, well, what makes Spark different? [00:09:12] Dexter Hardy: Why? Why you versus Tackle Or Sugar? [00:09:15] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:09:15] Dexter Hardy: Any of the other work span. Work span or any, they’re all friendlys to us because we’re meeting you where you are. Right. In order for you to use their platform, you gotta already have the solution together. [00:09:29] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:09:30] Dexter Hardy: Right. They can help you deploy. There’s Deploy. They are a deployment firm or [00:09:35] Vince Menzione: Right. [00:09:36] Dexter Hardy: Um, platforms We’re saying [00:09:38] Vince Menzione: they’re middleware in many respects. Correct. Between the, they’re, [00:09:41] Dexter Hardy: they’re integrated into the marketplace. They’re highly embedded into the systems behind it, and we’re saying what happens before that? I have no idea what solution to build. I have no idea how we’re gonna take advantage of Marketplace. [00:09:58] Dexter Hardy: How is Marketplace gonna change? Again, we had these conversations at dinner. Um, [00:10:04] Vince Menzione: yeah, [00:10:04] Dexter Hardy: all of the big players are saying, we have channel, we have our sales teams, we have all these things already. How does marketplace play into that for us? And so that Marketplace strategic advisory goes into it and says, here’s how. [00:10:19] Dexter Hardy: Right. We have a. Our Spark GTM methodology goes into how do those things play together? What are your KPIs or what are your business goals as an organization all up? And then we marry this, basically a Venn diagram of how we marry marketplace with your current objectives. Okay. To not just be this, uh, ubiquitous thing that’s kind of sitting over on the side, like, let’s just put it in marketplace because we need to, and nobody knows it’s there and nobody knows it’s there. [00:10:49] Dexter Hardy: It’s part of. Everything all up. Your messaging, your sales organization, your, um, documentation that you have for your organization. So now everyone understands, not just you as the, let’s say you’re an SI that you were, but you, the si with your agents and how that plays into your bigger value proposition. [00:11:10] Dexter Hardy: So take [00:11:10] Vince Menzione: us through the, go to the methodology you described the Spark methodology. [00:11:15] Dexter Hardy: Yep. So, um, a lot of people, when they think about. The methodology, you’ll say we’re a, we’re an si. I’m just going to use an example. You’re an si. How, how do I get somebody to click on my, my opportunity? How do I get somebody to understand what we have as a value proposition? [00:11:39] Dexter Hardy: And I’d say to people, well, there’s this, it’s part of the methodology. There’s product viability. Can you build something? Versus should you build something. Right. [00:11:50] Vince Menzione: Interesting. [00:11:51] Dexter Hardy: If you are, if you are out there today and you’re saying, I mean, everybody’s seeing Claude, the agents, you can, you can ask AI to build you pretty much anything. [00:12:00] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:12:00] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:12:01] Dexter Hardy: Now the question scary and that, that’s a, that, that introduces a new problem. But it’s, can you do it or should you do it? [00:12:08] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:12:09] Dexter Hardy: And and what I’ll tell people is part of our advisory, so the steps are. What is your North Star right now and what is the software that would enable you to get on that AI rocket ship to propel you even further with where you are? [00:12:27] Dexter Hardy: Those are the solutions that we would try to [00:12:29] Vince Menzione: Okay. [00:12:30] Dexter Hardy: That out, pull out of, uh, as part of that marketplace. Um, advisory Second, what partner or partner organizations are you a member of? Is it Microsoft? Is it the AWS? Is it, you know, Google Cloud? Google Cloud, what have you, and let’s say Microsoft. What are solution plays? [00:12:51] Dexter Hardy: What is Microsoft focused on? How does what you’re doing as an organization align with that go to market? Mm-hmm. Because now you have that jet power of what they’re, um, promoting along with your organization. [00:13:06] Vince Menzione: Nice. [00:13:07] Dexter Hardy: And then the final piece is, well, now that you’ve done that, how do I get it into market? [00:13:12] Dexter Hardy: How do I, uh, get people to click on it? And that’s where some of the secret sauce that I won’t divulge on this, [00:13:19] Vince Menzione: uh, [00:13:20] Dexter Hardy: but there is some secret sauce to getting the ICPs to lean in, getting the [00:13:25] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:13:25] Dexter Hardy: You know, you’re listing to light up inside of that. And so that’s. You know, that’s at a high level. That’s kind of how the marketplace, [00:13:32] Vince Menzione: I think what you’re alluding to, and I, I don’t wanna put words in your mouth, but I do think you’ve done a very good job on what I would call maybe digital marketing, maybe. [00:13:41] Vince Menzione: Would that be the right terminology? Yeah. To make your solutions discoverable, to make people understand that they’re out there and to lean in and be able to purchase them. [00:13:51] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:13:52] Vince Menzione: Which I think I would say that’s probably part of the secret sauce, probably of Spark. That is what you’re saying because a lot of organizations struggle here. [00:13:59] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:14:00] Vince Menzione: They put something in the marketplace and nothing ever happens with it. Even even big companies do that. They don’t know how to do it. [00:14:06] Dexter Hardy: So, so yeah. Without divulging the secret sauce, I had a gentleman ask me yesterday, um, during the conference, so how is this different from SEO? I said, good question. [00:14:20] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. Is is SEOS? Is, is SEO involved? Sure, but that’s not the final answer. Because you could do SEO, that doesn’t mean anybody. That just gets you, doesn’t mean anything. Doesn’t mean anything. And so. That’s why I keep going back to this methodology of really aligning it with, uh, what it is you’re trying to accomplish, who it is you’re trying to get to lean in, and then what is the value proposition? [00:14:42] Dexter Hardy: Because at the end of the day, Vince, I think even with any service, like I said, we did our first offerings with our R zero offerings and now we’re doing this. It’s what is the value, right? Um, it’s a hard. Thing to do to really wrap your brain around how your, how your business is going to change from, if you’re doing direct sales and you got your bag and you’re out there selling to now, you mean I don’t have to pick up the phone and call you? [00:15:15] Dexter Hardy: There’s not an email chain that goes out. It’s literally people are just clicking on Get it now to get it [00:15:21] Vince Menzione: and getting it. [00:15:22] Dexter Hardy: That’s a, that’s a mind shift change and that’s. To your point, there is some market, there is some marketing expertise that is required. [00:15:29] Vince Menzione: And we’ve also talked about, I know you and I went down a journey on the co-sell business [00:15:34] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:15:34] Vince Menzione: And how difficult it can be to get a, a seller from a Microsoft or a Google and Amazon involved, unless it’s, you know, a $10 million transaction, they don’t want to get involved. [00:15:45] Dexter Hardy: Right. [00:15:46] Vince Menzione: Uh, you really wanna reach the customer. Because you know, the hyperscalers is great. If you’re driving a ServiceNow or an ADO a big solution, it’s gonna be tens of millions of dollars. [00:15:56] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:15:57] Vince Menzione: But if you are an SI and you’re selling this as part of maybe a services offering, or you’re selling it as, you know, you’re just selling as a standalone. [00:16:04] Dexter Hardy: Right? [00:16:05] Vince Menzione: Um, you want as much eyeballs and transactions as possible and you’re not gonna get that just going co-selling. [00:16:12] Dexter Hardy: Right. And, and the other part of that I will say about co-sell. [00:16:17] Dexter Hardy: I think co-sell has gotten like a dirty rap or bad rap around it. Co-sell is with the hyperscaler, but it’s with other partners too. [00:16:28] Vince Menzione: Sure, [00:16:28] Dexter Hardy: right? Oh yeah, absolutely. So, um, being in the marketplace gives you the option of co-selling would, not just the hyperscaler, but co-selling with other orgs. And so now anytime that you’ve give, you’ve given yourself that X factor on top of your existing ability to deliver. [00:16:44] Dexter Hardy: That’s where you’re seeing the true power of marketplace. [00:16:47] Vince Menzione: And yesterday you were on stage with Jason Rook. [00:16:50] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:16:51] Vince Menzione: And this was part of the conversation. It was you, Jason Rook and Amit Sinha at, at uh, work Span. [00:16:58] Dexter Hardy: Mm-hmm. [00:16:58] Vince Menzione: And part of the conversation was around the, uh, reseller enabled offers. And I think what that’s somewhat of what you’re alluding to is that you have other wait routes to market channels to market. [00:17:10] Dexter Hardy: Right [00:17:11] Vince Menzione: through building other partnerships for co-selling. Yeah. That what you, you were alluding to. Yeah. [00:17:15] Dexter Hardy: So, so yeah, there, there are a million ways to, once you’re in, once you have a transactable offer, that’s when you get the magic unlocks. Right. You, the barrier to entry is being in marketplace with a transactable offer. [00:17:31] Dexter Hardy: And if you’re outside of that loop, again, the REO. You’re not available. Guess who? Guess who can’t do that? [00:17:39] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:17:40] Dexter Hardy: If you’re not in the marketplace, you can’t do that. [00:17:41] Vince Menzione: Can’t do that. [00:17:43] Dexter Hardy: Multi-party private offers can’t do that. ’cause you’re not in the marketplace. [00:17:47] Vince Menzione: No. [00:17:48] Dexter Hardy: Right. And so what we’re saying is think about all up, how you’re missing out on. [00:17:56] Dexter Hardy: All of these wonderful opportunities to, I think, I think the number got thrown out a couple of times. Jason ran away from it when you said it’s like a $300 billion number on, he [00:18:07] Vince Menzione: didn’t want, he didn’t, he didn’t want me sharing or he wasn’t, he, he didn’t want to, uh, what, what did he say? Validate that that was the right number, but $300 billion in potential cloud budgets. [00:18:21] Vince Menzione: That you could have access to. We know the number across the three hyperscalers is north of 500 billion. [00:18:27] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:18:27] Vince Menzione: It’s just that Microsoft doesn’t break out their numbers and make them public, and so we, you know, [00:18:32] Dexter Hardy: and, and [00:18:33] Vince Menzione: estimates. [00:18:33] Dexter Hardy: What I would tell everyone that’s listening, I would invite you to consider [00:18:37] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:18:38] Dexter Hardy: the following. [00:18:39] Dexter Hardy: If you’re not in the marketplace with a IP, co-sale or MAC eligible solution, you’re not eligible for that. [00:18:49] Vince Menzione: That’s right. [00:18:50] Dexter Hardy: Spend. And so is that worth it for you as an organization to say, yes, we need to figure out this and get involved with that? [00:19:01] Vince Menzione: So I’m an SI and I raise my hand. I’m like, Dexter, help me. [00:19:06] Vince Menzione: What happens next? [00:19:08] Dexter Hardy: I would say. Let me introduce you to my team. [00:19:12] Vince Menzione: I love it. I love it. [00:19:13] Dexter Hardy: Um, [00:19:14] Vince Menzione: and you’ve been building your team since, uh, we go back now four years, but like yeah. You, you’ve been growing your business, hired some incredible people in your [00:19:22] Dexter Hardy: team. Yeah, we have some rock stars on our team. I’m really, really happy with my team. [00:19:25] Dexter Hardy: Uh, you know, we’re still growing and it’s, it’s a wonderful thing to be in this economy and still growing. Yes. Um, and like I said, yes, we, I would introduce you to my team and my team would then help you, uh, through. The marketplace advisory. We can help you with the health check. We can do the strategic advisory, the alignment around, here’s what we’re doing. [00:19:47] Dexter Hardy: Another thing that I’ll go ahead and put in here, if you already have listings in the marketplace and people aren’t clicking on them, we have marketplace optimization as well. [00:19:58] Vince Menzione: I love that [00:19:59] Dexter Hardy: because we, again, that conversation comes up all the time. Yeah. We put, we, we invested in Marketplace and we have our listing out there. [00:20:08] Dexter Hardy: Nobody’s clicking on it. Well, we can help you with that too. [00:20:11] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:20:12] Dexter Hardy: Right, because to your point, it’s not just building an ar, arbitrarily writing something about it, putting it in marketplace. Right. That’s, that’s an arbitrary approach. We’re saying how do you turn those into a lead gen, revenue gen, um, operation arm of your business. [00:20:29] Vince Menzione: Nice. [00:20:29] Dexter Hardy: Which is what we call market marketplace operating system. [00:20:33] Vince Menzione: Marketplace operating. Okay. So we got another, I got another word I need to learn. Another acronym I need to learn. [00:20:38] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. You know, I [00:20:39] Vince Menzione: less, [00:20:40] Dexter Hardy: I’ve been around Microsoft too long, I guess. [00:20:42] Vince Menzione: Yes. I [00:20:42] Dexter Hardy: created all these, [00:20:45] Vince Menzione: so, um, just perspective could, because you’ve been in the marketplace since we talked about COVID. [00:20:50] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:20:51] Vince Menzione: Really. So that’s five years. Five [00:20:52] Dexter Hardy: years. Yeah. [00:20:54] Vince Menzione: Um, talk about how it’s changed from your perspective. I mean, I, we talk about it all. We talk, we have leaders like Jason and Cyril comes here and. Does, uh, speaks about some changes going on, but tell us your perspective on how it’s evolved. [00:21:08] Dexter Hardy: Um, so the marketplace is always evolving really. [00:21:12] Dexter Hardy: Um, from, from when we got in early in the marketplace. Uh, REO didn’t exist. Multi, multi-party. Private offers didn’t exist. The amount of committed spend on hyperscalers little was, wasn’t there. Um, the seller, the field sellers within the hyperscalers. Marketplace wasn’t part of their thing. So, um, you know, when that, when that frontier, not just that, not to confuse terms when that frontier opened up Yeah. [00:21:43] Dexter Hardy: Like there were, you know, it, it really wasn’t a clear path on how do you channel, how do you do sales, how do you integrate with the team? Um, and now there’s a lot more options, uh, for organizations that want to keep some of those motions together. Disti are now able to get involved with the conversation. [00:22:05] Dexter Hardy: They were kinda locked out for a while, but now with the s and the multi-party private offers and disti are in the conversation, [00:22:12] Vince Menzione: it’s lit up the disti like crazy. Yeah. In fact, we were, we just spent time with a few and some friends there and [00:22:19] Dexter Hardy: yeah. [00:22:19] Vince Menzione: Yeah, it’s been wild to watch this. [00:22:21] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:22:21] Vince Menzione: We haven’t talked about AI very much. [00:22:24] Vince Menzione: I mean, we talked about it from a solution and something you put in the, the market as an agent. But we haven’t talked about the change in a big way. Um, what’s your perspective for the partners out there and how they need to think about AI and embracing it and where they are in the journey? [00:22:41] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. Um, I really, AUL said something, uh, in his, in the panel discussion that he had the other day and it, it just really resonated with me. [00:22:53] Dexter Hardy: Uh, will AI take your job? Probably not. The person who’s using AI [00:23:00] Vince Menzione: will take [00:23:00] Dexter Hardy: the job. Will take you [00:23:01] Vince Menzione: job. Yes. [00:23:02] Dexter Hardy: Same thing. That’s really [00:23:04] Vince Menzione: so true. [00:23:05] Dexter Hardy: Same thing for, same thing for companies. Yeah. If you don’t have, and I, I’ll, I’m, I, I’m really gonna ask, I should have asked Jason this question. Why isn’t there a badge for frontier firms for SDCs? [00:23:21] Dexter Hardy: That’s a solution. Partner badge, not a frontier firm. [00:23:24] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:23:24] Dexter Hardy: but I’ll say if your company isn’t investing in combining people and ai, you’re missing the boat. [00:23:36] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So be a frontier firm. [00:23:37] Dexter Hardy: Be a frontier firm where it doesn’t matter if you’re an si, SDC, if you are not leveraging that superpower of how do we do things faster, better, quicker. [00:23:50] Dexter Hardy: Make that part of your go to market and your operating total operations, you’re going to get left behind. [00:23:57] Vince Menzione: Yeah. We’re hearing it loud and clear. I mean, all the sessions we had yesterday. [00:24:02] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:24:02] Vince Menzione: All the people like yourself that have been here are all frontier firms. They’re all companies that have leaned in, in a big way. [00:24:07] Dexter Hardy: Right. [00:24:08] Vince Menzione: Um, and in some respect, I mean, we we’re, I’m, I’m saying proceed with caution because I, I know by 2030 our world is gonna look very radically different than it looks today. [00:24:17] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:24:18] Vince Menzione: Uh, we just, I need to make sure we have the security and the governance and the data structure the right way so that we just don’t, things don’t just go crazy in some respects. [00:24:27] Vince Menzione: Right? [00:24:27] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. And I, I do think that, um, to your point, you have to, we still have to keep the human factor in everything that we’re doing. Um, there is, again, it’s AI plus your experience that makes you better. [00:24:46] Vince Menzione: Yeah, agreed. [00:24:47] Dexter Hardy: AI in the hands of someone who has no idea what they’re doing is just a, it’s a faster way to failure, right? [00:24:53] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. Because they have, they still don’t understand the concepts. And so I really want to make sure that, you know, when you think about ai, think about it from the context of experience, right? Yeah. [00:25:06] Vince Menzione: And yeah, we can go, we can go down a, a whole discussion point here about ethics and what I’ll call AI for good. [00:25:14] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. Like I said, having the right approach, having an ethical approach. We talked about Microsoft on stage yesterday with people like Brad Smith, who, uh, there’s people that have this, this right philosophy and approach to ai. Right. That [00:25:29] Dexter Hardy: right. [00:25:29] Vince Menzione: It will do good for the world and not bad for the world. [00:25:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:25:33] Dexter Hardy: And I think that has to be, well, I’ll just speak for myself. Can you do something and should you do something [00:25:42] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:25:43] Dexter Hardy: You have to, that should be a question that you’re asking yourself. You should be evaluating and you have to have whatever your moral compass is that has to align with your moral compass. [00:25:53] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. Because they’re, you know, because with AI the can you do something becomes a lot bigger. Yeah. [00:26:02] Vince Menzione: Good point. Good point. [00:26:03] Dexter Hardy: Should you do it well, you know, greater good. I think as a, as a collective, one of the things that’s. If it hasn’t rained true. Uh, we all live on this planet. We all are part of the, we’re all in part of a connected ecosystem. [00:26:21] Dexter Hardy: Um, and so can we do it? Should we do it? Those are questions that we need to, you know, really think about as we continue to leverage AI and do the things that we’re doing. I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of opportunities. [00:26:36] Vince Menzione: Good points, good points. So for partners watching, listening today, um, two, couple things. [00:26:43] Vince Menzione: First of all, it’s changing fast. We need like, what would be, we’re at the beginning of 2026. We’re the first quarter, 2026, maybe the end of the first quarter at this point. [00:26:53] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:26:54] Vince Menzione: What is the one or two or three things that partners need to go do differently or better? And then, um, what would you say to them about marketplace and embracing marketplace? [00:27:09] Dexter Hardy: So I’m gonna answer the second question first. [00:27:12] Vince Menzione: Okay. Sounds good. [00:27:14] Dexter Hardy: Get in the marketplace. [00:27:15] Vince Menzione: Get in the marketplace, [00:27:17] Dexter Hardy: period. [00:27:17] Vince Menzione: Like why wouldn’t you be in the marketplace? [00:27:20] Dexter Hardy: Every hyperscaler has doubled down, tripled down. Yeah. On their marketplace. Microsoft had multiple marketplaces, now it’s just one. [00:27:28] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:27:29] Dexter Hardy: Writing should be all over the wall. Not that [00:27:31] Vince Menzione: one. There is, there is no market without marketplace. I mean, literally today, the old way, days of selling, the old days of co-selling are gone. [00:27:39] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:27:39] Vince Menzione: Like the days when we, we got pos and we, we sent a, an Excel spreadsheet to Microsoft to tell ’em about the deals that were co-sell. [00:27:47] Vince Menzione: Ready? Those days are gone. So you’re saying we’ve gotta be in the marketplace now and then, what would you say maybe the one thing that’s, let’s limit it to one for all of our amazing viewers, listeners, and ultimate partner guests, when when you, when I see you in Bellevue again, ’cause you’re gonna be in Bellevue, May 11th to the 13th again. [00:28:08] Vince Menzione: Absolutely. With us helping lead the marketplace conversation. What do they need to be doing now? Right now? Besides getting the marketplace? [00:28:18] Dexter Hardy: Besides getting the marketplace, I, I would, I would do a hard look at operations. [00:28:24] Vince Menzione: Operations. [00:28:25] Dexter Hardy: Like a lot of companies, they’re growing and they, what is it? How are we looking internally in our organizations to figure out again, can we do it? [00:28:34] Dexter Hardy: Should we do it? Companies need to focus on their superpower, even, even the big ones, right? Um, being. Not having the focus, not look, looking at or listening to your why as an organization can, can put you in a, in a really weird space. And so, uh, with everyone being able to grow and do what we’re doing, I would say lean into your why, [00:29:01] Vince Menzione: like into your why. [00:29:02] Dexter Hardy: Lean into your why. [00:29:03] Vince Menzione: I think too, I think what you, what you’re saying here, and I’m, my, my reaction to it too is that, uh, we’re, we’re so caught up in the moment right now. And things are changing, so it feels like they’re changing so fast, like coming back to philanthropic and [00:29:20] Dexter Hardy: yeah. [00:29:20] Vince Menzione: What’s evolved just in the last month or so that people are taking their eye off the why or the wall, so to speak and reacting? [00:29:29] Vince Menzione: Is that, is that your point? [00:29:31] Dexter Hardy: Yeah, that’s my point and, and I’ll give you an example. So AI is different from the following technology, but. And I both were around for the blockchain, blockchain, blockchain conversation. [00:29:45] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:29:45] Dexter Hardy: And if you weren’t doing blockchain, you weren’t part of the conversation. I invite you to consider how many conversations have you heard about blockchain do? [00:29:56] Dexter Hardy: Again, AI is a little bit different because it’s, it’s an enabler. It’s, it’s, it’s, it, it does a lot more than that. But I, I will say. AI is gonna become table stakes. And that’s why I say you have to, you have to embrace it as an organization. Yeah. And if you’re not, you’re gonna get left behind. [00:30:13] Vince Menzione: Okay. It’s a drop. [00:30:14] Vince Menzione: Drop the mic moment there. So drop the mic. I’m gonna ask you one more question, personal question. Yeah. I’d love to ask this of every single one of my guests. [00:30:22] Dexter Hardy: Yep. [00:30:23] Vince Menzione: I probably have asked this to you before, but I’m gonna ask it to you again. [00:30:26] Dexter Hardy: Yes. [00:30:28] Vince Menzione: You are hosting a dinner party. You can have this dinner party anywhere in the world. [00:30:32] Vince Menzione: We could talk about locations as well, and you can invite any three guests from the present or the past to this amazing dinner party. [00:30:41] Dexter Hardy: Mm-hmm. [00:30:42] Vince Menzione: Whom would you invite today and why? [00:30:48] Dexter Hardy: Wow. So the last time I answered that question, for those who didn’t hear the first podcast, it was Barack Obama. [00:30:56] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Nelson [00:30:57] Dexter Hardy: Mandela. [00:30:58] Dexter Hardy: And my great-grandparents. [00:30:59] Vince Menzione: Your great-grandparents. I remember your great-grandparents [00:31:02] Dexter Hardy: In this conversation, it’s gonna be more than three people. I’m sorry. [00:31:07] Vince Menzione: All right. But [00:31:07] Dexter Hardy: it make [00:31:08] Vince Menzione: some exceptions here. We’ll make them. [00:31:10] Dexter Hardy: It would be my great-grandparents. Still [00:31:13] Vince Menzione: nice. [00:31:14] Dexter Hardy: My parents and my children. [00:31:18] Vince Menzione: Very cool. [00:31:19] Dexter Hardy: Because I want to look back and let them see the same reason that I had them there before. [00:31:25] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:31:26] Dexter Hardy: Look at what you started. [00:31:27] Vince Menzione: Nice. I love that. [00:31:29] Dexter Hardy: Look at the continuation of your legacy in my parents. [00:31:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:31:32] Dexter Hardy: Look at what I have been able to build because of the investments and the things that you’ve poured into the love, the energy, the effort, the sacrifice, and then the sacrifices that I’m making to pass into that legacy. [00:31:46] Dexter Hardy: The next legacy. So this would be a. This is why I would say leaning to your why, like understand the importance of family. [00:31:54] Vince Menzione: Tell us about your great, your great grandparents. You told me about this on the last podcast for those who didn’t, didn’t listen in. [00:32:01] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:32:02] Vince Menzione: And don’t have the inclination to go back. [00:32:05] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. [00:32:05] Vince Menzione: But I think it’s a great story. [00:32:06] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. So, you know, growing up in the south [00:32:10] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:32:10] Dexter Hardy: Alabama specifically, uh, my great grandparents were part of, you know, slavery era. [00:32:16] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:32:16] Dexter Hardy: Jim Crow. Jim Crow. Crow. Yeah. The whole. [00:32:21] Dexter Hardy: The history of the United States and what, how it was built, you know, [00:32:26] Vince Menzione: an important part of the history of the United States, by the way, that we all should never forget. [00:32:29] Dexter Hardy: Yeah. So again, some of those, some of the ceilings that are out there now, there wasn’t even an option for. [00:32:36] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:32:36] Dexter Hardy: And so that’s why I really wanted them to, I would really want them to be here to see something that they probably could never even conceive as an option of, of it being. [00:32:47] Dexter Hardy: Uh, to be able to see where things are and then to, you know, why my kids, if this is where we are right now, I want you to dream big. The same amount of energy it takes to think small is the same amount [00:33:04] Vince Menzione: of energy it takes to think big. Dream big. Dream big. Dream. [00:33:09] Dexter Hardy: Dream big. [00:33:10] Vince Menzione: I think we’re gonna leave on that message. [00:33:12] Dexter Hardy: Yeah, [00:33:12] Vince Menzione: that’s a great message. [00:33:13] Dexter Hardy: Awesome. [00:33:14] Vince Menzione: So great to see you, my friend. It’s [00:33:16] Dexter Hardy: always a pleasure [00:33:16] Vince Menzione: to be with you, so always a real pleasure for me as well. [00:33:19] Dexter Hardy: Yeah, [00:33:19] Vince Menzione: and I want to thank you for watching and listening and being part of Ultimate Partner and the Ultimate Partner YouTube channel and our great guest and friend, Dexter Hardy. [00:33:30] Vince Menzione: Great to see you again. [00:33:31] Dexter Hardy: Always a pleasure us. Thank you, [00:33:33] Vince Menzione: sir. [00:33:33] Dexter Hardy: All right. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks. [00:33:35] Vince Menzione: Don’t forget, ultimate Partner Live is coming soon, May 11th through the 13th in beautiful Bellevue, Washington. I hope to see you there.

Payments alone rarely make a software platform unforgettable. The moment merchants start using your product to access working capital, manage cash flow, move money through payouts, and keep reconciliation tight, the relationship changes. I sit down with Whitney Ganibegovic, Senior Sales Executive at Worldpay (now part of Global Payments), to unpack why embedded finance is quickly becoming one of the most practical drivers of retention, account growth, and long-term platform value for ISVs and software platforms.We get specific about what platforms still underestimate: embedded finance does not have to be a massive multi-year build with a new compliance team and a brand-new support motion. With the right partner infrastructure, platforms can add value-added financial tools while staying focused on the vertical software that made them successful. Whitney shares why expanding from embedded payments to a broader financial suite can increase customer lifetime value, lift revenue per merchant, and create real platform dependency because these tools plug directly into daily workflows.We also dig into where many rollouts go wrong. “Embedded” does not automatically mean adopted, so go-to-market timing, vertical nuance, and marketing automation matter. Whitney explains why working capital is often the simplest entry point, how payments data enables smart pre-qualification, and which metrics go beyond surface-level revenue: multi-product adoption, engagement, cash flow penetration, contribution margin, retention, and net revenue retention. The guiding image we keep coming back to is the “nonstop flight” experience: one login, one place to operate, fewer handoffs, less stress.If you care about embedded finance, fintech strategy, and building software platforms merchants cannot replace, listen now. 

I met Brittany Hart, founder of Communiscape, from an introduction from Blakely Graham. I was planning to interview her on How We Got There about her experience scaling an SI (Fortimize) as employee 2 before starting/exiting her own Salesforce SI (Platinum Cubed) but then I got to listen to her present via a professional leadership community I am a part of called Arcadia and I knew that I had to expand the conversation to have her share a bit about how ISVs can help your customers digest your app through “change architecture”.Brittany shares her experience around industry focus and its importance from her time at SIs, who both went deep in order to more effectively co-sell with Salesforce. Put yourself in your customer's shoes - you're interacting across the screen with customers with a different communication style going on and then you are using this technical jargon about new screens of an app that the customers have never seen - the least you can do is work to use the customer's industry terms to help break through the noise. And don't let your depth of knowledge cause you to glaze past key learnings during demos. One that we talk about is Salesforce reports & dashboards. Every ISV I have worked with undersells the importance of this functionality.You gotta give before you get. The best ISVs she worked with genuinely care about solving customer problems, not just growing pipeline/revenue, but also commit even before asking for anything in return like TaskRay did with them early days. The worst ones operate much more transactionally.Brittany brings in the 5 terrains of communication through the lens of how ISVs can provide better service to their customers. As an actionable example, listen in to Brittany's tips around voicescape which is especially important when conveying confidence and authority for women.There is so much goodness in the 2nd half of this episode for sales and services people.This episode is brought to you by ISVApp. ISVapp the usage analytics platform built specifically for Salesforce ISV and OEM applications. ISVapp is your central toolbox for reducing churn, increasing renewals, uncovering upsell opportunities, and closing more deals. #salesforce #isv #gtm #salesforcepartners #appexchange

The moment AI agents can buy things for us, payments stop being a simple “click to pay” problem and become a trust problem. Greg Myers sits down with Sanjay Saraf, SVP and Global Chief Product Officer for Merchant Solutions at Fiserv, to map out what agentic commerce really means for merchants, ISVs, and the broader payments industry as software moves from assisting the shopper to acting for the shopper.We break down the simplest definition: customers set intent and rules, then an AI agent handles discovery, decisioning, and transaction execution. That shift challenges infrastructure built on the assumption that a human is present for authentication, authorization, and confirmation. Sanjay explains why the biggest change is the trust layer and how dispute resolution, refunds, and chargebacks must evolve when an autonomous agent initiates the purchase.We also dig into the emerging network frameworks shaping agentic payments, including Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol and Mastercard's Agent Pay Acceptance Framework. One emphasizes whether the agent is authorized to act, while the other emphasizes proving customer intent with a traceable record. From there, we talk practical implementation: how providers like Fiserv aim to make this seamless for integrated merchants, why SMBs can't be left behind, and why “agentic discovery” may become as important as traditional SEO for product catalogs.Finally, we cover where early ROI may show up first, especially through reduced fraud, fewer disputes, and clearer authorization, along with real-world use cases in travel and high-impact B2B invoice and supplier payments. Subscribe for more conversations on the future of payments, and if this helped you, share it and leave a review so more builders can find the show.

Mastering Ecosystem Growth and AI Transformation Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this episode, Vince Menzione sits down with Rebecca Jones, Chief Growth Officer of Bridge Partners, to deconstruct the “Power of Three” co-selling model and the shift from AI experimentation to scalable business outcomes. They explore the critical importance of customer-centricity, the role of agentic workflows in solving complex B2B problems, and why the most successful leaders prioritize progress over perfection to show momentum within weeks rather than years. From her background in the financial sector to her experience scaling with industry titans like Microsoft, Rebecca provides a masterclass on navigating the current “tectonic shifts” in technology through strategic alignment and executive commitment. Key Takeaways Bridge Partners focuses on connecting strategy to execution, boasting a 90% referral rate driven by deep expertise in product marketing and partner ecosystems. The market is shifting from mere AI “dabbling” to purposeful applications in MVP and scale, specifically through agentic AI that tackles real business problems. Success in today's landscape requires knowing your underlying value and maintaining an unwavering focus on customer-centricity. The “Power of Three” (Hyperscaler, GSI, and ISV) remains the ultimate design for go-to-market scaling, provided there is a clear joint value proposition. To show immediate momentum, new executives should focus on “quick wins” achievable within six to eight weeks rather than long-term three-year plans. Effective co-selling requires removing blockers like compensation misalignment and securing top-down executive sponsorship across all leadership silos. If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. https://youtu.be/nClWjCm6S6A At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags Rebecca Jones, Bridge Partners, Chief Growth Officer, co-selling, Power of Three, Hyperscaler, GSI, ISV, SAP, Microsoft, agentic AI, AI experimentation, pipeline velocity, pre-sales workshops, account-based marketing, ABM on steroids, GTM strategy, executive sponsorship, partnership ecosystems, B2B growth, tech industry trends 2026, Ultimate Partner, Vince Menzione, orchestration, value proposition. Transcript Rebecca Jones Audio Episode [00:00:00] Rebecca Jones: Because most of the agents I’ve seen drop into um, a lot of the areas where you and I can download are features. [00:00:07] Vince Menzione: Yes, [00:00:08] Rebecca Jones: they’re really feature agents. I love where we are ’cause we’re starting to tackle real business problems. [00:00:17] Vince Menzione: We just finished Ultimate Partners Winter Retreat here in beautiful Boca to a sold out crowd. Today I’m joined by Rebecca Jones, the Chief Growth Officer of Bridge Partners for this compelling discussion. Rebecca, welcome to the podcast. [00:00:33] Rebecca Jones: Thank you, Vince. [00:00:34] Vince Menzione: I am so thrilled to have you in Boca in the studio. [00:00:37] Vince Menzione: We’ve been working together now for a couple of years. We [00:00:39] Rebecca Jones: have, [00:00:40] Vince Menzione: and yesterday we were at the Ultimate Partner live executive winter retreat here in Boca. Uh, we’re recording in late February, early March timeframe. And, uh, just it was so thrilling to have everyone in the room yesterday. [00:00:55] Rebecca Jones: Was it? I mean, the energy. [00:00:56] Rebecca Jones: It was amazing. [00:00:57] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:00:58] Rebecca Jones: it was amazing. And thank you so much for having me. I mean, Florida’s gorgeous this time of year. It’s nice to get outta Seattle. [00:01:04] Vince Menzione: Well, it’s, it’s always, I, I, we, we love Seattle. Yes, we love, we do love to be in Seattle and especially in the spring, which we’ll be there together. We’ll talk about that in a little bit, but, um. [00:01:14] Vince Menzione: This is our first time actually having an interview. I mean, we’ve had you on stage. Yes. We’ve had Bridge as a part. Bridge Partners has been a partner. It’s ultimate partner. How’s that? And, uh, you’ve led some workshops. You help organizations to be successful and I thought just like to start out like, tell us more about you. [00:01:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah, bridge Partner and your role at Bridge Partners. And, uh, just to frame, to frame the conversation today. [00:01:40] Rebecca Jones: Okay. Of course. So let me tell you a little bit about my background. Um, I’ve been in the technology industry for a few decades now, and I started within the product and go to market, side of the house. [00:01:54] Nice. [00:01:54] Rebecca Jones: And I’ve navigated across a number of functional areas. From product to partner and sales. [00:02:02] Vince Menzione: So product development, [00:02:04] Rebecca Jones: engineering, [00:02:04] Vince Menzione: product marketing. Product marketing. [00:02:05] Rebecca Jones: Product marketing. [00:02:06] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:02:07] Rebecca Jones: Yes. And so when you look back on the areas of where I focus my time, it’s really how do you help customers grow and how do you help companies grow? [00:02:17] Rebecca Jones: Um, and a lot of my background is in B2B. [00:02:20] Vince Menzione: Very cool. [00:02:21] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:02:21] Vince Menzione: And where’d you get your start? [00:02:23] Rebecca Jones: I started actually in the financial sector. [00:02:26] Vince Menzione: Very cool. [00:02:27] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, [00:02:27] Vince Menzione: very cool. That’s, well, that’s a good grounding and [00:02:30] Rebecca Jones: it’s an excellent grounding. And when you look back, and when I look back at what that provided as a foundation, it’s really the economics of a business and how do you help a business and what are the trend lines behind that by industry and and whatnot. [00:02:45] Rebecca Jones: And so I moved from that over to. More agency view, and so the real market facing view and then back inside to really look at how companies develop their products and bring ’em to market. [00:02:56] Vince Menzione: That’s an exciting, well, I think it’s exciting. I hope our listeners and viewers think it’s exciting and I know Bridge Partners because when I was at Microsoft, we worked with Bridge Partners. [00:03:06] Vince Menzione: But for the listeners and viewers that are with us today, maybe a little bit of background about the company and its, and its structure and go to market. [00:03:13] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, of course. So Bridge Partners is almost 20 years old. [00:03:18] Vince Menzione: Wow. [00:03:19] Rebecca Jones: Wow. [00:03:19] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:03:19] Rebecca Jones: Can you believe it? [00:03:20] Vince Menzione: We were newbies when I was working with you. [00:03:22] Rebecca Jones: We, we were newbies and uh, the company was really founded on the principle of how do you connect strategy to execution. [00:03:32] Rebecca Jones: And within that, our first customer was Microsoft. [00:03:36] Vince Menzione: Interesting. [00:03:37] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, and that was an incredible spot to be and an incredible time to be in a company that started to evolve and grow with one of the titans in the industry. And obviously a incredible market leader in the tech industry. [00:03:56] Vince Menzione: Well, and that time 20 years ago, ’cause I was, I was along for that journey. [00:03:59] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:04:00] Vince Menzione: Uh, it was a time of tumultuous change at Microsoft. [00:04:03] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:04:04] Vince Menzione: Uh, in fact, we were talking about the, uh, entrepreneur’s dilemma earlier, uh, today, and Microsoft was going through that period where, you know, we, everyone loves Steve Bomber, but there was a time within the organization that it was stuck. [00:04:18] Rebecca Jones: Mm-hmm. [00:04:19] Vince Menzione: And it had to transform as an organization. [00:04:22] Rebecca Jones: A hundred percent. And so when you think about companies like Microsoft, it’s not only what they do, but how they bring that to market. Yep. And uh, so when you think about where Bridge Partners started and having the privilege to be in Microsoft of all places to, um, cut your teeth on you look at where we started and where we’ve grown from there. [00:04:44] Rebecca Jones: Uh, within the tech industry, we’ve worked across, um, multiple hyperscalers. We’ve worked across, uh. Really the top tier tech and telco, those top 100. Yep. And all the household names. And then throughout that, across the partner ecosystem, because you and I both know these companies grow and scale their businesses through the partner ecosystem, and so we’ve been privileged to work across. [00:05:08] Rebecca Jones: Multiple depth and breadth partners in that play. [00:05:12] Vince Menzione: And as an agency, are you more known for project management go to market? Uh, what, what are the areas and focus where the outcomes that you achieve? [00:05:21] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, so we’re known for. Being on the growth side of the house. And how I define that is you find us in marketing, but that center of gravity is in product marketing. [00:05:32] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:05:32] Rebecca Jones: And then how you scale that through partner ecosystems and then supporting that field or that sales organization. So when you think about those three pillars within the organization, that’s where you’ll find us. [00:05:43] Vince Menzione: And why would I choose Bridge Partners? [00:05:46] Rebecca Jones: Oh, well, um, based on experience. Um, and then when you think about Bridge Partners, it’s not, um, just what we do, but when you take a look at our engagements and background, we’re over 90% referral. [00:06:01] Vince Menzione: Wow. [00:06:02] Rebecca Jones: And so people take us with them and um, what I look at is have we actually moved the needle or driven the customer outcomes? And when you think about the customers that we’ve worked with and the companies in this industry. It’s quite a roster and I don’t take that lightly because if you’re going to help support these companies and help them grow, it’s a testament to how we were able to accomplish that. [00:06:27] Rebecca Jones: Because all these companies have complex enterprise organizations. Their go to market is nuanced and how they want to, and then, um, get and grow. And so these are just a couple of the different ways that we’ve been able to be successful. [00:06:42] Vince Menzione: Fantastic. You know, you’ve done workshops at our events and talked to our community about how to help them achieve their greatest results. [00:06:50] Vince Menzione: What would you say to them? Now we’re living in this time? I, I I, I said this earlier, I don’t want to use the term tectonic shifts, but I’m running out of words to describe how tumultuous this time feels right now to me. [00:07:03] Rebecca Jones: It’s interesting you say that. I was thinking about that. ’cause both you and I have been in the industry for a bit. [00:07:08] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. And, um, there’s some pattern recognition happening right now for me and how I look at the go to market and these, these points in time and the evolution and. This point in time, it is a tectonic shift. But a lot of companies have other, have had to go through these challenges before. If you think about, um, the migration to the cloud and [00:07:33] Vince Menzione: yes, [00:07:33] Rebecca Jones: all of the unlocks that it has, and at the end of the day it’s, it’s shifting and thinking about new business models and it’s shifting and thinking about go to market, but there is. [00:07:43] Rebecca Jones: There are things that ring true no matter where you are. And one of the things I’ve always taken a look at is, do you know your underlying value and relevance in market? And are you being customer centric? That never goes outta style, right? Do [00:07:58] Vince Menzione: you know your value and are you customer centric? That makes a lot of sense, right? [00:08:02] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And do they, what do you do? And, and do they, how do what, how do they answer to that question? [00:08:07] Rebecca Jones: Well, that’s a, that’s a thinking question. Yes. Right? Yes. It takes a minute to think about that. Um, where is your moment of relevance with a customer? [00:08:16] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:08:17] Rebecca Jones: Where is your moment of relevance with a customer? [00:08:19] Rebecca Jones: And when you think about your reason to exist as a business, you have a really defined ICP, an ideal customer profile, and where’s your moment of relevance and. Yes. There’s a lot happening right now, and I think also because of where we sit in the industry and being in the midst of all of these giants with incredible technology to bring to market. [00:08:44] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. We’re, we’re in the front end of this wave or the, the, the tectonic shift that you’re talking about. It’s just, you know, it’s unsettling to a certain degree, but it’s really energetic and it’s. Dynamic and, and there’s so much opportunity out there. So [00:08:59] Vince Menzione: much so, you know, you had me thinking about the $600 billion that’ll be invested this year and just in cloud infrastructure and chips, right? [00:09:08] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So data centers and chips, and talk about that being like kind of creating this wave, this huge tsunami that’s coming for the beaches and, and everything seems to be. Every week there’s a new announcement, and recently it’s been philanthropic and clawed. And yes, uh, the markets are reacting. They’re, um. [00:09:30] Vince Menzione: They’re almost, uh, imploding in some ca in some cases because they’re trying to react the financial analysts, they’re trying to react to what’s happening right now. [00:09:38] Rebecca Jones: It, the investment is massive and it’s, it’s incredible and it’s massive. And over the last year, you saw a lot of experimentation. Yeah. And you saw a lot of dabbling, a lot of, you know, quite. [00:09:52] Rebecca Jones: Frankly, a little bit of concern about is this gonna pay off? [00:09:56] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:09:57] Rebecca Jones: And when you look at where we are in this chain cycle and this adoption cycle, we’re right at the front end, the early adopters. And so a lot of the work that we’re doing, and where I’m focused on is how do you move from experimentation? To truly having some movement over into MVP and scale. [00:10:18] Rebecca Jones: And so I’ll just harken back to Yeah, [00:10:19] Vince Menzione: please. [00:10:20] Rebecca Jones: That product mindset of when you’re looking at opportunity within the business, there was a lot of, um, there was a lot of pockets of experimentation just for fun. Just for fun. And so when you look across the business, um, and what, what we observed was, um, businesses of all different sizes, experimenting and, and some were just, they’re fun, they’re dabbling, right? [00:10:45] Rebecca Jones: But it, it changed in the second half of last year, people became much more thoughtful, much more purposeful, um, thinking forward about how would this be applied to my business? Yeah, because the question now isn’t. Could we do this? It’s really, should we do this [00:11:03] Vince Menzione: right? And and there was a period of time, I don’t mean to interrupt you, but there was a period of time when we were talking about earlier in in last year, we were talking about halluc hallucinations still. [00:11:13] Vince Menzione: Yes. So there was a lack of confidence on the platform side. Yes. Microsoft had brought out. Uh, it’s copilot solutions early to market. And there was some, uh, pushback from the community saying, we’re not seeing the results of that. Yeah. From the financial community specifically. And then I think what you said is then the second half of the year things started to change. [00:11:35] Vince Menzione: There was greater confidence. The [00:11:36] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, [00:11:37] Vince Menzione: I’d say the models got better. [00:11:38] Rebecca Jones: The models got better. But when you think about innovation, that’s inherent risk, [00:11:43] Vince Menzione: right? [00:11:43] Rebecca Jones: Right. Yes. When, when you’re on an innovation curve, yes, that’s risk. And so you have to look at as any great CFO will tell you diversification innovation. [00:11:56] Rebecca Jones: When you start to look at that market landscape, you’re creating risks. Yes. So they’re investing a lot and they wanna know when the payoff is coming back into the business. Right? Or back into the market. [00:12:08] Vince Menzione: So Rebecca, where is the AI market right now? [00:12:13] Rebecca Jones: Oh, that is a tough and great question, Vince. [00:12:18] Vince Menzione: I mean, we’ve gone through it and I’ll, I’ll kind of frame this for, yes, for, for everyone, at least from my perspective of what’s happened, right? [00:12:24] Vince Menzione: So, uh, September, 2022. Chat, GBT. Yeah. So we get into chat bots or chat bot, chat bot, chat bot, chat bot the first year or so, beginning of last year, 2025. A agentic AI really starts to take hold. It’s, it becomes a new term. In fact, I don’t think we were even using the term agentic AI before the end of 24, beginning of 25. [00:12:47] Vince Menzione: And then agents have really proliferated, um, all of the marketplaces now have agents and people are developing their own agents and so on. And all the tools, like all, all the cloud tools have agent capabilities. And now, um. We’re in 2026 and we’re still in the first quarter. It feels like the agents are starting to rule the world and maybe taking over the world [00:13:10] Rebecca Jones: they might be. [00:13:11] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:13:11] Rebecca Jones: right. There is definitely a proliferation of agents and I’m anticipating a lot of consolidation of that. ’cause most of the agents I’ve seen drop into, um. A lot of the areas where you and I can download are features. [00:13:26] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:13:26] Rebecca Jones: They’re really feature agents and those will get consolidated ’cause the where we are and you ask where we are in the market. [00:13:33] Rebecca Jones: What I love. I love where we are ’cause we’re starting to tackle real business problems. And what I’m observing and what we’re working on is really helping connect back into the business to really start that transformational work. [00:13:48] Vince Menzione: So take us through that. I’d love that. I’d love, give us a scenario or [00:13:51] Rebecca Jones: give us a use case. [00:13:52] Rebecca Jones: Do this. Yeah. I think’s really great scenarios here that I can walk you through. And first and foremost it is, and I’m gonna go back and I talked about specialization in specialty areas. Yes. That’s really important. Um, we talked yesterday during the conference around, um, industry. What industry are you in? [00:14:11] Rebecca Jones: You know, I’m in tech and that’s, that’s, we know that industry, we know those business models really well. That’s extremely important. And then you move within that. And what functions do you know and functions in this, you know, order are the product marketing function, how does that work? [00:14:30] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:14:30] Rebecca Jones: How does that work in an enterprise organization or a sales function or a. [00:14:36] Rebecca Jones: Partner function. And within that, what are all the workflows? How do these teams operate together? And so that’s where that curiosity comes in of not just how you did the work. How is the work orchestrated? [00:14:49] Vince Menzione: Inter orchestration is a huge topic area. [00:14:51] Rebecca Jones: Orchestration is a huge topic. Let’s, let’s go [00:14:53] Vince Menzione: there. [00:14:54] Rebecca Jones: E Exactly. [00:14:55] Rebecca Jones: And that’s where that curiosity, you know, I was talking about pattern recognition comes in how is the work designed? And that becomes. The blueprint for how you start to think about agentic workflows. And if you don’t have a great workflow, you don’t wanna replicate that in an agent, but Exactly. You definitely need to understand that. [00:15:18] Rebecca Jones: And so why don’t I take something that, um, I think will resonate for anyone listening to this podcast, because everyone is probably looking for growth this year and wanting to accelerate [00:15:28] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:15:29] Rebecca Jones: Sales. Their pre-sales funnel. So if we just take that pre-sales motion and specifically now with where partners might play in that or where, um, technology companies might want to enable their partners better. [00:15:47] Rebecca Jones: When I start to break down a pre-sales function, you have areas within that. Whole workflow that your marketing department might be driving. They might be driving top of the funnel or or demand programs. And then as you move down the funnel, let’s call it mid funnel, that really has opportunities for partner and field sellers to come in and. [00:16:07] Rebecca Jones: You might be seen or observing that your, um, pipeline velocity is not where you want that, right? Mm-hmm. You might be, you know, as they say, stuck. Stuck. [00:16:18] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:16:19] Rebecca Jones: And so when you start to look at what agents could do within that, I’ll use a real use case, um, around pre-sales workshops. You and I are both familiar with that. [00:16:28] Vince Menzione: We, we are, we were just talking about this last night, in fact, at dinner, about pre pre-sales workshops and how this is still such a vital component, how organizations work together. [00:16:37] Rebecca Jones: Such a vital component, um, for multiple reasons, right? You get to engage directly with the customer. You get to spend time with that customer. [00:16:46] Rebecca Jones: You get to ensure you understand what are their most pressing use cases and really help them design and buy into a solution far before you get to a proposal. And quite frankly, if you do this right. You also have an adoption plan, and then think about it from other functional areas in the organization. [00:17:02] Rebecca Jones: You start to pattern match across those presale workshops. You can start to see the use cases that are most valuable in market and start to put that into your messaging. So you think about presale workshop, it’s just not the activity of having a workshop, but if you could build an agent. To really help design around partners, enabling partners to deliver better presale workshops. [00:17:27] Rebecca Jones: Interesting. And how are you ingesting information that goes into the workshop? How are you helping, um, develop materials and first drafts faster for proposals post? How are you. Data is informing this. What are you collecting and what are you providing, and then what are you delivering? If you take that one simple component in a pre-sales process, you can see where I’m going. [00:17:53] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. All of a sudden, an ecosystem starts to show up around how could you connect better back with product marketing? What are they doing? What could you inform them with, with the data that you’re bringing in? [00:18:03] Vince Menzione: Interesting. [00:18:03] Rebecca Jones: And then what are the. Deterministic pathways outside of that, that you could be informing downstream down to first, first stress faster on proposals. [00:18:13] Rebecca Jones: Are you helping those partners with an adoption plan? The service partners in there. And so that is the designer and the architect of understanding how that workflow comes to life. And then you can really start to think about the outcomes that you wanna drive. And that’s where I love to start the conversations. [00:18:31] Rebecca Jones: That shouldn’t be an afterthought. That should be where you start. [00:18:35] Vince Menzione: So how do you, how do you, how do you start with this? You gave me a great example, but how do you apply this in the business? Like what do you take when you meet with a client to talk about pre-sales workshops as an example? [00:18:47] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:18:47] Vince Menzione: You take a proforma of what a pre-sales workshop would look like. [00:18:51] Vince Menzione: I’m, I’m, I. I might be wrong on this, but you have, like, you, you now have, uh, AI or AI that they go out and pull the data that you would normally ask maybe in some, some, uh, process, uh, information flow process that we grab and, and pull this into the, to the, to the form. The [00:19:10] Rebecca Jones: first question I always ask is, why. [00:19:12] Rebecca Jones: Why is this so important and valuable? I might have an assumption why, based on my experience, but I want the facts, right? I wanna know how they’re measuring it today, so we have a baseline and I wanna understand what their goals are. [00:19:28] Vince Menzione: Okay? [00:19:29] Rebecca Jones: Are they looking to increase revenue? X percentage. Uh, how many deals are they anticipating? [00:19:38] Rebecca Jones: How many presale workshops do they typically deliver through partner a year? Are they looking to scale that? Probably, yes. Are they looking to increase the value that they’re getting into contract post presale workshop? Probably yes. But I want that empirical data. And then I also wanna know where are they storing that? [00:19:57] Rebecca Jones: Where are they sourcing that? And so it, it really. The question and the question set really is understanding the business outcomes and the why. I, I ask a lot of why, and it really helps you frame in what would be the best outcome or the best solution, and then where do you start? Because there’s a lot of appetite for a. [00:20:21] Rebecca Jones: A transformational workflow from A to Z. And that’s a hard place to, [00:20:26] Vince Menzione: it’s hard show momentum. It’s hard. It’s hard, [00:20:27] Rebecca Jones: right? [00:20:27] Vince Menzione: It’s, it’s hard to document your current workflow flows. [00:20:30] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:20:30] Vince Menzione: Let alone come back and do this ally. [00:20:33] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:20:34] Vince Menzione: And create the best outcomes. [00:20:36] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:20:36] Vince Menzione: So I go back to this and I go, well, what, what creates the best outcomes? [00:20:39] Vince Menzione: Where the customer signs at the dotted line, and then how do you work back from that to the pre-sales workshop? Is that how [00:20:46] Rebecca Jones: you do it? A hundred percent. It’s a hundred percent. And then where do you start? How do you show, um, progress, not perfection. And so in this world, there’s a lot of, um, pressure. To show progress, outcomes, momentum. [00:21:00] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. And these very significant investments that are being made. And so how do you get them to quick wins? And so you know this, for any new executive coming into role, what are your quick wins? Yes. Right? Yes. You need to transform an organization, you need to transform a function. How do you set them up for success? [00:21:19] Rebecca Jones: And that’s always in my mind, that’s always in the mind of. The bridge partners, leaders of how do you set this leader up for success? And it’s that point between strategy and execution. How do you help them show quick wins? And so I broke you down that process. Yep. Of how would you think about in that use case, how to bring that back and help them show quick wins? [00:21:42] Rebecca Jones: Not in six months or a year, but in six weeks to eight weeks. How do you, how do you get them on that journey and then help them build to that next slide. And [00:21:51] Vince Menzione: in fact, that’s how you, you, you’ve made your, your name or your fame in the industry is really coming in and helping some of these executives, especially when they’re newer in role. [00:22:00] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:22:00] Vince Menzione: And those of us who’ve been around the Microsoft ecosystem know this well. Like you get asked day one, what’s your plan? The, while the fire, while the fire hose is blowing in your face at a hundred, a hundred miles an hour? Uh, what’s your plan? [00:22:14] Rebecca Jones: What’s your plan? What’s your [00:22:14] Vince Menzione: plan? [00:22:15] Rebecca Jones: What is your plan? [00:22:16] Vince Menzione: Yeah, yeah. [00:22:16] Vince Menzione: And then you have to show some measurable results fairly quickly. [00:22:19] Rebecca Jones: You have to [00:22:20] Vince Menzione: because you’re asked to get up in front of everyone. Yeah. Very soon. [00:22:23] Rebecca Jones: And that’s a blueprint that we have. We have, it’s a quick win. And when you think about all of these organizations that we’ve worked with, um, speed to market is a value signal. [00:22:36] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:22:36] Rebecca Jones: Right? And that speed and quality. Where are you willing to take the risk? Where are you willing to fail fast? And what outcomes are non-negotiable and what are, and so when you look at that, there’s, there’s conversations that need to be had on. And being able to filter out the noise to get down to what’s really gonna move the needle, um, for our clients and for the executives that we work with. [00:23:06] Rebecca Jones: So they can show momentum and progress quickly. And then we talked a lot about it. We don’t do three year plans, right? We’re gonna help you show progress in months, [00:23:16] Vince Menzione: nice. [00:23:17] Rebecca Jones: And in quarters, right? It’s not, um, 10 years. [00:23:19] Vince Menzione: Can anybody even have a three year plan anymore? [00:23:22] Rebecca Jones: Who’s got one? [00:23:23] Vince Menzione: I’d love to spend some time on co-selling with you. [00:23:25] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Just because I know this was a topic that came up one of our workshops in the Yeah. We hosted, yes. Last year we hosted a session. With another partner. Bridge Partners. [00:23:34] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:23:35] Vince Menzione: And you talked about the power of three and I know you’ve published some information about the power of three. I thought maybe we’d talk about that. [00:23:41] Vince Menzione: ’cause I think that is fascinating and it seems very relevant even in yesterday’s conversation. Uh, there was a conversation about another partner, uh, that is looking to build an ecosystem that hasn’t really thought about building out an ecosystem before, as an example. And this, this, I think is some of the work that you do really applies against this. [00:24:01] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. This, I mean, it, it’s a hot topic, right? Yeah. Power of three, which fits under the umbrella of co-sell Yes. And co-selling. And everyone has a slightly different definition, so I’ll define where we play. Good in there. Um, and then I’ll talk to you about the power of three, um, because that’s one of. Um, I’ll call it the scenarios under co-selling. [00:24:23] Rebecca Jones: Yes. And it’s a very popular one. It [00:24:24] Vince Menzione: is pop Well, it is for v various reasons too because, and I’ll just set the context for this. We were used to co-selling being a technology organization and a and a hyperscaler, like a Microsoft. [00:24:37] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:24:37] Vince Menzione: Going to do something together and driving direct output or sales. Now we have finally seen where marketplaces, which has become the co-sell engine, have now enabled the channel. [00:24:49] Vince Menzione: Um, the reseller enabled, uh, offers now to now, uh, operate on behalf of, and so at least in that case, that’s three right there. Now, there might be more than just three. We talk about the seven seats of the table, but the power of three is palpable right now. [00:25:04] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. Let me tell you about that concept of the power of three. [00:25:07] Rebecca Jones: ’cause when you think about the classic one [00:25:10] Vince Menzione: yeah, [00:25:10] Rebecca Jones: it’s a hyperscaler. [00:25:11] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:25:12] Rebecca Jones: A GSI. And then an ISB. [00:25:15] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:25:15] Rebecca Jones: Right? [00:25:16] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:25:16] Rebecca Jones: I mean that’s the, that’s the power, the powerful power, the three three, [00:25:19] Vince Menzione: the three giants in the [00:25:20] Rebecca Jones: room. The three giants. Yeah. And that’s rarefied air. [00:25:24] Vince Menzione: It is [00:25:25] Rebecca Jones: very [00:25:26] Vince Menzione: verified air. It’s, [00:25:26] Rebecca Jones: yeah. Right. And, uh, we do, we have a published article on that, um, and running a power three with SAP, uh, and it is, um, it changes the dynamics. [00:25:41] Rebecca Jones: Of how companies are gonna scale and grow in this market, right? [00:25:46] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:25:46] Rebecca Jones: Because we know, um, that what got you to this point? Is likely not gonna get you to that next stage of growth. And all the conversations around the platform play is the partner ecosystem, right? And I look at the opportunity, not just with the power through, I’m gonna talk to you a little bit more about that story and what we’re doing there and how we’re looking at that. [00:26:12] Rebecca Jones: Um, but it is the ultimate. Design for your go to market. Yeah. When you think about how partners and the various types of partners can help you scale, but you need to know what you need. You absolutely need to know, [00:26:29] Vince Menzione: yeah. [00:26:30] Rebecca Jones: What are you trying to achieve in your go to market and what’s missing? [00:26:34] Vince Menzione: What are the gaps? [00:26:34] Vince Menzione: Gaps? [00:26:35] Rebecca Jones: What are the gaps? Are the gaps before you apply? Yes. The power of three, or I’ll talk to you about a couple other use cases within that. So the power of three. Has long been on everybody’s, you know, can, can we get this done right? Can you pattern match the customer set? I’ll often refer to it as a BM on steroids, account-based marketing and on steroids. [00:26:59] Rebecca Jones: Can you pattern match, um, the, the hyperscaler, let’s just use Microsoft in this scenario, the, the. High potential customers of Microsoft Joint with SAP joint, with A GSI. And the more specialized and specific you get in there, it’s not just any, because think about the size of these, you know, companies. Yeah, right. [00:27:24] Rebecca Jones: Then you start to look at, well, let’s get a little bit more specific on these product sets, these industries, these use cases. And then you start to refine that where you can start to identify your greatest opportunity for growth. So that’s the first stage of that. And it is, you know, we, we think about where is that overlap and where is that opportunity, but how do you activate that? [00:27:51] Vince Menzione: And it’s complex because, uh, as you, as you mentioned those three. Organizations, each of them have different go to markets. [00:27:59] Rebecca Jones: They do, [00:27:59] Vince Menzione: they have different, a different mapping of their geographies and their ideal customer profiles. [00:28:05] Rebecca Jones: Mm-hmm. [00:28:06] Vince Menzione: Um, and they, yeah, and they apply different tactics and selling tactics and channel tactics and so on that you have to layer in or you have to take into account when you build this. [00:28:15] Vince Menzione: And SAP’s a very different go-to market motion than a Microsoft, than a, than a, an EY or any name the GSI percent. Yeah. [00:28:23] Rebecca Jones: And so that is why not only is it, um, complex from a. Sharing and figuring out what data you’re going to share. Yeah. But how do you activate it? How [00:28:35] Vince Menzione: do you activate it? [00:28:36] Rebecca Jones: And uh, and that is what all companies are striving to do. [00:28:41] Rebecca Jones: Who are you gonna go to market with? Yeah. What is your best play in the industry? And so I, you know, while this one. There’s very few companies that are gonna be able to activate directly with the hyperscaler, right? Yes. Uh, Microsoft AWS or Google. Um, but there are ways in which you can apply this strategy no matter the size of your organization. [00:29:05] Rebecca Jones: And so when you think about. The power of three. It could be any combination. You are the designer, you are the decider of who is in your power of three. And when you start to kind of unpack that a little bit, it could be Microsoft, SAPN one ISV, or it could be a combination of complementary I ISVs that unlock a play. [00:29:28] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. [00:29:29] Rebecca Jones: Like migration to the cloud. [00:29:31] Vince Menzione: Right. [00:29:31] Rebecca Jones: Like it, it could be [00:29:33] Vince Menzione: backup and recovery. I could rattle off the different types of solutions. Yeah. [00:29:37] Rebecca Jones: What is, where are you seeing the greatest opportunity to scale and what ISVs could come in to help you do that? So when you extract that from the power of three, the classic power of three of Costone, you brought that down to, you know, how do you think about that in the masses of marketplace? [00:29:56] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. Or partners of any size. I like to bring this back to. Where do you believe your greatest opportunity is? Do you have, um, opportunity or weakness in your portfolio, your product set? Could a partner come in and help augment that? Do you have a tech platform and you need a services arm to help extend that? [00:30:19] Rebecca Jones: I I mean the, it it, the world’s your oyster. Yeah. You get to kit this together any way you need and then. The power of bringing these companies together. And you and I both know, and that was much of the conversation yesterday, is, um, the greater goodness of companies coming together Yes. To compliment one another to solve a customer problem. [00:30:39] Vince Menzione: How do you take it from concept to execution? Because to me, that’s. Especially when you’re talking about not just one organization like a micro, you’re working with a Microsoft or an SAP, but you’re layering in three types of organizations and you’re going across different sales motions. How do you get them all? [00:30:58] Vince Menzione: How do you get them all aligned in working together the right way? [00:31:02] Rebecca Jones: Magic. Magic. [00:31:03] Vince Menzione: Okay. [00:31:04] Rebecca Jones: I’m kidding. [00:31:04] Vince Menzione: Call bridge, call Rebecca [00:31:07] Rebecca Jones: Magic. [00:31:07] Vince Menzione: Nine nine nine five five five five. [00:31:09] Rebecca Jones: Let, let, let me, uh, let me talk about that because [00:31:13] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:31:13] Rebecca Jones: it’s one, there’s the good work, there’s the good thought work and the strategy of how to ensure you’re, you’re pointing and you’ve got the team lined up, right? [00:31:22] Rebecca Jones: Right. And the players lined up. But activation of that. Oh, [00:31:28] Vince Menzione: massive work. [00:31:29] Rebecca Jones: It’s massive work. Yeah. And it’s not a set it and forget it. [00:31:33] Vince Menzione: Right, [00:31:34] Rebecca Jones: right, [00:31:34] Vince Menzione: right. [00:31:35] Rebecca Jones: And when you think about the alignment, and you talked about we, we’ve got different fiscal year ends and we’ve got different sales and center plans. I will talk about a few things. [00:31:45] Rebecca Jones: One, executive sponsorship, top down. [00:31:48] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:31:48] Rebecca Jones: Right. Um, ensuring, you know, compensation. You gotta get rid of the blockers and the barriers. [00:31:55] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:31:56] Rebecca Jones: And you have to make it easy and you have to create that space because it’s really, and I’ll talk to you about some of the platforms and technology behind it, but it’s humans working together. [00:32:07] Rebecca Jones: There’s a lot of power in what we’re able to do now with, um, part tech platforms and with agentic solutions. And how do you automate this and how do you bring more power and visibility? Better than ever and, and more than ever. But at the end of the day, we’re activating teams. Across companies. Yep. To work together to bring this together. [00:32:34] Rebecca Jones: And there are playbooks, um, and any, there’s great playbooks out there, but you need to activate that. [00:32:41] Vince Menzione: You need to activate it. And you, you said you gotta get the executive commitment at the top? [00:32:45] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:32:46] Vince Menzione: Not just at the CEO level, but across the leadership team. That’s right. In every silo. Uh, you’ve gotta get, uh, the organization, you have to get compensation taken care of because those, those can be blockers, those could be real blockers from getting the results you want to get. [00:33:00] Vince Menzione: And then you gotta get activation. [00:33:03] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:33:03] Vince Menzione: Right? [00:33:04] Rebecca Jones: You gotta get activation and you have to be really clear on how you’re gonna activate what’s gonna move the needle. And you have to be ready to test, learn, optimize, and you need to put those into sprints. So I’ll give some examples around that. [00:33:20] Vince Menzione: Please do take us through the sprints. [00:33:21] Vince Menzione: ’cause this is, this is getting beyond the theory now. This is what I really wanted to capture with you. Take us through it. [00:33:28] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:33:28] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:33:29] Rebecca Jones: So let’s just say we’ve got, we’ve got a power of three. [00:33:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:33:32] Rebecca Jones: You know, um, ready to roll and, and we’ve picked our industry and we have our use case. Um, between the three of us, the three players, you’re gonna start by allowing someone, and in this case it’s been Bridge Partners to really ensure we have a joint value prop, um, proposition for that end customer. [00:33:54] Rebecca Jones: Mm-hmm. And, you know, you gotta take a little ego out of the room. Typically on the power of three, you’ve got the leading companies coming in. But at the end of the day, if you’ve done this right, it’s, it’s customer first. It’s what’s gonna help solve this customer pain point in that language. And then when you think about activation, it’s who’s, who’s in role first? [00:34:20] Rebecca Jones: Right. And who’s taking point in these customer conversations. Right. Okay. And that is really, really, that’s important. Important. That is important. Who has the relationship? Yeah. Who is going to take lead and who’s gonna follow? And it gets all the way down to whose paper. Is this on? And that’s, that’s sometimes hard. [00:34:41] Rebecca Jones: You’ve got three players in the room, but it’s incredibly important to have those conversations and ensure that this is really end state for the customer. Yeah. So really going through roles and responsibilities and how are we gonna architect this for the customer’s success. Yeah. So that is a critical component of the playbook and then understanding. [00:35:02] Rebecca Jones: Where and what programs are we gonna drive, and then who’s taking what actions. And so I, I mentioned a BM on steroids a little before. Yes. There’s amazing things that you can be doing in market, [00:35:14] Vince Menzione: account-based marketing, [00:35:15] Rebecca Jones: m account-based based marketing, you dunno. Um, account-based marketing and there are some amazing things. [00:35:20] Rebecca Jones: Really truly connected sales and marketing, in this case. Connected sales, marketing and partner. Yeah. And how do you activate these partners together? [00:35:27] Vince Menzione: You used the term part tech, which. Not everyone understands partner technologies. Yes. Organizations like Partner Tap, work Span. Yeah. Tackle. [00:35:37] Rebecca Jones: Structured. Yeah. [00:35:38] Vince Menzione: Structured. If you, these are companies that help with co-selling methodologies, marketplace methodologies. [00:35:44] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:35:45] Vince Menzione: Or combining all of those, [00:35:46] Rebecca Jones: if you know, uh, J McBain, uh. Beautiful visual flat map of, um, it looks a little, the 28 moments. Yes. I was just, well, the 28 moments and he’s got the part tech landscape. [00:35:59] Vince Menzione: Oh, [00:35:59] Rebecca Jones: the islands. The islands. [00:36:00] Vince Menzione: Yes. The islands. [00:36:00] Rebecca Jones: Yes, we got it. But there are part tech solutions that support [00:36:03] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:36:03] Rebecca Jones: Partner programs, co-sell programs, partner marketing, you know. Yes. And really help to automate a lot of those processes. [00:36:11] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:36:12] Rebecca Jones: Um, and a lot of those programs. [00:36:13] Vince Menzione: So Rebecca is such a great conversation today. [00:36:16] Vince Menzione: I mean, we can go. Thank you so deep on this. [00:36:18] Rebecca Jones: I know. [00:36:18] Vince Menzione: Which means that we’re all gonna have to be back together in Redmond. You live in the Seattle area? I do. And you’ll be with us. Um, we’ll be hosting the Ultimate Partner, live in, uh, may, May 11th to the 13th. If you’re marking your calendar as listeners and friends, uh, and you’ll be there and. [00:36:36] Vince Menzione: Probably driving some more of this conversation in a workshop format, I hope. [00:36:41] Rebecca Jones: I hope so too. Yeah, it was really rewarding last year. I mean, there’s nothing more powerful to be in the room with partners because the partners are frontline to customers. [00:36:51] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:36:51] Rebecca Jones: And understanding what they’re seeing and hearing. [00:36:53] Rebecca Jones: And I always think voice of the customer is your ultimate signal. Yeah. So I can’t wait to be there. [00:36:58] Vince Menzione: Very cool. And I have a favorite question I ask all of my guests now. Uh, it is a favorite of mine. You are hosting a dinner party and you can choose where in the world you wanna host this dinner party, and you can invite only three guests, though from the present or the past to this amazing dinner party. [00:37:18] Vince Menzione: Whom would you invite Rebecca and why? And why? [00:37:22] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. Yeah. I’d, um, this is such a great question. I think on every single day I’d have a different collection of folks that I’d want at my home. Uh, I’ve had dinner at some amazing places for me. I would love to host this at my home. [00:37:38] Vince Menzione: Very cool, very [00:37:39] Rebecca Jones: cool. Uh, and the people that I would want there for this particular dinner party, I’m gonna pick, um, three iconic women. [00:37:51] Rebecca Jones: Coco Chanel, [00:37:52] Vince Menzione: Coco Chanel very cool [00:37:54] Rebecca Jones: designer. [00:37:55] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:37:56] Rebecca Jones: Um, really changed how women thought about an identity and wardrobe. Um, I would invite Georgia O’Keefe. Wow. She’s my favorite artist. [00:38:07] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:38:08] Rebecca Jones: Um, she is one of my favorite artists. Uh, I’m, uh, art and history background. And, uh, [00:38:16] Vince Menzione: that explains, [00:38:17] Rebecca Jones: that, explains that, um, a really interesting perspective. [00:38:22] Rebecca Jones: I love her view on landscapes and. She, [00:38:26] Vince Menzione: that’s why I know her as, you know, landscapes [00:38:28] Rebecca Jones: a landscape artist, um, and much more behind that. And then I would bring one of my favorite authors in, who’s Tony Morrison? [00:38:36] Vince Menzione: Tony [00:38:37] Rebecca Jones: Morrison. [00:38:38] Vince Menzione: I don’t know Tony Morrison. [00:38:39] Rebecca Jones: Oh, um, I would, beloved is her book and Oh, yes. When you think about. [00:38:45] Rebecca Jones: Um, and this is really my passion, my background in art and literature and design, and to have three, three women there, that voice of Tony Morrison, you’ve put that book on your list. Okay. It, it, it changed my life. Uh, and, um, Coco Chanel and, um, Giorgio O’Keefe, I think it would be a really interesting conversation. [00:39:07] Rebecca Jones: I love very cool trailblazers, women who really helped. I don’t know how much they recognize how much they really changed the narrative for other women, um, in their fields and together. But I think it’d be a really fun evening. [00:39:23] Vince Menzione: Very different. Very different. Uh, I was, I know a little bit about Cocoa Chanel ’cause my mom was always in the beauty and fashion industry. [00:39:31] Vince Menzione: So as a kid growing up, I mean her shoe was iconic. [00:39:34] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:39:34] Vince Menzione: Iconic. Chanels an iconic brand was iconic. And, and she was a, wasn’t she a survivor of the. Of, uh, Nazi Germany maybe or something. There’s some, there’s some background or there’s [00:39:44] Rebecca Jones: some background. Flee. Flee [00:39:45] Vince Menzione: Nazi Germany [00:39:46] Rebecca Jones: or something. And what she’s really known for is, um, well many things, but yes, as a designer, really changing the tone and temperature Yes. [00:39:56] Rebecca Jones: Of um. How, you know, fashion and female identity. I think she, um, created the, what everybody knows is the little black dress and really got all that more structured and more modern look and feel of how to, how to wear and just really created a powerful path. [00:40:14] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Yeah. Very cool. [00:40:15] Rebecca Jones: So that’s who I’d have it, this one. [00:40:16] Vince Menzione: That will be a funer. [00:40:17] Rebecca Jones: Next time I’m on your podcast, I’d have a whole new crew. [00:40:21] Vince Menzione: Okay. Well I might. Bring dessert. If you don’t mind, I might bring a little, maybe a little chocolates I think maybe might be very appropriate would for this group and just maybe pop in for a few minutes. [00:40:29] Rebecca Jones: That would be great. [00:40:30] Vince Menzione: Because I don’t wanna inter interrupt the flow my, because this is be a great conversation. Oh my, [00:40:33] no, [00:40:33] Rebecca Jones: you would, I think you’d have a ball. [00:40:34] Vince Menzione: Okay. I, [00:40:35] Rebecca Jones: I mean, I know how close you were to your mother. [00:40:37] Vince Menzione: I am. [00:40:37] Rebecca Jones: And so, yeah. [00:40:39] Vince Menzione: So, um, this isn’t, again, I use this tumultuous term, but we are living in interesting times right now. [00:40:47] Rebecca Jones: We are. [00:40:47] Vince Menzione: And for all of our viewers and listeners. What is your advice to them? What is the one thing you would say? We’re in the first quarter of 2026. Yeah. This ball is moving fast or this puck is moving fast. Yeah. If you were a hockey player, um, what would you say to us now? What, what, what is the one thing you would go do if you’re not doing it now that you should be doing? [00:41:11] Rebecca Jones: Take a moment. Take a moment. As leaders. Your company and your organizations are looking for clarity. They’re looking for a path forward, and there’s a lot of energy out there, which is very exciting, but it can be also very distracting. [00:41:30] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:41:31] Rebecca Jones: So hold some confidence and clarity for your organization and figure out where you need to be and where you’re going. [00:41:39] Rebecca Jones: That’ll help set your strategy, and this will all come into view. And so what I look to is how do we help enable the organization to grow? And by doing that, you ha you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself. Yeah. Take a moment. [00:41:53] Vince Menzione: Pause. [00:41:55] Rebecca Jones: Pause. Reflect, reflect. I told you I walked down to the beach this morning. [00:41:59] Rebecca Jones: It’s a great moment. Take a moment for yourself. It’s not passing you by. We’re just getting started. [00:42:06] Vince Menzione: Did you hear that? My friends and listeners? Take a moment. And so great to have you here in the room. Yeah. [00:42:13] Rebecca Jones: Thank you so [00:42:14] Vince Menzione: much. Thank you. And I want to thank our listeners, our viewers, for following along, ultimate Guide to Partnering and our YouTube channel Ultimate Partner. [00:42:23] Vince Menzione: And please, please, please come join us. We have an incredible year ahead. This was our event, number one of five. And Ultimate partner Live will be in Bellevue on the 11th through the 13th of May. [00:42:36] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, I’ll [00:42:36] Vince Menzione: see. You’ll see you there. Rebecca will be there. It’s [00:42:38] Rebecca Jones: in my backyard. [00:42:39] Vince Menzione: It’s in your backyard. And we are gonna have incredible leaders in the room. [00:42:42] Vince Menzione: So thank you for watching. Thank you for listening to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. [00:42:47] Rebecca Jones: Don’t forget, ultimate Partner Live is coming [00:42:50] Vince Menzione: soon, May 11th through the 13th in beautiful Bellevue, Washington. I hope to see you there.s I, as I wrap up here, I just wanna make sure that what, where

Join Kyle, Nader, Vibhu, and swyx live at NVIDIA GTC next week!Now that AIE Europe tix are ~sold out, our attention turns to Miami and World's Fair!The definitive AI Accelerator chip company has more than 10xed this AI Summer:And is now a $4.4 trillion megacorp… that is somehow still moving like a startup. We are blessed to have a unique relationship with our first ever NVIDIA guests: Kyle Kranen who gave a great inference keynote at the first World's Fair and is one of the leading architects of NVIDIA Dynamo (a Datacenter scale inference framework supporting SGLang, TRT-LLM, vLLM), and Nader Khalil, a friend of swyx from our days in Celo in The Arena, who has been drawing developers at GTC since before they were even a glimmer in the eye of NVIDIA:Nader discusses how NVIDIA Brev has drastically reduced the barriers to entry for developers to get a top of the line GPU up and running, and Kyle explains NVIDIA Dynamo as a data center scale inference engine that optimizes serving by scaling out, leveraging techniques like prefill/decode disaggregation, scheduling, and Kubernetes-based orchestration, framed around cost, latency, and quality tradeoffs. We also dive into Jensen's “SOL” (Speed of Light) first-principles urgency concept, long-context limits and model/hardware co-design, internal model APIs (https://build.nvidia.com), and upcoming Dynamo and agent sessions at GTC.Full Video pod on YouTubeTimestamps00:00 Agent Security Basics00:39 Podcast Welcome and Guests07:19 Acquisition and DevEx Shift13:48 SOL Culture and Dynamo Setup27:38 Why Scale Out Wins29:02 Scale Up Limits Explained30:24 From Laptop to Multi Node33:07 Cost Quality Latency Tradeoffs38:42 Disaggregation Prefill vs Decode41:05 Kubernetes Scaling with Grove43:20 Context Length and Co Design57:34 Security Meets Agents58:01 Agent Permissions Model59:10 Build Nvidia Inference Gateway01:01:52 Hackathons And Autonomy Dreams01:10:26 Local GPUs And Scaling Inference01:15:31 Long Running Agents And SF ReflectionsTranscriptAgent Security BasicsNader: Agents can do three things. They can access your files, they can access the internet, and then now they can write custom code and execute it. You literally only let an agent do two of those three things. If you can access your files and you can write custom code, you don't want internet access because that's one to see full vulnerability, right?If you have access to internet and your file system, you should know the full scope of what that agent's capable of doing. Otherwise, now we can get injected or something that can happen. And so that's a lot of what we've been thinking about is like, you know, how do we both enable this because it's clearly the future.But then also, you know, what, what are these enforcement points that we can start to like protect?swyx: All right.Podcast Welcome and Guestsswyx: Welcome to the Lean Space podcast in the Chromo studio. Welcome to all the guests here. Uh, we are back with our guest host Viu. Welcome. Good to have you back. And our friends, uh, Netter and Kyle from Nvidia. Welcome.Kyle: Yeah, thanks for having us.swyx: Yeah, thank you. Actually, I don't even know your titles.Uh, I know you're like architect something of Dynamo.Kyle: Yeah. I, I'm one of the engineering leaders [00:01:00] and a architects of Dynamo.swyx: And you're director of something and developers, developer tech.Nader: Yeah.swyx: You're the developers, developers, developers guy at nvidia,Nader: open source agent marketing, brev,swyx: and likeNader: Devrel tools and stuff.swyx: Yeah. BeenNader: the focus.swyx: And we're, we're kind of recording this ahead of Nvidia, GTC, which is coming to town, uh, again, uh, or taking over town, uh, which, uh, which we'll all be at. Um, and we'll talk a little bit about your sessions and stuff. Yeah.Nader: We're super excited for it.GTC Booth Stunt Storiesswyx: One of my favorite memories for Nader, like you always do like marketing stunts and like while you were at Rev, you like had this surfboard that you like, went down to GTC with and like, NA Nvidia apparently, like did so much that they bought you.Like what, what was that like? What was that?Nader: Yeah. Yeah, we, we, um. Our logo was a chaka. We, we, uh, we were always just kind of like trying to keep true to who we were. I think, you know, some stuff, startups, you're like trying to pretend that you're a bigger, more mature company than you are. And it was actually Evan Conrad from SF Compute who was just like, you guys are like previousswyx: guest.Yeah.Nader: Amazing. Oh, really? Amazing. Yeah. He was just like, guys, you're two dudes in the room. Why are you [00:02:00] pretending that you're not? Uh, and so then we were like, okay, let's make the logo a shaka. We brought surfboards to our booth to GTC and the energy was great. Yeah. Some palm trees too. They,Kyle: they actually poked out over like the, the walls so you could, you could see the bread booth.Oh, that's so funny. AndNader: no one else,Kyle: just from very far away.Nader: Oh, so you remember it backKyle: then? Yeah I remember it pre-acquisition. I was like, oh, those guys look cool,Nader: dude. That makes sense. ‘cause uh, we, so we signed up really last minute, and so we had the last booth. It was all the way in the corner. And so I was, I was worried that no one was gonna come.So that's why we had like the palm trees. We really came in with the surfboards. We even had one of our investors bring her dog and then she was just like walking the dog around to try to like, bring energy towards our booth. Yeah.swyx: Steph.Kyle: Yeah. Yeah, she's the best,swyx: you know, as a conference organizer, I love that.Right? Like, it's like everyone who sponsors a conference comes, does their booth. They're like, we are changing the future of ai or something, some generic b******t and like, no, like actually try to stand out, make it fun, right? And people still remember it after three years.Nader: Yeah. Yeah. You know what's so funny?I'll, I'll send, I'll give you this clip if you wanna, if you wanna add it [00:03:00] in, but, uh, my wife was at the time fiance, she was in medical school and she came to help us. ‘cause it was like a big moment for us. And so we, we bought this cricket, it's like a vinyl, like a vinyl, uh, printer. ‘cause like, how else are we gonna label the surfboard?So, we got a surfboard, luckily was able to purchase that on the company card. We got a cricket and it was just like fine tuning for enterprises or something like that, that we put on the. On the surfboard and it's 1:00 AM the day before we go to GTC. She's helping me put these like vinyl stickers on.And she goes, you son of, she's like, if you pull this off, you son of a b***h. And so, uh, right. Pretty much after the acquisition, I stitched that with the mag music acquisition. I sent it to our family group chat. Ohswyx: Yeah. No, well, she, she made a good choice there. Was that like basically the origin story for Launchable is that we, it was, and maybe we should explain what Brev is andNader: Yeah.Yeah. Uh, I mean, brev is just, it's a developer tool that makes it really easy to get a GPU. So we connect a bunch of different GPU sources. So the basics of it is like, how quickly can we SSH you into a G, into a GPU and whenever we would talk to users, they wanted A GPU. They wanted an A 100. And if you go to like any cloud [00:04:00] provisioning page, usually it's like three pages of forms or in the forms somewhere there's a dropdown.And in the dropdown there's some weird code that you know to translate to an A 100. And I remember just thinking like. Every time someone says they want an A 100, like the piece of text that they're telling me that they want is like, stuffed away in the corner. Yeah. And so we were like, what if the biggest piece of text was what the user's asking for?And so when you go to Brev, it's just big GPU chips with the type that you want withswyx: beautiful animations that you worked on pre, like pre you can, like, now you can just prompt it. But back in the day. Yeah. Yeah. Those were handcraft, handcrafted artisanal code.Nader: Yeah. I was actually really proud of that because, uh, it was an, i I made it in Figma.Yeah. And then I found, I was like really struggling to figure out how to turn it from like Figma to react. So what it actually is, is just an SVG and I, I have all the styles and so when you change the chip, whether it's like active or not it changes the SVG code and that somehow like renders like, looks like it's animating, but it, we just had the transition slow, but it's just like the, a JavaScript function to change the like underlying SVG.Yeah. And that was how I ended up like figuring out how to move it from from Figma. But yeah, that's Art Artisan. [00:05:00]Kyle: Speaking of marketing stunts though, he actually used those SVGs. Or kind of use those SVGs to make these cards.Nader: Oh yeah. LikeKyle: a GPU gift card Yes. That he handed out everywhere. That was actually my first impression of thatNader: one.Yeah,swyx: yeah, yeah.Nader: Yeah.swyx: I think I still have one of them.Nader: They look great.Kyle: Yeah.Nader: I have a ton of them still actually in our garage, which just, they don't have labels. We should honestly like bring, bring them back. But, um, I found this old printing press here, actually just around the corner on Ven ness. And it's a third generation San Francisco shop.And so I come in an excited startup founder trying to like, and they just have this crazy old machinery and I'm in awe. ‘cause the the whole building is so physical. Like you're seeing these machines, they have like pedals to like move these saws and whatever. I don't know what this machinery is, but I saw all three generations.Like there's like the grandpa, the father and the son, and the son was like, around my age. Well,swyx: it's like a holy, holy trinity.Nader: It's funny because we, so I just took the same SVG and we just like printed it and it's foil printing, so they make a a, a mold. That's like an inverse of like the A 100 and then they put the foil on it [00:06:00] and then they press it into the paper.And I remember once we got them, he was like, Hey, don't forget about us. You know, I guess like early Apple and Cisco's first business cards were all made there. And so he was like, yeah, we, we get like the startup businesses but then as they mature, they kind of go somewhere else. And so I actually, I think we were talking with marketing about like using them for some, we should go back and make some cards.swyx: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I remember, you know, as a very, very small breadth investor, I was like, why are we spending time like, doing these like stunts for GPUs? Like, you know, I think like as a, you know, typical like cloud hard hardware person, you go into an AWS you pick like T five X xl, whatever, and it's just like from a list and you look at the specs like, why animate this GP?And, and I, I do think like it just shows the level of care that goes throughout birth and Yeah. And now, and also the, and,Nader: and Nvidia. I think that's what the, the thing that struck me most when we first came in was like the amount of passion that everyone has. Like, I think, um, you know, you talk to, you talk to Kyle, you talk to, like, every VP that I've met at Nvidia goes so close to the metal.Like, I remember it was almost a year ago, and like my VP asked me, he's like, Hey, [00:07:00] what's cursor? And like, are you using it? And if so, why? Surprised at this, and he downloaded Cursor and he was asking me to help him like, use it. And I thought that was, uh, or like, just show him what he, you know, why we were using it.And so, the amount of care that I think everyone has and the passion, appreciate, passion and appreciation for the moment. Right. This is a very unique time. So it's really cool to see everyone really like, uh, appreciate that.swyx: Yeah.Acquisition and DevEx Shiftswyx: One thing I wanted to do before we move over to sort of like research topics and, uh, the, the stuff that Kyle's working on is just tell the story of the acquisition, right?Like, not many people have been, been through an acquisition with Nvidia. What's it like? Uh, what, yeah, just anything you'd like to say.Nader: It's a crazy experience. I think, uh, you know, we were the thing that was the most exciting for us was. Our goal was just to make it easier for developers.We wanted to find access to GPUs, make it easier to do that. And then all, oh, actually your question about launchable. So launchable was just make one click exper, like one click deploys for any software on top of the GPU. Mm-hmm. And so what we really liked about Nvidia was that it felt like we just got a lot more resources to do all of that.I think, uh, you [00:08:00] know, NVIDIA's goal is to make things as easy for developers as possible. So there was a really nice like synergy there. I think that, you know, when it comes to like an acquisition, I think the amount that the soul of the products align, I think is gonna be. Is going speak to the success of the acquisition.Yeah. And so it in many ways feels like we're home. This is a really great outcome for us. Like we you know, I love brev.nvidia.com. Like you should, you should use it's, it's theKyle: front page for GPUs.Nader: Yeah. Yeah. If you want GP views,Kyle: you go there, getswyx: it there, and it's like internally is growing very quickly.I, I don't remember You said some stats there.Nader: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, uh, I, I wish I had the exact numbers, but like internally, externally, it's been growing really quickly. We've been working with a bunch of partners with a bunch of different customers and ISVs, if you have a solution that you want someone that runs on the GPU and you want people to use it quickly, we can bundle it up, uh, in a launchable and make it a one click run.If you're doing things and you want just like a sandbox or something to run on, right. Like open claw. Huge moment. Super exciting. Our, uh, and we'll talk into it more, but. You know, internally, people wanna run this, and you, we know we have to be really careful from the security implications. Do we let this run on the corporate network?Security's guidance was, Hey, [00:09:00] run this on breath, it's in, you know, it's, it's, it's a vm, it's sitting in the cloud, it's off the corporate network. It's isolated. And so that's been our stance internally and externally about how to even run something like open call while we figure out how to run these things securely.But yeah,swyx: I think there's also like, you almost like we're the right team at the right time when Nvidia is starting to invest a lot more in developer experience or whatever you call it. Yeah. Uh, UX or I don't know what you call it, like software. Like obviously NVIDIA is always invested in software, but like, there's like, this is like a different audience.Yeah. It's aNader: widerKyle: developer base.swyx: Yeah. Right.Nader: Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's funny, it's like, it's not, uh,swyx: so like, what, what is it called internally? What, what is this that people should be aware that is going on there?Nader: Uh, what, like developer experienceswyx: or, yeah, yeah. Is it's called just developer experience or is there like a broader strategy hereNader: in Nvidia?Um, Nvidia always wants to make a good developer experience. The thing is and a lot of the technology is just really complicated. Like, it's not, it's uh, you know, I think, um. The thing that's been really growing or the AI's growing is having a huge moment, not [00:10:00] because like, let's say data scientists in 2018, were quiet then and are much louder now.The pie is com, right? There's a whole bunch of new audiences. My mom's wondering what she's doing. My sister's learned, like taught herself how to code. Like the, um, you know, I, I actually think just generally AI's a big equalizer and you're seeing a more like technologically literate society, I guess.Like everyone's, everyone's learning how to code. Uh, there isn't really an excuse for that. And so building a good UX means that you really understand who your end user is. And when your end user becomes such a wide, uh, variety of people, then you have to almost like reinvent the practice, right? Yeah. You haveKyle: to, and actually build more developer ux, right?Because the, there are tiers of developer base that were added. You know, the, the hackers that are building on top of open claw, right? For example, have never used gpu. They don't know what kuda is. They, they, they just want to run something.Nader: Yeah.Kyle: You need new UX that is not just. Hey, you know, how do you program something in Cuda and run it?And then, and then we built, you know, like when Deep Learning was getting big, we built, we built Torch and, and, but so recently the amount of like [00:11:00] layers that are added to that developer stack has just exploded because AI has become ubiquitous. Everyone's using it in different ways. Yeah. It'sNader: moving fast in every direction.Vertical, horizontal.Vibhu: Yeah. You guys, you even take it down to hardware, like the DGX Spark, you know, it's, it's basically the same system as just throwing it up on big GPU cluster.Nader: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's amazing. Blackwell.swyx: Yeah. Uh, we saw the preview at the last year's GTC and that was one of the better performing, uh, videos so far, and video coverage so far.Awesome. This will beat it. Um,Nader: that wasswyx: actually, we have fingersNader: crossed. Yeah.DGX Spark and Remote AccessNader: Even when Grace Blackwell or when, um, uh, DGX Spark was first coming out getting to be involved in that from the beginning of the developer experience. And it just comes back to what youswyx: were involved.Nader: Yeah. St. St.swyx: Mars.Nader: Yeah. Yeah. I mean from, it was just like, I, I got an email, we just got thrown into the loop and suddenly yeah, I, it was actually really funny ‘cause I'm still pretty fresh from the acquisition and I'm, I'm getting an email from a bunch of the engineering VPs about like, the new hardware, GPU chip, like we're, or not chip, but just GPU system that we're putting out.And I'm like, okay, cool. Matters. Now involved with this for the ux, I'm like. What am I gonna do [00:12:00] here? So, I remember the first meeting, I was just like kind of quiet as I was hearing engineering VPs talk about what this box could be, what it could do, how we should use it. And I remember, uh, one of the first ideas that people were idea was like, oh, the first thing that it was like, I think a quote was like, the first thing someone's gonna wanna do with this is get two of them and run a Kubernetes cluster on top of them.And I was like, oh, I think I know why I'm here. I was like, the first thing we're doing is easy. SSH into the machine. And then, and you know, just kind of like scoping it down of like, once you can do that every, you, like the person who wants to run a Kubernetes cluster onto Sparks has a higher propensity for pain, then, then you know someone who buys it and wants to run open Claw right now, right?If you can make sure that that's as effortless as possible, then the rest becomes easy. So there's a tool called Nvidia Sync. It just makes the SSH connection really simple. So, you know, if you think about it like. If you have a Mac, uh, or a PC or whatever, if you have a laptop and you buy this GPU and you want to use it, you should be able to use it like it's A-A-G-P-U in the cloud, right?Um, but there's all this friction of like, how do you actually get into that? That's part of [00:13:00] Revs value proposition is just, you know, there's a CLI that wraps SSH and makes it simple. And so our goal is just get you into that machine really easily. And one thing we just launched at CES, it's in, it's still in like early access.We're ironing out some kinks, but it should be ready by GTC. You can register your spark on Brev. And so now if youswyx: like remote managed yeah, local hardware. Single pane of glass. Yeah. Yeah. Because Brev can already manage other clouds anyway, right?Vibhu: Yeah, yeah. And you use the spark on Brev as well, right?Nader: Yeah. But yeah, exactly. So, so you, you, so you, you set it up at home you can run the command on it, and then it gets it's essentially it'll appear in your Brev account, and then you can take your laptop to a Starbucks or to a cafe, and you'll continue to use your, you can continue use your spark just like any other cloud node on Brev.Yeah. Yeah. And it's just like a pre-provisioned centerswyx: in yourNader: home. Yeah, exactly.swyx: Yeah. Yeah.Vibhu: Tiny little data center.Nader: Tiny little, the size ofVibhu: your phone.SOL Culture and Dynamo Setupswyx: One more thing before we move on to Kyle. Just have so many Jensen stories and I just love, love mining Jensen stories. Uh, my favorite so far is SOL. Uh, what is, yeah, what is S-O-L-S-O-LNader: is actually, i, I think [00:14:00] of all the lessons I've learned, that one's definitely my favorite.Kyle: It'll always stick with you.Nader: Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, in your startup, everything's existential, right? Like we've, we've run out of money. We were like, on the risk of, of losing payroll, we've had to contract our team because we l ran outta money. And so like, um, because of that you're really always forcing yourself to I to like understand the root cause of everything.If you get a date, if you get a timeline, you know exactly why that date or timeline is there. You're, you're pushing every boundary and like, you're not just say, you're not just accepting like a, a no. Just because. And so as you start to introduce more layers, as you start to become a much larger organization, SOL is is essentially like what is the physics, right?The speed of light moves at a certain speed. So if flight's moving some slower, then you know something's in the way. So before trying to like layer reality back in of like, why can't this be delivered at some date? Let's just understand the physics. What is the theoretical limit to like, uh, how fast this can go?And then start to tell me why. ‘cause otherwise people will start telling you why something can't be done. But actually I think any great leader's goal is just to create urgency. Yeah. [00:15:00] There's an infiniteKyle: create compelling events, right?Nader: Yeah.Kyle: Yeah. So l is a term video is used to instigate a compelling event.You say this is done. How do we get there? What is the minimum? As much as necessary, as little as possible thing that it takes for us to get exactly here and. It helps you just break through a bunch of noise.swyx: Yeah.Kyle: Instantly.swyx: One thing I'm unclear about is, can only Jensen use the SOL card? Like, oh, no, no, no.Not everyone get the b******t out because obviously it's Jensen, but like, can someone else be like, no, likeKyle: frontline engineers use it.Nader: Yeah. Every, I think it's not so much about like, get the b******t out. It's like, it's like, give me the root understanding, right? Like, if you tell me something takes three weeks, it like, well, what's the first principles?Yeah, the first principles. It's like, what's the, what? Like why is it three weeks? What is the actual yeah. What's the actual limit of why this is gonna take three weeks? If you're gonna, if you, if let's say you wanted to buy a new computer and someone told you it's gonna be here in five days, what's the SOL?Well, like the SOL is like, I could walk into a Best Buy and pick it up for you. Right? So then anything that's like beyond that is, and is that practical? Is that how we're gonna, you know, let's say give everyone in the [00:16:00] company a laptop, like obviously not. So then like that's the SOL and then it's like, okay, well if we have to get more than 10, suddenly there might be some, right?And so now we can kind of piece the reality back.swyx: So, so this is the. Paul Graham do things that don't scale. Yeah. And this is also the, what people would now call behi agency. Yeah.Kyle: It's actually really interesting because there's a, there's a second hardware angle to SOL that like doesn't come up for all the org sol is used like culturally at aswyx: media for everything.I'm also mining for like, I think that can be annoying sometimes. And like someone keeps going IOO you and you're like, guys, like we have to be stable. We have to, we to f*****g plan. Yeah.Kyle: It's an interesting balance.Nader: Yeah. I encounter that with like, actually just with, with Alec, right? ‘cause we, we have a new conference so we need to launch, we have, we have goals of what we wanna launch by, uh, by the conference and like, yeah.At the end of the day, where isswyx: this GTC?Nader: Um, well this is like, so we, I mean we did it for CES, we did for GT CDC before that we're doing it for GTC San Jose. So I mean, like every, you know, we have a new moment. Um, and we want to launch something. Yeah. And we want to do so at SOL and that does mean that some, there's some level of prioritization that needs [00:17:00] to happen.And so it, it is difficult, right? I think, um, you have to be careful with what you're pushing. You know, stability is important and that should be factored into S-O-L-S-O-L isn't just like, build everything and let it break, you know, that, that's part of the conversation. So as you're laying, layering in all the details, one of them might be, Hey, we could build this, but then it's not gonna be stable for X, y, z reasons.And so that was like, one of our conversations for CES was, you know, hey, like we, we can get this into early access registering your spark with brev. But there are a lot of things that we need to do in order to feel really comfortable from a security perspective, right? There's a lot of networking involved before we deliver that to users.So it's like, okay. Let's get this to a point where we can at least let people experiment with it. We had it in a booth, we had it in Jensen's keynote, and then let's go iron out all the networking kinks. And that's not easy. And so, uh, that can come later. And so that was the way that we layered that back in.Yeah. ButKyle: It's not really about saying like, you don't have to do the, the maintenance or operational work. It's more about saying, you know, it's kind of like [00:18:00] highlights how progress is incremental, right? Like, what is the minimum thing that we can get to. And then there's SOL for like every component after that.But there's the SOL to get you, get you to the, the starting line. And that, that's usually how it's asked. Yeah. On the other side, you know, like SOL came out of like hardware at Nvidia. Right. So SOL is like literally if we ran the accelerator or the GPU with like at basically full speed with like no other constraints, like how FAST would be able to make a program go.swyx: Yeah. Yeah. Right.Kyle: Soswyx: in, in training that like, you know, then you work back to like some percentage of like MFU for example.Kyle: Yeah, that's a, that's a great example. So like, there's an, there's an S-O-L-M-F-U, and then there's like, you know, what's practically achievable.swyx: Cool. Should we move on to sort of, uh, Kyle's side?Uh, Kyle, you're coming more from the data science world. And, uh, I, I mean I always, whenever, whenever I meet someone who's done working in tabular stuff, graph neural networks, time series, these are basically when I go to new reps, I go to ICML, I walk the back halls. There's always like a small group of graph people.Yes. Absolute small group of tabular people. [00:19:00] And like, there's no one there. And like, it's very like, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, no, like it's, it's important interesting work if you care about solving the problems that they solve.Kyle: Yeah.swyx: But everyone else is just LMS all the time.Kyle: Yeah. I mean it's like, it's like the black hole, right?Has the event horizon reached this yet in nerves? Um,swyx: but like, you know, those are, those are transformers too. Yeah. And, and those are also like interesting things. Anyway, uh, I just wanted to spend a little bit of time on, on those, that background before we go into Dynamo, uh, proper.Kyle: Yeah, sure. I took a different path to Nvidia than that, or I joined six years ago, seven, if you count, when I was an intern.So I joined Nvidia, like right outta college. And the first thing I jumped into was not what I'd done in, during internship, which was like, you know, like some stuff for autonomous vehicles, like heavyweight object detection. I jumped into like, you know, something, I'm like, recommenders, this is popular. Andswyx: yeah, he did RexiKyle: as well.Yeah, Rexi. Yeah. I mean that, that was the taboo data at the time, right? You have tables of like, audience qualities and item qualities, and you're trying to figure out like which member of [00:20:00] the audience matches which item or, or more practically which item matches which member of the audience. And at the time, really it was like we were trying to enable.Uh, recommender, which had historically been like a little bit of a CP based workflow into something that like, ran really well in GPUs. And it's since been done. Like there are a bunch of libraries for Axis that run on GPUs. Uh, the common models like Deeplearning recommendation model, which came outta meta and the wide and deep model, which was used or was released by Google were very accelerated by GPUs using, you know, the fast HBM on the chips, especially to do, you know, vector lookups.But it was very interesting at the time and super, super relevant because like we were starting to get like. This explosion of feeds and things that required rec recommenders to just actively be on all the time. And sort of transitioned that a little bit towards graph neural networks when I discovered them because I was like, okay, you can actually use graphical neural networks to represent like, relationships between people, items, concepts, and that, that interested me.So I jumped into that at [00:21:00] Nvidia and, and got really involved for like two-ish years.swyx: Yeah. Uh, and something I learned from Brian Zaro Yeah. Is that you can just kind of choose your own path in Nvidia.Kyle: Oh my God. Yeah.swyx: Which is not a normal big Corp thing. Yeah. Like you, you have a lane, you stay in your lane.Nader: I think probably the reason why I enjoy being in a, a big company, the mission is the boss probably from a startup guy. Yeah. The missionswyx: is the boss.Nader: Yeah. Uh, it feels like a big game of pickup basketball. Like, you know, if you play one, if you wanna play basketball, you just go up to the court and you're like, Hey look, we're gonna play this game and we need three.Yeah. And you just like find your three. That's honestly for every new initiative that's what it feels like. Yeah.Vibhu: It also like shows, right? Like Nvidia. Just releasing state-of-the-art stuff in every domain. Yeah. Like, okay, you expect foundation models with Nemo tron voice just randomly parakeet.Call parakeet just comes out another one, uh, voice. TheKyle: video voice team has always been producing.Vibhu: Yeah. There's always just every other domain of paper that comes out, dataset that comes out. It's like, I mean, it also stems back to what Nvidia has to do, right? You have to make chips years before they're actually produced.Right? So you need to know, you need to really [00:22:00] focus. TheKyle: design process starts likeVibhu: exactlyKyle: three to five years before the chip gets to the market.Vibhu: Yeah. I, I'm curious more about what that's like, right? So like, you have specialist teams. Is it just like, you know, people find an interest, you go in, you go deep on whatever, and that kind of feeds back into, you know, okay, we, we expect predictions.Like the internals at Nvidia must be crazy. Right? You know? Yeah. Yeah. You know, you, you must. Not even without selling to people, you have your own predictions of where things are going. Yeah. And they're very based, very grounded. Right?Kyle: Yeah. It, it, it's really interesting. So there's like two things that I think that Amed does, which are quite interesting.Uh, one is like, we really index into passion. There's a big. Sort of organizational top sound push to like ensure that people are working on the things that they're passionate about. So if someone proposes something that's interesting, many times they can just email someone like way up the chain that they would find this relevant and say like, Hey, can I go work on this?Nader: It's actually like I worked at a, a big company for a couple years before, uh, starting on my startup journey and like, it felt very weird if you were to like email out of chain, if that makes [00:23:00] sense. Yeah. The emails at Nvidia are like mosh pitsswyx: shoot,Nader: and it's just like 60 people, just whatever. And like they're, there's this,swyx: they got messy like, reply all you,Nader: oh, it's in, it's insane.It's insane. They justKyle: help. You know, Maxim,Nader: the context. But, but that's actually like, I've actually, so this is a weird thing where I used to be like, why would we send emails? We have Slack. I am the entire, I'm the exact opposite. I feel so bad for anyone who's like messaging me on Slack ‘cause I'm so unresponsive.swyx: Your emailNader: Maxi, email Maxim. I'm email maxing Now email is a different, email is perfect because man, we can't work together. I'm email is great, right? Because important threads get bumped back up, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, and so Slack doesn't do that. So I just have like this casino going off on the right or on the left and like, I don't know which thread was from where or what, but like the threads get And then also just like the subject, so you can have like working threads.I think what's difficult is like when you're small, if you're just not 40,000 people I think Slack will work fine, but there's, I don't know what the inflection point is. There is gonna be a point where that becomes really messy and you'll actually prefer having email. ‘cause you can have working threads.You can cc more than nine people in a thread.Kyle: You can fork stuff.Nader: You can [00:24:00] fork stuff, which is super nice and just like y Yeah. And so, but that is part of where you can propose a plan. You can also just. Start, honestly, momentum's the only authority, right? So like, if you can just start, start to make a little bit of progress and show someone something, and then they can try it.That's, I think what's been, you know, I think the most effective way to push anything for forward. And that's both at Nvidia and I think just generally.Kyle: Yeah, there's, there's the other concept that like is explored a lot at Nvidia, which is this idea of a zero billion dollar business. Like market creation is a big thing at Nvidia.Like,swyx: oh, you want to go and start a zero billion dollar business?Kyle: Jensen says, we are completely happy investing in zero billion dollar markets. We don't care if this creates revenue. It's important for us to know about this market. We think it will be important in the future. It can be zero billion dollars for a while.I'm probably minging as words here for, but like, you know, like, I'll give an example. NVIDIA's been working on autonomous driving for a a long time,swyx: like an Nvidia car.Kyle: No, they, they'veVibhu: used the Mercedes, right? They're around the HQ and I think it finally just got licensed out. Now they're starting to be used quite a [00:25:00] bit.For 10 years you've been seeing Mercedes with Nvidia logos driving.Kyle: If you're in like the South San Santa Clara, it's, it's actually from South. Yeah. So, um. Zero billion dollar markets are, are a thing like, you know, Jensen,swyx: I mean, okay, look, cars are not a zero billion dollar market. But yeah, that's a bad example.Nader: I think, I think he's, he's messaging, uh, zero today, but, or even like internally, right? Like, like it's like, uh, an org doesn't have to ruthlessly find revenue very quickly to justify their existence. Right. Like a lot of the important research, a lot of the important technology being developed that, that's kind ofKyle: where research, research is very ide ideologically free at Nvidia.Yeah. Like they can pursue things that they wereswyx: Were you research officially?Kyle: I was never in research. Officially. I was always in engineering. Yeah. We in, I'm in an org called Deep Warning Algorithms, which is basically just how do we make things that are relevant to deep warning go fast.swyx: That sounds freaking cool.Vibhu: And I think a lot of that is underappreciated, right? Like time series. This week Google put out time. FF paper. Yeah. A new time series, paper res. Uh, Symantec, ID [00:26:00] started applying Transformers LMS to Yes. Rec system. Yes. And when you think the scale of companies deploying these right. Amazon recommendations, Google web search, it's like, it's huge scale andKyle: Yeah.Vibhu: You want fast?Kyle: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Actually it's, it, I, there's a fun moment that brought me like full circle. Like, uh, Amazon Ads recently gave a talk where they talked about using Dynamo for generative recommendation, which was like super, like weirdly cathartic for me. I'm like, oh my God. I've, I've supplanted what I was working on.Like, I, you're using LMS now to do what I was doing five years ago.swyx: Yeah. Amazing. And let's go right into Dynamo. Uh, maybe introduce Yeah, sure. To the top down and Yeah.Kyle: I think at this point a lot of people are familiar with the term of inference. Like funnily enough, like I went from, you know, inference being like a really niche topic to being something that's like discussed on like normal people's Twitter feeds.It's,Nader: it's on billboardsKyle: here now. Yeah. Very, very strange. Driving, driving, seeing just an inference ad on 1 0 1 inference at scale is becoming a lot more important. Uh, we have these moments like, you know, open claw where you have these [00:27:00] agents that take lots and lots of tokens, but produce, incredible results.There are many different aspects of test time scaling so that, you know, you can use more inference to generate a better result than if you were to use like a short amount of inference. There's reasoning, there's quiring, there's, adding agency to the model, allowing it to call tools and use skills.Dyno sort came about at Nvidia. Because myself and a couple others were, were sort of talking about the, these concepts that like, you know, you have inference engines like VLMS, shelan, tenor, TLM and they have like one single copy. They, they, they sort of think about like things as like one single copy, like one replica, right?Why Scale Out WinsKyle: Like one version of the model. But when you're actually serving things at scale, you can't just scale up that replica because you end up with like performance problems. There's a scaling limit to scaling up replicas. So you actually have to scale out to use a, maybe some Kubernetes type terminology.We kind of realized that there was like. A lot of potential optimization that we could do in scaling out and building systems for data [00:28:00] center scale inference. So Dynamo is this data center scale inference engine that sits on top of the frameworks like VLM Shilling and 10 T lm and just makes things go faster because you can leverage the economy of scale.The fact that you have KV cash, which we can define a little bit later, uh, in all these machines that is like unique and you wanna figure out like the ways to maximize your cash hits or you want to employ new techniques in inference like disaggregation, which Dynamo had introduced to the world in, in, in March, not introduced, it was a academic talk, but beforehand.But we are, you know, one of the first frameworks to start, supporting it. And we wanna like, sort of combine all these techniques into sort of a modular framework that allows you to. Accelerate your inference at scale.Nader: By the way, Kyle and I became friends on my first date, Nvidia, and I always loved, ‘cause like he always teaches meswyx: new things.Yeah. By the way, this is why I wanted to put two of you together. I was like, yeah, this is, this is gonna beKyle: good. It's very, it's very different, you know, like we've, we, we've, we've talked to each other a bunch [00:29:00] actually, you asked like, why, why can't we scale up?Nader: Yeah.Scale Up Limits ExplainedNader: model, you said model replicas.Kyle: Yeah. So you, so scale up means assigning moreswyx: heavier?Kyle: Yeah, heavier. Like making things heavier. Yeah, adding more GPUs. Adding more CPUs. Scale out is just like having a barrier saying, I'm gonna duplicate my representation of the model or a representation of this microservice or something, and I'm gonna like, replicate it Many times.Handle, load. And the reason that you can't scale, scale up, uh, past some points is like, you know, there, there, there are sort of hardware bounds and algorithmic bounds on, on that type of scaling. So I'll give you a good example that's like very trivial. Let's say you're on an H 100. The Maxim ENV link domain for H 100, for most Ds H one hundreds is heus, right?So if you scaled up past that, you're gonna have to figure out ways to handle the fact that now for the GPUs to communicate, you have to do it over Infin band, which is still very fast, but is not as fast as ENV link.swyx: Is it like one order of magnitude, like hundreds or,Kyle: it's about an order of magnitude?Yeah. Okay. Um, soswyx: not terrible.Kyle: [00:30:00] Yeah. I, I need to, I need to remember the, the data sheet here, like, I think it's like about 500 gigabytes. Uh, a second unidirectional for ENV link, and about 50 gigabytes a second unidirectional for Infin Band. I, it, it depends on the, the generation.swyx: I just wanna set this up for people who are not familiar with these kinds of like layers and the trash speedVibhu: and all that.Of course.From Laptop to Multi NodeVibhu: Also, maybe even just going like a few steps back before that, like most people are very familiar with. You see a, you know, you can use on your laptop, whatever these steel viol, lm you can just run inference there. All, there's all, you can, youcan run it on thatVibhu: laptop. You can run on laptop.Then you get to, okay, uh, models got pretty big, right? JLM five, they doubled the size, so mm-hmm. Uh, what do you do when you have to go from, okay, I can get 128 gigs of memory. I can run it on a spark. Then you have to go multi GPU. Yeah. Okay. Multi GPU, there's some support there. Now, if I'm a company and I don't have like.I'm not hiring the best researchers for this. Right. But I need to go [00:31:00] multi-node, right? I have a lot of servers. Okay, now there's efficiency problems, right? You can have multiple eight H 100 nodes, but, you know, is that as a, like, how do you do that efficiently?Kyle: Yeah. How do you like represent them? How do you choose how to represent the model?Yeah, exactly right. That's a, that's like a hard question. Everyone asks, how do you size oh, I wanna run GLM five, which just came out new model. There have been like four of them in the past week, by the way, like a bunch of new models.swyx: You know why? Right? Deep seek.Kyle: No comment. Oh. Yeah, but Ggl, LM five, right?We, we have this, new model. It's, it's like a large size, and you have to figure out how to both scale up and scale out, right? Because you have to find the right representation that you care about. Everyone does this differently. Let's be very clear. Everyone figures this out in their own path.Nader: I feel like a lot of AI or ML even is like, is like this. I think people think, you know, I, I was, there was some tweet a few months ago that was like, why hasn't fine tuning as a service taken off? You know, that might be me. It might have been you. Yeah. But people want it to be such an easy recipe to follow.But even like if you look at an ML model and specificKyle: to you Yeah,Nader: yeah.Kyle: And the [00:32:00] model,Nader: the situation, and there's just so much tinkering, right? Like when you see a model that has however many experts in the ME model, it's like, why that many experts? I don't, they, you know, they tried a bunch of things and that one seemed to do better.I think when it comes to how you're serving inference, you know, you have a bunch of decisions to make and there you can always argue that you can take something and make it more optimal. But I think it's this internal calibration and appetite for continued calibration.Vibhu: Yeah. And that doesn't mean like, you know, people aren't taking a shot at this, like tinker from thinking machines, you know?Yeah. RL as a service. Yeah, totally. It's, it also gets even harder when you try to do big model training, right? We're not the best at training Moes, uh, when they're pre-trained. Like we saw this with LAMA three, right? They're trained in such a sparse way that meta knows there's gonna be a bunch of inference done on these, right?They'll open source it, but it's very trained for what meta infrastructure wants, right? They wanna, they wanna inference it a lot. Now the question to basically think about is, okay, say you wanna serve a chat application, a coding copilot, right? You're doing a layer of rl, you're serving a model for X amount of people.Is it a chat model, a coding model? Dynamo, you know, back to that,Kyle: it's [00:33:00] like, yeah, sorry. So you we, we sort of like jumped off of, you know, jumped, uh, on that topic. Everyone has like, their own, own journey.Cost Quality Latency TradeoffsKyle: And I, I like to think of it as defined by like, what is the model you need? What is the accuracy you need?Actually I talked to NA about this earlier. There's three axes you care about. What is the quality that you're able to produce? So like, are you accurate enough or can you complete the task with enough, performance, high enough performance. Yeah, yeah. Uh, there's cost. Can you serve the model or serve your workflow?Because it's not just the model anymore, it's the workflow. It's the multi turn with an agent cheaply enough. And then can you serve it fast enough? And we're seeing all three of these, like, play out, like we saw, we saw new models from OpenAI that you know, are faster. You have like these new fast versions of models.You can change the amount of thinking to change the amount of quality, right? Produce more tokens, but at a higher cost in a, in a higher latency. And really like when you start this journey of like trying to figure out how you wanna host a model, you, you, you think about three things. What is the model I need to serve?How many times do I need to call it? What is the input sequence link was [00:34:00] the, what does the workflow look like on top of it? What is the SLA, what is the latency SLA that I need to achieve? Because there's usually some, this is usually like a constant, you, you know, the SLA that you need to hit and then like you try and find the lowest cost version that hits all of these constraints.Usually, you know, you, you start with those things and you say you, you kind of do like a bit of experimentation across some common configurations. You change the tensor parallel size, which is a form of parallelismVibhu: I take, it goes even deeper first. Gotta think what model.Kyle: Yes, course,ofKyle: course. It's like, it's like a multi-step design process because as you said, you can, you can choose a smaller model and then do more test time scaling and it'll equate the quality of a larger model because you're doing the test time scaling or you're adding a harness or something.So yes, it, it goes way deeper than that. But from the performance perspective, like once you get to the model you need, you need to host, you look at that and you say, Hey. I have this model, I need to serve it at the speed. What is the right configuration for that?Nader: You guys see the recent, uh, there was a paper I just saw like a few days ago that, uh, if you run [00:35:00] the same prompt twice, you're getting like double Just try itagain.Nader: Yeah, exactly.Vibhu: And you get a lot. Yeah. But the, the key thing there is you give the context of the failed try, right? Yeah. So it takes a shot. And this has been like, you know, basic guidance for quite a while. Just try again. ‘cause you know, trying, just try again. Did you try again? All adviceNader: in life.Vibhu: Just, it's a paper from Google, if I'm not mistaken, right?Yeah,Vibhu: yeah. I think it, it's like a seven bas little short paper. Yeah. Yeah. The title's very cute. And it's just like, yeah, just try again. Give it ask context,Kyle: multi-shot. You just like, say like, hey, like, you know, like take, take a little bit more, take a little bit more information, try and fail. Fail.Vibhu: And that basic concept has gone pretty deep.There's like, um, self distillation, rl where you, you do self distillation, you do rl and you have past failure and you know, that gives some signal so people take, try it again. Not strong enough.swyx: Uh, for, for listeners, uh, who listen to here, uh, vivo actually, and I, and we run a second YouTube channel for our paper club where, oh, that's awesome.Vivo just covered this. Yeah. Awesome. Self desolation and all that's, that's why he, to speed [00:36:00] on it.Nader: I'll to check it out.swyx: Yeah. It, it's just a good practice, like everyone needs, like a paper club where like you just read papers together and the social pressure just kind of forces you to just,Nader: we, we,there'sNader: like a big inference.Kyle: ReadingNader: group at a video. I feel so bad every time. I I, he put it on like, on our, he shared it.swyx: One, one ofNader: your guys,swyx: uh, is, is big in that, I forget es han Yeah, yeah,Kyle: es Han's on my team. Actually. Funny. There's a, there's a, there's a employee transfer between us. Han worked for Nater at Brev, and now he, he's on my team.He wasNader: our head of ai. And then, yeah, once we got in, andswyx: because I'm always looking for like, okay, can, can I start at another podcast that only does that thing? Yeah. And, uh, Esan was like, I was trying to like nudge Esan into like, is there something here? I mean, I don't think there's, there's new infant techniques every day.So it's like, it's likeKyle: you would, you would actually be surprised, um, the amount of blog posts you see. And ifswyx: there's a period where it was like, Medusa hydra, what Eagle, like, youKyle: know, now we have new forms of decode, uh, we have new forms of specula, of decoding or new,swyx: what,Kyle: what are youVibhu: excited? And it's exciting when you guys put out something like Tron.‘cause I remember the paper on this Tron three, [00:37:00] uh, the amount of like post train, the on tokens that the GPU rich can just train on. And it, it was a hybrid state space model, right? Yeah.Kyle: It's co-designed for the hardware.Vibhu: Yeah, go design for the hardware. And one of the things was always, you know, the state space models don't scale as well when you do a conversion or whatever the performance.And you guys are like, no, just keep draining. And Nitron shows a lot of that. Yeah.Nader: Also, something cool about Nitron it was released in layers, if you will, very similar to Dynamo. It's, it's, it's essentially it was released as you can, the pre-training, post-training data sets are released. Yeah. The recipes on how to do it are released.The model itself is released. It's full model. You just benefit from us turning on the GPUs. But there are companies like, uh, ServiceNow took the dataset and they trained their own model and we were super excited and like, you know, celebrated that work.ZoomVibhu: different. Zoom is, zoom is CGI, I think, uh, you know, also just to add like a lot of models don't put out based models and if there's that, why is fine tuning not taken off?You know, you can do your own training. Yeah,Kyle: sure.Vibhu: You guys put out based model, I think you put out everything.Nader: I believe I know [00:38:00]swyx: about base. BasicallyVibhu: without baseswyx: basic can be cancelable.Vibhu: Yeah. Base can be cancelable.swyx: Yeah.Vibhu: Safety training.swyx: Did we get a full picture of dymo? I, I don't know if we, what,Nader: what I'd love is you, you mentioned the three axes like break it down of like, you know, what's prefilled decode and like what are the optimizations that we can get with Dynamo?Kyle: Yeah. That, that's, that's, that's a great point. So to summarize on that three axis problem, right, there are three things that determine whether or not something can be done with inference, cost, quality, latency, right? Dynamo is supposed to be there to provide you like the runtime that allows you to pull levers to, you know, mix it up and move around the parade of frontier or the preto surface that determines is this actually possible with inference And AI todayNader: gives you the knobs.Kyle: Yeah, exactly. It gives you the knobs.Disaggregation Prefill vs DecodeKyle: Uh, and one thing that like we, we use a lot in contemporary inference and is, you know, starting to like pick up from, you know, in, in general knowledge is this co concept of disaggregation. So historically. Models would be hosted with a single inference engine. And that inference engine [00:39:00] would ping pong between two phases.There's prefill where you're reading the sequence generating KV cache, which is basically just a set of vectors that represent the sequence. And then using that KV cache to generate new tokens, which is called Decode. And some brilliant researchers across multiple different papers essentially made the realization that if you separate these two phases, you actually gain some benefits.Those benefits are basically a you don't have to worry about step synchronous scheduling. So the way that an inference engine works is you do one step and then you finish it, and then you schedule, you start scheduling the next step there. It's not like fully asynchronous. And the problem with that is you would have, uh, essentially pre-fill and decode are, are actually very different in terms of both their resource requirements and their sometimes their runtime.So you would have like prefill that would like block decode steps because you, you'd still be pre-filing and you couldn't schedule because you know the step has to end. So you remove that scheduling issue and then you also allow you, or you yourself, to like [00:40:00] split the work into two different ki types of pools.So pre-fill typically, and, and this changes as, as model architecture changes. Pre-fill is, right now, compute bound most of the time with the sequence is sufficiently long. It's compute bound. On the decode side because you're doing a full Passover, all the weights and the entire sequence, every time you do a decode step and you're, you don't have the quadratic computation of KV cache, it's usually memory bound because you're retrieving a linear amount of memory and you're doing a linear amount of compute as opposed to prefill where you retrieve a linear amount of memory and then use a quadratic.You know,Nader: it's funny, someone exo Labs did a really cool demo where for the DGX Spark, which has a lot more compute, you can do the pre the compute hungry prefill on a DG X spark and then do the decode on a, on a Mac. Yeah. And soVibhu: that's faster.Nader: Yeah. Yeah.Kyle: So you could, you can do that. You can do machine strat stratification.Nader: Yeah.Kyle: And like with our future generation generations of hardware, we actually announced, like with Reuben, this [00:41:00] new accelerator that is prefilled specific. It's called Reuben, CPX. SoKubernetes Scaling with GroveNader: I have a question when you do the scale out. Yeah. Is scaling out easier with Dynamo? Because when you need a new node, you can dedicate it to either the Prefill or, uh, decode.Kyle: Yeah. So Dynamo actually has like a, a Kubernetes component in it called Grove that allows you to, to do this like crazy scaling specialization. It has like this hot, it's a representation that, I don't wanna go too deep into Kubernetes here, but there was a previous way that you would like launch multi-node work.Uh, it's called Leader Worker Set. It's in the Kubernetes standard, and Leader worker set is great. It served a lot of people super well for a long period of time. But one of the things that it's struggles with is representing a set of cases where you have a multi-node replica that has a pair, right?You know, prefill and decode, or it's not paired, but it has like a second stage that has a ratio that changes over time. And prefill and decode are like two different things as your workload changes, right? The amount of prefill you'll need to do may change. [00:42:00] The amount of decode that you, you'll need to do might change, right?Like, let's say you start getting like insanely long queries, right? That probably means that your prefill scales like harder because you're hitting these, this quadratic scaling growth.swyx: Yeah.And then for listeners, like prefill will be long input. Decode would be long output, for example, right?Kyle: Yeah. So like decode, decode scale. I mean, decode is funny because the amount of tokens that you produce scales with the output length, but the amount of work that you do per step scales with the amount of tokens in the context.swyx: Yes.Kyle: So both scales with the input and the output.swyx: That's true.Kyle: But on the pre-fold view code side, like if.Suddenly, like the amount of work you're doing on the decode side stays about the same or like scales a little bit, and then the prefilled side like jumps up a lot. You actually don't want that ratio to be the same. You want it to change over time. So Dynamo has a set of components that A, tell you how to scale.It tells you how many prefilled workers and decoded workers you, it thinks you should have, and also provides a scheduling API for Kubernetes that allows you to actually represent and affect this scheduling on, on, on your actual [00:43:00] hardware, on your compute infrastructure.Nader: Not gonna lie. I feel a little embarrassed for being proud of my SVG function earlier.swyx: No, itNader: wasreallyKyle: cute. I, Iswyx: likeNader: it's all,swyx: it's all engineering. It's all engineering. Um, that's where I'mKyle: technical.swyx: One thing I'm, I'm kind of just curious about with all with you see at a systems level, everything going on here. Mm-hmm. And we, you know, we're scaling it up in, in multi, in distributed systems.Context Length and Co Designswyx: Um, I think one thing that's like kind of, of the moment right now is people are asking, is there any SOL sort of upper bounds. In terms of like, let's call, just call it context length for one for of a better word, but you can break it down however you like.Nader: Yeah.swyx: I just think like, well, yeah, I mean, like clearly you can engage in hybrid architectures and throw in some state space models in there.All, all you want, but it looks, still looks very attention heavy.Kyle: Yes. Uh, yeah. Long context is attention heavy. I mean, we have these hybrid models, um,swyx: to take and most, most models like cap out at a million contexts and that's it. Yeah. Like for the last two years has been it.Kyle: Yeah. The model hardware context co-design thing that we're seeing these days is actually super [00:44:00] interesting.It's like my, my passion, like my secret side passion. We see models like Kimmy or G-P-T-O-S-S. I'm use these because I, I know specific things about these models. So Kimmy two comes out, right? And it's an interesting model. It's like, like a deep seek style architecture is MLA. It's basically deep seek, scaled like a little bit differently, um, and obviously trained differently as well.But they, they talked about, why they made the design choices for context. Kimmy has more experts, but fewer attention heads, and I believe a slightly smaller attention, uh, like dimension. But I need to remember, I need to check that. Uh, it doesn't matter. But they discussed this actually at length in a blog post on ji, which is like our pu which is like credit puswyx: Yeah.Kyle: Um, in, in China. Chinese red.swyx: Yeah.Kyle: It's, yeah. So it, it's, it's actually an incredible blog post. Uh, like all the mls people in, in, in that, I've seen that on GPU are like very brilliant, but they, they talk about like the creators of Kimi K two [00:45:00] actually like, talked about it on, on, on there in the blog post.And they say, we, we actually did an experiment, right? Attention scales with the number of heads, obviously. Like if you have 64 heads versus 32 heads, you do half the work of attention. You still scale quadratic, but you do half the work. And they made a, a very specific like. Sort of barter in their system, in their architecture, they basically said, Hey, what if we gave it more experts, so we're gonna use more memory capacity.But we keep the amount of activated experts the same. We increase the expert sparsity, so we have fewer experts act. The ratio to of experts activated to number of experts is smaller, and we decrease the number of attention heads.Vibhu: And kind of for context, what the, what we had been seeing was you make models sparser instead.So no one was really touching heads. You're just having, uh,Kyle: well, they, they did, they implicitly made it sparser.Vibhu: Yeah, yeah. For, for Kimmy. They did,Kyle: yes.Vibhu: They also made it sparser. But basically what we were seeing was people were at the level of, okay, there's a sparsity ratio. You want more total parameters, less active, and that's sparsity.[00:46:00]But what you see from papers, like, the labs like moonshot deep seek, they go to the level of, okay, outside of just number of experts, you can also change how many attention heads and less attention layers. More attention. Layers. Layers, yeah. Yes, yes. So, and that's all basically coming back to, just tied together is like hardware model, co-design, which isKyle: hardware model, co model, context, co-design.Vibhu: Yeah.Kyle: Right. Like if you were training a, a model that was like. Really, really short context, uh, or like really is good at super short context tasks. You may like design it in a way such that like you don't care about attention scaling because it hasn't hit that, like the turning point where like the quadratic curve takes over.Nader: How do you consider attention or context as a separate part of the co-design? Like I would imagine hardware or just how I would've thought of it is like hardware model. Co-design would be hardware model context co-designKyle: because the harness and the context that is produced by the harness is a part of the model.Once it's trained in,Vibhu: like even though towards the end you'll do long context, you're not changing architecture through I see. Training. Yeah.Kyle: I mean you can try.swyx: You're saying [00:47:00] everyone's training the harness into the model.Kyle: I would say to some degree, orswyx: there's co-design for harness. I know there's a small amount, but I feel like not everyone has like gone full send on this.Kyle: I think, I think I think it's important to internalize the harness that you think the model will be running. Running into the model.swyx: Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Bash is like the universal harness,Kyle: right? Like I'll, I'll give. An example here, right? I mean, or just like a, like a, it's easy proof, right? If you can train against a harness and you're using that harness for everything, wouldn't you just train with the harness to ensure that you get the best possible quality out of,swyx: Well, the, uh, I, I can provide a counter argument.Yeah, sure. Which is what you wanna provide a generally useful model for other people to plug into their harnesses, right? So if youKyle: Yeah. Harnesses can be open, open source, right?swyx: Yeah. So I mean, that's, that's effectively what's happening with Codex.Kyle: Yeah.swyx: And, but like you may want like a different search tool and then you may have to name it differently or,Nader: I don't know how much people have pushed on this, but can you.Train a model, would it be, have you have people compared training a model for the for the harness versus [00:48:00] like post training forswyx: I think it's the same thing. It's the same thing. It's okay. Just extra post training. INader: see.swyx: And so, I mean, cognition does this course, it does this where you, you just have to like, if your tool is slightly different, um, either force your tool to be like the tool that they train for.Hmm. Or undo their training for their tool and then Oh, that's re retrain. Yeah. It's, it's really annoying and like,Kyle: I would hope that eventually we hit like a certain level of generality with respect to training newswyx: tools. This is not a GI like, it's, this is a really stupid like. Learn my tool b***h.Like, I don't know if, I don't know if I can say that, but like, you know, um, I think what my point kind of is, is that there's, like, I look at slopes of the scaling laws and like, this slope is not working, man. We, we are at a million token con

What does it actually take to secure a payments company in an era of sophisticated, well-funded cybercriminals? In this first episode of The Trust Advantage Series, brought to you by Payroc, host Greg Myers sits down with David Edwards, Payroc's Senior Vice President of Information Security, for a candid and eye-opening conversation about modern cybersecurity in the payments industry.With 30 years in technology — spanning private banking, retail, and payments — David brings hard-won perspective to the questions keeping payments executives up at night. Sparked by a real-world ransomware attack on a payments company, this episode cuts through the compliance checkbox mentality to explore what genuine, operational security actually looks like.David and Greg cover a wide range of critical topics: why passing audits doesn't equal being secure, how AI has radically changed the phishing threat landscape, the three pillars of identity and vulnerability management, and why resilience — not prevention — is the new gold standard. David also breaks down Payroc's layered approach to ransomware defense, how the company integrates acquired platforms without creating security gaps, and the right questions ISVs, ISOs, banks, and merchants should be asking their payment partners.Whether you're a developer, a risk officer, or a business owner processing transactions, this episode delivers a masterclass in why security isn't just an IT issue — it's everyone's job.

Salesforce Solution Engineers are like general contractors, according to David Young, who leads a team of them at Salesforce. They need skills like carpentry and framing and plumbing but also know when to stop and call in an expert. In the Salesforce world this might be knowing when to bring in a service cloud or an Agentforce expert. They need to know enough to see the business challenge and know who to tap for help.I have always advocated that ISVs spend time thinking about SEs, even moreso than AEs, because the math just maths. AEs have shorter tenure at Salesforce than SEs. AEs have more ISVs reaching out to them than SEs. And AEs might have 1 or 5 accounts in the enterprise, but SEs often support multiple AEs which just multiplies the number of accounts that a single session with you could reach. We cover a bunch of topics, but here is a summary:What does an SE at Salesforce do?What type of person is an SE at Salesforce?How does David decide which ISVs to engage with?How do SEs learn about new ISVs?What are some dos and don'ts when ISVs are engaging with SEs? Shoutout to Myroad.io, who is doing a great job of it.What should an ISV know/do before they are “ready” to engage with Salesforce SEs?How do SEs work with SDOs and IDOs to demo Salesforce's tech?Thanks again to David for sharing with the community!And thank you to Sam Yarborough for the intro. If any of you have a Salesforce AE or RVP that might give us the real talk, it'd be great to get their pov. This episode is brought to you by ISVApp. ISVapp the usage analytics platform built specifically for Salesforce ISV and OEM applications.ISVapp is your central toolbox for reducing churn, increasing renewals, uncovering upsell opportunities, and closing more deals. 

Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ The Shift from Attention to Trust In this compelling episode, Ashleigh Vogstad, CEO of Transcends, joins Vince Menzione to discuss the tectonic shifts occurring in the global partner ecosystem. Ashleigh shares her firsthand experiences studying AI at Oxford, the rise of the “Trust Economy,” and the controversial Amazon vs. Perplexity lawsuit. They dive deep into the practicalities of becoming a “Frontier Firm,” the importance of building proprietary AI agents, and the ways Gen Z and AI-driven marketplaces are revolutionizing the buyer journey. Whether you are looking to win Microsoft Partner of the Year or navigate the demise of traditional SaaS, this conversation provides a strategic roadmap for leading through the AI revolution. Key Takeaways The economy is shifting from a focus on human attention to a foundation of verified trust. Future commerce will involve “selling to machines” as AI agents begin making purchasing decisions on behalf of humans. Microsoft is prioritizing “Frontier Firms” that integrate AI into every customer interaction and internal process. Gen Z buyers are prioritizing product value and “dupes” over traditional brand names, with 75% of buyers expected to be Gen Z by 2030. To win Partner of the Year, organizations must publicly celebrate “better together” stories with validated customer wins. Modern leaders should transition from a “growth mindset” to a “frontier mindset” to keep pace with rapid technological change. https://youtu.be/xJmd43NvfnI 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 Trust Economy, Selling to Machines, Amazon vs Perplexity Lawsuit, Frontier Firm, AI Agents, Copilot Studio, Anthropic Claude, Microsoft Partner of the Year, B2B Marketplaces, Gen Z Buyer Behavior, Digital Freedom, AI Therapy, Ray Kurzweil Singularity, Substack Growth, Co-selling Partnerships, MCI Funding, Azure Accelerate, Agentic AI, Transcending Tech, Ashleigh Vogstad. Transcript Asleigh Vogstad Audio Podcast [00:00:00] Ashleigh Vogstad: The attention economy is about selling to human beings. Now, if you look at something like the Amazon versus Perplexity lawsuit, the whole underlying premise is around the shift of no longer selling to humans directly, but of selling to machines. [00:00:19] Vince Menzione: We just finished Ultimate Partners Winter Retreat here in beautiful Boca to a sold out crowd. Today I’m joined by Ashley Waad. The CEO of transcends for this compelling discussion. Ash, welcome back to the podcasts. [00:00:34] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s so good to be here, Vince. Thank you. Uh, [00:00:37] Vince Menzione: so well, we’re back in Boca again and we were just here yesterday for the Ultimate Partner Executive Winter Retreat in person. [00:00:44] Vince Menzione: What a great event we had together. [00:00:46] Ashleigh Vogstad: It was phenomenal. Thank you so much for having us there and on stage and, and genuinely the community is like a family, so seeing so many familiar faces and spending some quality time was just great. [00:00:57] Vince Menzione: It has really, truly become like family. It really, I’m, I’m, I’m having so much fun with this and getting to watch. [00:01:04] Vince Menzione: Not just our business grow and our community grow, but to see all of our friends and, uh, organizations like Transcends that have been with us since the beginning, since the very first ultimate partner acting even before the first ultimate partner. And, uh. We were just talking about. I’d love to catch up with what you’ve been doing. [00:01:22] Vince Menzione: Like you just came, you’ve been on a whirlwind. I mean, you’re always, every time like it’s, where’s Ash? She’s, uh, she’s on a plane again, or she’s on, she’s on the slopes. But tell us where you were just this week. [00:01:34] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. The week started in a snowstorm, actually transporting myself from Whistler. I didn’t know if I would make it to the airport, but then down to Silicon Valley and [00:01:45] Vince Menzione: Nice. [00:01:46] Ashleigh Vogstad: Wow, that place is just inspiring and eyeopening. I mean, seeing the Nvidia campus, a MD, it’s really just other worldly and it had me reflecting on, it’s [00:02:00] Vince Menzione: not Whistler. Yeah, it’s [00:02:02] Ashleigh Vogstad: definitely not Whistler. Definitely not Whistler [00:02:05] Vince Menzione: about, [00:02:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: um, yeah, it just had me reflecting on being down there. I used to spend a lot of time in the Valley around 2017 and. [00:02:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: In this theme of AI and kind of what’s really coming, I was, I was thinking about, I had met this woman, Julia Moss Bridge, who’s a neuroscientist studying ai. She had a project called Loving Ai, and I was down there when they had borrowed Sophia, this humanoid robot from S and Robotics. [00:02:32] Vince Menzione: Oh yes. Yes. [00:02:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: Really interesting. [00:02:34] Ashleigh Vogstad: Sophia’s actually a citizen of Saudi. Mm-hmm. First, first robot to actually be made citizen of a country. So they had Sophia set up and the part that was just mind boggling at the time was that Sophia was hosting in real life therapy sessions with actual human beings sitting across the table. And what really struck me as. [00:02:59] Ashleigh Vogstad: Kind of just, you know, that was only eight, nine years ago. And that was esoteric. Wacky and [00:03:05] Vince Menzione: eerie. [00:03:05] Ashleigh Vogstad: Weird. [00:03:05] Vince Menzione: Eerie at the time. [00:03:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: Incredibly eerie. Yeah. I mean, a, a human getting, uh, you know, therapy sessions from a robot sitting across the table. Yeah. And it just had me thinking how far we’ve come today. In 2025, Harvard Business Review said that therapy is actually the number one use case for ai. [00:03:26] Vince Menzione: I’ve heard that. That is striking. I go back to COVID. We were having this conversation last night at at the dinner for the Ultimate Partner event, and I think that COVID allowed us to transcend, [00:03:42] Ashleigh Vogstad: mm-hmm. [00:03:42] Vince Menzione: No pun intended there, but actually accelerate where we are today, that the acceptance of AI and the acceleration, or the ability to accept change so quickly. [00:03:56] Vince Menzione: Started with COVID because we were so, so we were forced on whatever it was, March 10th I think, here in the United States to shut down everything and move to this remote life. [00:04:08] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm-hmm. [00:04:09] Vince Menzione: And I think we’ve been shocked by that. I think our systems have all been shocked by that. And then here comes chat GBT in November of 2022 and we’re like. [00:04:20] Vince Menzione: Shocked in some respects, but like really everyone has embraced it in such a strong way, and now we’re getting. It’s almost daily update. You know, we’re gonna talk, I know we’re gonna talk about Anthropic and some of the things that’s been happening just in this last month that are striking and changing that have a lot of organizations trying to navigate, which is what, you know, you, you help organizations do. [00:04:43] Vince Menzione: But it feels like this is happening so fast and will continue to happen so fast. And as I said yesterday, I don’t know what this world’s gonna look like by 2030. [00:04:53] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, and I think the thing is, is that nobody knows what the world is gonna look like in 2030. I’ve been reading Ray Kurz Well’s, the Singularity is nearer, so the original book, the Singularity is near and he’s known to be a very accurate predictionist on the future. [00:05:11] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. But even with someone like that, you know, there, there nobody really knows what the world is gonna look like. And when you talk about COVID. At transcends, we have a value of digital freedom. So I founded the business in 2018, which was pre COVID. I as a fully remote organization, and at the time that was, you know, more groundbreaking, but then very quickly with CI that, that became the so-called new normal. [00:05:37] Ashleigh Vogstad: But we’re always thinking about. You know, remote first doesn’t mean remote only, and I think in this tide of what you’ve talked about, technological change being more acceptable and the pace of change. One of the interesting things that we see as a go-to-market agency is that in-person events are increasing. [00:05:56] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:05:57] Ashleigh Vogstad: People want and crave the face-to-face. Just like with the ultimate partner series. [00:06:02] Vince Menzione: I felt it. So it was striking yesterday. It, it seems like it’s, again, this was event number nine for us, but to see the, um, uh, receptiveness isn’t the right term, but it was this, uh, people, the, the embracing. Of seeing each other and hugging each other and being in the same room with each other. [00:06:22] Vince Menzione: And even people that didn’t know each other, like by the, the, as the day evolved, this, uh, connection that they all seemed to have with one another during the sessions and participating, everyone actively participated in the sessions. And, um, I said this in the beginning, we’re not a Slack channel and we’re not like some post on LinkedIn. [00:06:43] Vince Menzione: Uh, we’re there, there’s no playbook that’s set today around partnerships or even go to markets and marketing that we could espouse and say, this is the playbook for the next year. Right. It’s, it’s changing so rapidly. [00:06:55] Ashleigh Vogstad: So rapidly, [00:06:57] Vince Menzione: and you’ve embraced it. And I, and what we’re gonna talk about right now, I mean, I, I, you know, you’ve embraced AI in such a strong way. [00:07:04] Vince Menzione: Um, personally and with your business, I want to, I wanna dive in here a little bit. First of all, a couple things For those of those who are listening who don’t know you, I think maybe just a moment about transcends and your role, and then I wanna dive in on how you’re thinking about ai because I know you’re doing some things personally. [00:07:22] Vince Menzione: I want you to share that with, with our listeners and viewers today. [00:07:25] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, great. And I just wanna comment that it was a cool moment yesterday being up on stage with yourself and Mark Monday from ServiceNow and having the audience so engaged and active and Nina Harding from Microsoft stepping up and entering the conversation. [00:07:40] Vince Menzione: So cool. [00:07:41] Ashleigh Vogstad: It just made for such a collaborative experience, which was a cool moment, but yeah. Um, so. I founded this business, transcends a go-to-market agency after being at Microsoft myself. And really our differentiation is deep strategic partnerships with hyperscalers, whether that’s AWS, Google, Microsoft, and you know, that. [00:08:03] Ashleigh Vogstad: It comes with a challenge to be on the leading edge of technology. [00:08:08] Vince Menzione: Yes, [00:08:09] Ashleigh Vogstad: it, it’s really an imperative for our business and we are an AI first firm. Microsoft talks a lot about Frontier Firm, and I’ll take a, a different kind of angle on it. You know, when I think about Frontier. I now think about it as instead of the growth mindset, I now think about a frontier mindset. [00:08:28] Vince Menzione: Frontier mindset. You have to change my principles. [00:08:32] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, maybe, like you said, the world is changing so rapidly. Yeah, it’s [00:08:36] Vince Menzione: changing rapidly. [00:08:36] Ashleigh Vogstad: And what a frontier mindset means is that as we’re approaching work for our clients, we are thinking about AI innovation in every single customer. Interaction, customer innovation. [00:08:49] Ashleigh Vogstad: So today we’re building AI agents into much of the work that we’re delivering for clients. And as a business owner and leader, I’ve been challenged to also think critically around how I’m choosing to run the company. And right now we’re going through a huge overhaul of where we have data sitting in silos and different applications. [00:09:09] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yep. And getting that into one place with one view so we can start layering on more insight. AI innovation. [00:09:17] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And data’s such an critical part, part of this, as we, we talked about yesterday. But you know, even the, what you said, which is, would, would’ve been striking a year ago to say, we’re an AI first, uh, agency isn’t as striking anymore. [00:09:32] Vince Menzione: Uh, we heard Nina when we were having this conversation on stage yesterday, say that it’s an imperative at Microsoft that the agencies that they choose to work with, the third party vendors that they work with have to be an AI first organization. I have to be a frontier firm, and so I’m a, I am sensitive to the word frontier firm. [00:09:53] Vince Menzione: I understand why Microsoft uses it and I understand the value of what we used to call, you know, customer zero or back in the day we used to say eating your own dog food, but essentially being an organization that has leaned in, in a way, and with ai. Even more so, so important to do it. So tell us, I know you’ve done some things personally as well, but tell, tell us what you’ve done with the organization. [00:10:18] Vince Menzione: Uh, you talked about data and making data available and having, having a true data state as opposed to silos of data, but then you also made some personal investments and sacrifices. I would say. [00:10:30] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. [00:10:30] Vince Menzione: Yeah. In terms of what you’re doing around ai, [00:10:32] Ashleigh Vogstad: so I mean, let’s start on the personal side. I’m the CEO of my organization, and you can read in books or news articles that it is critical for AI transformation to start at the C-suite and specifically in the CEO seat. [00:10:46] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:10:46] Ashleigh Vogstad: And that really. Landed for me and so I’m personally leading in About two weeks ago, I built an agent, just end-to-end on my own, got into copilot studio. Wow. Got comfortable with the interface. You know, I was clunky moving around in there at first, chose my model. You know, I went with one of the anthropic Claude models for this particular project and built up an agent that can deliver executive communications like. [00:11:14] Ashleigh Vogstad: Thought leadership blogs, uh, LinkedIn posts, but in a particular human being’s voice by ingesting things like their social profiles, their SharePoint sites, where they live and work. And it has been so surprising doing an ab test between just what a chat GBT or a copilot could produce. [00:11:32] Yeah. [00:11:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: In comparison with the authenticity of the voice coming from the agent. [00:11:37] Ashleigh Vogstad: Uh, it was just a really cool experience to roll up the sleeves and get in there. But also I think the, the investment that you’re referring to is, I made a big decision to return to school and uh, got accepted to go to Oxford. [00:11:52] Vince Menzione: Wow. [00:11:52] Ashleigh Vogstad: And I’m studying artificial intelligence there. [00:11:54] Vince Menzione: That is incredible. That is incredible. [00:11:57] Vince Menzione: Oxford, uh, we’ve heard of that school before here in the United States. [00:12:03] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, it’s been a really great experience. It’s in person, so I’m traveling there about every 60 to 90 days and living on campus. I mean, really, Oxford isn’t. Formally a campus, it’s sort of a, a city and a university all, all ruled into one and the experience has been really powerful. [00:12:21] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yes. One of the things I wanted to get outta the program was a more global perspective, and it’s been fascinating to me that about half the faculty so far, or or professors, guest lecturers that have been coming into the program have been from China or very direct experience working in the Chinese market. [00:12:38] Vince Menzione: That is fascinating. [00:12:39] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s been a completely different view. Or for example, you know, really digging into some of the legal cases that are driving precedence for how AI is interacting with corporations. [00:12:51] Vince Menzione: Mm. [00:12:51] Ashleigh Vogstad: One of the big ones for me has been looking at Amazon versus p perplexity. This is still a live case that’s happening right now. [00:12:58] Ashleigh Vogstad: And you know, I think it was Forbes magazine that the headline was the End of Commerce for this case because it’s really about. How human beings are being replaced with machines and hearing some of the world’s leading thinkers, leading AI researchers on these topics has just been really expansive. [00:13:19] Vince Menzione: It’s fascinating. [00:13:20] Vince Menzione: I mean, it’s, this started a couple years ago with, uh, Hollywood, in fact. Suing the industry or suing the technology companies with regards to, uh, employment, right? Mm-hmm. About the, the, uh, copyright infringement and what’s gonna happen in the entertainment industry. And I think that was just a one very small example. [00:13:40] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, voice people think about DeepFakes. Yeah. And they think about video, but actually voice is a big issue. And you look at the, um, you know, the what happened between Scarlett Johansson and her voice in her, and then open AI rolling out a voice that sounded identical. Sounds like her. [00:13:59] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:13:59] Ashleigh Vogstad: To Scarlett Johansen and, and where that went. [00:14:01] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s, it, this is a new ground for, for everybody that we’re going through right now. [00:14:07] Vince Menzione: It is. We can dive and go in so many different directions, but let’s talk about marketing and advertising since that’s kind of. Transcends core, and a lot of the people that watch and listen to us are in the partnership world. [00:14:22] Vince Menzione: They’re leading organizations, they own organizations, the the chief executives or CVPs of organizations. Let’s talk about advertising and where that’s going. [00:14:32] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, great. [00:14:33] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:14:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: I mean, uh, I love Marshall McCluen. He’s a Canadian theor, uh, media theorist, and in 1964, he very famously said, the medium is the message. [00:14:43] Ashleigh Vogstad: And what that really means when you peel back the layers is that every type of communication medium has these inherent biases. And I think what we’re experiencing right now is this new medium of artificial intelligence, and I’m really interested in exploring what that means for the media world. So. If I gonna take you back to 1997, there’s this really famous, the Innovator’s Dilemma. [00:15:10] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yes. Kind of a classic business 1 0 1 type book by Clayton Christensen. Yes. And he talks about this theory of disruption where new technologies, emerging technologies start at the low end of the market. They gain this momentum and they eventually displace incumbents. And you know, sometimes seemingly out of nowhere. [00:15:28] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And Microsoft was a good example of this at that time. [00:15:32] Ashleigh Vogstad: Def, [00:15:32] Vince Menzione: yeah. [00:15:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: All the big players. All the big players. I mean, Google go for search as well, right? So that’s one of the classic examples. And so. If we look at storytelling technology, you have things like chat, GBT and Sora entering the scene. And in the beginning, you know, they’re producing a shitty first draft. [00:15:51] Ashleigh Vogstad: Uh, you know, it’s things like post-apocalyptic dogs with five finger human beings. Yeah. Things like this. But, you know, and they really lacked emotional resonance. But as we all know. That’s not the case anymore. No, it’s [00:16:05] Vince Menzione: not. [00:16:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: AI is increasingly producing content that is very powerful and is starting to resonate with people. [00:16:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, I’m definitely not a neuroscientist, but if we, we look into the neuroscience, it’s your cortical sal circuit that. Kind of is responsible for pattern recognition and it compares what you’re seeing in the real world with what you expect to see. So when you take this into a space of advertising, you know, if there’s an ad that is AI generated, that is just weird and kind of. [00:16:38] Ashleigh Vogstad: Tweaking for you. [00:16:39] Vince Menzione: Like that robot we were talking about earlier, [00:16:41] Ashleigh Vogstad: like the robot we were Exactly, yeah. Like Sophia, you enter what psychologists call the uncanny valley, so it’s like what you’re looking at isn’t exactly what you’re expecting to see and the Spidey sense is, is tweaking. You know, that’s a low place of emotional resonance. [00:16:58] Ashleigh Vogstad: This world is changing really, really quickly and we’re seeing AI generated media make huge impacts in the market Now, tools like Luma Dream Machine, I mean, it’s incredible what they can achieve today. [00:17:11] Vince Menzione: It’s fascinating. We see it in, you know, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. That’s sort of the world of our business community, and you can very easily detect when someone is doing a post. [00:17:22] Vince Menzione: Or they’re writing an art, whatever they’re doing. Right. Some type of draft of something. Uh, and you can tell when it’s ai, I mean, it’s so easy to tell, and even people are generating reports and claiming that their research papers or studies or whatever they call them, uh, and it’s AI generated and it’s just the authenticity isn’t there. [00:17:39] Vince Menzione: The, the sense that this is real. That it can be trusted is not there. And I think trust is what we’re talking about here too, as well. [00:17:47] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. I mean, let’s go to authenticity ’cause that’s super important. Yeah. And I know a lot of your listeners, you come from the hyperscaler world of partnerships. You need to have that differentiated, better together story. [00:17:59] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. It’s really important to have an authentic voice in market. And I think about that also in terms of platforms and channels. We’re seeing a decrease in certain major social media platforms, and yet Substack spiked 48% in monthly active users last month. [00:18:15] Vince Menzione: That’s [00:18:16] fascinating. [00:18:16] Ashleigh Vogstad: Um, you know, and I think that one of the reasons is it’s viewed as a more authentic channel where you’re getting thought leadership from people that you’re, you know, genuinely interested in hearing their, their points of view. [00:18:28] Ashleigh Vogstad: And I think that’s really an important piece in here. [00:18:31] Vince Menzione: Yeah, you mentioned this yesterday and you had me thinking about it as well because we have used LinkedIn for everything internally, our newsletter, which has been around for six or seven years now. But that Substack is really, and I go to Substack too, to, if I really wanna dig in on a topic. [00:18:47] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm. [00:18:47] Vince Menzione: And there’s a particular author that I like their point of view, I’ll follow, I’ll follow them on Substack. [00:18:53] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. I mean, and this comes, maybe brings us around to who is the buyer and who is the audience, and who do we need to be thinking about when we’re designing sales and marketing programs. And really we’re, we’re shifting into the place of the Gen Z buyer by 20 30, 70 5% of buyers are gonna be Gen Z. [00:19:12] Ashleigh Vogstad: They’re gonna control 12 trillion in. Spend [00:19:16] Vince Menzione: by 2030. ’cause we, we’ve been, we’ve been saying that the millennial is the new buyer the last three years. I think Jay said it right here at this stage. [00:19:23] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm. [00:19:24] Vince Menzione: Um, so now it’s Gen Z. [00:19:27] Ashleigh Vogstad: And they’re buying online. Yeah, they’re buying in marketplaces. Yeah. So a stat recently was that roughly half of them made purchases on the social platforms of YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok in the last month. [00:19:39] Ashleigh Vogstad: I mean, that buyer behavior of being inside. Social type application and directly making a purchase. And I think in the B2B world, we need to take lessons from here and start thinking more front and center than we even have been around marketplaces. I mean, part of my reason for being in Silicon Valley this week was to celebrate a $12 million transaction that happened via Marketplace and two years ago that would’ve been a huge deal. [00:20:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: Huge, [00:20:07] Vince Menzione: huge. [00:20:07] Ashleigh Vogstad: And, and it still is a really big deal, but these things are becoming. More and more common experiences. Very much so. We need to be there and in that conversation. [00:20:16] Vince Menzione: So how are you thinking about it? How are you directing your clients to behave or act around it? What are you, what are you doing exactly that we could take to this community perhaps and share with them. [00:20:28] Ashleigh Vogstad: I’ll bring it back to the authenticity piece because you need to have a product that delivers value first and foremost. There is, there is no substitution for that. Yeah, and what I would say is. One of my professors at Oxford, Eric Zow, he has this theory that I’m really digging into and finding very fascinating, which is that for the last several decades we’ve been in the attention economy, and that’s shifting to the trust economy. [00:20:55] Ashleigh Vogstad: Now the attention economy is about selling to human beings. Yeah. It’s about the, the business model is essentially that you need human being eyeballs on lists of recommendation links. Yeah. Whether that’s from Google or from, you know, searching, shopping on Amazon, you get this list of recommendation links and the economic engine that drives that business model is advertising. [00:21:19] Ashleigh Vogstad: Now, if you look at something like the Amazon versus Perplexity lawsuit, the whole underlying premise is around the shift of no longer selling to humans directly, but of selling to machines, or in other words, agents who are making purchases, s on behalf on your behalf. And an agent isn’t going to be razzle dazzled by some inauthentic story. [00:21:44] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:21:44] Ashleigh Vogstad: They’re gonna be looking for third party validation on Exactly. You know, they need to be sure that they’re making the right decision. [00:21:51] Vince Menzione: They’re gonna look at surveys, they’re gonna look at customer comments. Like if I went through my Amazon site and I was looking to see what people said about the purchase or the product and specifically Exactly. [00:22:01] Vince Menzione: The agent’s gonna do this on my behalf, is what you’re saying. [00:22:04] Ashleigh Vogstad: This is what I’m saying. Yeah. And, and. I believe that to layer on top of, you know, Eric Z’s philosophy, I’ve been thinking about this in terms of the hyperscaler world, and I think that this is the time to lean into co-selling partnerships. [00:22:18] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, because being third party validated by somebody like AWS Microsoft and having all that co-sell data, what are your recent wins? Yes, that’s really high integrity, trusted data source for an agent to make a purchasing decision, and marketplaces are a key part of that. [00:22:35] Vince Menzione: So we’ll move from AI will take a, a more active role in the marketplace. [00:22:40] Ashleigh Vogstad: I definitely believe so. [00:22:42] Vince Menzione: Which makes total sense. I, you know, we’ve been doing this for nine or 10 years now, and when I was at Microsoft, we started co-selling. In fact, it was, uh, Aaron Feiger was up on stage yesterday talking about it. Right? January of 2016, co-selling began. [00:22:55] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm. [00:22:56] Vince Menzione: And there were only a few companies doing it. [00:22:59] Vince Menzione: Right. So she worked with one of the very first ones that were doing it. Uh, the challenge we have today is there are tens of thousands of partner organizations in the marketplace that are all trying to get the attention of the Microsoft sellers. Hmm. As, or the Google sellers or the AWS sellers and tell their story. [00:23:19] Vince Menzione: And a seller only has so many minutes in a day, they have a quota that they have to hit. These quotas are tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars of annual quota of cloud consumption. And I wanna sell my $50,000 widget, whatever it is. Yeah. Right. And I, I don’t understand why I’m not getting a callback. [00:23:38] Vince Menzione: And this, this is the dilemma we’ve faced because of, because of this, uh, scarcity of time and this over overwhelming of tech, you know. Tech, tech buyers trying to make this all happen, so now the AI can come in and help me solve for it as a seller, right? [00:23:55] Ashleigh Vogstad: The AI is definitely acting as an interface to make recommendations to field sellers in different organizations and. [00:24:04] Ashleigh Vogstad: To, to kind of take this on a, a tangent. Dupes. So a dupe. I know people of my generation, we’d think about this like a knockoff Right. You know, a knockoff handbag. [00:24:15] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:24:15] Ashleigh Vogstad: Dupes have exploded. [00:24:16] Vince Menzione: Fake. Fake Rolexes. [00:24:18] Ashleigh Vogstad: Exactly. The fake Rolex for sure. And I think it was in December, P WC rolled out a survey. 81% of Gen Z were planning to purchase a dupe this holiday season. [00:24:29] Vince Menzione: That’s wild. [00:24:30] Ashleigh Vogstad: Dupes can be, you know, we gave luxury, good examples, but Louis [00:24:34] Vince Menzione: Vuitton and yeah. So, [00:24:35] Ashleigh Vogstad: but furniture, these sorts of things. And the important takeaway here for tech is the same principle will land, is that people are looking for value out of a product, not necessarily a name brand. AI is accelerating this whole process, and agents are gonna be looking at the same thing. [00:24:56] Ashleigh Vogstad: They’re looking for that authenticity in terms of the actual product value. So, you know, beware there’s lots of disruption happening in the market right now with this dupe mentality, which is actually a cultural shift talking about I appreciate value over a superficial. Brand name. In some cases, there’s also a, a small contrary trend where certain luxury goods are rising because yes, things are never that simple. [00:25:22] Vince Menzione: So you work with a lot of these tech companies, a lot of SaaS companies, is we, we call them ISVs, we also call them, uh, software development companies. Now we keep changing these acronyms around. Uh, there’s been a lot of, uh, consternation in that segment, I would say, around ai. Right, because a lot of them are getting told that they’ll be outta business in a few years. [00:25:43] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. I think Satya Nadella famously said this last year that SAS will go away. Right? He’s predicting the demise. How do you help some of these organizations to differentiate? And there’s some of these are huge value organizations. We have have them in the room with us, ServiceNow and Veeam and Adobe. [00:26:01] Vince Menzione: Um, how do you help them achieve their results? ’cause that’s what you, you know, your organization is really helping these organizations to achieve their pinnacle as a partner. What do you, what do you say to them now and how do you help them through this time? [00:26:16] Ashleigh Vogstad: I’m on the side of the fence that I really can’t see an organization ripping out something like Salesforce, Adobe, ServiceNow. [00:26:24] Vince Menzione: Agreed. [00:26:24] Ashleigh Vogstad: I mean that the amount of change management and. The extent to which these, these platforms are embedded, actually running and operating organizations. I personally, if, if we’re calling those companies, SaaS companies, I don’t agree that that layer is gonna go away. I mean, we’re seeing these organizations lean into AI in a huge way to borrow Microsofts. [00:26:50] Ashleigh Vogstad: Term, you know, they’re all becoming frontier firms. [00:26:54] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:26:54] Ashleigh Vogstad: So where I would go to, to answer that question, we do work with many, you know, organizations on that caliber, on things like their marketplace strategy on how to light up the fields of different hyperscalers. It really does come down to things like having a strong drumbeat with the Microsoft field, celebrating your win stories. [00:27:15] Ashleigh Vogstad: Maybe that’s where I’ll land as Please do the marketer, because it sounds so simple, and I don’t know why we kind of continue to come back to this, but we’re talking about that third party validation and really, um, in order to have that, like what the hyperscalers want is you jointly celebrating success. [00:27:36] Ashleigh Vogstad: Here’s the kicker. Publicly. [00:27:38] Vince Menzione: Publicly, [00:27:39] Ashleigh Vogstad: you know, you need a customer story on your website, a press release that contains a quote from your customer. Ideally, also a quote from an executive at one of the hyperscalers. Like, actually lean in to live the value of your better together story. And when you do that, when you, when it comes around to partner of the year time, and we talk to you about, okay, what client stories are we gonna feature? [00:28:03] Ashleigh Vogstad: We’re even gonna know because when we Google you, we can see the public press of the joint wins that you’ve been celebrating. And I can tell you that that is a huge indicator on whether or not you’re well-placed to be in the 4% of partners who actually win Partner of the Year award’s. [00:28:20] Vince Menzione: Fascinating to me. [00:28:21] Vince Menzione: ’cause to me it would feel like table stakes maybe ’cause where we sit is ultimate partner and where this room sits with all the top partners that I just assume that everybody follows that. That, that guidance. [00:28:34] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm. [00:28:34] Vince Menzione: And so this is really impactful and I want to get here because I know you spent a lot of time here and we’ve talked about it before, but I think the partner of the year awards, when we first met many years ago, that was a you, you’ve expanded the business, but that’s still a core mission and and value that you bring to the community and to the partner ecosystem is helping them through this process. [00:28:55] Vince Menzione: So I know that that’s gonna be coming up soon, so I thought maybe we’d spend a couple moments on that. [00:29:00] Ashleigh Vogstad: Partner of the Year awards, regardless of which partner, I mean, Salesforce has their own awards there. There’s more and more award programs coming out, and they’re a great way to celebrate the incredible work that your organization has done. [00:29:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: Jay McBain is brilliant on this. He’ll talk a lot about the increase in valuation. Yeah. The, the increase in stock valuation or the likelihood that if you’re looking to be acquired, that you’re acquired within 12 months of a partner of the year win it. It’s really impressive. There is strong business value there. [00:29:33] Vince Menzione: He like, he likes, he likes to tell the story of that when the award is handed to them and they go back into the audience, that the private equity people are all over them right then and there and making offers. I mean, that’s the visual that you get [00:29:47] Ashleigh Vogstad: and it’s very powerful. Yeah. Very powerful. It’s very powerful and it, it can make it worthwhile to invest in the process, but don’t invest in the process if you haven’t been investing in the process for the 12 months. [00:29:57] Ashleigh Vogstad: Prior, [00:29:58] Vince Menzione: exactly. [00:29:58] Ashleigh Vogstad: The Microsoft field or you we’re talking about Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards. They need to know about your win that that needs to be top of mind for them. Yeah. How much Azure revenue is it driving? Was it a huge marketplace? Build sales and. You know, one of the questions I get asked a ton, everybody wants to know how do we get money out of the hyperscalers? [00:30:20] Ashleigh Vogstad: How do I get access to marketing development funds or all these different programs? Yeah. You know, at Microsoft, some of these programs are like EI and customer investment funds or Azure Accelerate, you know, and there’s millions and millions and millions of dollars in these, these buckets of funds, but. [00:30:36] Ashleigh Vogstad: An interesting point of view is that it’s actually a scorecard metric for many people at Microsoft who have partnership roles for you to be drawing down those funds. [00:30:45] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:30:45] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, your interests are actually aligned here, and so again, when it comes to Partner of the Year awards, how much money have you pulled down? [00:30:54] Ashleigh Vogstad: How much have you been an activating partner of key Microsoft programs that they’re pushing? What are you doing with marketplace rewards? How are you resing? Those into your business. These are the types of things that you really wanna be thinking about. Sitting it. You know, this time of year we probably will get the awards were likely be due in July. [00:31:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: They haven’t officially announced timelines, but you’ve got a few months to start moving these pieces into place. [00:31:18] Vince Menzione: And there are quite a few of them. And to your point, Nina, when she was up on stage here yesterday, there were at least 10 or 12 award. Uh. Funding categories that were on her, that were on her slide. [00:31:31] Vince Menzione: Her partner, her partner slide. So, [00:31:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: and what great looks like for a partner is that you understand your end-to-end funnel as it is mapped to Microsoft’s SEM model, the Microsoft customer Engagement model. Mm-hmm. The first stage there, inspire and design. That’s really the marketing space of lead generation. [00:31:50] Ashleigh Vogstad: So how are you generating leads with webinars, in-person, event activations, digital campaigns, and then at the very end, in the fifth column, you have the Microsoft outcomes that you’re driving. Yes. Whether that’s Azure consumed revenue, marketplace build sales, co-pilot, monthly active usage, these sorts of things. [00:32:10] Ashleigh Vogstad: And in each of those SEM swim lanes. There’s Microsoft funding associated to it. And that’s one of the things that Nina Harding was showing yesterday. When and where does it make sense to make requests for EA funds versus Azure accelerate the MCI funding? There’s different workshop proof of concept funding, and those all fall at specific stages in that EM model. [00:32:33] Vince Menzione: And what you’re also pointing out in this conversation is that the co the partners need to understand that mm, they need to understand MM. We talked about it years ago. I’ve had, haven’t had anybody on stage recently talk about m You could probably take us through that if we wanted to devote some time here, uh, and then understand all of those categories and how to access those funds. [00:32:52] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, it’s critical and. The number one place we point partners, if you want a quick overview of what that looks like is to Microsoft’s FY 26 solution playbooks. Nice. They’re available on the web for download. There’s, well, there used to be three, but they’ve added a few agen being, being one. So, so there’s a handful of, they had [00:33:11] Vince Menzione: simplified it, now they’re, now they’re expanding it back again. [00:33:14] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, exactly. I think there’s now a breakout for security as well. Yes. So take a look at those playbooks. It will map programs and incentives very specifically to each solution area and to each sales play that are gonna be available to you. And then we’re always happy to guide people through the details [00:33:32] Vince Menzione: as well. [00:33:32] Vince Menzione: I love that. I love that. And reach out to the. Ashley is just amazing at this process. I’ve, I’ve watched her for years now, work with some of the top, what have become the pinnacle partners of Microsoft and with the award season coming up. So we wanna make sure we have a plug there. But I also wanna talk about like, podcasts with you. [00:33:50] Vince Menzione: Um, you’ve been on this podcast multiple times, been in the studio before doing this, and I understand you have your own podcast now. So tell us about that. [00:33:58] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, Vince, I just wanna say. As a friend and a mentor. You’ve been so inspiring. Thank you. And I think from years ago when we met, there was this seed in my brain of, you know, I, I should really get out there. [00:34:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: And you talk a lot about growth mindset and fear setting is, is one of Tim Ferriss’s terms? Yes. And models. [00:34:21] Vince Menzione: I love Tim Ferris. I’ve been, been a fan of his for 10 years now. So that’s settled. We all got started with this. Sorry. Sorry, I [00:34:26] Ashleigh Vogstad: interrupt. No, no, not at all. [00:34:27] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:34:28] Ashleigh Vogstad: And. I think it’s just been, it’s been back there. [00:34:31] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. That I’m really passionate around having voice is how I think about it. And as a marketing agency, we’re really amplifying the voice, um, or helping companies to find their voice, particularly in hyperscaler partnerships. And what better way to assist, you know, authentically the amazing people in our network, in our community and our clients than with our own channel where we can celebrate their stories and success? [00:35:00] Vince Menzione: Very cool. [00:35:01] Ashleigh Vogstad: So the podcast is called Transcending Tech. It’s about [00:35:06] Vince Menzione: very cool transcending tech. Just so you don’t [00:35:08] Ashleigh Vogstad: transcending tech. [00:35:08] Vince Menzione: It’s out there now. [00:35:10] Ashleigh Vogstad: It, we just released our first episode. Okay. I think two days ago. [00:35:13] Vince Menzione: So by the time we’re live, yes. We’ll, we’ll be able to access it. Good. [00:35:17] Ashleigh Vogstad: You will be able to access it. [00:35:18] Ashleigh Vogstad: The first episode is with Alyssa Fit. Patrick from Elastic. [00:35:21] Vince Menzione: Oh my goodness. [00:35:22] Ashleigh Vogstad: And the concept of the podcast, it’s long form and it’s really about getting to the people behind the platforms. [00:35:29] Vince Menzione: Very cool. [00:35:29] Ashleigh Vogstad: And to the stories that transcend technology. So we’re here to get to know the human beings behind. Agents. [00:35:38] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:35:38] Ashleigh Vogstad: And taking the time to, to go in deep and really explore that. [00:35:43] Vince Menzione: So I am excited to see all the developments here with the, with the podcast. And you’re gonna be joining us again. You were just here, you in Boca. But you’ll be joining us again in Bellevue. Not too far a little bit. Closer ride or travel, uh, for you to come to Bellevue. [00:35:57] Vince Menzione: We’re gonna be hosting the first ultimate partner live, which is our larger events in this beautiful facility, this new Intercontinental hotel, which is fabulous. And, uh, you’re gonna be taking a more active role. Your leadership around AI is. Palpable and we’re gonna love to have you on stage and talking through some of the changes. [00:36:17] Vince Menzione: I, I suspect by the time we get to Bellevue we’ll have a lot more to talk about. That hasn’t even happened yet. [00:36:23] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, I’m really excited. I’ll have been through my next cohort at at Oxford, kind of coming out hot from there back to the Pacific Northwest, and really excited to just share the learnings and Awesome. [00:36:35] Ashleigh Vogstad: Genuinely. It’s also helping me in my own research, really formulate particularly around the role of ag agentic AI in hyperscaler partnerships. [00:36:43] Vince Menzione: That’s so cool. And then what I’ll say is this, and I don’t know, we on the space perspective, and I’ll, the team will probably hang me for this because we haven’t done it yet, but if you wanna bring the podcast along with you, there might be, we’ll see if we can find an extra room for you to set up. [00:36:58] Vince Menzione: If you wanna do some interviews while you’re. In, at the event. So [00:37:02] Ashleigh Vogstad: you’re so generous, Vince. [00:37:03] Vince Menzione: That’s [00:37:04] Ashleigh Vogstad: amazing. [00:37:04] Vince Menzione: Thank you. Again, I can’t say for certainty yet, but, uh, let’s see, let’s see what happens with that. So, uh, let, let’s, uh, you know, I always, we, we have known each other for years and I just assume everybody knows this amazing Ashley sda. [00:37:19] Vince Menzione: But, um, we always, I like to ask this question because it helps us kind of dig in a little bit about you personally. And it’s my favorite question. I ask all my guests this question now, and it’s, um, you’re hosting a dinner party, Ashley, you are, pick a pace, place, you wanna have this dinner. We could talk about parts of the world. [00:37:36] Vince Menzione: You’ve traveled all extensively. Uh, and you can invite any three people, guests from the present. Or the past to this amazing dinner party you’re throwing. Whom would you invite and why? [00:37:52] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s a beautiful question, Vince and. Instantly I go to a place in terms of the location, since you asked that part, which was surprising. [00:38:01] Ashleigh Vogstad: I, I like that is my home. I, I love where I live up in Whistler, Canada and [00:38:08] Vince Menzione: I hear it’s beautiful. I haven’t been yet, [00:38:10] Ashleigh Vogstad: it’s so gorgeous and it’s, it’s my own sanctuary. You know, I live on a plane 75% of the time and coming back to that place is really grounding for me. Yes. So, so I would love to have it at, at my home and to invite. [00:38:24] Ashleigh Vogstad: Pippa Malrin would be one. She, Pippa [00:38:26] Vince Menzione: Malrin. [00:38:27] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. She’s sure. I get an advisor to the White House for many administrations. Okay. She’s an economist and she just has really interesting perspective on geopolitics. Uh, I follow her on Substack ’cause she’s a big substack. Okay, now [00:38:41] Vince Menzione: I need to look. This is awesome. [00:38:42] Vince Menzione: The [00:38:43] Ashleigh Vogstad: mal, she’s fantastic. I would say Dr. Lisa Sue, the CEO, Dr. Lisa of a md. [00:38:49] Vince Menzione: Okay. Yes, yes. I know a little bit about her. [00:38:51] Ashleigh Vogstad: So she was one of Time Mag, I think she was the only woman in Time Magazine’s, group of people of the year, which was basically this AI cohort in including, you know, the Elon Musks of the world. [00:39:03] Ashleigh Vogstad: Uh, it’s just so impressive what she’s doing with leadership in a MD. I don’t think it’s as public as. Anybody else who is on the cover of that magazine, but it’s incredibly powerful. [00:39:14] Vince Menzione: Yeah, they’ve made a com uh, turnaround’s probably not the right word, but it seems like they’ve made a tremendous, uh, gains turnaround probably in the last few years. [00:39:23] Ashleigh Vogstad: I would say that many would say turnaround. And then lastly is Dr. Fefe Lee, who. For those in the AI space, particularly AI research space. I mean, she’s arguably number one. Um, she’s leading at Stanford currently. [00:39:37] Vince Menzione: Wow. This is gonna be a heady conversation, but you know, I love conversations. So if you don’t mind, maybe I’ll bring dessert and come, come in for a few moments, maybe do some podcast interviews there. [00:39:48] Vince Menzione: How’s that? [00:39:49] Ashleigh Vogstad: That sounds absolutely perfect, Vince, [00:39:50] Vince Menzione: so, so good. So good to have you here today. So great. Good to have you in the studio again, and, uh, excited for transcends and all the great work you’re doing. Um. This time with ai. I think you, uh, we talked about this a little bit last night. I think you’ve made some really wise, personal and professional decisions about how to lead and how to take this forward and not kind of rest on your laurels, which you see so many organizations do People fear change [00:40:17] Ashleigh Vogstad: Hmm. [00:40:18] Vince Menzione: And you embrace it, which is just, it’s astounding to me that you do that and, um. I look forward to working with you in the future and for years and years to come. So I will ask you one more question though, because we are still at the precipice of these tectonic shifts and we’re still early in 2026. And so for our listeners and our viewers today, what would be the one thing you would tell them that they need to go do now that possibly they haven’t done yet as they prepare for 2026 and beyond? [00:40:52] Ashleigh Vogstad: The generic phrase would be, be curious, but if we want an action, it would be go build an agent. [00:40:59] Vince Menzione: Go build an agent [00:41:00] Ashleigh Vogstad: if, if you haven’t already. Yeah. And, and I’m, yeah. Speaking hopefully to like a business audience, you know, to, to anyone. Yeah. Really, um, find something that is interesting that you’re passionate about. [00:41:12] Ashleigh Vogstad: A, a use case that it doesn’t have to be some big thing. It could be quite mundane, but just something that’s gonna help you in your role. It’s, you know, what is creativity is an interesting question, and I can tell you that sitting down and hands-on keys and actually creating something is, is a beautiful, powerful experience. [00:41:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Awesome. All right. We’re all gonna go create agents this weekend, so thank you for listening. Thank you for viewing the Ultimate Guide to partnering on our YouTube channel, ultimate Partner, and on each end of your platforms at the Ultimate Guide to partnering. Thank you for being with us and supporting us all these years. [00:41:50] Vince Menzione: Thank you. Don’t forget, ultimate Partner Live is coming soon, May 11th through the 13th in beautiful Bellevue, Washington. I hope to see you there.

The discussion centers on the implementation challenges and partner enablement strategies for artificial intelligence (AI) within the technology channel. According to TD Synnex's AI Accelerator program, only a small portion of AI projects achieve active deployment and measurable ROI, with widespread difficulties cited in scaling complex AI use cases. Jessica Yeck, SVP of Vendor Solutions at TD Synnex, highlights that progress is contingent upon engaging partners at their current state of AI readiness and aligning support resources accordingly. The evidence reflects a move away from one-size-fits-all approaches toward tailored frameworks that focus on tangible business outcomes and repeatable processes. TD Synnex's revised strategy prioritizes meeting partners “where they are,” using assessment frameworks that differentiate between partners with defined AI strategies and those seeking foundational guidance. Jessica Yeck references leveraging the broader technology ecosystem—including vendors, ISVs, and hyperscalers—to deliver solutions with multi-party input. This approach enables partners to identify actionable opportunities and develop pipelines, but demands cross-functional collaboration and technical-specialist engagement, particularly as customization—rather than rigid standardization—is required for effective deployment. The episode also addresses the evolving role of technology distribution in supporting partners beyond logistics. There is explicit recognition of the importance of financial mechanisms, marketplace access, and consultative guidance for services. Jessica Yeck underscores the interconnectedness of relationship-building, competency focus, and ecosystem utilization, noting that partners do not need exhaustive in-house technical skills if they can identify and collaborate with relevant specialists. This points to a strategic shift in what services and value partners can realistically deliver. For MSPs and IT service providers, the key implications involve re-evaluating approaches to AI enablement and partner relations. Instead of prioritizing technical uniformity or attempting to master every subsystem, providers should invest in relationship management and focused competency development while leveraging broader ecosystem resources. Adoption risk is reduced when partners clearly understand their customers' primary objectives and are prepared to orchestrate service delivery with targeted technical and financial support from their distribution networks. The episode reiterates that risk and accountability in AI projects hinge on practical readiness, process discipline, and honest assessment of operational capabilities, rather than technology enthusiasm or over-reliance on standardized templates.

Fraud hasn't disappeared - it got smarter. Organized rings now aim upstream at SaaS platforms and ISVs that embed payments, where a single gap in onboarding, transaction logic, or refund flows can be scaled into thousands of attacks overnight. We sit down with Brian Rust, SVP and Deputy Chief Information Security Officer at Worldpay, to map the real fraud journey (entry, action, exit) and the concrete moves product and security leaders can make right now to protect merchants and brand trust.We start with the why: platforms offer leverage. Brian explains how bots and AI generate convincing synthetic businesses that pass weak KYC, and what early signals still break the spell - impossible form completion times, IP and address mismatches, and brand-new domains claiming long histories. From there, we dive into the middle of the kill chain: card testing. You'll hear how velocity spikes, elevated decline rates, and geo anomalies betray large-scale testing and how adaptive limits for new merchants can contain losses and prevent network penalties. Then we confront refund abuse, where attackers exploit trust by refunding to different instruments or flooding high-value returns. The fix isn't blanket friction - it's precision: refund-to-original-card only, refund velocity caps, and targeted reviews that slow bad actors while keeping good customers moving.Brian lays out the layers that matter now: device fingerprinting, behavioral analytics, and transaction monitoring that can halt suspect money movement before funds leave your orbit. He also makes the case for a fraud-cyber fusion model, aligning teams and intelligence using frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK to anticipate tactics as cyber and financial motives blend. Finally, we close with three actions you can ship this quarter: audit onboarding with bot controls and threat modeling, enforce velocity controls that adapt as trust grows, and tap your processor's data and filters (AVS, CVV) to harden defaults.If you lead product, risk, or engineering for a payments-enabled platform, this conversation gives you a practical blueprint to raise attacker costs, protect your merchants, and guard your reputation. 

The Deal You Never Knew Existed. Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this deep dive, Jay McBain reveals the harsh reality of the “28 Moments” in a modern B2B buying journey, using a multi-million dollar SAP deal at AstraZeneca as a wake-up call for vendors. He explains how traditional marketing leads are failing in the “decade of the ecosystem,” where trusted partners like NTT and SoftwareOne are winning deals in “light blue” partnership moments months before a customer ever downloads an ebook. If you aren’t visible in the seven-layer stack or collaborating with the partners who hold the customer’s trust, you aren’t just losing the deal—you're losing the entire market. https://youtu.be/NO-P6X2dTAo?si=8e_sVesqvwaC0M-E Key Takeaways Most vendors lose major deals without ever knowing a transaction was even taking place. The average considered purchase involves 28 distinct moments of research and influence before a sale. Trusted partners often close the deal in the “middle moments” months before the money is actually spent. Traditional marketing leads (MQLs) are often too “flimsy” compared to deep partner-led relationships. Winning in the ecosystem requires being part of a “seven-layer stack” of integrated technology and services. Data-sharing platforms like Crossbeam and Workspan are now essential to seeing the “invisible” pipeline. 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: 28 Moments, Jay McBain, Ecosystem Strategy, AstraZeneca SAP Deal, Seven Layer Stack, B2B Buying Journey, Partner Ecosystem, NTT, SoftwareOne, Channel Strategy, Buyer Intent, Informa TechTarget, Collaborative Selling, Crossbeam, Partner Tap, Workspan, Marketplace Tracking, Co-selling, Tech Integration, Revenue Architecture, Pipeline Growth, Trusted Advisor, Digital Transformation, SAP Optimization, Microsoft AWS Competition. Transcript: [00:00:00] Jay McBain: So if you’re a vendor trying to get into that seven layer stack and you don’t have that relationship, or you don’t have the knowledge that NTT or software one is going in, this will have been a deal that would’ve never hit your pipeline and you’ll have no knowledge. So you will have lost this deal without knowing there was a deal. [00:00:19] Vince Menzione: We’ve been talking 28 moments, but you have a slide. I thought we’d spend some time here because, you know, every conversation with you is about 28 moments, but you finally took the time to analyze one of your deals or one of the deals that was going on with one of your clients and come up with the 28 moments. [00:00:36] Vince Menzione: I thought we’d spend a little time here because this journey slide is a wake up call. Uh, it’s, it’s, it’s all around. Why, why we need to think about all of those. Points we need to think about communities and analysts and marketplaces and proof of concepts and architecture and everything else. I thought maybe you’d take us through this a little bit. [00:00:53] Vince Menzione: ’cause this was for a client, AstraZeneca, by the way. This was, uh, if you don’t know this, ICI Americas was the precursor of mm-hmm. AstraZeneca. It was the first SAP customer in North America. [00:01:03] Jay McBain: Nice. I did [00:01:04] Vince Menzione: not know that. That’s why Microsoft and SAP both headquartered. In that area, near nearby, that client. [00:01:10] Vince Menzione: That’s, uh, news, new news. [00:01:11] Jay McBain: And by the way, this is an SAP deal we’re looking at. Yeah. Uh, so two things here. One is that, um, while I was declaring the decade of the ecosystem, you know, spending time with you and Boca, in between that time we got acquired. Canals, which was Latin for channel, got acquired by oia, part of Informa TechTarget, part of this bigger informa company, which is a Fortune 100 company outta the uk. [00:01:32] Jay McBain: Fantastic. You know, we’re part of this massive organization that is really around buyer intent. How, you know, a tech target and, uh, running hundreds of magazines like Information Week and Computer Week that customers and partners read running hundreds of events, the biggest events on the planet. [00:01:49] Vince Menzione: Crazy [00:01:49] Jay McBain: in B2B, like Black Hat and all these things are run by [00:01:52] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:01:53] Jay McBain: informa. [00:01:53] Jay McBain: So it’s got this massive mountain of data. About the 28 moments. So when you start to think if you’re a CMO and you start to think about the early moments, you, you think about somebody reading an ebook or, um, going to a, a webinar or going onto a LinkedIn live just like this one. Yeah, going to a major event and getting a pair of socks from you. [00:02:13] Jay McBain: Um, but anything early in the journey. These are the m qls. These are the things that I need enough of them to be credible before I hand them over to my sales team. ’cause I don’t wanna be laughed out of the room. Hey, they read an ebook. They must, AstraZeneca must be buying millions of dollars of stuff. [00:02:27] Vince Menzione: Traditional marketing lead. [00:02:29] Jay McBain: Traditional marketing lead. So they’re a bit nervous about sharing that. And then later on, the sales motions, the demos and all the progression of the sales. This was the two decades before us, the decade of sales, decade of marketing. But the 28 moments, just to take a step back, if you haven’t heard, it is just a considered purchase. [00:02:46] Jay McBain: It’s about psychology, human psychology. When you go and buy a car, second most expensive thing that you will purchase you on average will go through 28 moments getting ready for that purchase. Some people go through two moments and they just drive to the Cadillac dealership to see Larry, who’s been selling Cadillacs to the family for 80 years. [00:03:04] Jay McBain: Yep. Some people spend 58 moments. That’s probably me. [00:03:07] Vince Menzione: That’s you, a, [00:03:08] Jay McBain: you know, going through all the depreciation, watching every YouTube video, you know, going to the end of the earth. But the average is 28. So you start to think about this, this is the same buying a car considered purchase, that you would buy a million dollars in software. [00:03:21] Jay McBain: From Microsoft or SAP. So when you look at these moments, you start to think, you know, how is you before you buy that car, downloading the invoice price, downloading this month’s backend rebates. Should I buy it in January? Should I buy it in February? All these decisions you make before you get to that dealership, you’re smarter than the salesperson, smarter than the sales manager. [00:03:39] Jay McBain: You know what 5,000 people bought the car for within 50 miles of you? I mean, you’re just so smart. You actually don’t need the dealership anymore. Just Carvana to me, hand me the keys. Exactly. But now in buying technology, hardware, software services, customers are getting this smart. And here’s all the moments they take to get this smart. [00:03:57] Jay McBain: But the thing we always had in mind in this decade of the ecosystem was the 96% there are trusted people. Yeah. Spending decades building that trust that come in in critical moments. They’re not marketing moments, they’re not sales moments. They are fully partnership moments. Yeah. And they’re on this slide in light blue. [00:04:15] Jay McBain: So if you were to look at this deal and, and somebody in marketing is finding these eBooks and webinars and they think there might be something, AWS got a direct hit on their website. So there’s something brewing at AstraZeneca. It, it might be in, it’s a big pharmaceutical company, so you’re probably spending millions of dollars if something’s brewing. [00:04:31] Jay McBain: Yep. But guess what? At the same time, in December on this six month journey. Partners come in with five different paid projects, consulting, advisory design projects, and in this case it was NTT software one, Yash and uh, ISV was there. Yep. But NTT won three different. Deals right at that critical stage. It wasn’t Accenture, it wasn’t Deloitte, NTT at this particular department of AstraZeneca had spent the decades building those relationships. [00:04:58] Jay McBain: So they were the one, and they won critical part of this. And so that’s when the deal is won. And it’s not at April when the money’s being spent. Yeah, it’s, it’s not in March when a couple more ISVs joined the mix, that seven layer stack that solves this particular problem, it was right there. So if you’re a vendor trying to get into that seven layer stack and you don’t have that relationship, or you don’t have the knowledge that NTT or software one is going in, this will have been a deal that would’ve never hit your pipeline and you’ll have no knowledge. [00:05:30] Jay McBain: So you will have lost this deal without knowing there was a deal, which makes up again, the majority of your tam. [00:05:34] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:05:35] Jay McBain: But what if I did have this agentic ability to see this deal coming, and I’m a cybersecurity company, I’m just competing for layer five of the deal, but I know that it’s all happening in December. [00:05:46] Jay McBain: So the two things that jump out on this particular slide is one, they don’t just show up in December. [00:05:51] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:05:51] Jay McBain: this went closed one in their Salesforce CRM in August, September, well, before the customer ever read an ebook. So now you’re not dealing with a flimsy MQL. You’re dealing with a couple of great, you know, top partner 1000 sized firms. [00:06:09] Jay McBain: One of them is a partner, 30 firm. [00:06:11] Vince Menzione: Exactly. [00:06:12] Jay McBain: That is absolutely going into and earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in services to guide the customer to a millions of dollars in purchase. And, and you can imagine in that boardroom. With A CMO saying, Hey, I got this stuff here. And the head of channels or partnerships saying, no, no, this is real. [00:06:32] Jay McBain: Here’s the names, faces, and places. Yeah. And here’s how it’s happening. And this is exactly, this is the Gantt chart, this is the show up, this is the project, this is the outcome. This is exactly how it’s playing out. Now if I could go back and the board and the C-suite should be asking us, well, how many more deals like this can you see? [00:06:50] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:06:51] Jay McBain: If our TAM is, you know, how many billions of dollars? Could you double our pipeline by seeing more of these middle moments? And if we got a couple of months to spend with these partners before they get in front of the customer, could they build more of our portfolio into the deal so we’re not just layer five, maybe we’re layer three and layer five. [00:07:10] Vince Menzione: This slide screams at me. Integr Tech integration Cha. A partner channel integration of tech, uh, whether it’s Crossbeam, whether it’s Partner Tap, whether it’s work span, or any of these other technologies, tackle any of these technologies that are tracking marketplace, that are tracking partner to partner, co-selling. [00:07:30] Vince Menzione: Getting the integration points. The only way to really understand the situation here, because this is a multinational company. Yeah. It’s being touched at all PO points around the globe. And to understand who’s calling who, who’s influencing who, and getting a real view, you know, a uber view of what that looks like is super important. [00:07:47] Jay McBain: It is. And you know, if I’m trying to sell like a cross beam or partner tab or work span or something into my executive team, I’m just showing them this slide. [00:07:54] Vince Menzione: Exactly. [00:07:54] Jay McBain: Would you like to know about this deal? Like you see, October is the start of the timeline here. Would you like to know about this deal in August, September? [00:08:00] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:08:01] Jay McBain: Would you like to know about it automatically? Again, we’re not waiting for somebody, a human in a cubicle to go fill out a form. We’re not waiting for them to call somebody at our in, in a cubicle at our company. Yeah. We’re literally age genically sharing platforms, and so when this triggers that AstraZeneca and now triggers in our CRM system as well, our team on AstraZeneca gets notified and it gets notified in September before the 28 moments even starts. [00:08:27] Jay McBain: This, the power of this, of doubling, tripling your pipeline and then winning a bigger yield, a bigger percentage of that pipeline. This is the holy grail of our industry, and no one’s gonna get to a hundred percent. You’re not gonna have a hundred percent of your tam covered by your pipeline. No one’s gonna win a hundred percent of that. [00:08:43] Jay McBain: But again, we only have to be 10 or 20% better than our competitors and we need to start moving on this now. [00:08:50] Vince Menzione: So your imperative for the partners here, well everyone watching here today, I mean, this screams to me build your ecosystem strategy in such a strong and succinct way. What else would you say to them? [00:09:00] Jay McBain: I mean, the second thing that jumps out, you see two AWS direct touches here. This is something that this would be inbound. This AWS would see this deal in their pipeline. [00:09:09] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:09:10] Jay McBain: Because the customer came to them. AWS lost this deal. Crazy. So Microsoft won this deal. I, I mentioned Microsoft outgrowing AWS Yeah. [00:09:19] Jay McBain: ’cause in this particular case, NTT and Software One and Yash came in with Microsoft. Yeah. To solve an SAP optimization, Microsoft, and, you know, seven layer deal. So whether you’re in AWS, whether you’re in Microsoft, whether you’re anywhere else in this industry, you’re thinking like, you’re not gonna probably overtake what happens in December. [00:09:39] Jay McBain: These are the most trusted, smartest people in the room. And whatever happens in those projects is the seven layer stack the customer’s gonna buy in March, April. So I, I start to think about this and go, I need to win. ’cause NTT has a wonderful relationship with AWS. [00:09:55] Vince Menzione: They do, [00:09:56] Jay McBain: I mean, partner of the year level. [00:09:57] Jay McBain: I mean, they’ve got 10,000 people certified. I mean, there’s just a, you know, there’s no one at AWS that, um, you know, would take a, a loss here because it’s a wonderful relationship. And Software One, they [00:10:09] Vince Menzione: go back to Microsoft actually 30, 40 years though they do. They were Dimension data before that. Yeah. [00:10:14] Vince Menzione: And they have the long hit Legacy And Software One. Software one as well. You, [00:10:19] Jay McBain: you know, well Software one is Microsoft’s biggest reseller, uh, in Europe. And now with Crayon, you know, one of the biggest in the world. So I would be nervous if I was looking at this and saw Software one coming in with NTT and watching these things take place if I were able to see this back in September, October and work with these companies. [00:10:38] Jay McBain: That’s where kind of Microsoft came into the picture. And this never hit Microsoft’s pipeline. No Microsoft salesperson ever worked on it, but millions of dollars came to Microsoft. Yeah. Uh, out of this deal. So there are examples of where Microsoft gets touched and AWS wins the deal. So this isn’t meant to say that it happens in every case, but it’s meant to say data rules the future, and agent ai, the ability to plumb in these boxes. [00:11:00] Jay McBain: Working with Informa tech, target people that can plumb in the boxes for you with third party data, helping you with the light blue boxes. We gotta be obsessed over these light blue boxes. [00:11:11] Vince Menzione: It’s incredible. The Ultimate Partner Winter Retreat is gonna be here in the Boca Studio. This is the third year that we’re gonna be here in Boca. [00:11:21] Vince Menzione: This is always a favorite of our community members, our executive members, our sponsors and speakers. We’ll all be here in the studio, which is a really intimate setting. We can see upwards of 40, 50 people. Uh, we’ll be hosting an incredible dinner at the Boca Resort overlooking the golf course. That’s an incredible property and, uh, we’d love to have you join us. [00:11:45] Vince Menzione: Thank you for being part of the ultimate Partner community, and I hope to see you this year at one of our events. Thank you.

If your AR feels like a maze of phone calls, spreadsheets, and “we'll match it later,” this conversation shows a cleaner path. We sit down with Fauwaz Hussain, Senior Director of B2B Partnerships and Strategy at Global Payments, to break down what actually speeds cash and what quietly stalls it. From card-not-present realities to complex terms and partial shipments, we map the B2B differences that make order-to-cash harder and the practical changes that remove friction fast.We get specific about embedding payments inside your ERP so invoices, settlements, and the general ledger line up automatically. That shift kills rekeying errors, collapses department silos, and gives support, sales, and finance the same live truth. Security gets stronger when card data never touches email or recorded calls, and PCI compliance becomes manageable when you use certified, cloud-based vaults and enforce simple rules like “no cards by phone.” Fauwaz explains why publishers like Microsoft, SAP, and Sage now run tighter marketplaces, how VARs and ISVs evaluate payment apps, and why a one-stop provider reduces risk across gateways, vaults, and processing.We also cover the cash-flow moves that work right away: self-serve portals with open invoices, one-click payment links by email or text, stored credentials for auto-pay, and accepting multiple methods from ACH to single-use virtual cards. Then we look forward - AI-driven cash application, predictive delinquencies, Level 2/3 data validation, and API-first architectures that connect e-commerce, field service, and ERP into a single payment fabric. If you're leading AR, finance, or operations, you'll leave with a clear playbook to modernize without compromising compliance.

As 2026 rolls along, Microsoft partners understand that they operate in an ecosystem dominated by AI ambitions. But the channel story goes a lot deeper, and attendees at PartnerIn's inaugural Vibe conference brought a broad range of ideas, experiences, and stories with them. The event did not ignore AI, and some sessions dove into topics around how partners are incorporating it into end-to-end business processes, data mining, agent development, and security. But when Microsoft isn't overpowering the conversation, partners also enjoy opening up about other topics like business process standardization, managing consulting teams, creating more effective relationships between ISVs and VARs, and improving sales pipelines. In this MSDW Podcast episode, we share conversations recorded on-site at Vibe with three presenters: Joel Leichty of Cooptimize, Carol Smock of TechFluent Academy, and Tanya Henderson and Steve Endow of Blue Dragonfly. They each share a bit about what they brought to the event, what they were learning from others, and their outlook on operating in the Microsoft channel in 2026.

In this Signal Series episode of the Leaders in Payments Podcast, I sit down with Matt Downs, President, Integrated and Platforms at Global Payments, to unpack the biggest platform-payments shifts heading into 2026. Coming off the newly closed Worldpay and Global Payments combination, Matt shares what scale means for ISVs and platforms, and why payments is no longer “just a feature.” It is a growth engine that touches product, operations, and trust.The conversation breaks into three practical themes: embedded payments, embedded finance, and AI-driven fraud. Matt explains how platforms are moving toward richer embedded experiences that extend beyond checkout into the full workflow, including onboarding, chargebacks, disputes, and support. At the same time, platforms are feeling pressure to expand into adjacent financial products such as working capital, banking services, cards, and payroll. He also points to a common blind spot: many leaders do not benchmark how competitors are using payments and financial services to differentiate their core product. That competitive context should directly shape the roadmap.On fraud, Matt argues that 2026 demands an end-to-end mindset. Threats now show up earlier in the lifecycle, operate in real time, and adapt quickly using AI, deepfakes, machine-to-machine attacks, and automation. He outlines the “non-negotiables” for security and compliance, including layered defenses that protect the entire transaction journey, from the first web visit through refunds and disputes, without adding so much friction that it slows growth.If you are an ISV or platform executive building your 2026 plan, this episode will help you pressure-test your partnership strategy, prioritize embedded finance by vertical, and make smarter decisions to stay ahead while avoiding costly execution pitfalls.

Wondering what SIs care about and how they approach implementing ISVs for the first (or hundredth) time? This episode if for you!In the latest episode of How We Got There, I speak with Steve Simpson, VP of Global Enablement & Learning at Copado, Co-Founder of Catcusforce and Certified Architect Instructor. Steve and I dive deep on the reality of the complex deal cycles that Salesforce ISVs experience and how best to posture in them, especially with new to you SIs. It's a timely episode as Cactusforce and Architect Dreamin' are coming up in Phoenix in late January and it's not too late to sponsor to fill the funnel for the new year….and get some warm weather in the winter! Go to the websites to learn more and find the prospectus.The customer, Salesforce AEs/SEs/RVPs, SIs can all be involved in a deal. Steve explains the personas in a deal and how it can/should change based on how you came to the deal. Did Salesforce or an SI bring you to the deal? Then they are the dominant person in the deal and you need to adjust your posture but one thing is a common through line is to make sure you continue to do right by the customer “with honesty and delivery”. Obviously you can ignore all of this complexity, but it introduces risk in your deals!Steve has wonderful detailed suggestions on how you position your experience in a specific scenario, even if you don't have any, that he borrows from a friend who trains physicians. He then relates it to how an SI can communicate their experience on your app. We talk about learning strategies that is tailored for customers and partners, the latter covering both sales and delivery. Steve is a wealth of knowledge and I am grateful for his sharing so freely.This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors . Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, all things Data and AI, and the hyper scaler MSP cloud ecosystems with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond! 

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. AI agents are your next customers. Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ https://youtu.be/vEdq8rpBM3I In this data-rich keynote, Jay McBain deconstructs the tectonic shifts reshaping the $5.3 trillion global technology industry, arguing that we are entering a new 20-year cycle where traditional direct sales models are obsolete. McBain explains why 96% of the industry is now surrounded by partners and how successful companies must pivot from “flywheels and theory” to a granular strategy focused on the seven specific partners present in every deal. From the explosion of agentic AI and the $163 billion marketplace revolution to the specific mechanics of multiplier economics, this discussion provides a roadmap for navigating the “decade of the ecosystem” where influence, trust, and integration—not just product—determine winners and losers. Key Takeaways Half of today's Fortune 500 companies will likely vanish in the next 20 years due to the shift toward AI and ecosystem-led models. Every B2B deal now involves an average of seven trusted partners who influence the decision before a vendor even knows a deal exists. Microsoft has outpaced AWS growth for 26 consecutive quarters largely because of a superior partner-led geographic strategy. Marketplaces are projected to grow to $163 billion by 2030, with nearly 60% of deals involving partner funding or private offers. The “Multiplier Effect” is the new ROI, where partners can make up to $8.45 for every dollar of vendor product sold. Future dominance relies on five key pillars: Platform, Service Partnerships, Channel Partnerships, Alliances, and Go-to-Market orchestration. 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. Keywords: Jay McBain, Canalys, partner ecosystem, channel chief, agentic AI, marketplace growth, multiplier economics, B2B sales trends, tech industry forecast, service partnerships, strategic alliances, Microsoft vs AWS, distribution transformation, managed services growth, SaaS platforms, customer journey mapping, 28 moments of truth, future of reselling, technology spending 2025, ecosystem orchestration, partner multipliers. T Transcript: Jay McBain WORKFILE FOR TRANSCRIPT [00:00:00] Vince Menzione: Just up from, did you Puerto Rico last night? Puerto Rico, yes. Puerto Rico. He dodged the hurricane. Um, you all know him. Uh, let him introduce himself for those of you who don’t, but just thrilled to have on the stage, again, somebody who knows more about what’s going on in, in the, and has the pulse on this industry probably than just about anybody I know personally. [00:00:21] Vince Menzione: J Jay McBain. Jay, great to see you my friend. Alright, thank you. We have to come all the way. We live, we live uh, about 20 minutes from each other. We have to come all the way to Reston, Virginia to see each other, right? That’s right. Very good. Well, uh, that’s all over to you, sir. Thank you. [00:00:35] Jay McBain: Alright, well thank you so much. [00:00:36] Jay McBain: I went from 85 degrees yesterday to 45 today, but I was able to dodge that, uh, that hurricane, uh, that we kind of had to fly through the northern edge of, uh, wanna talk today about our industry, about the ultimate partner. I’m gonna try to frame up the ultimate partner as I walk through the data and the latest research that, uh, that we’ve been doing in the market. [00:00:56] Jay McBain: But I wanted to start here ’cause our industry moves in 20 year cycles, and if you look at the Fortune 500 and dial back 20 years from today, 52% of them no longer exist. As we step into the next 20 year AI era, half of the companies that we know and love today are not gonna exist. So we look at this, and by the way, if you’re not in the Fortune 500 and you don’t have deep pockets to buy your way outta problems, 71% of tech companies fail over the course of 10 years. [00:01:30] Jay McBain: Those are statistics from the US government. So I start to look at our industry and you know, you may look at the, you know, mainframe era from the sixties and seventies, mini computers, August the 12th, 1981, that first IBM, PC with Microsoft dos, version one, you know, triggered. A new 20 year era of client server. [00:01:51] Jay McBain: It was the time and I worked at IBM for 17 years, but there was a time where Bill Gates flew into Boca Raton, Florida and met with the IBM team and did that, you know, fancy licensing agreement. But after, you know, 20 years of being the most valuable company in the world and 13 years of antitrust and getting broken up, almost like at and TIBM almost didn’t make payroll. [00:02:14] Jay McBain: 13 years after meeting Bill Gates. Yeah, that’s how quickly things change in these eras. In 1999, a small company outta San Francisco called salesforce.com got its start. About 10 years later, Jeff Bezos asked a question in a boardroom, could we rent out our excess capacity and would other companies buy it? [00:02:35] Jay McBain: Which, you know, most people in the room laughed at ’em at the time. But it created a 20 year cloud era when our friends, our neighbors, our family. Saw Chachi PT for the first time in March of 2023. They saw the deep fakes, they saw the poetry, they saw the music. They came to us as tech people and said, did we just light up Skynet? [00:02:58] Jay McBain: And that consumer trend has triggered this next 20 years. I could walk through the richest people in the world through those trends. I could walk through the most valuable companies. It all aligns. ’cause by the way, Apple’s no longer at the top. Nvidia is at the top, Microsoft. Second, things change really quickly. [00:03:17] Jay McBain: So in that course of time, you start to look at our industry and as people are talking about a six and a half or $7 trillion build out of ai, that’s open AI and Microsoft numbers, that is bigger than our industry that’s taken over 50 years to build. This year, we’re gonna finish the year at $5.3 trillion. [00:03:36] Jay McBain: That’s from the smallest flower shop to the biggest bank. Biggest governments that Caresoft would, uh, serve biggest customer in the world is actually the federal government of the us. But you look at this pie chart and you look at the changes that we’re gonna go through over the next 20 years, there’s about a trillion dollars in hardware. [00:03:54] Jay McBain: There’s about a trillion dollars in software. If you look forward through all of the merging trends, quantum computing, humanoid robots, all the things that are coming that dollar to dollar software to hardware will continue to exist all the way through. We see services making up almost two thirds of this pie. [00:04:13] Jay McBain: Yesterday I was in a telco conference with at and t and Verizon and T-Mobile and some of the biggest wireless players and IT services, which happen to be growing faster than products. At the moment, there is more work to be done wrapping around the deal than the actual products that the customer is buying. [00:04:32] Jay McBain: So in an industry that’s growing at 7%. On top of the world economy that’s grown at 2.2. This is the fastest growing industry, and it will be at least for the next 10 years, if not 2070 0.1% of this entire $5 trillion gets transacted through partners. While what we’re talking to today about the ultimate partner, 96% of this industry is surrounded by partners in one way or another. [00:05:01] Jay McBain: They’re there before the deal. They’re there at the deal. They’re there after the deal. Two thirds of our industry is now subscription consumption based. So every 30 days forever, and a customer for life becomes everything. So if every deal in medium, mid-market, and higher has seven partners, according to McKinsey, who are those seven people trying to get into the deal? [00:05:25] Jay McBain: While there’s millions of companies that have come into tech over the last 10 to 20 years. Digital agencies, accountants, legal firms, everybody’s come in. The 250,000 SaaS companies, a million emerging tech companies, there’s a big fight to be one of those seven trusted people at the table. So millions of companies and tens of millions of people our competing for these slots. [00:05:49] Jay McBain: So one of the pieces of research I’m most proud of, uh, in my analyst career is this. And this took over two years to build. It’s a lot of logos. Not this PowerPoint slide, but the actual data. Thousands of people hours. Because guess what? When you look at partners from the top down, the top 1000 partners, by capability and capacity, not by resale. [00:06:15] Jay McBain: It’s not a ranking of CDW and insight and resale numbers. It is the surrounding. Consulting, design, architecture, implementations, integrations, managed services, all the pieces that’s gonna make the next 20 years run. So when you start to look at this, 98% of these companies are private, so very difficult to get to those numbers and, uh, a ton of research and help from AI and other things to get this. [00:06:41] Jay McBain: But this is it. And if you look at this list, there’s a thousand logos out of the million companies. There’s a thousand logos that drive two thirds of all tech services in the world. $1.07 trillion gets delivered by a thousand companies, but here’s where it gets fun. Those companies in the middle, in blue, the 30 of them deliver more tech services than the next 970. [00:07:08] Jay McBain: Combined the 970 combined in white deliver more tech services. Then the next million combined. So if you think we live in an 80 20 rule or maybe a 99, a 95 5 rule, or a 99 1 rule, we actually live in a 99.9 0.1 parallel principle. These companies spread around the world evenly split across the uh, different regions. [00:07:35] Jay McBain: South Africa, Latin America, they’re all over. They split. They split among types. All of the Venn diagram I just showed from GSIs to VARs to MSPs, to agencies and other types of companies. But this is a really rich list and it’s public. So every company in the world now, if you’re looking at Transactable data, if you’re looking at quantifiable data that you can go put your revenue numbers against, it represents 70 to 80% of every company in this room’s Tam. [00:08:08] Jay McBain: In one piece of research. So what do you do below that? How do you cover a million companies that you can’t afford to put a channel account manager? You can’t afford to write programs directly for well after the top down analysis and all the wallet share and you know exactly where the lowest hanging fruit is for most of your tam. [00:08:28] Jay McBain: The available markets. The obtainable markets. You gotta start from the community level grassroots up. So you need to ask the question for the million companies and the maybe a hundred thousand companies out there, partner companies that are surrounding your customer. These are the seven partners that surround your customer. [00:08:48] Jay McBain: What do they read, where do they go, and who do they follow? Interestingly enough, our industry globally equates to only a thousand watering holes, a thousand companies at the top, a thousand places at the bottom. 35% of this audience we’re talking. Millions of people here love events and there’s 352 of them like this one that they love to go to. [00:09:13] Jay McBain: They love the hallway chats, they love the hotel lobby bar, you know, in a time reminded by the pandemic. They love to be in person. It’s the number one way they’re influenced. So if you don’t have a solid event strategy and you don’t have a community team out giving out socks every week, your competitors might beat you. [00:09:31] Jay McBain: 12% of this audience loves podcasts. It’s the Joe Rogan effect of our industry. And while you know, you may not think the 121 podcasts out there are important, well, you’re missing 12% of your audience. It’s over a million people. If you’re not on a weekly podcast in one of these podcasts in the world, there’s still people that read one of the 106 magazines in the world. [00:09:55] Jay McBain: There are people that love peer groups, associations, they wanna be part of this. There’s 15 different ways people are influenced. And a solid grassroots strategy is how you make this happen. In the last 10 years, we’ve created a number of billionaires. Bottom up. They never had to go talk to la large enterprise. [00:10:15] Jay McBain: They never had to go build out a mid-market strategy. They just went and give away socks and new community marketing. And this has created, I could rip through a bunch of names that became unicorns just in the last couple of years, bottoms up. You go back to your board walking into next year, top down, bottom up. [00:10:34] Jay McBain: You’ve covered a hundred percent of your tam, and now you’ve covered it with names, faces, and places. You haven’t covered it with a flywheel or a theory. And for 44 years, we have gone to our board every fourth quarter with flywheels and theory. Trust me, partners are important. The channel is key to us. [00:10:57] Jay McBain: Well, let’s talk at the point of this granularity, and now we’re getting supported by technology 261 entrepreneurs. Many of them in the room actually here that are driving this ability to succeed with seven partners in every deal to exchange data to be able to exchange telemetry of these prospects to be able to see twice or three times in terms of pipeline of your target addressable market. [00:11:26] Jay McBain: All these ai, um, technologies, agentic technologies are coming into this. It’s all about data. It’s all about quantifiable names, faces, and places. Now none of us should be walking around with flywheels, so let’s flip the flywheels. No. Uh, so we also look at, and I sold PCs for 17 years and that was in the high times of 40% margins for partners. [00:11:55] Jay McBain: But one interesting thing when you study the p and l for broad base of partners around the world, it’s changed pretty significantly in this last 20 year era. What the cloud era did is dropped hardware from what used to be 84% plus the break fix and things that wrap around it of the p and l to now 16% of every partner in the world. [00:12:16] Jay McBain: 84% of their p and l is now software and services. And if you look at profitability, it’s worse. It’s actually 87% is profitability wise. They’ve completely shifted in terms of where they go. Now we look at other parts of our market. I could go through every part of the pie of the slide, but we’re watching each of the companies, and if you can see here, this is what we want to talk about in terms of ultimate partner. [00:12:43] Jay McBain: Microsoft has outgrown AWS for 26 straight quarters. They don’t have a better product. They don’t have a better price, they don’t have better promotion. It’s all place. And I’ll explain why you guess here in the light green line. Exactly. The day that Google went a hundred percent all in partner, every deal, even if a deal didn’t have a partner, one of the 4% of deals that didn’t have a partner, they injected a partner. [00:13:09] Jay McBain: You can see on the left side exactly where they did it. They got to the point of a hundred percent partner driven. Rebuilt their programs, rebuilt their marketplace. Their marketplace is actually larger than Microsoft’s, and they grew faster than Microsoft. A couple of those quarters. It is a partner driven future, and now I have Oracle, which I just walked by as I walked from the hotel. [00:13:31] Jay McBain: Oracle with their RPOs will start to join. Maybe the list of three hyperscalers becomes the list of four in future slides, but that’s a growth slide. Market share is different. AWS early and commanding lead. And it plays out, uh, plays out this way. But we’re at an interesting moment and I stood up six years ago talking about the decade of the ecosystem after we went through a decade of sales starting in 1999 when we all thought we were born to be salespeople. [00:14:02] Jay McBain: We managed territories with our gut. The sales tech stack would have it different, that sales was a science, and we ended the decade 2009, looking at sales very differently in 2009. I remember being at cocktail parties where CMOs would be joking around that 50% of their marketing dollars were wasted. They just didn’t know which 50%. [00:14:23] Jay McBain: And I’ll tell you, that was really funny. In 2009 till every 58-year-old CMO got replaced by a 38-year-old growth hacker who walked in with 15,348 SaaS companies in their MarTech and ad tech stack to solve the problem, every nickel of marketing by 2019 was tracked. Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot, HubSpot, driving this industry. [00:14:50] Jay McBain: Now, we stood up and said the 28 moments that come before a sale are pretty much all partner driven. In the best case scenario, a vendor might see four of the moments. They might come to your website, maybe they read an ebook, maybe they have a salesperson or a demo that comes in. That’s four outta 28 moments. [00:15:10] Jay McBain: The other 24 are done by partners. Yeah, in the worst case scenario and the majority scenario, you don’t see any of the moments. All 28 happen and you lose a deal without knowing there ever was a deal. So this is it. We need to partner in these moments and we need to inject partners into sales and marketing, like no time before, and this was the time to do it. [00:15:33] Jay McBain: And we got some feedback in the Salesforce state of sales report, which doesn’t involve any partnerships or, or. Channel Chiefs or anything else. This is 5,500 of the biggest CROs in the world that obviously use Salesforce. 89% of salespeople today use partners every day. For the 11% who don’t, 58% plan two within a year. [00:15:57] Jay McBain: If you add those two numbers together, that’s magically the 96% number. They recognize that every deal has partners in it. In 2024, last year, half of the salespeople in the world, every industry, every country. Miss their numbers. For the minority who made their numbers, 84 point percent pointed to partners as the reason why they made their numbers. [00:16:21] Jay McBain: It was the cheat code for sales, so that modern salesperson that knows how to orchestrate a deal, orchestrate the 28 moments with the seven partners and get to that final spot is the winning formula. HubSpot’s number in separate research was 84% in marketing. So we’re starting to see partners in here. We don’t have to shout from the mountaintops. [00:16:44] Jay McBain: These communities like ultimate Partner are working and we’re getting this to the highest levels in the board. And I’ll say that, you know, when 20 years from now half of the companies we know and love fail after we’re done writing the book and blaming the CEO for inventing the thing that ended up killing them, blaming the board for fiduciary responsibility and letting it happen. [00:17:06] Jay McBain: What are the other chapters of the book? And I think it’s all in one slide. We are in this platform economy and the. [00:17:31] Jay McBain: So your battery’s fine. Check, check, check, check. Alright, I’ll, I’ll just hold this in case, but the companies that execute on all five of these areas, well. Not only today become the trillion dollar valued companies, but they become the companies of tomorrow. These will be the fastest growing companies at every level. [00:17:50] Jay McBain: Not only running a platform business, but participating in other platforms. So this is how it breaks out, and there are people at very senior levels, at very big companies that have this now posted in the office of the CEO winning on integrations is everything. We just went through a demographic shift this year where 51% of our buyers are born after 1982. [00:18:15] Jay McBain: Millennials are the number one buyer of the $5 trillion. Their number one buying criteria is not service. Support your price, your brand reputation, it’s integrations. The buy a product, 80% is good as the next one if it works better in their environment. 79% of us won’t buy a car unless it has CarPlay or Android Auto. [00:18:34] Jay McBain: This is an integration world. The company with the most integrations win. Second, there are seven partners that surround the customer. Highly trusted partners. We’re talking, coaching the customer’s, kids soccer team, having a cottage together up at the lake. You know, best men, bate of honors at weddings type of relationships. [00:18:57] Jay McBain: You can’t maybe have all seven, but how does Microsoft beat AWS? They might have had two, three, or four of them saying nice things about them instead of the competition. Winning in service partnerships and channel partnerships changes by category. If you’re selling MarTech, only 10% of it today is resold, so you build more on service partnerships. [00:19:18] Jay McBain: If you’re in cybersecurity today, 91.6% of it is resold. Transacted through partners. So you build a lot of channel partnerships, plus the service partnerships, whatever the mix is in your category, you have to have two or three of those seven people. Saying nice things about you at every stage of the customer journey. [00:19:38] Jay McBain: Now move over to alliances. We have already built the platforms at the hyperscale level. We’ve built the platforms within SaaS, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, Marketo, NetSuite, HubSpot. Every buyer has a set of platforms that they buy. We’ve now built them in cybersecurity this year out of 6,500 as high as cyber companies, the top five are starting to separate. [00:20:02] Jay McBain: We built it in distribution, which I’ll show in a minute. We’re building it in Telco. This is a platform economy and alliances win and you have alliances with your competitors ’cause you compete in the morning, but you’re best friends by the afternoon. Winning in other platforms is just as important as driving your own. [00:20:20] Jay McBain: And probably the most important part of this is go to market. That sales, that marketing, the 28 moments, the every 30 days forever become all a partner strategy. So there’s still CEOs out there that believe platform is a UI or UX on a bunch of disparate products and things you’ve acquired. There’s still CFOs out there that Think platform is a pricing model, a bundle model of just getting everything under one, you know, subscription price or consumption price. [00:20:51] Jay McBain: And it’s not, platforms are synonymous with partnerships. This is the way forward and there’s no conversation around ai. That doesn’t involve Nvidia over there, an open AI over here and a hyperscaler over there and a SaaS company over here. The seven layer stack wins every single time, and the companies that get this will be the ones that survive this cycle. [00:21:16] Jay McBain: Now, flipping over to marketplaces. So we had written research that, um, about five years ago that marketplaces were going to grow at 82% compounded. Yeah, probably one of the most accurate predictions we ever made, because it happened, we, we predicted that, uh, we were gonna get up to about $85 billion. Well, now we’ve extended that to 2030, so we’re gonna get up to $163 billion, and the thing that we’re watching is in green. [00:21:46] Jay McBain: If 96% of these deals are partner assisted in some way, how is the economics of partnering going to work? We predicted that 50% of deals by 2027. Would be partner funded in some way. Private offers multi-partner offers distributor sellers of record, and now that extends to 59% by 2030, the most senior leader of the biggest marketplace AWS, just said to us they’re gonna probably make these numbers on their own. [00:22:14] Jay McBain: And he asked what their two competitors are doing. So he’s telling us that we under called this. Now when you look at each of the press releases, and this is the AWS Billion Dollar Club. Every one of the companies on the left have issued a press release that they’re in the billion dollar club. Some of them are in the multi-billions, but I want you to double click on this press release. [00:22:35] Jay McBain: I’m quoted in here somewhere, but as CrowdStrike is building the marketplace at 91% compounded, they’re almost doubling their revenue every single year. They’re growing the partner funding, in this case, distributor funding by 3548%. Almost triple digit growth in marketplace is translating into almost quadruple digit growth in funding. [00:23:01] Jay McBain: And you see that over and over again as, as Splunk hit three, uh, billion dollars. The same. Salesforce hit $2 billion on AWS in Ulti, 18 months. They joined in October 20, 23, and 18 months later, they’re already at $2 billion. But now you’re seeing at Salesforce, which by the way. Grew up to $40 billion in revenue direct, almost not a nickel in resell. [00:23:28] Jay McBain: Made it really difficult for VARs and managed service providers to work with Salesforce because they couldn’t understand how to add services to something they didn’t book the revenue for. While $40 billion companies now seeing 70% of their deals come through partners. So this is just the world that we’re in. [00:23:44] Jay McBain: It doesn’t matter who you are and what industry you’re in, this takes place. But now we’re starting to see for the first time. Partners join the billion dollar club. So you wonder about partnering and all this funding and everything that’s working through Now you’re seeing press releases and companies that are redoing their LinkedIn branding about joining this illustrious club without a product to sell and all the services that wrap around it. [00:24:10] Jay McBain: So the opening session on Microsoft was interesting because there’s been a number of changes that Microsoft has done just in the last 30 days. One is they cut distribution by two thirds going from 180 distributors to 62. They cut out any small partner lower than a thousand dollars, and that doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s over a hundred thousand partners that get deed tightening the long tail. [00:24:38] Jay McBain: They we’re the first to really put a global point system in place three years ago. They went to the new commerce experience. If you remember, all kinds of changes being led by. The biggest company for the channel. And so when we’re studying marketplaces, we’re not just studying the three hyperscalers, we’re studying what TD Cynic is doing with Stream One Ingram’s doing with Advant Advantage Aerosphere. [00:25:01] Jay McBain: Also, we’re watching what PAX eight, who by the way, is the 365 bestseller for Microsoft in the world. They are the cybersecurity leader for Microsoft in the world and the copilot. Leader in the world for Microsoft and Partner of the Year for Microsoft. So we’re watching what the cloud platforms are doing, watching what the Telco are doing, which is 25 cents out of every dollar, if you remember that pie chart, watching what the biggest resellers are converting themselves into. [00:25:30] Jay McBain: Vince just mentioned, you know, SHI in the changes there watching the managed services market and the leaders there, what they’re doing in terms of how this industry’s moving forward. By the way, managed services at $608 billion this year. Is one and a half times larger than the SaaS industry overall. [00:25:48] Jay McBain: It’s also one and a half times larger than all the hyperscalers combined. Oracle, Alibaba, IBM, all the way down. This is a massive market and it makes up 15 to 20 cents of every dollar the customer spend. We’re watching that industry hit a trillion dollars by the end of the decade, and we’re watching 150 different marketplace development platforms, the distribution of our industry, which today is 70.1% indirect. [00:26:13] Jay McBain: We’re starting to see that number, uh, solidify in terms of marketplaces as well. Watching distributors go from that linear warehouse in a bank to this orchestration model, watching some of the biggest players as the world comes around, platforms, it tightens around the place. So Caresoft, uh, from from here is the sixth biggest distributor in the world. [00:26:40] Jay McBain: Just shows you how big the. You know, biggest client in the world is that they serve. But understand that we’re publishing the distributor 500 list, but it’ll be the same thing. That little group in blue in the middle today, you know, drives almost two thirds of the market. So what happens in all this next stage in terms of where the dollars change hands. [00:27:07] Jay McBain: And the economics of partnering themselves are going through the most radical shift that we’ve seen ever. So back to the nineties, and, and for those of you that have been channel chiefs and running programs, we went to work every day. You know, everything’s on fire. We’re trying to check hundred boxes, trying to make our program 10% better than our competitors. [00:27:30] Jay McBain: Hey, we gotta fix our deal registration program today, and our incentives are outta whack or training programs or. You know, not where they need to be. Our certification, you know, this was the life of, uh, of a channel chief. Everybody thought we were just out drinking in the Caribbean with our best partners, but we were under the weight of this. [00:27:49] Jay McBain: But something interesting has happened is that we turned around and put the customer at the middle of our programs to say that those 28 moments in green before the sale are really, really important. And the seven partners who participate are really important. Understanding. The customer’s gonna buy a seven layer stack. [00:28:09] Jay McBain: They’re gonna buy it With these seven partners, the procurement stage is much different. The growth of marketplaces, the growth of direct in some of these areas, and then long term every 30 days forever in a managed service, implementations, integrations, how you upsell, cross-sell, enrich a deal changes. So how would you build a program that’s wrapped around the customer instead of the vendor? [00:28:35] Jay McBain: And we’re starting to hear our partners shout back to us. These are global surveys, big numbers, but over half of our partners, regardless of type, are selling consulting to their customer. Over half are designing architecting deals. A third of them are trying to be system integrators showing up at those implementation integration moments. [00:28:55] Jay McBain: Two thirds of them are doing managed services, but the shocking one here is 44% of our partners, regardless of type, are coding. They’re building agents and they’re out helping their customer at that level. So this is the modern partner that says, don’t typecast me. You may have thought of me in your program. [00:29:14] Jay McBain: You might have me slotted as a var. Well, I do 3.2 things, and if I don’t get access to those resources, if you don’t walk me to that room, I’m not gonna do them with you. You may have me as a managed service provider that’s only in the morning. By the afternoon I’m coding, and by the next morning I’m implementing and consulting. [00:29:33] Jay McBain: So again, a partner’s not a partner. That Venn diagram is a very loose one now, as every partner on there is doing 3.2 different business models. And again, they’re telling us for 43 years, they said, I want more leads this year it changed. For the first time, I want to be recognized and incentivized as more than just a cash register for you. [00:29:57] Jay McBain: I want you to recognize when I’m consulting, when I’m designing, when you’re winning deals, because of my wonderful services, by the way, we asked the follow up question, well, where should we spend our money with you? And they overwhelmingly say, in the consulting stage, you win and lose deals. Not at moment 28. [00:30:18] Jay McBain: We’re not buying a pack of gum at the gas station. This is a considered purchase. You win deals from moment 12 through 16 and I’m gonna show you a picture of that later, and they say, you better be spending your money there, or you’re not gonna win your fair share or more than your fair share of deals. [00:30:36] Jay McBain: The shocking thing about this is that Microsoft, when they went to the point system, lifted two thirds of all the money, tens of billions of dollars, and put it post-sale, and we were all scratching our heads going. Well, if the partners are asking for it there, and it seems like to beat your biggest competitors, you want to win there. [00:30:54] Jay McBain: Why would you spend the money on renewal? Well, they went to Wall Street and Goldman Sachs and the people who lift trillions of dollars of pension funds and said, if we renew deals at 108%, we become a cash machine for you. And we think that’s more valuable than a company coming out with a new cell phone in September and selling a lot of them by Christmas every year. [00:31:18] Jay McBain: The industry. And by the way, wall Street responded, Microsoft has been more valuable than Apple since. So we talk in this now multiplier language, and these are reports that we write, uh, at AMIA at canals. But talking about the partner opportunity in that customer cycle, the $6 and 40 cents you can make for every dollar of consumption, or the $7 and 5 cents you can make the $8 and 45 cents you can make. [00:31:46] Jay McBain: There’s over 24 companies speaking at this level now, and guess what? It’s not just cloud or software companies. Hardware companies are starting to speak in this language, and on January 25th, Cisco, you know, probably second to Microsoft in terms of trust built with the channel globally is moving to a full point system. [00:32:09] Jay McBain: So these are the changes that happen fast. But your QBR with your partners now less about drinking beers at the hotel lobby bar and talking dollar by dollar where these opportunities are. So if you’re doing 3.2 of these things, let’s build out a, uh, a play where you can make $3 for every dollar that we make. [00:32:28] Jay McBain: And you make that profitably. You make it in sticky, highly retained business, and that’s the model. ’cause if you make $3 for every dollar. We make, you’re gonna win Partner of the year, and if you win partner of the year, that piece of glass that you win on stage, by the time you get back to your table, you’re gonna have three offers to buy your business. [00:32:51] Jay McBain: CDW just bought a w. S’s Partner of the Year. Insight bought Google’s eight time partner of the year. Presidio bought ServiceNow’s, partner of the year over and over and over again. So I’m at Octane, I’m at CrowdStrike, I’m at all these events in Vegas every week. I’m watching these partners of the year. [00:33:05] Jay McBain: And I’m watching as the big resellers. I’m watching as the GSIs and the m and a folks are surrounding their table after, and they’re selling their businesses for SaaS level valuations. Not the one-to-one service valuation. They’re getting multiples because this is the new future of our industry. This is platform economics. [00:33:25] Jay McBain: This is winning and platforms for partners. Now, like Vince, I spent 20 minutes without talking about ai, but we have to talk about ai. So the next 20 years as it plays out is gonna play out in phases. And the first thing you know to get it out of the way. The first two years since that March of 23, has been underwhelming, to say the least. [00:33:47] Jay McBain: It’s been disappointing. All the companies that should have won the biggest in AI have been the most disappointing. It’s underperformed the s and p by a considerable amount in terms of where we are. And it goes back to this. We always overestimate the first two years, but we underestimate the first 10. [00:34:07] Jay McBain: If you wanna be the point in time person and go look at that 1983 PC or the 1995 internet or that 2007 iPhone or that whatever point in time you wanna look at, or if you want to talk about hallucinations or where chat chip ET version five is version, as opposed to where it’s going to be as it improves every six months here on in. [00:34:30] Jay McBain: But the fact of the matter is, it’s been a consumer trend. Nvidia got to be the most valuable company in the world. OpenAI was the first company to 2 billion users, uh, in that amount of speed. It’s the fastest growing product ever in history, and it’s been a consumer win this trillions of dollars to get it thrown around in the press releases. [00:34:49] Jay McBain: They’re going out every day, you know, open ai, signing up somebody new or Nvidia, investing in somebody new almost every single day in hundreds of billions of dollars. It is all happening really on the consumer side. So we got a little bit worried and said, is that 96% of surround gonna work in ag agentic ai? [00:35:10] Jay McBain: So we went and asked, and the good news is 88% of end customers are using partners to work through their ag agentic strategy. Even though they’re moving slow, they’re actually using partners. But what’s interesting from a partner perspective, and this is new research that out till 2030. This is the number one services opportunity in the entire tech or telco industry. [00:35:34] Jay McBain: 35.3% compounded growth ending at $267 billion in services. Companies are rebuilding themselves, building out practices, and getting on this train and figuring out which vendors they should hook their caboose to as those trains leave the station. But it kind of plays out like this. So in the next three to five years, we’re in this generative, moving into agentic phase. [00:36:01] Jay McBain: Every partner thinks internally first, the sales and marketing. They’re thinking about their invoicing and billing. They’re thinking about their service tickets. They’re thinking about creating a business that’s 10% better than their competitors, taking that knowledge into their customers and drive in business. [00:36:17] Jay McBain: But we understand that ag agentic AI, as it’s going to play out is not a product. A couple of years ago, we thought maybe a copilot or an agent force or something was going to be the product that everybody needed to buy, and it’s not a product, it’s gonna show up as a feature. So you go back in the history of feature ads and it’s gonna show up in software. [00:36:38] Jay McBain: So if you’re calling in SMB, maybe you’re calling on a restaurant. The restaurant isn’t gonna call OpenAI or call Microsoft or call Nvidia directly. They’re running their restaurant. And they may have chosen a platform like Toast Square, Clover, whatever iPads people are running around with, runs on a platform that does everything in their business, does staffing, does food ordering, works with Uber Eats, does everything end to end? [00:37:08] Jay McBain: They’re gonna wait to one of those platforms, dries out agent AI for them, and can run the restaurant more effectively, less human capital and more consistently, but they wait for the SaaS platform as you get larger. A hundred, 150 people. You have vice presidents. Each of those vice presidents already have a SaaS stack. [00:37:28] Jay McBain: I talked about Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, et cetera. They’ve already built that seven layer model and in some cases it’s 70 layers. But the fact is, is they’re gonna wait for those SaaS layers to deliver ag agentic to them. So this is how it’s gonna play out for the next three and a half, three to five years. [00:37:45] Jay McBain: And partners are realizing that many of them were slow to pick up SaaS ’cause they didn’t resell it. Well now to win in this next three to half, three to five years, you’re gonna have to play in this environment. When you start looking out from here, the next generation, you know, kind of five through 15 years gets interesting in more of a physical sense. [00:38:06] Jay McBain: Where I was yesterday talking about every IOT device that now is internet access, starts to get access to large language models. Every little sensor, every camera, everything that’s out there starts to get smart. But there’s a point. The first trillionaire, I believe, will be created here. Elon’s already halfway there. [00:38:24] Jay McBain: Um, but when Bill Gates thought there was gonna be a PC in every home, and IBM thought they were gonna sell 10,000 to hobbyists, that created the richest person in the world for 20 years, there will be a humanoid in every home. There’s gonna be a point in time that you’re out having drinks with your friends, and somebody’s gonna say, the early adopter of your friends is gonna say. [00:38:46] Jay McBain: I haven’t done the dishes in six weeks. I haven’t done the laundry. I haven’t made my bed. I haven’t mowed the lawn. When they say that, you’re gonna say, well, how? And they’re gonna say, well, this year I didn’t buy a new car, but I went to the car dealership and I bought this. So we’re very close to the dexterity needed. [00:39:05] Jay McBain: We’ve got the large language models. Now. The chat, GPT version 10 by then is going to make an insane, and every house is gonna have one of the. [00:39:17] Jay McBain: This is the promise of ai. It’s not humanoid robots, it’s not agents. It’s this. 99% of the world’s business data has not been trained or tuned into models yet. Again, this is the slow moving business. If you want to think about the 99% of business data, every flight we’ve all taken in this room sits on a saber system that was put in place in 1964. [00:39:43] Jay McBain: Every banking transaction, we’ve all made, every withdrawal, every deposit sits on an IBM mainframe put in place in the sixties or seventies. 83% of this data sits in cold storage at the edge. It’s not ready to be moved. It’s not cleansed, it’s not, um, indexed. It’s not in any format or sitting on any infrastructure that a large language model will be able to gobble up the data. [00:40:10] Jay McBain: None of the workflows, none of the programming on top of that data is yet ready. So this is your 10 to 20 year arc of this era that chat bot today when they cancel your flight is cute. It’s empathetic, it feels bad for you, or at least it seems to, but it can’t do anything. It can’t book you the Marriott and get you an Uber and then a 5:00 AM flight the next morning. [00:40:34] Jay McBain: It can’t do any of that. But more importantly, it doesn’t know who you are. I’ve got 53 years of flights under my belt and they, I’m the person that get me within six hours of my kids and get me a one-way Hertz rental. You know, if there’s bad weather in Miami, get me to Tampa, get me a Hertz, I’m driving home, I’m gonna make it home. [00:40:56] Jay McBain: I’m not the 5:00 AM get me a hotel person. They would know that if they picked up the flights that I’ve taken in the past. Each of us are different. When you get access to the business data and you become ag agentic, everything changes. Every industry changes because of this around the customers. When you ask about this 35% growth, working on that data, working in traditional consulting and design and implementation, working in the $7 trillion of infrastructure, storage, compute, networking, that’s gonna be around, this is a massive opportunity. [00:41:30] Jay McBain: Services are gonna continue to outgrow products. Probably for the next five to 10 years because of this, and I’m gonna finish here. So we talked a lot about quantifying names, faces, places, and I think where we failed the most as ultimate partners is underneath the tam, which every one of our CEOs knows to the decimal point underneath the TAM that our board thinks they’re chasing. [00:41:59] Jay McBain: We’ve done a very poor job. Of talking about the available markets and obtainable markets underneath it, we, we’ve shown them theory. We’ve shown them a bunch of, you know, really smart stuff, and PowerPoint slides up the wazoo, but we’ve never quantified it for them. If they wanna win, if they want to get access, if they want to double their pipeline, triple their pipeline, if they wanna start winning more deals, if they wanna win deals that are three times larger, they close two times faster. [00:42:31] Jay McBain: And they renew 15% larger. They have to get into the available and obtainable markets. So just in the last couple weeks I spoke at Cribble, I spoke at Octane, I spoke at CrowdStrike Falcon. All three of those companies at the CEO level, main stage use those exact three numbers, three x, two x, 15%. That’s the language of platforms, and they’re investing millions and millions and millions of dollars on teams. [00:42:59] Jay McBain: To go build out the Sam Andal in name spaces and places. So you’ve heard me talk about these 28 moments a lot. They’re the ones that you spend when you buy a car. Some people spend one moment and they drive to the Cadillac dealership. ’cause Larry’s been, you know, taking care of the family for 50 years. [00:43:18] Jay McBain: Some people spend 50 moments like I do, watching every YouTube video and every, you know, thing on the internet. I clear the internet cover to cover. But the fact is, is every deal averages around these 28 moments. Your customer, there’s 13 members of the buying committee today. There’s seven partners and they’re buying seven things. [00:43:37] Jay McBain: There’s 27 things orchestrating inside these 28 moments. And where and how they all take place is a story of partnering. So a couple of years ago, canals. Latin for channel was acquired by amia, which is a part of Informa Tech Target, which is majority owned by Informa. All that being said, there’s hundreds of magazines that we have. [00:44:00] Jay McBain: There’s hundreds of events that we run. If somebody’s buying cybersecurity, they probably went to Black Hat or they probably went to GI Tech. One of these events we run, or one of the magazines. So we pick up these signals, these buyer intent signals as a company. Why did they wanna, um, buy a, uh, a Canals, which was a, you know, a small analyst firm around channels? [00:44:22] Jay McBain: They understood this as well. The 28 moments look a lot like this when marketers and salespeople are busy filling in the spots of every deal. And by the way, this is a real deal. AstraZeneca came in to spend millions of dollars on ASAP transformation, and you can start to see as the customer got smart. [00:44:45] Jay McBain: The eBooks, they read the podcasts, they listened to the events they went to. You start to see how this played out over the long term. But the thing we’ve never had in our industry is the light blue boxes. This deal was won and lost in December. In this particular case, NTT software won and Yash came in and sold the customer five projects. [00:45:07] Jay McBain: The millions of dollars that were going to be spent were solved here. The design and architecture work was all done here. A couple of ISVs You see in light blue came in right at the end, deal was closed in April. You see the six month cycle. But what if you could fill in every one of the 28 boxes in every single customer prospect that your sales and marketing team have? [00:45:30] Jay McBain: But here’s the brilliance of this. Those light blue boxes didn’t win the deals there. They won the deals months before that. So when NTT and Software one walked into this deal. They probably won the deal back in October and they had to go through the redlining. They had to go through the contracting, they had to go through all the stuff and the Gantt chart to get started. [00:45:54] Jay McBain: But while your CMO is getting all excited about somebody reading an ebook and triggering an MQL that the sales team doesn’t want, ’cause it’s not qualified, it’s not sales qualified, you walk in and say, no, no. This is a multimillion deal, dollar deal. It’s AstraZeneca. I know the five partners that are coming in in December to solidify the seven layers, and you’re walking in at the same time as the CMOs bragging about an ebook. [00:46:21] Jay McBain: This changes everything. If we could get to this level of data about every dollar of our tam, we not only outgrow our competitors, we become the platforms of the next generation. Partnering and ultimate partnering is all here. And this is what we’re doing in this room. This is what we’re doing over these couple of days, and this is what, uh, the mission that Vince is leading. [00:46:43] Jay McBain: Thank you so much. [00:46:47] Vince Menzione: Woo. Day in the house. Good to see you my friend. Good to see you. Oh, we’re gonna spend a couple minutes. Um, I’m put you in the second seat. We’re gonna put, we’re gonna make it sit fireside for a minute. Uh, that was intense. It was pretty incredible actually, Jay. And so I’m, I think I wanna open it up ’cause we only have a few minutes just to, any questions? [00:47:06] Vince Menzione: I’m sure people are just digesting. We already have one up here. See, [00:47:09] Question: Jay knows I’m [00:47:10] Vince Menzione: a question. I love it. We, I don’t think we have any I can grab a mic, a roving mic. I could be a roving mic person. Hold on. We can do this. This is not on. [00:47:25] Vince Menzione: Test, test. Yes it is. Yeah. [00:47:26] Question: Theresa Carriol dared me to ask a question and I say, you don’t have to dare me. You know, I’m going to Anyway. Um, so Jay, of the point of view that with all of the new AI players that strategic alliances is again having a moment, and I was curious your point of view on what you’re seeing around this emergence and trend of strategic alliances and strategic alliance management. [00:47:52] Question: As compared to channel management. And what are you seeing in terms of large vendors like AWS investing in that strategic alliance role versus that channel role training, enablement, measurement, all that good stuff? [00:48:06] Jay McBain: Yeah, it’s, it’s a great question. So when I told the story about toast at the restaurant or Square or Clover, they’re not call, they’re not gonna call open AI or Nvidia themselves either. [00:48:17] Jay McBain: When you look out at the 250,000 ISVs. That make up this AI stack, there is the layers that happen there. So the Alliance with AWS, the alliance they have with Microsoft or Google is going to be how they generate agent AI in their platforms. So when I talk about a seven layer stack, the average deal being seven layers, AI is gonna drive this to nine, and then 11, then probably 13. [00:48:44] Jay McBain: So in terms of how alliances work, I had it up there as one of the five core strategies, and I think it’s pretty even. You can have the best alliances in the world, but if the seven partners trusted by the customer don’t know what that alliance is and the benefits to the customer and never mention it, it’s all for Naugh. [00:49:00] Jay McBain: If you’re go-to market, you’re co-selling, your co-marketing strategies are not built around that alliance. It’s all for naught. If the integration and the co-innovation, the co-development, the all the co-creation work that’s done inside these alliances isn’t translated to customer outcomes, it’s all for naugh. [00:49:17] Jay McBain: These are all five parallel swim lanes. All five are absolutely critically needed. And I think they’re all five pretty equally weighted in terms of needing each other. Yes. To be successful in the era of platforms. Yeah. [00:49:32] Vince Menzione: And the problem is they’re all stove pipe today. If, if at all. Yeah. Maintained, right. [00:49:36] Vince Menzione: Alliances is an example. Channels and other example. They don’t talk to one another. Judge any, we’ve got a mic up here if anybody else has. Yep. We have some questions here, Jacqueline. [00:49:51] Question: So when we’re developing our channel programs, any advice on, you know, what’s the shift that we should make six months from now, a year from now? The historical has been bronze, silver, gold, right? And you’ve got your deal registration, but what’s the future look like? [00:50:05] Jay McBain: Yeah, so I mean, the programs are, are changing to, to the point where the customer should be in the middle and realizing the seven partners you need to win the deal. [00:50:15] Jay McBain: And depending on what category of product you’re in, security, how much you rely on resell, 91.6%. You know, the channel partners are gonna be critical where the customer spends the money. And if you’re adding friction to that process, you’re adding friction in terms of your growth. So you know, if you’re in cybersecurity, you have to have a pretty wide open reseller model. [00:50:39] Jay McBain: You have to have a wide open distribution model, and you have to make sure you’re there at that point of sale. While at the same time, considering the other six partners at moment 12 who are in either saying nice things about you or not, the customer might even be starting with you. ’cause there is actually one thing that I didn’t mention when I showed the 28 moments filled in. [00:51:00] Jay McBain: You’ll notice that the customer went to AWS twice direct. AWS lost the deal. Microsoft won the deal software. One is Microsoft’s biggest reseller in the world. They just acquired crayon. NTT who, who loves both had their Microsoft team go in. [00:51:18] Question: Mm. [00:51:19] Jay McBain: So I think that they went to AWS thinking it was A-W-S-S-A-P, you know, kind of starting this seven layer stack. [00:51:25] Jay McBain: I think they finished those, you know, critical moments in the middle looking at it. And then they went back to AWS kind of going probably WWTF. Yeah. What we thought was happening isn’t actually the outcome that was painted by our most trusted people. So, you know, to answer your question, listen to your partners. [00:51:43] Jay McBain: They want to be recognized for the other things they’re doing. You can’t be spending a hundred percent of the dollars at the point of sale. You gotta have a point of system that recognizes the point of sale, maybe even gold, silver, bronze, but recognizing that you’re paying for these other moments as well. [00:51:57] Jay McBain: Paying for alliances, paying for integrations and everything else, uh, in the cyber stack. And, um, you know, recognizing also the top 1000. So if I took your tam. And I overlaid those thousand logos. I would be walking into 2026 the best I could of showing my company logo by logo, where 80% of our TAM sits as wallet share, not by revenue. [00:52:25] Jay McBain: Remember, a million dollar partner is not a million dollar partner. One of them sells 1.2 million in our category. We should buy them a baseball cap and have ’em sit in the front row of our event. One of them sells $10 million and only sells our stuff if the customer asks. So my company should be looking at that $9 million opportunity and making sure my programs are writing the checks and my coverage. [00:52:48] Jay McBain: My capacity and capability planning is getting obsessed over that $9 million. My farmers can go over there, my hunters can go over here, and I should be submitting a list of a thousand sorted in descending order of opportunity. Of where my company can write program dollars into. [00:53:07] Vince Menzione: Great answer. All right. I, I do wanna be cognizant of time and the, all the other sessions we have. [00:53:14] Vince Menzione: So we’ll just take one other question if there are any here and if not, we’ll let I know. Jay, you’re gonna be mingling around for a little while before your flight. I’m [00:53:21] Jay McBain: here the whole day. [00:53:22] Vince Menzione: You, you’re the whole day. I see that Jay’s here the whole day. So if you have any other questions and, and, uh, sharing the deck is that. [00:53:29] Vince Menzione: Yep. Alright. We have permission to share the deck with the each of you as well. [00:53:34] Jay McBain: Alright, well thank you very much everyone. Jay. Great to have you.

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. AI agents are your next customers. Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this episode, Vince Menzione sits down with SHI leaders Joseph Bellian and Stefanie Dunn, alongside Microsoft's Marcus Jewett, to dissect SHI's massive evolution from a traditional Large Account Reseller (LAR) to a strategic Global Systems Integrator (GSI). They explore the cultural and operational shifts required to move from a transaction-heavy model to a services-led approach, highlighting their alignment with Microsoft's MSEM methodology, the implementation of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), and their cutting-edge work with AI Labs and Agentic AI. Key Takeaways SHI has evolved from a transactional powerhouse into a Global Systems Integrator (GSI) focused on services and outcomes. The organization implemented the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) to align vision, people, and data across sales and delivery. SHI serves as “Customer Zero” for Microsoft AI, implementing Copilot internally to better guide customers. The partnership mirrors Microsoft's MSEM methodology to ensure seamless co-selling and customer success lifecycles. SHI's AI Labs in New Jersey provides a secure environment for clients to build and test custom AI solutions. The shift requires moving from a “Hulk” (strength/sales) mindset to a “Tony Stark” (brainpower/strategy) mindset. Key Tags: SHI International, global systems integrator, Microsoft services, Joseph Bellian, Stefanie Dunn, Marcus Jewett, AI labs, agentic AI, MSEM methodology, entrepreneurial operating system, digital transformation, customer zero, copilot implementation, solution provider, cloud migration, data governance, services led growth. Ultimate Partner is the independent community for technology leaders navigating the tectonic shifts in cloud, AI, marketplaces, and co-selling. Through live events, UPX membership, advisory, and the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® podcast, we help organizations align with hyperscalers, accelerate growth, and achieve their greatest results through successful partnering. Transcript:Transcript: Joseph Bellian – Stefanie Dunn – Marcus Jewett WORKFILE AUDIO [00:00:00] Vince Menzione: We’ve got it. So it is interesting how these sessions kind of follow each other. Hopefully you’re seeing kind of a flow from marketplaces and the conversation about how to be a really great ISV to how an ISV took and built a channel strategy and how they integrated alliances and channels together. [00:00:16] Vince Menzione: Well, we have an, we have another really great example here to talk through. I have this, uh, incredible like background. Like I’m a hundred years old, basically. I don’t even want to tell anybody that. But, uh, I got to work with this organization way back in my days at Microsoft. They are, they were and are one of the top, I’ll call them, they were classically a reseller company. [00:00:40] Vince Menzione: They one of the largest, we call ’em large account resellers back in the day. Uh, their leader built a multi-billion dollar organization. I’m gonna let them talk through who they are today, but we have an opportunity to talk about transformation. From that lens now too, like how does an organization that’s really good at doing one thing evolve, transform and take advantage of these tectonic shifts we’re seeing? [00:01:03] Vince Menzione: So, uh, we’ve got some incredible leaders. I’m gonna have them come up on stage. And everybody introduced themselves from SHI and also from Microsoft. And we’re gonna have a really great conversation today. Great to have you. [00:01:26] Vince Menzione: So I’m gonna let, I’m gonna let you guys introduce yourselves because, uh, everybody knows you as DJ Marco Polo. So we’re gonna, we’ll start with you over in the far end, Marcus. Okay. Vince, I, [00:01:36] Marcus Jewett: I’ll try to be shy. [00:01:37] Vince Menzione: No, [00:01:37] Marcus Jewett: uh, hi everyone, my name is Marcus Jut, I am the Global Partner Development Manager for the SHI partnership. [00:01:43] Marcus Jewett: Uh, I have been overseeing this partnership for just under 12 years. Wow. So I have seen the evolutional journey of this partner and really proud of where they, uh, have matured their business and the partnership with Microsoft. [00:01:57] Stefanie Dunn: Thank you. Oh. [00:01:58] Marcus Jewett: Is there, is yours on? Oh, [00:02:00] Vince Menzione: mines [00:02:00] Stefanie Dunn: on. Hi, I am Stephanie Dunn, a director of Microsoft Services at SHI. [00:02:07] Stefanie Dunn: And it is an, it’s a pleasure to be here. It’s a pleasure to have Marcus as our PDM and, uh, Joe and Vince, uh, very, very happy to be here. Um, and I lead our Microsoft Services sales, uh, area. So across, uh, cloud AI business transformation and, uh. And, uh, data and ai. [00:02:28] Joseph Bellian: Great, great to have you, Stephanie. Thank you. [00:02:30] Joseph Bellian: Joe. Joe Bellion. I’m the VP of Microsoft Alliances and programs. Uh, I’ve been here at SHI for about eight months now, but been in and around the partner ecosystem for about a decade. Uh, I think of my organization of like kind of two aspects. So leading the charge around alliances, aligning our field sellers and specialists with Microsoft, as well as the, the programs backend incentives and operations. [00:02:51] Joseph Bellian: But, um, the real focus is driving the go to market strategy here at SHI. [00:02:55] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So great. So I started to allude to this earlier about like traditional, one of the top three or four companies actually. And we used to use the term, uh, LSP back in the day, or lar, we’ve got several iterations. Microsoft’s gone through several iterations of that name. [00:03:11] Vince Menzione: Marcus knows all of them probably by heart. Tell us what was the impetus to change the organization? Become more like a ser, a services led company as opposed to a transaction led organization? [00:03:21] Joseph Bellian: Yeah, absolutely. Throw one more acronym. SSP. SSP, that was another one. So, uh, solution provider. Um, but, uh, yeah, I, I’d say probably a couple things. [00:03:29] Joseph Bellian: Um, one, the big one, no news to anybody in the room and online as well. The shift with EAs, director of Microsoft, as well as, uh, the whole CSP hero motion. So we do recognize that opportunity, uh, to have services attached, to engage with our clients as well as our joint partnerships with Microsoft, uh, with services out in the field. [00:03:48] Joseph Bellian: Uh, the second one, probably the biggest one is our clients. Hearing out our clients that shift. Um, we’re talking about ai, ai, everything, AI services. Uh, we’re now in the whole era of agentic ai. What does that mean? How do you take advantage of those offerings? And so we recognize that, that our clients are spending millions of dollars with the Microsoft products, but how do you take advantage of that investment and maximize it in their environment? [00:04:13] Joseph Bellian: And so having services to help navigate those complex solutions, that’s where we’re, we’re leaning in. [00:04:18] Vince Menzione: So what did it take to change? Transformation doesn’t come easy. There’s mindset. There’s all these cultural changes that need to happen. From your perspective, both of your perspectives, what did it take internally for this change to happen? [00:04:31] Joseph Bellian: Yeah. Um, so if you, if you heard of the entrepreneurial operating system EOS Yes. And we’ve adopted that internally. Um, if you’re not familiar, it kind of comprises of six components. So vision, people, data, um, process. Issues and, um, uh, traction. So I apologize, that’s, uh, but take, take that model and put it into our business of what we did. [00:04:57] Joseph Bellian: Um, so two kind of twofold. One, moving our entire services practice organization under one, one operating rhythm, um, under Jordan Ello, our CTO. So pre-sales and delivery. So looking at that, the how we go to market with our services, single vision. Uh, single process. So it’s consistent as we’re engaging not only through our partners, but through our clients, but then also on the other side of the house, our Microsoft practice, having all of our resources under one roof so that it’s a single way we go to market. [00:05:28] Joseph Bellian: Aligning our go to market strategy, one-to-one with Microsoft. Why it, it does two things. One, it allows us to be very clear of how we are going to market to our clients, but it allows us to partner even better with our Microsoft counterparts. Yeah, when, when Microsoft, it’s always ever changing. You’re familiar, every six months to a year solution plays and the go-to-market strategy changes, uh, we’re there at the forefront in ensuring that we have our solutions mapped a hundred percent so that we can just co-sell together. [00:05:58] Joseph Bellian: Break down those walls. Let’s do more together. [00:06:00] Vince Menzione: And, uh, geographically you were sep, your teams were separated. You have a big operation in Texas. You also have a big New Jersey operation, which was where the company was founded, in fact. So I’d love to get the perspective on this, Marcus. From your perspective, like what did it do, what was it like before and what did it become? [00:06:17] Marcus Jewett: Oh yeah, let’s go back in the way back machine to 12 years ago. Um, it was a different partner, a different operating model, uh, in those early days. And this is really when we started to move customers from on-premises to more cloud-based subscription technologies. Uh, SHI was always just an incredible selling machine. [00:06:36] Marcus Jewett: If they could not do anything, they could always sell. And for any of you who are familiar with the Marvel movies, um. I, I, I, I use a reference internally with them. SHI was always like the Hulk root for strength. You know, you tell ’em to go sell something, Hulk Smash, they can knock that out. Well, as we really needed these partners to evolve and really help our customers with their technologies, whether it’s driving adoption, monthly active usage, consumption. [00:07:02] Marcus Jewett: We needed them to be more like Tony Stark, right? We needed the brain power, and so over the last, let’s call it five or six years, SHI has continued to invest in their Microsoft practice. They went from an organization that was really focused on management of EA acquisition of new Microsoft logo. To continuing to develop that muscle, but also investing in ways to help customers through their managed services, through their professional services. [00:07:28] Marcus Jewett: And it’s been a, a journey. Right? SHI is a large organization. For a long time they were Microsoft’s largest partner. And from a transactional build revenue perspective, and they still are in many ways, but we really needed them to demonstrate that they could help our, their customers, our shared customers take full advantage of all of the entitlements and the technology they, that they’ve purchased from us. [00:07:50] Marcus Jewett: And that’s really where the evolution has been with SHI when I first started, uh, this is like, God, 12 years ago, there were 20 people that were Microsoft centric resources that really were focused on. Customer acquisition and net new logos. And today that organization from a sales perspective is over 150 sellers. [00:08:09] Marcus Jewett: Wow. That are just focused on Microsoft. So that CSP, they, they fill the top of the funnel for services to help drive program utilization. And that’s not even talking about the dedicated services resources that works under Stephanie. So it’s been. An incredible journey. Microsoft has invested in SHI and in turn, SHI has invested into Microsoft. [00:08:31] Marcus Jewett: They’ve basically taken their approach in terms of how they go to market with Microsoft, and they’ve mirrored that almost like how Joe and I are wearing the same jacket. That’s really how they’ve aligned their, their go to market strategy, really making it a mirror where they take it. They’ve taken our Microsoft M methodology. [00:08:50] Marcus Jewett: And they’ve essentially adopted it and made it their own. So now when our sellers are talking with SHI sellers, they’re speaking the same language. [00:08:58] Vince Menzione: You’re teeing it up beautifully for your conversation with Stephanie here. Stephanie, I want to hear like how you’ve done all those things. ’cause it’s really your organization that’s focused on this, right? [00:09:06] Stefanie Dunn: Yeah, absolutely. So for us it’s all about shared outcomes. It we’re listening to the. Customer. We’re listening to Microsoft and we’ve really taken that to heart. Uh, the customer is at the center of every single thing that we do. I know all of us as partners. That’s really our vision, likely, and the reason why we’re here is our customers. [00:09:26] Stefanie Dunn: But really understanding how to take advantage of that partnership and build something incredible. And it is transformative. Uh, you know, we started as a licensing powerhouse, as Marcus alluded to, and now we’re going deep into services. So we’re aligning to co-sell motions. We’re aligning to the, the industries. [00:09:46] Stefanie Dunn: Uh, we’re creating marketplace offers. We’ve got our programs, uh, tied to all of our services offerings. And so when we look at the broader ecosystem, we see the vision of Microsoft. Uh, we’ve hired the right people, we’ve put the right processes into place, and we have the technology expertise in-house to really share. [00:10:08] Stefanie Dunn: In the journey with our customers and leading them. [00:10:11] Vince Menzione: And you know, you talk about like solution plays. You talked about industry. People don’t always recognize this when you talk to Microsoft sellers. They’re very focused on the industry they’re in, and you have to have those conversations that, this came up earlier, but we never got into this. [00:10:25] Vince Menzione: But you’re aligning your solution plays, you’re aligning your conversations to be very like healthcare and education, all those different markets, right? [00:10:32] Stefanie Dunn: We are. We are, which is very new for SHI in the services industry, and so you know, we’re taking our CSP plays. Um, our licensing plays and really saying, well, what can you do with that? [00:10:43] Stefanie Dunn: Right. You know, how can we advise you? And then we, we dig into the actual industry verticals to, to get tactical with them. You know, it’s, it’s about providing the strategy. It’s about providing the extra hands. They all need extra hands. They, you know, our, our customers need us. As an extension of their team. [00:11:01] Stefanie Dunn: And so for us it’s really important to dig into that and, and be, and be that, that listening ear and you know, that expert in the room for them, uh, from advisory standpoint. And so all of our se services sellers are advisors as well. They’re not selling a product, they’re not selling, uh, something individual. [00:11:19] Stefanie Dunn: We are selling to. Fill and fulfill their goals and business outcomes, which is extremely unique, I will say, because we do have that end to end. So it does start with the licensing. It starts with assessing what you really have, meeting with those advisors, and then putting together a roadmap to help them. [00:11:37] Stefanie Dunn: Understand. Okay, well this is what it’s gonna take to get you here. Here’s our, uh, we love reverse timelines at SHI and so, um, it’s d minus din and so this is where you wanna go and this is when you wanna get there. So this is how we’re gonna help you, uh, along that roadmap. [00:11:53] Vince Menzione: I am gonna put you on the spot here with m Sem. [00:11:55] Vince Menzione: ’cause I think Microsoft finally laid out a process a couple years ago for you to like line up to, ’cause you were doing one piece of it before. Do you want to talk about m how em plays in here and how SHI is leveraging it? [00:12:07] Marcus Jewett: Right. So, uh, across our SEM stages, there are five different stages, and this is the customer journey from these, you know, pre-sales, scoping, uh, engagements with customers all the way through delivery. [00:12:19] Marcus Jewett: And then of course, like that customer success lifecycle and managed services. Again, this was not a language or a way that SHI really approached their business. Again, it was very much like, let’s. Get the customer to purchase on an EA or let’s renew the customer. And then once that cycle was complete, then it, it was almost like adding fries. [00:12:38] Marcus Jewett: Would you like some services with your ea? Right. And, uh, it took a, it took a while, right? Some very, uh, difficult conversations, but we were able to find, finally get the right people in the room to make the right investments. And now when you think about how SHI goes to market, they don’t necessarily leverage the term SEM internally, but. [00:12:59] Marcus Jewett: All of their customer methodologies or their sales methodologies in terms of how they service their customers aligns perfectly. Even when we get into the descriptive part of building out our, uh, partner business plan, we did that across every stage of the M SEM methodology. So that we can ensure that the teams at SHI are in perfect alignment with the teams at Microsoft. [00:13:20] Marcus Jewett: So, uh, I’m, I’m really excited about how we’ve been able to mature the practice and how SHI is now 100% aligned with Microsoft across all of our solution areas, whether it’s. Security, you know, cloud and infrastructure or AI business solutions. There’s a very mirrored approach to how we support customers. [00:13:39] Marcus Jewett: Yeah. I want [00:13:40] Vince Menzione: to double click on the AI component. You know, we were up here earlier, Irwin and I were up here talking about being a frontier firm, and I’ll open it up to all, all of you to individually answer this. I know, Marcus, you have some insights here about the ai. You mentioned AI already. But also to Stephanie and Joe about how you’re taking AI and modern work and workplace and, and, and, and addressing this market specifically. [00:14:07] Vince Menzione: Where, where, where do we wanna start there? [00:14:09] Joseph Bellian: Yeah. One big one. Um, if you’re not familiar, we have ai, an AI labs, um, onsite, uh, lab, and based out of Jersey, one of our headquarters. So on the forefront of the AI technology, but the real focus there is being able to meet with our clients and obviously joint partnerships, um, to build and develop solutions safe, um, offline in a safe, secure environment. [00:14:33] Joseph Bellian: Because let’s be honest, I mean, ai, it’s moving fast and, and we, we, we need to ensure that our data’s secure. Um, and there’s a lot of risk out there. And so we are partnering, um, um, out there with Nvidia and other other providers, um, but specifically with Microsoft in the cloud, um, and securing that environment. [00:14:51] Joseph Bellian: So AI Labs, bringing our clients in, building custom solutions, the area of a jet AI’s here. It’s [00:14:57] Vince Menzione: there. It is here. Yeah, it is here, Stephanie. [00:15:00] Stefanie Dunn: Thank you. Yes, and I’ll just add, uh, for, for our customers, they need to make sure that their foundation is right. You know, they’re coming from maybe all different other clouds. [00:15:09] Stefanie Dunn: They’ve, you know, got multi-tenant really understanding what their structure looks like, and then. Creating that secure foundation. So we’ve got a lot, you know, we do a lot around, uh, just full M 365 migrations and then into understanding the identity and the security baseline under that, making sure that that’s correct. [00:15:29] Stefanie Dunn: And then we can start journeying into some of these other conversations. Data governance, data engineering, uh, all that is extremely important. We have an entire dedicated team, uh, within services sales. Pre-sales with essays or solution architects and delivery, uh, as well as just the project management. [00:15:48] Stefanie Dunn: And, and it’s just this full life cycle to understand where are you and we need to make sure that, that your structure’s built correctly or else it’s never gonna succeed. So a little bit, we take it back to the foundation level, I’ll just say from a customer, uh, engagement perspective to make sure that what they wanna do, they can do securely. [00:16:06] Marcus Jewett: Very cool. I, I’d like to add one other piece there. Um, you know, obviously to Joe’s point earlier, like if anyone says they know exactly what the AI journey will look like for most customers in six months, they’re probably not telling you the truth. Right? This is, we’re, we’re building the plane in the air. [00:16:22] Marcus Jewett: But, uh, one thing Microsoft has really built a foundation on is looking at our partners. And the ones who have adopted AI internally, especially Microsoft Technologies, and we call it Customer zero, right? Ensuring working with partners who have invested in their internal usage of Microsoft AI technology. [00:16:41] Marcus Jewett: So it’s all the various flavors of copilot. Rolling it out and implementing it across their organizations and building their own internal use cases, which they can go in turn and use to go help drive successful engagements with their end customers. So SHI has also been one of our, uh, brightest partners when it comes to that customer Zero journey. [00:17:01] Marcus Jewett: Uh, and it’s something I’m very, very proud of to see. Uh, we’re leveraging the, the use cases and the learnings our SHI is to really go out there and help customers navigate through their own. Uh, complexities of their AI journey as well. So, uh, my kudos to SHI as customer. Zero. Very proud of you and opera feels great. [00:17:20] Marcus Jewett: And you’re [00:17:20] Vince Menzione: providing support engineering, organ organization that supports this function? [00:17:24] Marcus Jewett: Oh, absolutely. As a globally managed partner, I mean, we’re, we’re gonna always be there to help our partners through the journey, right? So whether they need internal readiness or technical support, uh, whether it’s workshops, however we can help the partners best. [00:17:38] Marcus Jewett: Uh, position and posture themselves to go help customers with these, uh, AI engagements. Uh, we’re, we’re there to invest. Uh, we’ve invested in SHI for the last several years across, uh, ai, and we will continue to do so. [00:17:52] Vince Menzione: So what’s the message for the partner community, Joe, that, that, like, how should they perceive you? [00:17:57] Vince Menzione: How should they think about you? Should they, how should they think about engaging with you? Okay. [00:18:02] Joseph Bellian: Yeah, so I mean, obviously we’re an SSP, we’re never gonna, we’re never gonna, um, lose that, that accreditation with Microsoft. But the, the real focus of what we wanna be recognized as A-G-S-I-A global systems integrator, um, being able to engage our clients jointly, co-selling together and meeting them where they’re at across their digital journey. [00:18:21] Joseph Bellian: Uh, we have the capabilities to handle their licensing and understanding the complex matrix in their environment, their IT infrastructure. But being able to have a solution for every part of the journey of where they’re at, because every client’s in a different situation. Yeah. So, so in reality, it’s A-G-S-I-A global systems integrator, being able to engage across their journey. [00:18:42] Vince Menzione: So that’s a, did everybody hear that? ’cause I, I heard that for the first time. That’s a very different perception of the, of the previous organization and getting there. Uh, and you also, I remember this from the transactional side of the business. You were at the very type, at the top of the pyramid, right? [00:18:56] Vince Menzione: Yeah. You handled some of the largest corporations in the, in the world. Yeah. And you know companies as well as organizations like government, governmental organizations across different markets as well. [00:19:07] Joseph Bellian: Yep. A hundred percent. [00:19:08] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So GS. Yeah. [00:19:11] Marcus Jewett: And it’s really important to, for SHI to, to develop that GSI muscle. [00:19:15] Marcus Jewett: Uh, you mentioned at the beginning, Joe, that Microsoft, uh, we have various routes to market. Uh, one of those routes to market, uh, especially in the enterprise space or in our strategic space, is for customers to procure direct. Uh, SHI has longstanding relationships with those customers, and as these customers renew their agreements into a direct model with Microsoft, the way they stay engaged and add value to these prop, uh, to these customers is through their services, their professional services, their managed services. [00:19:42] Marcus Jewett: So going back to Joe’s Point around really defining themselves as a, uh, A GSI, that is also an SSP has been paramount to their overall transformational journey and their overall success. [00:19:55] Vince Menzione: And you also work, so I would assume you work with some of the ISVs in the room too. Yeah, I would think there’s some really great relationships or synergies. [00:20:01] Vince Menzione: Is that, is that an area of muscle you’ve been building out or, yeah, it’s battle, it’s an opportunity. [00:20:06] Joseph Bellian: I mean, I, I believe you have a segment coming up as well on it, um, around NPO. Um, and so there’s a, there’s a play in every motion from services, play services attached through ISVs, your SaaS offers. Um, we do recognize that that’s an opportunity. [00:20:18] Joseph Bellian: Uh, we’re having great success when you look at the marketplace, um, through the multi private party offers. Um, it allows us to expand our footprint and take, uh, take advantage of those relationships and co-sell together. So, absolutely. Wow. [00:20:30] Vince Menzione: Very cool. So you’re gonna be around most of the day today? Yes. I hope. [00:20:34] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. So for the partners that are in the room, I think that great conversations with both of you, Stephanie and Joe, and, uh, great conversation. Is there anything else we wanna share with everyone? [00:20:46] Marcus Jewett: Uh, no. It’s just, I would, I would leave you all with the fact that, again, uh, for every partner. Uh, make certain that you, you’re finding a way to differentiate yourself and tell your story. [00:20:57] Marcus Jewett: Uh, you may be doing some amazing work, uh, but if you’re not finding ways to, to tell that story and make certain your customers, and for me, Microsoft, make certain that, that the Microsoft teams you’re working with have very clear understanding of what your capabilities are today, then you may be missing the mark. [00:21:13] Marcus Jewett: I, I, I use this analogy all the time. Uh, the largest retailer on the planet. Who is it? Come on, help me out. I’m sorry. Largest retailer. Box Box. Walmart. Walmart, that’s right. You can turn on a television on any given day and you will still see a Walmart commercial. So yes, tell your story. Yes, very [00:21:34] Joseph Bellian: smart move. [00:21:34] Joseph Bellian: And one more, um, I just wanna make sure I land out there, is the success and where we go from here. Um, it’s this right here in the room. Um, us partnering together, bringing the partner ecosystem together. Um, in reality, we’re not competing together. We should be collaborating together and working together, um, in our client’s joint environments. [00:21:52] Joseph Bellian: Microsoft says it well, it’s that one Microsoft story. It’s that better together story and the more we can work together, the more success we’ll have together. [00:22:00] Vince Menzione: Awesome. I want to thank you so much for your sponsorship and for being here. Uh, big news here, I think it should be like on the front page of the partner ecosystem journal that you’re now, you’re now GSII think that that says quite, that says volumes to, to the community out there. [00:22:15] Joseph Bellian: Yeah. [00:22:15] Vince Menzione: Thank you. [00:22:15] Joseph Bellian: Absolutely. [00:22:16] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you both for joining us. So great to have you both. Thank you. Thank you, Marcus, to have you as well. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you very much Stephanie. So great. So great to spend time with you. Thank you. And this.

Straight from re:Invent 2025, technology leaders from C3 AI, nCino, New Relic and Vercel reveal learnings, best practices and predictions for the future of Agentic AI.Topics Include:Four technology executives introduce their companies' AI innovations in fintech, cloud, enterprise software, and observability.Vercel built agents for code reviews, infrastructure optimization, and across finance, sales, and support functions.C3.ai deploys enterprise AI applications from scratch to production in six months for Fortune 500s.New Relic provides observability for AI systems and built agents that resolve infrastructure issues in real-time.Vercel's agents improve code quality by incorporating security and framework best practices into AI-generated output.C3.ai partnered with Department of Defense to autonomously produce mission-critical intelligence assessment reports from data.Industry shifted from copilots everywhere to agents that actually own outcomes and land the plane.New Relic moved beyond natural language translation to agents that execute actions and resolve issues autonomously.Panel debates whether Model Context Protocol or broader ecosystem approaches better enable agent interoperability and communication.Autonomy requires accountability: agent decisions must be explainable with traceable steps and replay capabilities built-in.Governance and security should be prerequisites for acceleration, not impediments—a critical mental model shift needed.Many enterprises struggle with process bottlenecks preventing them from harnessing high-quality agents despite having technology.Financial services must carefully balance where human discretion remains essential versus where agent autonomy justified.Will Jung envisions deeply continuous context enabling banks to deliver truly personalized insights without appearing creepy.Suraj Krishnan predicts agents will own outcomes by 2026, coordinating tools and other agents to achieve goals.Participants:Panelist: Merel Witteveen, SVP of Operations, C3.aiPanelist: Will Jung, Chief Technology Officer, nCinoPanelist: Suraj Krishnan, GVP of Engineering, New RelicPanelist: Aparna Sinha, Senior Vice President, Product, VercelModerator: Olawale Oladehin, Managing Director, NAMER Technology Segments (Enterprise, ISV, DNB, and Model Providers), Amazon Web ServicesSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Agentforce is everywhere and everything but in speaking to many ISVs, they are still wondering when is the right time to lean into AI with more than just a story. Where in the hype cycle are we is something I wonder about a lot. So I set out to find an ISV that is actually succeeding in the Agentforce world and that journey led me to Igor Stosic, CEO of Quadrix Soft who make Goat Email on the AppExchange, as my next guest on How We Got There. They are actually selling the first Agentforce use cases for customers, which has to be making AEs covering those accounts VERY happy. Igor is based out of Serbia so we touch on the geographical benefits and challenges around being an ISV out of Europe. They've found a lot of success driving leads from the AppExchange from a gtm perspective. We touch on what has been working and mistakes made along the way, sharing transparent feedback about how to build an app that goes wide so you can know what works for customers and lean into those items.But then we dove into the main topic of Agentforce. We touched on various concepts like how they came up with the Agentforce use case, how they monetize the Agentforce element, and much more. A specific example a use case where they use Agentforce is variability of tone based on the location of the customer that you are interacting with - sending an email to someone in the US looks different from sending an email to someone in Germany.If you are curious about Agentforce, this episode is for you. This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors . Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, all things Data and AI, and the hyper scaler MSP cloud ecosystems with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond! #salesforce #isv #gtm #salesforcepartners #appexchange

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast. AI agents are your next customers. Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ Jen Odess, Group Vice President of Partner Excellence at ServiceNow, joins Vince Menzione to discuss the company’s incredible transformation from an IT ticketing solution to a leading AI-native platform for business transformation. Jen dives deep into how ServiceNow has strategically invested in and infused AI into its unified platform over the last decade, enabling over a billion workflows daily. She also outlines the critical role of the partner ecosystem, which executes 87% of all implementations, and reveals the company’s strategic initiatives, including its commitment to the hyperscaler marketplaces, the goal to hit half a billion dollars in annual contract value for its Now Assist AI product, and the push for partners to adopt an ‘AI-native’ methodology to capitalize on the fact that customers still want over 70% of AI buying to be done through partners. Key Takeaways ServiceNow is an ‘AI-native’ company, having invested in and built AI directly into its unified platform for over a decade. The company’s core value today is in its unified AI platform, single data model, and leadership in workflows that connect the entire enterprise. ServiceNow will hit $500 million in annual contract value for its Now Assist AI products by the end of 2025, making it the fastest-growing product in company history. An astonishing 87% of all ServiceNow implementations are done by its global partner ecosystem, highlighting their crucial role. The company is leveraging the half-trillion-dollar opportunity of durable cloud budgets by driving marketplace transactions and helping customers burn down cloud commits using ServiceNow solutions. To win in the AI era, partners must adopt AI internally, co-innovate on the platform, and strategically differentiate themselves to rank higher in the forthcoming agentic matching system. Key Tags: ServiceNow, AI-native platform, Now Assist, Jen Odess, partner excellence, workflow leader, AI platform for business transformation, hyperscalers, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, AWS, marketplace transactions, cloud commits, AIDA model, agentic matching, F-Pattern, Z-Pattern, group vice president, MSP, GSI, co-innovation, autonomous implementation, technical constraints, visual hierarchy, UX, UI, responsive design. Ultimate Partner is the independent community for technology leaders navigating the tectonic shifts in cloud, AI, marketplaces, and co-selling. Through live events, UPX membership, advisory, and the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® podcast, we help organizations align with hyperscalers, accelerate growth, and achieve their greatest results through successful partnering. Transcript: Jen Odess Audio Podcast [00:00:00] Jen Odess: The AI platform for business transformation, and I love to say to people, it sounds like a handful of cliche words that just got stacked together. The AI platform for business transformation. Yeah. We all know these words, so many companies use ’em, but it is such deliberate language and I love to explain why. [00:00:20] Vince Menzione: Welcome to, or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi on your host, and my mission is to help leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. Today we have a special leader, Jen Odes is the GVP for Partner Excellence at ServiceNow. And joins me here in the studio in Boca Raton. [00:00:40] Vince Menzione: Jen, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Vince. It’s so great to be here. I am so thrilled to welcome you. To Boca Raton, Florida. Our podcast home look at this amazing background we have Here is this, and this is where we host our ultimate partner Winter retreat. Actually, in February, we’re gonna give that a plug. [00:00:58] Vince Menzione: Okay. I’d love to have you come back. I’d love to have an invite. And you flew in this morning from Washington DC [00:01:04] Jen Odess: I did. It was 20 degrees when I left my house this morning and this backdrop. Is definitely giving me, island South Florida like vibes. It’s fabulous. [00:01:13] Vince Menzione: And we’re gonna talk about ServiceNow. [00:01:14] Vince Menzione: And you’re also opening an office down here? We [00:01:17] Jen Odess: are [00:01:17] Vince Menzione: in West Palm Beach. Not too far from where we are. Yes. Later 2026. Yeah. I love that. And then so we’ll work on the recruiting year, but let’s dive in. Okay. So thrilled to have ServiceNow and to have you in the room. This has been an incredible time for your organization. [00:01:31] Vince Menzione: I have been watching, obviously I work with Microsoft. We’ve had Google. In the studio, Amazon onboard as well. And other than those three organizations, I can’t think of any other legacy organization that has embraced AI more succinctly than ServiceNow. And I thought we’d start there, but I really wanna spend some time getting to know you and getting to know your role, your mission, and your journey to this incredible. [00:01:57] Vince Menzione: Leadership role as a global vice president. We’ll talk about Or [00:02:01] Jen Odess: group. Group Vice president. I know it doesn’t roll off the tongue. I get it. A group vice president doesn’t roll. [00:02:05] Vince Menzione: G-V-P-G-V-P doesn’t roll off the time. And in some organizations it is global. It is in other organizations, it’s group. So let’s, you’re not [00:02:12] Jen Odess: the first to say global vice president. [00:02:14] Jen Odess: Okay. I’ll take either way. It’s fine. [00:02:15] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Yeah. And might be a promotion. Let’s talk. Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about you and your career journey and your mission. [00:02:22] Jen Odess: Yeah, so I’ve been at ServiceNow for five years. In fact, January will be like the five year anniversary and then it will be the beginning of my sixth year. [00:02:31] Jen Odess: Amazing. And I actually got hired originally to build out the initial partner enablement function. So it didn’t really exist five years ago. There was certainly enablement that happened to Sure. All individuals that were. Using, consuming, buying ServiceNow, working with ServiceNow. But the partner enablement function from pre to post-sale, that whole life cycle didn’t exist yet. [00:02:54] Jen Odess: So that was my initial job. I got hired to run partner enablement and it before. And how big [00:02:59] Vince Menzione: was your partner organization at that point? It must have been pretty small. [00:03:01] Jen Odess: It was actually not as small as you would think. Gosh, that’s a great question. You’re challenging my memory from five years ago. [00:03:08] Jen Odess: I know that we’re over 2,500 partners today and we add hundreds every year, so it had to have been in the low one thousands. Wow. Is where we were five years ago. But the maturity of the ecosystem is grossly larger today than it was then. I can imagine. So back then there was less than 30,000 individuals that were skilled on ServiceNow to sell or solution or deliver. [00:03:34] Jen Odess: Today there’s almost a hundred thousand. Wow. So yeah that’s like the maturity in the capability within the ecosystem. But before I start on my ServiceNow and my group vice president. Which is a great role, by the way. Group Vice President. Yeah. Partner Excellence group. I’m very proud of it. [00:03:49] Jen Odess: But but let me tell you what brought me here, please. So I actually came from a partner, but not in the ServiceNow ecosystem. Okay. I won’t name the partner, but let’s just say it’s a competitor, a competitive ecosystem. And I worked for a services shop that today I would refer to as multinational. [00:04:11] Jen Odess: Kind of a boutique darling, but with over 1,500 consultants, so Okay. A behemoth as well? Yeah. Privately held. And we were a force to be reckoned with, and it was really fun. I held so many roles. I was a customer success manager. I led the data science practice at one point. I ran global alliances and partnerships. [00:04:35] Jen Odess: At one point I was the chief of staff to the CEO at the time that company was acquired. Big global si. And and then at one point I even spun off for the big global SI and helped run a culture initiative to transform co corporate culture. Wow. Very inside the whole organization. Wow. That is very, yeah. [00:04:54] Jen Odess: Really interesting set of roles. And the whole reason I came to ServiceNow is by the time I was concluding that journey in that ecosystem on the services side, I felt like. I didn’t fully understand what it meant to be on the software product side. And I often felt like I approached friction or moments of frustration and heartache with resentment for the software company. [00:05:20] Jen Odess: Sure. Or maybe just a lack of empathy for what they must be going through as well. It always felt like I was on the kind of [00:05:26] Vince Menzione: negative you were on the other side of the table. Totally. [00:05:27] Jen Odess: Yeah. And, or maybe like the redheaded stepchild kind of a concept as a partner. And so I sought out to. Learn more, which is probably a big piece of my journey is just constant curiosity. [00:05:38] Jen Odess: Nice. And I thought I think the thing I’m missing is seeing what it means firsthand to be on the software product side. And that was what led me to a career at ServiceNow. Five years strong. Yeah. So [00:05:50] Vince Menzione: talk about partner experience for those who don’t know what that means. [00:05:53] Jen Odess: Yeah. Today my role is partner excellence, but it used to be partner experience. [00:05:58] Jen Odess: Okay. And so the don’t. Yeah, that’s normal to say both things. And they actually mean two very different things. [00:06:04] Vince Menzione: Yeah, I would say so. [00:06:05] Jen Odess: And we deliberately changed the title about a year ago. So today, partner Excellence is about really ensuring that we build a vibrant AI led ecosystem. And that’s from the whole life cycle of the partner, from the day they choose to be a partner and onboard, and hopefully to the day they’re just. [00:06:23] Jen Odess: Thriving and growing like crazy, and then across the whole life cycle of the customer pre to post sale. So it’s, we are almost like the underpinning and the infras infrastructure. Someone once said it’s like we’re the insurance policy of all global partnerships and channels. That’s how we operate across global partnerships and channels and service Now. [00:06:42] Vince Menzione: And you have a very intimate relationship with those partners. We’re gonna dive in on that as well. Yes. But let’s talk about this time like no other. I talk about tectonic shifts at all of our events. People that listen to our podcasts know we talk about the acceleration of transformation, and it’s happening so fast. [00:06:58] Vince Menzione: It was happening fast even during COVID. But then. I’ll call this date or time period, the November 20, 22 time period when Chat GPT launched. Oh yeah. And that really changed the world in many respects, right? Yeah. Microsoft had already leaned in with chat, GPT, Google, we talked to Google about this. [00:07:17] Vince Menzione: Even having them in the room was like, they were caught flatfooted in a way, and they had a lot of the technology and they didn’t lean in. But it feels like ServiceNow was one of the first, certainly on the ISV side of the house and refer to the term ISV. Loosely, because hyperscalers are ISVs as well. [00:07:34] Vince Menzione: They were early to lean in and have leaned it in such a way from a business application perspective that I believe we haven’t seen embracing and infusing AI into your platform. I was hoping we could dive in a little bit on ServiceNow from a. Kinda legacy, what the organization was and is today. [00:07:56] Vince Menzione: And then also this infusion of AI into the platform. If you don’t mind, [00:07:59] Jen Odess: I love this topic. Okay. And I feel like it’s such a privilege to talk about ServiceNow on this topic because we really are a leader in the category. I’ll almost rewind back to over 20 years ago when the company was founded. [00:08:11] Jen Odess: Today, fast forward, we are so much more than an IT ticketing company. We are, [00:08:16] Vince Menzione: but that was the legacy. That’s how I knew service now 20 years ago. [00:08:19] Jen Odess: And what a beautiful legacy. Yeah. But we have expanded immensely beyond that. And that’s the beautiful story to tell customers. That’s so fun. [00:08:28] Jen Odess: But what what I love is that. So 20 years ago, that was where we started. And today, do you know that over a billion workflows are put to work every single day for our customers? A billion [00:08:38] Vince Menzione: workflows, over a billion workflows. That’s crazy. [00:08:40] Jen Odess: And 87% of all implementations for ServiceNow were done by partnerships. [00:08:46] Jen Odess: And channels. That’s fantastic. So you think about those billion plus workflows daily, all because of our partner ecosystem. This is my small plug. I’m just very proud 80, proud 86%. [00:08:56] Vince Menzione: Did you hear that? Part’s 86%. [00:08:57] Jen Odess: Amazing. And so that’s like what we’re, that’s what we’re a leader in the category. We are a leader in workflows categorically. [00:09:05] Jen Odess: But then over a decade ago, we started investing in ai. We started building it right into our platform, and this becomes the next kind of notch on our belt, which is we are a unified platform. Nothing is bolted on, nothing is just apid in. Yeah, it is a unified platform. So all of that AI that for the past decade we’ve been building in into our platform. [00:09:28] Jen Odess: Just in our AI platform, which is now what we are calling it, the AI platform. [00:09:34] Vince Menzione: And I would say that unless you were a startup starting up from scratch today and building on an LLM, we were building in a way I don’t think any other organization’s gonna actually state that [00:09:45] Jen Odess: what’s actually why we call ourselves AI native. [00:09:47] Jen Odess: Yeah, beca for that exact reason. And that’s who we’re competing with a lot these days, is the truly AI native startups where they didn’t have, the 20 years. Previously that we had, but that’s what makes us so unique in the situation, is that unified AI platform, a single data model that can connect to anything. [00:10:07] Jen Odess: And then the workflow leader. And when you put all those things together, AI plus data, plus workflows and that’s where the magic happens. Yeah. Across the enterprise. It’s pretty cool. [00:10:17] Vince Menzione: That is very cool. And you start thinking about, and we start talking about agent as a, as an example. Let’s talk about this for a second. [00:10:23] Vince Menzione: You, when what is this bolt-on, we could use the terms co-pilot, we could use Ag Agent ai, but they are generally bolted onto an existing application today. So take us through the 10 years and how it has become a portion or a significant portion. Of ServiceNow. [00:10:41] Jen Odess: When say the question a little bit more. [00:10:43] Jen Odess: Like when you say it’s, yeah, when which examples have bolted on? [00:10:47] Vince Menzione: So exa, we, what we see today is the hyperscalers coming out with their own solution sets, right? They’re taking and they’re offering it up to their ecosystem to infuse it into their product and portfolio. To me, those that look like bolted on in many respects, unless it’s an AI need as a native organization, a startup organization. [00:11:07] Vince Menzione: They’re mostly taking and re-engineering or bolting onto their existing solutions. [00:11:12] Jen Odess: I follow. Yeah. Thank you for giving me a little more context. So I call this our any problem. It’s like one of the best problems to have we can connect into. Anything, any cloud, any ai, any platform, any system, any data, any workflow, and that’s where any hyperscaler, and that’s the part that makes it so incredible. [00:11:32] Jen Odess: So your word is bolt on, and I use the word any the, any problem. Yeah. We’ve got this beautiful kind of stack visual that just, it’s like it just one on top of the other. Any. Any, and no one else can really say that. I gotta see [00:11:45] Vince Menzione: that visual. Yeah. Yeah. So talk about this a little bit more. So you’re uniquely positioned. [00:11:52] Vince Menzione: Let’s talk about how you position, you talked about being AI native. What does that imply and what does that mean in terms of the evolution of the platform? From ticketing to workflows to the business applications? What are the type of applications Yeah. Markets, industries that you’re starting to see. [00:12:08] Jen Odess: So I’ll actually answer this with, taking on a small, maybe marketing or positioning journey. So there was a time when our tagline would be The World Works with ServiceNow. There was a time when it was, we put AI to work for people and today and it, I think it was around Knowledge 2025, this came out. [00:12:28] Jen Odess: It was the AI platform for business transformation. And I love to say to people, it sounds like a handful of. Cliche words that just got stacked together. The AI platform for business transformation. Yeah. We all know these words, so many companies use ’em, but it is such deliberate language and I love to explain why. [00:12:46] Jen Odess: So the first is the AI platform is calling out that we are an AI native platform. We are a unified platform. It’s a chance to say all that goodness I already shared with you. Yeah. And the business transformation is actually telling the story of no longer being a solution. Point or no longer being an individual product that does X. [00:13:06] Jen Odess: It’s about saying. The ServiceNow platform can go north to south and east to west across your entire enterprise. Okay. Up and down the entire tech stack. Any. And then east to west, it can cut across the enterprise, the C-suite, the buying centers, all into one unified AI platform. With one data model. [00:13:26] Jen Odess: I love it. And so I love that AI platform for business transformation actually has so much purpose. [00:13:32] Vince Menzione: It does. So you’re going across the stack, so you’re going all the way from the bottom layer, all the way up to the top from the ue. Ui. And then you’re going across the organization, right? You’re going across the C-suite, you’re going across all the business functions of an organization. [00:13:46] Vince Menzione: Correct. And so the workflows are going across each of those business functions? [00:13:49] Jen Odess: Correct. And then our AI control tower is sitting at the very top, governing over all of it. [00:13:53] Vince Menzione: I love the control tower. [00:13:54] Jen Odess: I know the governance, security risk protocol, managing all the agents interoperability. Yeah. [00:14:01] Vince Menzione: And then data at the very bottom right. [00:14:03] Vince Menzione: Controlling all those elements and the governance of the data and the right, the cleanliness of the data and so on. Yeah. That’s incredible. I we could probably talk about business applications. I know one, in fact, I’ve had a person sit in this, your chair from we’ll call it a large GSIA very significant GSI one of the top five. [00:14:21] Vince Menzione: And they took ServiceNow and they applied it to their business partnering function. And they used, and we, you probably don’t know about this one, but I know that that’s a, an example of taking it and applying it all across all the workflows, across all the geographies of the organization and taking a lot of the process that was all done manually. [00:14:40] Vince Menzione: That was stove pipe business processes that were all stove piped and removing the stove pipe and making for a fluid organizational flow. [00:14:47] Jen Odess: And I’ll bet you the end user didn’t even realize ServiceNow was the backend. That’s some of the greatest examples actually. [00:14:53] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Yeah. So Jen, we work with all the hyperscalers. [00:14:56] Vince Menzione: We have a very strong relationship with Microsoft. Goes back many years, my back to my days at Microsoft and we’ve had Google in the room. We have AWS now as well. We bring them all together because we believe that partners work with, need to work with all three. And I know that you have had an interesting transformation at ServiceNow around the hyperscalers. [00:15:16] Vince Menzione: I was hoping you could dive in a little deeper with us. [00:15:19] Jen Odess: Yeah. We are so proud of our relationships with the hyperscalers, so the same three, so it’s Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and AWS. And really it’s it’s a strategic 360 partnership and our goal is really to drive marketplace transactions. [00:15:34] Jen Odess: So ServiceNow selling in all of their marketplaces and then. Burn down of our customers cloud commits. I love it. It’s really a beautiful story for our customers and for the hyperscalers and for ServiceNow. And so we’ve, it’s brand, it’s a brand new announcement from late in the year 2025. Love it. And we’re really excited about it. [00:15:51] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And then we, and we get all of the marketplace leaders in the room. So we’ve worked with all of those people. And one of the key points about this is there is over a half a trillion dollars in durable cloud budgets with customers that [00:16:08] Vince Menzione: Already committed to, I know, so that tam available, a half a trillion dollars is available to customers to burn down and utilize your solutions and professional services with partners as well in terms of driving a complete solution. [00:16:21] Jen Odess: That’s exactly the motion we’re pushing is to go and leverage those cloud commits to get on ServiceNow and in some cases, maybe even take out other products to go with ServiceNow and actually end up funding the transition to ServiceNow. Yeah. Yeah. [00:16:37] Vince Menzione: So you serve thousands of customers today, thousands of customers. [00:16:42] Vince Menzione: I can’t even. Fathom the exact number, but you have this partner ecosystem that you described, and their reach is even more incredible, like hundreds of thousands. Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about how you think about that, and then how do you drive the partner ecosystem in the right way to drive this partner excellence that you described. [00:17:02] Jen Odess: Yeah, that’s a great question. So yeah, thousands of ServiceNow customers and we’re barely scratching the surface in comparison to our partners customers. So we have over 2,500 partners Wow. In our ecosystem. And today they cut across what I would call five routes to market. That partners can go to market with ServiceNow. [00:17:21] Jen Odess: Okay. The first is consulting and implementation. This will be your classic kind of consulting shop or GSI approach. The second is resell, just like it sounds. Yep. [00:17:30] Vince Menzione: Transactional. [00:17:31] Jen Odess: Yep. The third is managed service provider. [00:17:33] Vince Menzione: Okay. [00:17:34] Jen Odess: The fourth is what we call build, which is. The ISV, strategic Tech partner realm, and then the fifth is hyperscaler. [00:17:43] Jen Odess: Those are the five routes to market. So partners can choose to be in one or all or two. It doesn’t matter. It’s whichever one fits the kind of business they want to go drive. Nice. Where they’re. Expertise lies. And then we’ve got partners that show up globally, partners that show up multinational and partners that show up regionally and then partners that show up locally, in country and that’s it. [00:18:06] Jen Odess: And we really want a diverse set of partners capable of delivering where any of our customers are. So it’s important that we have that dynamic ecosystem where we really push them. We’re actually trying hard to balance this. Yeah, you would’ve heard it from many of your other partners. This direct versus indirect. [00:18:24] Jen Odess: Yes. Motion. For anyone listening that doesn’t know the difference, right? Direct is ServiceNow is selling direct to a customer, there might be a partner involved influencing that will implement. Yeah, likely but ServiceNow is really driving the sale versus indirect where the whole thing routes through the partner. [00:18:39] Jen Odess: Right? Which is your classic reseller or managed service provider and often a an ISV. And you know that balance is never gonna be perfect ’cause we’re not gonna commit to go all direct or all indirect. We’re gonna continue to sit in this space where we’re trying to find a healthy balance. [00:18:56] Jen Odess: So I find a lot of our time trying to figure out how do you set all those parties up for success? Yeah. The parties are the ServiceNow field sellers? And then you’ve also got the partnerships and channels, so the ecosystem, and then you’ve got the people in global partnerships and channels. So my broader organization, and we’re all trying to figure out how to work harmoniously together and it’s a lot of, it is my job to get us there. [00:19:19] Jen Odess: And so we use lots of things like incentives and benefits and we will put in place gated entry, really strategic gated entry. What does [00:19:29] Vince Menzione: gated entry mean? [00:19:30] Jen Odess: Yeah. What I mean is if you want to have a chance at being matched with a customer Yeah. For a very specific deal. Or it’s really one of three to get matched. [00:19:41] Jen Odess: ‘Cause you can never match one-to-one. It has to be three or more. Okay. We have good compliance rules in place. Yeah. But in order to even. Like surface to the top of the list to be matched. There’s a gated entry, which is, you’ve gotta have validated practices. Okay. Which is how, it’s these various ways, as you described, you quantify and qualify the partner’s capabilities. [00:20:00] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So you have to meet these qualifications. Yes. And you could be one of three to enter and be. Potentially matched, considered significant or Yes. Match for this deal? [00:20:08] Jen Odess: Yes, that’s exactly right. So we use, various things like that. And then we try to carve what I would call dance card space reseller in commercial, try to sit here and like carve by geo, by region, by country dance card space as well to help the partners really know exactly where they can unleash versus, hey, this is the process and the rules of engagement. To go and sell alongside the direct org sales organization [00:20:33] Vince Menzione: and you’re gonna have multiple partners in the same opportunities. [00:20:37] Vince Menzione: Absolutely not. Not necessarily competing with each other. There’s three competing each with each other, but also you’re gonna have other partners that provide different capabilities as well. You might have that have some that are just transac. Those are gonna be those channel or reseller partners. [00:20:52] Vince Menzione: You might have an MSP that’s actually delivering, or at least providing some type of managed service on top of the stack. Like supporting the customer. Yeah. And then you might have an SI GSI an integration partner that’s also doing the con the consulting work around getting the solution to meet with the customer’s requirements. [00:21:12] Vince Menzione: Would you say [00:21:13] Jen Odess: so? That’s exactly right. Yeah. And actually in. AI era, we’re seeing more of it than ever. And even on the smaller deals, maybe not the GSIs on the smaller deals, but we’re seeing multiple partners come in to serve up their specific expertise, which is actually a best practice. That’s [00:21:33] Vince Menzione: terrific. [00:21:33] Jen Odess: We don’t want. If you’ve got an area that’s a blind spot and you’re a partner, but that’s something your customer is buying from you, there’s no harm in saying let’s bring in an expert in that category to deliver that piece of the business. That’s right. And we’ll maybe shadow and watch alongside. [00:21:46] Jen Odess: So we’re seeing more and more of it. And I actually think like the world of. Partnerships and ecosystems. If I go back to like my previous ecosystem as well, it’s become so much more communal than ever before. Yes. This idea that we can share and be more open and maybe even commiserate over the things, gosh, I can’t believe we have the same frustrations or we have the same. [00:22:09] Jen Odess: Wow, that’s amazing. And you’re in this country. And I’m in this country. And so we’re seeing more and more coming together on deals which I really respect a lot. ’cause So one of the new facts we’ve just learned actually, Vince, is that. Of all the ai buying that customers are doing out there, they actually still want over 70% of it to be done by partners. [00:22:32] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:22:33] Jen Odess: So even though it looks like it could be maybe set up easy configured, easy plug and play it. It to get, it’s not real ROI. You still need a partner with expertise in that industry or that domain, or in that location or in that language to come and bring the value to life. And we will certainly accelerate, help accelerate time to value with things that ServiceNow will do for our partners. [00:22:56] Jen Odess: But if over 70% is gonna go to partners and AI is so new, wouldn’t you want more than one partner Sometimes on a absolutely on a deal, at least while we’re all learning. I think we can keep ebbing and flowing [00:23:07] Vince Menzione: on this. We you, I dunno if Jay McBain, ’cause we’ve had him in the room here and he is a, he’s an analyst that does a lot of work around this topic. [00:23:14] Vince Menzione: And we talk about the seven seats at the table because there are, again, you need more you, first of all, you need to have your trusted, you need to have the organizations that you work with. And you also, in the world of ai, with all of the tectonic shifts, all the constant changing that’s going on right now, I need to make sure that I have the right. [00:23:31] Vince Menzione: People by my side that I can trust, they can help me deliver what I need to deliver. ’cause it might have changed from six months ago. And the technology is changing. Everything is changing so rapidly right now. So again, having all those right people I want to pick up on something ’cause we talked a little bit about MSPs and they’ve become a favorite topic of ours. [00:23:52] Vince Menzione: I have become acutely aware of the Ms P community recently. I kinda looked at them as well. There’s little small partners, but you’ve suggested this as well. They have regional expert, they have expertise in a specific area. And can be trusted, and maybe you’re integrating multiple solution sets for a customer. [00:24:11] Vince Menzione: But we’ve seen this MSP community become very vibrant lately, and I feel like they woke up to technology and to AI in such a big way. Can you comment on that? [00:24:20] Jen Odess: So we feel and see the same thing I’ve always valued what managed service providers bring to the table. It’s like that. [00:24:26] Jen Odess: Classic are you a transformation shop or are you a ta? The tail end or the run business shop? And so many partners are like we’re both, and I wanna be like, but are you? But now I feel like we finally are seeing the run business is so fruitful. So AI is innovating. All the time. [00:24:46] Jen Odess: We, we are innovating as a AI platform all the time. What used to be six month, every six months family releases of our software. Yeah. It became quarterly and now we’re practically seeing releases of new innovation every six to eight weeks. So why wouldn’t you want a managed service provider? Paying close attention to your whole instance on ServiceNow and taking into account all the latest innovation and building it into your existing instance, and then looking out for what new things you should be bringing in. [00:25:20] Jen Odess: So that’s the beauty of the, it’s almost partnerships, observing, and then suggesting how to keep. Doing better and more and better versus always jumping straight back to complete redesign and transformation. Yeah, and that’s one of the things I like about the MSPs in this space. [00:25:36] Vince Menzione: So let’s broaden out from this part of the conversation ’cause you’re giving specific guidance to the MSPs, but let’s think about this whole partner community. [00:25:43] Vince Menzione: And you’ve seen this transformation coming over to ServiceNow and even within ServiceNow these last five years. How do these organizations need to think differently? And how do they need to structure their services in this newent world? [00:25:58] Jen Odess: Great question. There’s really four things that I think they have to be thoughtful of. [00:26:02] Jen Odess: The first is maybe the most obvious they have to adopt AI as their own ways of doing work methodology. Delivery, whatever it is, because only through the, it’s not about taking out people in jobs, it’s about doing the job faster, right? It’s about getting the customer to value faster so that adoption of AI will make or break some partners. [00:26:24] Jen Odess: And our goal is that every partner comes on the other side of this AI journey, thriving and surviving. So we’re really pushing. This agenda. And maybe later I can talk to you a little bit more about this autonomous implementation concept. Please. ’cause I that will [00:26:37] Vince Menzione: resonate. So you’re saying they need to, we used to use the term eat their own dog food. [00:26:41] Vince Menzione: Now it’s drink your own champagne. Yeah. But they need to adopt it as well internally. [00:26:46] Jen Odess: Yeah. And I think whether they’re using, I hope they’re using ServiceNow as like a client, zero. To do some of that adoption. But there’s lots of other tools that are great AI tools that will make your job and your day-to-day life and the execution of that job easier. [00:26:59] Jen Odess: So we want them adopting all of that. The second is, we really need to see partners. Innovating on the ServiceNow platform. Yeah. And whether that’s building agents AI agents that go into the ServiceNow store, whether it’s building a really fantastic solution that we wanna joint jointly go to market with, or maybe it’s one of those embedded solutions you were commenting where the end user doesn’t even know that the backend, like a tax and audit solution that is actually just. [00:27:29] Jen Odess: The backend is all ServiceNow. Yeah. But that partner is going to market and selling it to all their customers. Exactly. So I think this co-innovation is gonna be a place that we will really win in market. The third is if a partner wants to stand out right now, they have to differentiate on paper too. [00:27:47] Jen Odess: It’s gotta like what does that mean? So if there’s 2,500 partners. And it’s not like we don’t walk around and just say, you should talk to this partner. Yeah. Or here’s my secret list. You should, we don’t do that. That’s not good business and it’s not compliant. So we have algorithms that take all the quantitative and qualitative data on our partners and they know all the data points ’cause it’s part of the partner program Nice. [00:28:10] Jen Odess: That they adhere to and then ranks them on status. And all those data points are what I’m referring to as on paper. You’ve gotta be differentiated. So whether or not you wanna be great at one thing or great across the whole thing, think about how all of those quantitative and qualitative data points are making you stand out, because that’s where those matches that I was referring to. [00:28:35] Jen Odess: Yes. That’s where that’s gonna come to life. And it’s skills, it’s capabilities. It’s deployments. So Proofpoint and deployments, customer success stories, csat, all the things. So [00:28:47] Vince Menzione: those are all the qualifi qualifiers for and more, but those are the types [00:28:49] Jen Odess: of qualifications. Yeah. [00:28:51] Vince Menzione: And then do your, does your sales organization do a match against that based on a customer’s requirements that they’re working with and who they work with and co-sell with? [00:29:00] Jen Odess: And I feel like you just lobbed me the greatest question. I didn’t even know you were gonna ask it, but I’m so glad you did. So today. Today there is something called a partner finder, which is which is nice, but it’s a little bit old school in a world of ai. Yeah. So you go to servicenow.com, you click partner from the top navigation, and then it says find a partner and you can literally type in the products you’re buying the country, you’re, that you’re headquartered out of. [00:29:26] Jen Odess: Whatever thing you’re looking for. And it will start to filter based on all those data points, the right partners, and you can actually click right there to be connected to a partner. So lead generation. Okay, interesting. But where we’re going is a agentic matching right in our CRM for the field. Oh. So those data points are gonna matter even more, and that’s where the gated. [00:29:48] Jen Odess: I say gated entry, which is probably too extreme, right? It’s really gated. If you wanna surface toward the top, there’s gated parameters to try to surface to the top, but those data points will feed the algorithm and it will genetically match right in our CRM for the field. Who are the best suited partners? [00:30:09] Jen Odess: Would you like to talk to them? [00:30:10] Vince Menzione: Okay. And so is it. Partner facing? Is it sales team facing [00:30:14] Jen Odess: Right now? It’s sales. It’ll, when it goes live, it will be sales team facing. Okay. But we have greater ambition for what partners can do with it. Yeah. Not just in the indirect motion, but also what partners may be able to do with it to interface with our field. [00:30:30] Jen Odess: The. [00:30:31] Vince Menzione: The, yeah the collaboration [00:30:33] Jen Odess: opportunity. Which is always a friction point that we’re working on [00:30:36] Vince Menzione: always because it’s very manual. It’s people intensive. Yeah. Partner development managers sitting on both sides of the equation and the interface between the sales organization and a partner organization is not always the. The easiest. So right. Automated, quite a bit of that. [00:30:49] Jen Odess: My boss is obsessed with the easy button, which I know is a phrase many of us in the US know from I think it’s an Office Depot, all these ways in which we can have easy button moments for the partner ecosystem is what we’re trying to focus on. [00:31:01] Jen Odess: I love the easy button. [00:31:02] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And I love your boss too. Yeah, he’s fabulous. Fabulous. So Michael and I go back like many years ago. You must have, [00:31:08] Jen Odess: yeah. You must have had paths crossing on numerous occasions. [00:31:12] Vince Menzione: Yeah we we worked together micro I’m going to hijack the session for a second here. [00:31:16] Vince Menzione: But when I first came to Microsoft, he was leading a, the se, a segment of the business, and he invited me to come to his event and interviewed me on stage at his event. [00:31:26] Jen Odess: No way. [00:31:26] Vince Menzione: And we got to know each other and yeah. So he was terrific. He was what a great find for, oh, he’s for service now. [00:31:32] Vince Menzione: He’s really [00:31:32] Jen Odess: has been a fantastic addition [00:31:34] Vince Menzione: to the global partnerships and channels team. And Michael, we have to have you on the podcast. Yes. Or cut down here in the studio at some point too with Jen and I. That’d be great. So this is terrific. We are getting it’s an incredible time. [00:31:44] Vince Menzione: It’s going so fast this time, 2022 was, seems like it was five, it feels like it was almost 10 years ago now. It wasn’t that we just started talking about it and you were implementing AI 10 years ago, but it wasn’t getting the attention that it’s getting today. And it really wasn’t until that moment that it really started to kick off in a way that everybody, yeah. It became pervasive overnight I would say. But now we’re starting 2026, like we’re at. This precipice of time and it’s continuing. I don’t even know what 2030 is gonna look like, right? So I’m a partner. [00:32:16] Vince Menzione: What are the one, two, or three things that I need to do now to win over and work with ServiceNow? [00:32:23] Jen Odess: One, two or three things? I’ll tell you the first thing. So today ServiceNow will end up hitting 500 million in annual contract value in our Now Assist, which is our AI products by the end of 2025, which is the fastest growing product in all of ServiceNow history. [00:32:37] Jen Odess: That’s one product that’s so there’s lots of SKUs. Yeah, but it is. It’s our AI product. Yeah. And it is, but yeah, because of all the various ways. [00:32:45] Vince Menzione: So half a billion dollars, [00:32:46] Jen Odess: half a billion by the end of 2025. And I think, someone’s gonna have to keep me honest here, but if memory serves me right, the first skews didn’t even launch until 2024. [00:32:54] Jen Odess: So we’re talking about wow, in a year it’s fast. Over 1,700 customers are live with our now assist products. Again, in a matter of, let’s call it over, a little over a year, 1,700 partners. So I think the first thing a partner needs to do is they’ve gotta get on this AI bandwagon, and they’ve gotta be selling and positioning AI use cases to their customers, because that’s the only way they’re gonna get. [00:33:20] Jen Odess: Experience and an opportunity to see what it feels like to deliver. So we have to do that. And I think you could sell a big use case like that big, we talked north, south, east, west, you could do that whole thing. Brilliant. But you could also start small. Go pick a single use case. Like a really simple example of something you wanna, some work you wanna drive productivity on. [00:33:41] Jen Odess: Yeah. And make sure you’ve got multiple stakeholders that love it and then go drive proving that use case. That’s what we’re telling a lot of partners. That’s the first thing. The second is they have got to build skills on AI and they have to keep up with it. And so we’re trying to really think about our broader learning and development team at ServiceNow is just next level. [00:34:00] Jen Odess: And they’re really re-imagining how to have more real time bite size. Training and enablement that will help individuals keep up with that pace of innovation. So individuals have got to get skilled. Yes. On AI today, of that a hundred thousand or so individuals in the ecosystem right now, about 35% of those individuals hold one or more AI credential. [00:34:25] Jen Odess: Again, that’s in a little over a year, which is the fastest growing skill development we’ve ever had, but it should be a hundred percent. Yeah. All of our goals should be that every account is being sold ai. ’cause that’s where the customer’s gonna get to value a ServiceNow is if they have the AI capabilities. [00:34:40] Jen Odess: And [00:34:41] Vince Menzione: how are you providing enablement and training? Is it all online? It’s, we have [00:34:44] Jen Odess: all sorts of ways of doing it. So that we have ServiceNow University, which is just a really robust, learning platform. Elba is our professor in residence. Very cool. Which is very cool. And they’re all content. [00:34:57] Jen Odess: Is free to partners. The training is free to partners that is on demand. Beyond that, partners can still get, instructor led training, whether that’s in person or virtual. And then my team offers enablement. That’s a little bit more, it’s like not formal training, it’s more like hands-on labs and experiences. [00:35:17] Jen Odess: We bring in lots of groups that sit around me that help and we very cool hands on with partners face-to-face. And do you do an annual event where you bring all these partners together? No, because we do we have three major milestones a year for partners. So the first is at sales kickoff, which is coming up the third week in January. [00:35:33] Jen Odess: And alongside sales kickoff is partner kickoff. Okay. And so we do a whole day of enabling them. So that’s your [00:35:39] Vince Menzione: partner kickoff? [00:35:40] Jen Odess: That’s partner kickoff. But of the, of all the partners in the ecosystem, it’s not like they can all make it. So we still also record and then live stream some of the content there. [00:35:49] Jen Odess: Then at Knowledge, there’s a whole partner track at Knowledge and same concept. Yeah, it’s like it’s all about customers and we wanna, build as much pipeline and wow as many customers as possible, but we also need to help our partners come along the journey. Then the third and final moment is in September, always, and it’s called our Global Partner Ecosystem Summit. [00:36:08] Jen Odess: We should have you, I’d love to join this next year. I love that. And it’s really, that’s the one time if sales kickoff is all about the sales motion in the field and knowledge is all about the customers and getting customers value. Global Partner Ecosystem Summit is only about the partners, what they need, why they need it, and what we’re doing to make their lives easier. [00:36:28] Jen Odess: I love it. Yeah. I’ll be there September. I love it. Dates yet set yet? I have to, it’s getting locked. I’ll get it to you. [00:36:34] Vince Menzione: Okay. All right. I’ll, we’ll be there. Okay. So you’ve been incredible. I just love having you. We could spend hours, honestly, and I want to have you back here. I’d love to, I have you back for a more meaningful conversation with the hyperscalers. [00:36:45] Vince Menzione: Talk to some of the partners that join us at Ultimate Partner events. We’ll find a way to do that, but I have this one question. It’s a favorite question of mine, and I love to ask all my guests this. Okay. You’re hosting a dinner party. And you could host a dinner party anywhere in the world. We could talk about great locations and where your favorite places are, and you can invite any three guests from the present or the past to this amazing dinner party. [00:37:11] Vince Menzione: We had one guest who wanted to do them in the future, like three people that hadn’t reached a future date. Whom would you invite Jen and why? [00:37:21] Jen Odess: Oh, first of all, you’re hitting home for me because I love to host dinner parties. I actually used to have a catering company. This is like one of those weird facts that, we didn’t talk about my pre services and ecosystem days, but I also had a catering company, so I love cooking and hosting dinner parties. [00:37:38] Jen Odess: So this is a great question. I feel like it’s a loaded question and I have to say my spouse. I love my husband dearly, but I have. To invite Lee to my dinner party. Okay. He’s in [00:37:47] Vince Menzione: Lee’s guest number one. Lee’s [00:37:49] Jen Odess: guest, number one. And the reason why is, first of all, I love him dearly, but he’s super interesting and he has such thought provoking topics to, to discuss and ways of viewing the world. [00:38:00] Jen Odess: He’s actually in security tech, so it’s like a tangential space, but not the same. [00:38:05] Vince Menzione: Yeah. But an important space right now, especially. Yeah. And [00:38:07] Jen Odess: he, yeah. And he’s, he’s just a delight to be around. So he’d be number one. Number two would be Frank Lloyd Wright. [00:38:15] Vince Menzione: Frank. Lloyd Wright. [00:38:17] Jen Odess: Yeah. I am an architecture and design junkie. [00:38:21] Jen Odess: Maybe I don’t do any of it myself, though. I dabble with friends that do it, and I try to apply it to my home life when I can. And Frank Lloyd Wright sort of embodies some of my favorite. Components of any kind of environment that you are experiencing, whether it’s a home or it’s an office building or it’s an outdoor space. [00:38:39] Jen Odess: I love the idea of minimalism and simplicity. I love the idea of monochromatic colors. I love the idea of spaces that can be used for multipurpose. And then I love the idea of the outside being in and the inside being out. I love it. So I would like love to pick his brain on some of his, how he came up with some of his ideas. [00:38:59] Jen Odess: Fascinating for some of his greatest. Yeah. Designs. Okay. That’s number two. Number three, I think it would be Pharrell Williams. Really? Yeah, I, Pharrell Williams. Yeah. I love fashion music and all things creativity. He’s got that, Annie’s philanthropic. He’s just yeah. The whole package of a good person. [00:39:26] Jen Odess: That’s super interesting and I very cool. I would love to pick his brain on what it was like to be behind the scenes on some of the fashion lines he’s collaborated with on some of his music collabs he’s had, and then just some of the work he’s doing around philanthropy. I would. I could just spend all night probably listening to him. [00:39:43] Jen Odess: This would be a [00:39:44] Vince Menzione: really cool conversation night. [00:39:45] Jen Odess: Don’t you wanna come to my dinner? Was gonna say, I’m sorry I didn’t invite you to identify. No [00:39:49] Vince Menzione: I was, can I bring dessert? [00:39:50] Jen Odess: Yeah. I come [00:39:50] Vince Menzione: for dessert. I, but it can’t, [00:39:51] Jen Odess: it has to be like a chocolate dessert. It’s gotta have [00:39:54] Vince Menzione: I love chocolate dessert. [00:39:55] Vince Menzione: Okay, great. So it would not be a problem for me, Jen. This is terrific. You have been absolutely amazing. So great to have you come here. Yeah. Such a busy time of year to have you make the trip here to Boca. We will have you back in the studio. I promise that I’ll have you back on stage. Stage. [00:40:10] Jen Odess: This is beautiful. [00:40:10] Jen Odess: Look at it. Yeah. This is [00:40:11] Vince Menzione: beautiful. And we transformed this into, to a room, basically a conference room. And then we also have our ultimate partner events. I would love to come, we would love to have you join us. Like I said, ServiceNow is such an impactful time. Your leadership in this segment market, and I wouldn’t say segment across all of AI in terms of all the use cases of AI is just so meaningful, especially for within the enterprise. [00:40:33] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Right now. So just really a jogger nut right now within the industry. So great to have you and have ServiceNow join us. So Jen, thank you so much for joining us. [00:40:42] Jen Odess: Thanks Vince. Appreciate the time. It’s a pleasure to be here. [00:40:44] Vince Menzione: Thank you very much. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Ultimate Eye to Partnering. [00:40:50] Vince Menzione: We’re bringing these episodes to you to help you level up your strategy. If you haven’t yet, now’s the time to take action and think about joining our community. We created a unique place, UPX or Ultimate partner experience. It’s more than a community. It’s your competitive edge with insider insights, real-time education, and direct access to people who are driving the ecosystem forward. [00:41:16] Vince Menzione: UPX helps you get results. And we’re just getting started as we’re taking this studio. And we’ll be hosting live stream and digital events here, including our January live stream, the Boca Winter Retreat, and more to come. So visit our website, the ultimate partner.com to learn more and join us. Now’s the time to take your partnerships to the next level.

Matt Yanchyshyn, AWS Marketplace and Partner Services VP, reveals how AI agents are transforming enterprises worldwide while Atlassian and Netskope leaders share strategies for scaling up Agentic AI marketplace deals.Topics Include:Matt Yanchyshyn of AWS opens with massive shift to multi-agent production systemsEnterprise software seeing huge AI adoption: 33% will include AI by year endAutomated agents now handle Matt's daily workflow, prioritizing emails and messages autonomouslyReal business transformation across financial reporting, demand forecasting, and automated incident managementAWS Marketplace team productivity up 31%, deploying software 27% faster with agentsNew agent mode for Marketplace uses autonomous data collection improving customer experiencesSuccess requires proper data governance with fine-grained access controls for safe operationsQ Developer and Qiro CLI integrate seamlessly into developer workflows without disruptionAWS maintains 400+ MCP servers, shared spec farms enabling teams to collaborate effectivelyEmbedded experts and principal engineers spread agent knowledge and measure productivity closelyAndy Horwitz notes security leads Marketplace growth, primarily through private offer expansionNetskope's new DSPM product addresses AI data security, driving strong customer adoption momentumEnterprise customers now ask if vendors are AWS badged, deals 41-58% largerAndy advises ISVs: prepare sales teams thoroughly, focus co-sell, secure executive buy-inBill Hustad emphasizes distinct marketplace strategy, seller training, and ruthless operational tracking for successParticipants:Bill Hustad - Global Head of Channel and GTM Ecosystems, AtlassianAndy Horwitz – SVP, Global Partner Ecosystems, NetskopeMatt Yanchyshyn – VP, AWS Marketplace & Partner Services, Amazon Web ServicesSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

In this Cloud Wars Live podcast, Bob Evans sits down with Hayete Gallot, President, Google Cloud Customer Experience, to explore how Google Cloud is helping enterprises move from AI experimentation to true business transformation. Gallot describes how her organization unifies engineering, consulting, partners, and learning to accelerate time-to-value and scale agentic AI across every function. Together, they dive into Gemini Enterprise, customer successes like Virgin Voyages, and why human-centered change is the real key to AI's future.The AI Turning PointThe Big Themes:Customer Experience Built for the AI Era: Google Cloud created a new Customer Experience organization, led by Hayete Gallot, to match the speed and complexity of AI-driven transformation. Instead of treating AI as a pure technology play, the team unifies industry and solutions experts, customer engineers, consulting, partners, and learning into one group that supports the full innovation lifecycle. That means they can help customers go from idea to minimum viable product to production in a consistent, repeatable way.Ecosystem, Partners, and Curated AI Solutions: Google Cloud's ecosystem strategy is central to scaling AI transformation. Gallot describes deep investment in system integrators — not just training them on technology, but sharing methodologies and scenario-based approaches so they can guide customers toward the right AI choices. At the same time, Google Cloud works with top ISVs to embed AI into their solutions and create compatible protocols for multi-agent experiences.Structuring Tech Teams for Agentic Transformation: AI's rise is forcing technology organizations to evolve. Gallot notes that CTOs and CIOs are asking how to restructure their teams for an “agentic” world. The demand is no longer just for deep technical skills, but also people who understand user experience, behavior, and business workflows. Technology teams are increasingly expected to co-design scenarios with business leaders, not just implement requirements. Looking ahead to 2026, Gallot sees the priority as scaling agentic transformation across divisions.The Big Quote: "Customers are much more mature on AI … When you meet with them, they're [asking] what's in it for me? What am I going to get? When am I going to get it? How do I scale this? They want production, and they want outcome." Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Payments shouldn't break just because a card changes. We sat down with leaders from NMI, G+D and Mastercard to unpack how network tokenization has moved far beyond basic security to become the backbone of higher approvals, fewer chargebacks, and smoother recurring billing. If you care about conversion, fraud, and customer lifetime value, this conversation goes straight to the signal.Tiffany Johnson, CPO at NMI, Mark Van Horn, Digital Solution Lead, North America at G+D and Ryan Francis, Vice President, Digital Product at Mastercard start the episode by clarifying what network tokens are and how they differ from traditional vault tokens, then dig into the metrics that matter: consistent 3–6 percentage point authorization uplift, real-world portfolio wins that stretch even higher, and measurable savings from reduced retries and smarter routing. You'll hear how merchant-bound and device-bound tokens give issuers reliable context, why lifecycle management keeps subscriptions uninterrupted, and how those improvements cascade into lower operational costs and stronger retention.From there, we look ahead. Tokens are becoming the default for card-not-present payments and will extend into open banking and account-to-account flows. With AI on the rise and agentic commerce coming into view, tokens provide portable trust - binding identity, device, and permissions so agents can transact safely on our behalf. The guests share how G+D and NMI make token adoption turnkey for ISVs and platforms, and how Mastercard is scaling token rails to power seamless, intelligent commerce.If you're an ISV, platform, or merchant seeking higher approval rates and lower fraud without adding friction, this is your blueprint. 

In today's podcast, John Siefert sits down with Magnus Perri, CEO, elevaite365 Test Automation, and Michael Catterall, Product Lead, elevaite365 Test Automation, to unpack how AI is redefining testing in Dynamics 365 projects. They discuss why manual testing overwhelms business users, how elevaite365 Test Automation's platform automates and adapts with AI, and how a community-driven script library accelerates implementation. It's test automation built for real-world complexity and speed.AI Testing, Real ResultsThe Big Themes:Testing Stress: Perri points out a systemic flaw in ERP and Dynamics 365 implementations: the burden of testing often lands on business users whose primary roles have nothing to do with quality assurance. This leads to rushed efforts, incomplete coverage, and high error rates. The fundamental issue isn't lack of diligence, it's misalignment. Elevaite365 Test Automation directly addresses this by reducing or eliminating the need for manual testing.Insight and Resilience Layers: Catterall describes how elevaite365 Test Automation's platform doesn't just mimic human testers, it enhances them. Once a user records a business process, the system converts it into a reusable, repeatable automated test. But what sets elevaite365 Test Automation apart is what happens next: It adds AI-powered layers that detect anomalies like incorrect field values, unexpected pop-ups, and subtle error messages that human testers often miss. This isn't basic scripting, it's intelligent validation that keeps evolving.AI Testing Brings Measurable ROI: While much of the conversation covered process pain and automation theory, the real value becomes evident in customer results. Elevaite365 Test Automation isn't just a nice-to-have, it delivers real ROI. Customers using the platform have reduced their testing cycles from weeks to hours, lowered defect rates in production, and significantly cut the manpower required for UAT (User Acceptance Testing). Because the tool is embedded in real Dynamics 365 workflows, it provides test coverage for processes that actually matter like purchasing, invoicing, inventory, and more.The Big Quote: "Testing is always falling onto the business users, not IT department ... so you go into testing and you're stressed, you have a lot to do. You're thinking about talking to the next supplier, and while you're doing that, you work through the testing as fast as you can, and you might miss stuff." Visit Cloud Wars for more.

On this episode of How We Got There, I am joined again by Jason Hoult, the Founder and former CEO of Anvil App Works who was acquired by Tractor Zoom in 12/2023, for part 2! If you missed it, give our first episode together from July 2023 a listen. It was an excellent episode where we talked about a wide range of topics, but my highlight was his approach to company building & nailing a niche. You don't have to start a business that is a massive multi-trillion TAM. Jason got great advice to stick with what he knows well, Salesforce & John Deere dealerships. You can later expand from there, like they did to expand other types of dealerships.On this episode, we look back into how he met their acquirer, initially at an event that both companies were sponsoring. Talk about an ROI from sponsoring a trade show!Jason shares openly about the courting process but also talks about how the partner relationship started with a formal partnership & co-marketing agreement. This enabled both teams to lean in and prove the mutual customer value before taking the next steps. We talked about how he knew it made sense to sell from a timing pov and lessons learned to help you avoid a couple mistakes (like some paperwork with customer agreements). Jason is a true believer of EOS to help align a company on strategy & values.He is such an asset to the ecosystem with his transparency & authenticity. I hope you enjoy this session even half as much as I did. This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors . Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, all things Data and AI, and the hyper scaler MSP cloud ecosystems with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond! 

On this episode of How We Got There, I am joined by Rey Perera who is the Co-Founder and CEO of Gridmate. He shares his story as moving from an SDR to an enterprise AE at another Salesforce ISV before jumping into co-founding Gridmate along Hicham El Mansouri. Rey talks about how they build a business with diversity as if you look at their team, they are located all across the world and come from a number of cultural backgrounds. It helps deliver outstanding customer support that is clear to see in their AppEx reviews. I met Rey years ago but you will see him and his team at many of the Salesforce events around the world. We discuss how they decide on which events to sponsor and the ROI around them from a sales and marketing pov. It's not all about direct ROI when considering which Dreamin, World Tour/Agentforce, and Dreamforce events to sponsor. Their investment in the ecosystem goes deep, working with their team to take at least 3 certifications (that are fully paid and incentivized!) per year to help them in their work and their careers. This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors . Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, all things Data and AI, and the hyper scaler MSP cloud ecosystems with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond! 

On this episode of How We Got There, I am joined by Alex MacKay, Executive Chairman & Co-Founder of Tequity Advisors. He shares his start in CRM when running Siebel Canada and found his way into sell-side advisory for M&A at Tequity, with deep experience in the Salesforce ecosystem with 28 companies and counting.*If you are at Dreamforce next week, make sure to reach out to Alex or Mahnoor Naeem if you will be there too*They take a long-term view of the relationship, oftentimes getting to know a company over a period of 2-3 years to help them get ready to sell. They help demystify the journey, even serving as an informal board member in many cases.We talk a bit about lessons learned and Alex shares his advice at various stages of an ISV's journey from first customers, to a couple million in ARR, to scale.  He talks about the importance for entrepreneurs to roll out a management operating system, like EOS, to help set the business up for growth. Alex shares his advice for early-stage ISVs around speaking with customers in their language, not about your product!This episode is brought to you by Tequity Advisors . Tequity Advisors is a global sell-side M&A advisory firm with core expertise in SaaS and ISVs, Salesforce, ServiceNow, SAP, Microsoft, all things Data and AI, and the hyper scaler MSP cloud ecosystems with a focus on the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond! 

Ruston Miles, Founder and Chief Strategy and Development Officer at Bluefin and I start with the origin story: telecom roots, fiber‑rich Tulsa, and the overlooked reality of call centers that needed real‑time authorizations long before shopping carts ruled the web. Ruston explains why Bluefin moved into security early - serving higher ed, nonprofits, and faith‑based media where brand trust is everything and how that path led to P2PE. Then comes the turning point: a decision to decouple encryption from acquiring, offer P2PE as a service, and even power competitors. That platform approach now supports around 150 devices across 17 manufacturers and underpins airlines, transport systems, fuel networks, and more, often quietly and often by requirement.From there, we look ahead. Network tokens are rising, wallets are changing, and AI is pushing commerce from clicks to intent. Ruston separates hype from reality, showing how today's “agentic” automation schedules deliveries and completes checkouts, while tomorrow's agents will present payment credentials securely without platforms ever seeing raw card data. That shift demands virtual P2PE, inter‑agent boundary mediation, and standards that let authentication and encryption travel with the transaction. We also get practical: how Bluefin's P2PE‑as‑Proxy reduces integration pain, why security must keep pace with innovation, and what skills newcomers need as software continues to digest payments.If you care about payments security, PCI, P2PE, tokenization, gateways, ISVs, and the future of agentic commerce, you'll find plenty to take back to your roadmap. 

In the final episode of Powering Payments Together: How Payroc Helps ISVs Scale Smarter, we turn the spotlight on CenterEdge Software and their journey to building a payments program that drives real business value. Leslie Legel, Director of Payments at CenterEdge, joins the conversation to share how Payroc has become a trusted partner in helping them overcome challenges, strengthen their platform, and deliver a seamless experience for their clients.Leslie explains why payments are mission-critical for family entertainment centers, where more than 90 percent of transactions are digital and downtime isn't an option. From July 4th waterparks to cashless operations, reliability isn't just a nice-to-have—it's the foundation of customer satisfaction. She reflects on a tough lesson learned when a gateway integration didn't meet expectations, and how those setbacks ultimately led CenterEdge to develop a more reliable and scalable payments strategy.The episode also explores how CenterEdge built and branded “CenterEdge Payments,” giving them control over the customer journey and creating a more transparent, feature-rich solution for their clients. Leslie shares how Payroc stood out as a partner, not just for their technology and APIs, but for their willingness to understand CenterEdge's business, answer tough questions, and provide the tools and flexibility needed to scale.Finally, Leslie offers advice to ISVs navigating the high-stakes world of payments: do your homework, know your limitations, and find a partner who is as invested in your success as you are. Looking ahead, she discusses how CenterEdge and Payroc will continue to grow together, exploring new solutions and opportunities to strengthen their offering in the family entertainment space.

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In Episode 143 of “The Trusted Advisor,” RSPA CEO Jim Roddy sits down with Ansley Hoke, Senior Vice President of the Integrated Solutions Group at ScanSource, to discuss “stickier” solutions that VARs and ISVs can offer to merchants. Among the topics discussed are connected devices, IT aggregation, AI, and mobile device management. Hoke also shares insights into her leadership journey including how leaders need to understand “the power of pause.” “The Trusted Advisor,” powered by the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA), is an award-winning content series designed specifically for retail IT VARs and software providers. Our goal is to educate you on the topics of leadership, management, hiring, sales, and other small business best practices. For more insights, visit the RSPA blog at www.GoRSPA.org. The RSPA is North America's largest community of VARs, software providers, vendors, and distributors in the retail, restaurant, grocery, and cannabis verticals. The mission of the RSPA is to accelerate the success of its members in the retail technology ecosystem by providing knowledge and connections. The organization offers member-to-member warm introductions, education, legal advice, industry advocacy, and other services to assist members with becoming and remaining successful. RSPA is most well-known for its signature events, RetailNOW and Inspire, which provide face-to-face learning and networking opportunities. Learn more by visiting www.GoRSPA.org.

In this revealing conversation with Conn Byrne, Executive Director of Integrated Payments at Payroc, we uncover the secret sauce behind their remarkably successful ISV program.Having fallen into payments during a six-week temporary position that turned into a 14-year career, Byrne brings a wealth of experience from his journey with WorldNet (acquired by Payroc in 2022) to his current role leading integrated partnerships. His perspective reveals why payment integrations fail when they focus solely on revenue shares rather than comprehensive support."My team is pretty wide at this stage," Byrne explains, describing how Payroc surrounds partners with experienced business development resources, highly skilled sales engineers, integration engineers, and their newest differentiator - a dedicated go-to-market team. This collaborative, high-touch approach means partners never wonder where to turn when challenges arise or opportunities emerge.The conversation explores how Payroc has built a truly omnichannel solution supporting over 50 payment terminals alongside comprehensive card-not-present options. Byrne illustrates this advantage through compelling examples like car wash operations, where a single integration handles everything from license plate recognition with tokenized payments to unattended terminals, mobile POS, and subscription billing.Looking forward, Payroc continues expanding its capabilities through their cloud integration method (allowing implementation in under a week), enhanced API suite, and expanded hardware support - particularly for Android devices and unattended solutions. The company's flexible partnership models create multiple entry points for ISVs at different growth stages.The most telling insight? When Payroc recently gathered their largest partners for an advisory council, the recurring themes weren't about technology or pricing - they were about trust, flexibility, and the journey they'd shared together. Some partners who began with small referrals 7-10 years ago have grown alongside Payroc into sophisticated payment operations.

Integrated payments are reshaping the industry, but success looks very different depending on whether you're an ISV or an ISO. This week, James Shepherd sits down with Ashley Willson, a consultant who works with both software companies and ISOs, to share her unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities in integrated payments. With experience on both sides of the equation, Ashley offers practical insights into where the market is headed and how to navigate it. Then, Patti Murphy joins James for Today in Payments to cover the latest industry trends, including new statistics on surcharging programs and what they mean for the future.

In the first episode of our three-part series with Payroc, Powering Payments Together: How Payroc Helps ISVs Scale Smarter, I sit down with Payroc President Adam Oberman to explore the shifting landscape of integrated payments. Once seen as a simple feature, payments have now become the financial backbone of successful software companies.Adam explains why the relationship between ISVs and their payment partners has never been more strategic. The most successful software providers now generate 20–40% of their revenue through payments, making it a critical driver of both growth and valuation. As he puts it, “ISVs don't outgrow payments - they outgrow their payment partners.”We discuss how market expectations have evolved dramatically. ISVs are demanding global payment capabilities from day one - multi-currency processing, cross-border compliance, and frictionless user experiences are now table stakes. At the same time, the integration process itself has shifted toward low-code solutions that enable faster deployment without sacrificing functionality.What stands out most in Adam's perspective is the human element of payments. Clean APIs may get an integration live, but it's strategic guidance, problem-solving, and white-glove support that build long-term partnerships. “People do business with people,” Adam emphasizes, highlighting why technical capability must always be paired with trust and service.Looking ahead to 2026, Adam predicts payments will no longer be viewed as a utility but as a core competitive advantage. Companies that fail to prioritize their payment strategy risk falling behind more agile competitors not just in features, but in valuation and market position.Whether you're an established ISV or just beginning to explore embedded payments, this episode offers essential insights into selecting a partner who can scale with you, adapt to change, and deliver value far beyond transaction processing.

In Episode 142 of “The Trusted Advisor,” RSPA CEO Jim Roddy sits down with John Giles, President of ISV Round 2 POS, to discuss the retail IT VAR of the future. Giles begins with a tour of his VAR company, Butler Business Systems in Butler, PA, and then provides his thoughts on designing a “VAR for our kids' generation,” why he continues to bet on the channel, expected business model changes for VARs and ISVs, and actions resellers should take so they are a VAR of the Future. “The Trusted Advisor,” powered by the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA), is an award-winning content series designed specifically for retail IT VARs and software providers. Our goal is to educate you on the topics of leadership, management, hiring, sales, and other small business best practices. For more insights, visit the RSPA blog at www.GoRSPA.org. The RSPA is North America's largest community of VARs, software providers, vendors, and distributors in the retail, restaurant, grocery, and cannabis verticals. The mission of the RSPA is to accelerate the success of its members in the retail technology ecosystem by providing knowledge and connections. The organization offers member-to-member warm introductions, education, legal advice, industry advocacy, and other services to assist members with becoming and remaining successful. RSPA is most well-known for its signature events, RetailNOW and Inspire, which provide face-to-face learning and networking opportunities. Learn more by visiting www.GoRSPA.org.