Podcast appearances and mentions of vince menzione

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.

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.

Thriving in the partner ecosystem takes more than great tech. In this episode of #shifthappens, Vince Menzione, founder of Ultimate Partner and former Microsoft executive, shares what it takes to succeed in a hyperscaler-driven economy. From the rise of agentic AI to the evolution of co-selling and marketplace strategies, Vince unpacks how companies can navigate constant disruption. With decades' worth of experience, he reminds us that at the heart of it all is trust, alignment, and the people behind the partnerships.

In this power-packed episode, Lisa G. sits down with Vince Menzione—founder of Ultimate Partner and a seasoned expert in strategic tech alliances—to break down how companies can unlock explosive growth through successful partnering in today's rapidly shifting tech landscape.  

In the latest episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering, host Vince Menzione sits down with Nicole Dezen, General Manager of Global Channel Sales for IoT at Microsoft, to explore the transformative potential of IoT and how Azure IoT solutions are driving innovation across industries.

In this episode of Mastering Modern Selling, Tom Burton and Brandon Lee are joined by Vince Menzione, founder of Ultimate Partner and former General Manager of Partner Sales and Strategy at Microsoft.Vince brings a wealth of experience in transforming businesses through strategic partnerships. Get ready to dive into the world of partnerships and learn how they can revolutionize your sales strategy.1. The Evolution of Partnership Strategies:Vince shares his journey from being a top seller in the early days of wireless computing to leading major transformations at Microsoft. He emphasizes the importance of developing a robust partnership strategy, highlighting how partnerships can drive exponential growth and success. From building influence strategies to leveraging resellers, Vince's experience underscores the critical role partnerships play in modern selling.2. Navigating the Hyperscaler Ecosystem:A significant focus of the discussion is on the three hyperscalers: Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Vince explains how these tech giants have reshaped the cloud landscape, emphasizing the necessity for businesses to align with them. He discusses the massive cloud commitments these companies have and how they influence decision-making at the board level. Understanding this dynamic is crucial for businesses looking to thrive in the cloud era.3. Building Effective Influence Strategies:Vince delves into the importance of creating comprehensive influence strategies. He talks about the need to engage with all stakeholders in the decision-making process, not just the direct buyer. By developing relationships with various influencers and understanding their roles, businesses can better navigate complex sales cycles and ensure they are addressing all aspects of the customer's needs.4. The Role of Modern Selling Techniques:In the age of digital transformation, Vince highlights the shift from traditional selling methods to modern techniques. He discusses how COVID-19 accelerated digital adoption and changed buyer behavior. Today, buyers are more informed and rely heavily on digital channels. Vince stresses the importance of building trust and credibility through consistent engagement and thought leadership, particularly on platforms like LinkedIn.5. Partnering for Success:Vince provides actionable advice for businesses looking to partner effectively with tech giants. He emphasizes the need for partners to differentiate themselves and build a strong internal alignment around partnership goals. By showcasing success stories, maintaining clear communication, and staying agile to adapt to changing strategies, partners can position themselves as valuable allies to tech giants and drive mutual success.This episode with Vince Menzione is a masterclass in leveraging partnerships for sales success. Vince's insights reveal the transformative power of strategic partnerships and the importance of adapting to the evolving landscape of modern selling. Don't miss out on these invaluable lessons. This show is brought to you by Fist Bump. Your prospecting partner to authentically fill your pipeline with ideal customers.

In this episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering®, join Vince Menzione as he shares a synopsis of the first four months of 2024. Throughout the episode, Vince dives deep into the shared quality time with leaders from the top hyperscalers and other successful tech giants, the importance of marketplaces and co-selling, rapid changes after the global pandemic, and the highly successful previous Ultimate Partner live event. Furthermore, you'll get a glimpse of what's included in the next live event we're planning to have at the end of May 2024.

Join host Vince Menzione as he delves into the essential principles for achieving success in the dynamic landscape of partnership, with a special focus on strategies tailored for Microsoft collaborations. In this episode, you'll discover the transformative power of a growth mindset, leadership principles, and the keys to executing a winning partner strategy. Explore firsthand accounts of partner success with Microsoft, learn about branding essentials, and understand the crucial role of agility in staying ahead in today's ever-evolving industry.

Join host Vince Menzione as he delves into the essential principles for achieving success in the dynamic landscape of partnership, with a special focus on strategies tailored for Microsoft collaborations. In this episode, you'll discover the transformative power of a growth mindset, leadership principles, and the keys to executing a winning partner strategy. Explore firsthand accounts of partner success with Microsoft, learn about branding essentials, and understand the crucial role of agility in staying ahead in today's ever-evolving industry.

Most Partnerships look great on paper but when it comes down to actual implementations, they never product expected results. In a conversation with the CEO of Ultimate Partner and himself a host of “The Ultimate Guide to Partnering” podcast, Vince Menzione explains how to translate some of the best strategies into actuality.  In a freewheeling conversation with host Rick van den Bosch, the duo delve into the intricacies of forging successful alliances in the rapidly evolving tech landscape. Hear firsthand on trends and tricks on how to revolutionize market positions, driving innovation and growth covering:- Microsoft as they strategically moold operations and partnerships- AI tools like Chat GPT and Co-pilot revolutionizing process efficiencies and innovation- Identification of shared values when building strong, lasting alliances - Techniques for effective communication, trust-building, and problem-solving that are essential in maintaining healthy business relationships- Leveraging partnerships to open doors to new marketsJoin us as we explore the dynamic world of business partnerships that shape the future of tech. #BusinessPartnerships #TechSuccess_________________________Connect with the podcast hosts

We are diving into the dynamic world of healthcare technology and partnership ecosystems with Microsoft's Vice President, Nina Somerville. Explore Microsoft's significant investments in healthcare, AI applications, and the keys to successful partnerships. Nina shares her extensive leadership experience, emphasizing the importance of transparency, empathy, and a growth mindset in the tech industry. Gain valuable insights on AI adoption, data readiness, and fostering diversity. Join host Vince Menzione and Nina Somerville for a deep conversation on career growth, mentorship, and the critical role of partnerships in the health and life sciences industry. Don't miss this engaging discussion with a seasoned leader shaping the future of healthcare technology.

Dive into Michelle Ragusa-McBain's inspiring journey, from her tech career to her advocacy for women in technology and business. Listen, as Michelle, SonicWall's Global Channel Chief, speaks on cybersecurity partnerships, tech career growth, and the evolving role of MSPs. Join her and Vince Menzione as they discuss SonicWall's innovative partner program and effective cybersecurity strategies. Discover key tips for successful partnerships, overcoming industry challenges, and setting goals for personal and professional success.

We dissect the past year's partnership trends and forecast what's on the horizon for 2024. Join our guests, Rob Spee & Vince Menzione as we dive into topics such as:co-sellingpartner programspartner relationship managementmarketplacesresellersthe impact of AI on channel sales2024 predictions (and reviewing our 2023 predictions

Paul appears on an episode hosted by Vince Menzione. They, along with Rob Spee, explore the dynamics of partnerships and ecosystems, channel marketing, and the pivotal role of the chief partner officer. Other subjects include ecosystem attribution, channel alignment, partner marketing strategies, and the rise of AI adoption. We discuss this and more on today's episode with our Channel Panel members: Rob Spee of Channel Journeys podcast And Vince Menzione of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® podcastThis production is brought to you by Magentrix ✨

If you're focused on forging successful partnerships with industry leaders like Microsoft and are seeking actionable strategies to scale your business in FY24, then you're in the right place. Welcome to "The Ultimate Guide to Partnering," a podcast where host Vince Menzione, a seasoned partner sales executive, provides strategic insights to drive your business success. Today's episode features an in-depth conversation with Mike Reinhardt, Chairman and CEO of Quisitive, a publicly-traded, multi-year award-winning Microsoft partner. Recorded just a day after the Microsoft Inspire conference, this episode offers an exclusive look into the best practices and strategies for sustaining a successful partnership in the rapidly evolving Microsoft ecosystem. Your journey towards achieving exceptional business results through strategic partnerships starts here.

As we continue our Summer Series for Twins Talk it Up, we revisit a popular episode with our friend Vince Menzione, CEO of Ultimate Partner, a consulting firm with a focus on helping organizations reach their goals with successful partnering. He is also the Host of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering Podcast. VInce was also a recent panelist at the Microsoft Inspire 2023. Enjoy and commit your organization to building successful partnerships. For more information about Vince and Ultimate Partnerships, connect with him on LinkedIn and visit https://ultimateguidetopartnering.com/--- more ---If you are looking to learn the art of audience engagement while listening for methods to conquer speaking anxiety, deliver persuasive presentations, and close more deals, then this is the podcast for you.Twins Talk it Up is a podcast where identical twin brothers Danny Suk Brown and David Suk Brown discuss leadership communication strategies to support professionals who believe in the power of their own authentic voice. Together, we will explore tips and tools to increase both your influence and value. Along the way, let's crush some goals, deliver winning sales pitches, and enjoy some laughs.Danny Suk Brown and David Suk Brown train on speaking and presentation skills. They also share from their keynote entitled, “Identically Opposite: the Pursuit of Identity”.Support and Follow us:YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCL18KYXdzVdzEwMH8uwLf6gInstagram: @twinstalkitupInstagram: @dsbleadershipgroupTwitter: @dsbleadershipLinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/twins-talk-it-up/LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/dsbleadershipgroup/Facebook: facebook.com/TwinsTalkitUpFacebook: facebook.com/dsbleadership/Website: dsbleadershipgroup.com/TwinsTalkitUp

Today's partner ecosystem: fueled by hyperscalers, sold in marketplaces, and delivered through the channel. What can we expect of the partner experience in light of this new ecosystem model?We discuss this and more on today's episode with our Channel Panel members: Rob Spee of Channel Journeys podcast And Vince Menzione of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® podcastThis production is brought to you by Magentrix ✨

What a great conversation with Vince Menzione, Podcast host and CEO + Founder, Ultimate Partnerships. Join us to hear the conversation and learn about his:·       Technique to quiet the 60-70K thoughts per day that may be creating distraction.·       Decision to leave corporate to help corporate organizations.·       Reason for starting his podcast The Ultimate Guide to Partnerships.·       Discovery of what it takes to establish an ultimate partnership.·       View on how organizations struggle with partnerships.·       Principle that growth mindset is foundational.·       Tip to look left to right when looking to engage internally and with customers.·       Stance that people need to become more resourceful to meet requirements.·       Billboard message: Be Bold, Share your vision of the universe with others and leave a legacy.Recommendations from Vince:·       Check out Vince's podcast: Ultimate Guide to Partnering https://ultimateguidetopartnering.com/episodes/ ·       Check out Vince's website: https://ultimateguidetopartnering.com/ ·       Book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey·       https://drjoedispenza.com/ which has Vince's meditation go-to!

We've brought together three hosts from three different podcasts in the partnerships space to review key insights and trends noticed in the past year from interviews with channel chiefs, partnership leaders and in the overall partner ecosystem landscape.Rob Spee is a seasoned and experienced channel and alliance executive. He has created and executed channel strategies and programs ranging from start-up mode businesses, all the way to a $350M business. Today he's SVP of Global Channel & Alliances at BeyondTrust as well as the host of the long-running Channel Journeys podcast – a podcast where you can “hear channel experts share authentic stories of their channel victories, defeats, and lessons learned along the way.”Vince Menzione is the Founder of Ultimate Partnerships – a consultancy helping partner organizations drive greater results. And the host of another impressively long-running podcast, The Ultimate Guide to Partnering podcast.Paul Bird is the host of Magentrix PRM's The Ultimate Channel Sales Podcast - where he regularly has discussions on how to navigate partnerships, how to support your partners, identify weak areas of your partner strategy, discuss the latest industry trends and reports, and more.This production is brought to you by Magentrix ✨

What is up PartnerUp!? Vince Menzione from the Ultimate Guide to Partnering  (https://ultimateguidetopartnering.com/) joins the PartnerUp crew to recap PL[X] and discuss the importance of customer success. Vince shares his expertise about managing partnerships when working at Microsoft. He shares the difference between channel and partnerships and talks about how leveraging the partner ecosystem requires support from your C-suite. Isaac and Jared dive down some economic rabbit holes regarding TikTok, Netflix, YouTube and Ludwig von Mises' preconditions for action. They discuss the importance of mindset and the power of creating a vision for a better future through partnerships.This episode was recorded LIVE at PL[X].Never miss an episode of the world's number 1 podcast on partnerships by subscribing to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a visual person, sub to our YouTube, and see the full recording of us learning out loud.Share the episode with your commentary on LinkedIn or Twitter and we'll highlight your commentary. We love to hear your thoughts on each episode, and always comment back or respond to emails/dms. Hey! We're real people. You can check out all past and future PartnerUp episodes at https://www.partneruppodcast.com and subscribe now to the world's number 1 partnerships newsletter, PartnerHacker Daily (PhD) at https://partnerhacker.com/.

There's a simple set of principles the world's best partnership teams tend to follow and some common dysfunctions that hold many teams back.Ecosystem thought leader Vince Menzione shares how to spread these five principles throughout your partnerships.Listen to today's episode to: Leverage the one communication hack that aligns internal and external teamsDrive a partnership-first culture throughout your entire companyAnd, stand out in saturated marketsVince Menzione is:The Founder of Ultimate Partnerships – a consultancy helping partner organizations drive greater results. And the host of The Ultimate Guide to Partnering podcast

It's been almost four years since I launched Channel Journeys, on a mission to help all of us become better channel professionals. From day one I've been talking with channel experts, hearing their real life stories of what works and what doesn't, learning about their own channel journeys, and what they do on and off … Vince Menzione: The Art of Running a Channel Podcast Read More » The post Vince Menzione: The Art of Running a Channel Podcast first appeared on Channel Journeys.

An Ecosystem Community Leader Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering Kelly Sarabyn is the Platform Ecosystem Advocate for Hubspot and a strong GTM voice in the Partnership Community. Communities are becoming an increasingly important aspect of GTM strategy. You will learn why Hubspot created and is investing in this unique role focused on partner impact under Scott Brinker, an iconic ecosystem leader, how she applies her superpower to generate successful outcomes, the importance of Marketplace to Partner GTM strategies, and why this Partnership Ecosystem movement is so essential to the future of B2B. Kelly is a Partnership Leader uniquely growing Hubspot's Ecosystem Community. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed welcoming Kelly Sarabyn In Kelly's words Kelly Sarabyn is the Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot, where she is focused on growing the ecosystem through partner engagement. Previously, she led marketing at Pandium, an embedded integration marketplace, and was a partner at Woden, a branding agency. Kelly Sarabyn. Kelly has been a strong and substantive voice in the Partner and Ecosystem Movement. What You'll Learn in this Episode Kelly's role, mission, and superpower (1:51)The importance of Marketplaces to B2B (9:18)How partnerships have changed in the last two and a half years (14:09)"Partnership" is not an appendage, its an asset (18:54)The biggest struggle - Product vs. GTM concerns (23:15)Advice for other Partnership Leaders (34:51) Partner Ecosystem Leader Episodes 162 - How You Can Unleash the Power of Data to 10X Your Partner Growth! 153 – Janet Schijins – Ecosystems & Megacosm 150- Celebrating 150 Amazing Episodes with a Five-Timer Guest, Jay McBain 149 – WTF is an Ecosystem? And How Partner Hacker helps tech companies PartnerUp with Jared Fuller 139 – How Can Technology Partners Organize for Success around Go to Ecosystems? with Allan Adler. Kelly's Event This Week Register for Kelly's Event Scaling technology partnerships is much more difficult than the scaling around most partner types. In addition to scaling GTM motions and programs, you have to scale your product, your APIs, your app marketplace, and your developer support in a way that aligns with both your product and go-to-market strategy. This is not easy! I'm excited to host a conversation with leaders in field who are doing this and who can share what they've learned. I'l be talking to Eric Chan of Chargebee, Joni Deus of Intuit Mailchimp, Mike Vaccaro of Tray.io, and Carina Conaghan of Optimizely on the 27th and they'll be sharing their takes on the most effective ways to scale. This Partnership Leaders event is open to the public. Other Links from this Episode #partnerships#techpartner#techpartnerships#integrations#apis#event https://podfollow.com/ultimate-guide-to-partneringFREE OFFER from PartnerTap PartnerTap is the Founding Sponsor of Ultimate Guide to Partnering. PartnerTap is the only Partner Ecosystem Platform designed for the Enterprise. Their technology makes it easy to align Channel Teams with automated account mapping, letting you control what data you share while building a partner revenue engine. Transcription – by Otter.ai – Expect Typos SUMMARY KEYWORDS partner, partnerships, hubspot, marketplaces, ecosystem, people, organizations, building, technology, integrations, community, marketing, platform, customer, partnering, kelly, role, channel, product, company SPEAKERS Announcer, Kelly Sarabyn, Vince Menzione Vince Menzione  00:00 What partnership ecosystems and communities have in common, and why building community around your partnership ecosystem can give you and your organization both a strategic advantage and a new lever to growth. Announcer  00:17 Welcome to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. And this podcast Vince Menzione. A proven sales and partner executive brings together leaders to discuss transformational trends and ...

Join this special episode where we turn the tables. Adam Michalski, the host of the Partnered Podcast interviews the Founder and Host of Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Vince Menzione. They discuss the Ecosystem Movement, Partnership Principles, and how Ultimate Partnerships guide their clients to success through a partner mindset.

Join host Adam Michalski as he interviews Vince Menzione, Founder & Chief Partner Officer at Ultimate Partnerships. They discuss how Ultimate Partnerships guides their clients to success through a partner-mindset.Topics Covered:Vince's Journey to PartnershipsChanges in the Partnerships SpaceMeasuring Success & Reciprocity of PartnershipsGuiding Organizations to SuccessMastermind at Summit EventThe Complexity of Partnering with Microsoft and the other Tech GiantsPartner with Ultimate Partnerships:Vince's LinkedInVince's TwitterVince's EmailUltimate PartnershipsUltimate Partnerships PodcastUltimate Partnerships ContactMastermind at SummitSponsors:Partnership LeadersPartneredSubscribe at www.partneredpodcast.com.Interested in joining the podcast? Reach out to hello@partnered.com.

Partnering is a sales approach that's been working for years for the big players in the tech industry. But cloud consultants and SaaS partners are also finding great benefits in it. On this episode of the Accelerate Sales Podcast, Vince Menzione, CEO of Ultimate Partnerships and a former GM at Microsoft, shares insights on scaling through partnerships. You will learn how tech ecosystems work, and the roles partnerships play in them. Vince also explains why Microsoft is gaining share and what to look for when selecting the right vendor to partner with.   Links 402 - Show Notes Vince's LinkedIn Profile Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast Ultimate Partnerships® Cloud Consultants Collective Sendspark   Connect With Paul  On LinkedIn On Facebook On Twitter: @PaulHiggins555 On Instagram: @paulhigginsmentoring Email: Paul@paulhigginsmentoring.com   Thank You for Tuning In!

In this episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering®, your host, Vince Menzione focuses on helping you address the blockers by showing how you recognize the dysfunctions of effective partnerships, so that you can address them in your organization, head-on!

This week on our MENtors that Make a Difference segment is Vince Menzione, an award-winning business leader who has delivered and advanced four successful business transformations by embracing disruptive technology and building successful partnerships to transform organizations.  Today we talk about Vince's career journey and how it can be summed up into four business transformations that have culminated into the start of his very own podcast. We also talk about the changes happening in tech with regard to women's influence in the industry and how male allies can help support their female counterparts. Vince also hosts the successful Ultimate Guide to Partnering Podcast, where he spotlights leadership and partnership principles to help technology organizations thrive and survive during this age of rapid transformation.  You can listen to and learn more about the Ultimate Guide to Partnering Podcast here: https://ultimateguidetopartnering.com/ Thank you for listening; we hope Vince's story helps inspire others to seek or grow their tech career. 

As the technology industry continues to hasten its evolution through continually changing global macro events, accelerating technical advances, and changes in the social constructs of how and why we work, building successful partnerships has never been so important.Vince Menzione has spent the last 25 years of his career thinking about how to create successful partnerships and joins this LIVE episode of The Data Binge Podcast to highlight a winning framework for how to get partnerships right. As a former Microsoft General Manager of Partner Strategy, host of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering podcast, and founder of the tech consulting firm Ultimate Partnerships, Vince brings an aptitude and energy for partnerships that can drive change in any tech organization.This discussion will include the following topics:The 8 principles of partnership success: understanding the very idea of what partnership between organizations means and why it's increasing in importanceEvolutions in the partner landscape, and the impact of hyper evolving global trends on partner strategy across the tech domainThe power of thought leadership: the learnings from creating a 5-year passion project, “The Ultimate Guide to Partnering”, and lessons of culture, leadership, and the obligation to lead with diverse and inclusive values that reach beyond our typical fields of impactKey Takeaways:[1:44] The recent speed of technology from Gaming to NFT's, to emerging Metaverse experiences[4:19] How Vince has built and maintained a 5-year podcast hyper focused on the world of successful tech partnerships [5:22] Vince's background and career direction, starting as the general manager of US public sector strategies for Microsoft across 9 years[6:56] The era in which every organization is adapting to the advancements of technology[11:31] How partnering is a phenomena that is all around us in the business ecosystem [20:25] Successful mindsets to partnering[23:39] The importance of building a brand and a brand story [25:17] Intuitive alignment, communication and adjustment towards success cross organizationally[28:44] Commitment before focus [31:02] Thinking differently to build successful ecosystems [37:39] An insight for people who don't want to get involved with partnering [41:13] The three C's: culture, communication, commitment[45:11] The partnership manifesto: Why people need to partner better[46:55] Diversity, inclusion, and leadership [50:50] On the issue of age discrimination, early retirement, and the lost value of experienced leadership in the tech industry[56:42] The power of community Memorable Quotes:[19:20] - ”I have identified with the work I've done over the years that the podcast is a good laboratory. I have over a hundred and thirty guests now that come to the podcast, and I ask every single one of them about partnering; what do they see from the best and why do they fail. I've sort of landed on the successful principles on what makes successful partnering.” - Vince Menzione[28:10] – regarding tech partnering organizations ”were not really looking at spend, were not really looking at who were talking to in the organization. We're looking at how eager they are to want to work with us on this specific transformational capability.” - Vince Menzione[38:16] - ”The proof is in the pudding in the sense that organizations will believe, if they see other organizations that are like-minded in the industry that are successful, and we see more of that every day.” - Vince Menzione[51:20] - ”Learn from other cultures where people who have age and wisdom are valued better.” - Vince Menzione RESOURCESConnect with Vince on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincemenzione/Vince Menzione's Microsoft US Partner Blog - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/us-partner-blog/author/vincemenzione/Channels, partnerships & ecosystems: Jay McBain on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaymcbain/LinkedIn LIVE EVENT Link: https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6872569678066188288/ Thanks for watching!To access more expertise on partnering in the tech industry, feel free to navigate to https://ultimateguidetopartnering.com/ or reach out to Vince directly on Linkedin!-------------------------------- *The views and opinions expressed in this discussion are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the official position of their employer, Microsoft" ____ Thank you for listening! -------------------------------- Learn more about the Data Binge Podcast at www.thedatabinge.com Connect with Derek: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekwesleyrussell/Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN1c5mzapLZ55ciPgngqRMg/featuredInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/drussnetwork/Twitter: https://twitter.com/drussnetworkMedium: https://medium.com/@derekwesleyrussellEmail: derek@thedatabinge.com

Every business is transforming. Every company is becoming a tech company. 75% of CEOs say their businesses will be unrecognizable in 5 years. In this landscape, you can't do it all yourself. You know you can't survive without partnerships. But without trust, you don't have a partnership — you have a transaction. This is one of the key insights today's guest, Vince Menzione, Founder at Ultimate Partnerships, stresses to all of the clients who go to him for his partnering expertise. He joins the show to explain why trust is ultimately the foundation for any business thriving in this new world. In this episode, we discuss: The growing recognition of the necessity of partnerships Why the rise of marketplaces is a boon for alliances Microsoft's approach to partnering Why trust is the most important component of any successful partnership Here are some additional episodes featuring other ecosystem leaders that might interest you: #121 Aligning Ecosystem Strategy with Your Customer as the North Star with Lara Caimi, Chief Partner Officer, ServiceNow #122 There's No Easy Button For Partnering with Nicole Napiltonia, VP Of Alliances and OEM Sales, at Barracuda #106 The Secrets to Managing Alliances Like Microsoft with David Totten, Chief Technology Officer, US Partner Ecosystem at Microsoft #97 Why Quality Always Beats Quantity in Software Ecosystems with Tom Roberts, Senior Vice President at the Global Partner Organization over at SAP Links & Resources Learn more about how WorkSpan helps customers accelerate their ecosystem flywheel through Co-selling, Co-innovating, Co-investing, and Co-marketing. Subscribe to the Ecosystem Aces Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, St itcher, Google Podcast. Join the WorkSpan Community to engage with other partner ecosystem leaders on best practices, news, events, jobs, and other tips to advance your career in partnering. Find insightful articles on how to lead and get the most out of your partner ecosystem on the WorkSpan blog. Download the Best Practices Guide for Ecosystem Business Management Download the Ultimate Guide for Partner Incentives and Market Development Funds To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about modern partnering, he can be reached on Twitter, LinkedIn, or send Chip an email at: chip@workspan.com This episode of Ecosystem Aces sponsored by WorkSpan. WorkSpan is the #1 ecosystem business management platform. We give CROs a digital platform to turbocharge indirect revenue with their partner teams at higher win rates and lower costs. We connect your partners on a live network with cross-company business applications to build, market, and sell together. We power the top 10 business ecosystems in the technology and communications industry today, managing over $50 billion in joint pipeline.

Our first featured guest on MENtors that Make a Difference is Vince Menzione, an award-winning business leader who has delivered and advanced four successful business transformations by embracing disruptive technology and building successful partnerships to transform organizations.  Today we talk about Vince's career journey and how it can be summed up into four business transformations that have culminated into the start of his very own podcast. We also talk about the changes happening in tech with regard to women's influence in the industry and how male allies can help support their female counterparts. Vince also hosts the successful Ultimate Guide to Partnering Podcast, where he spotlights leadership and partnership principles to help technology organizations thrive and survive during this age of rapid transformation.  You can listen to and learn more about the Ultimate Guide to Partnering Podcast here: https://ultimateguidetopartnering.com/ Thank you for listening; we hope Vince's story helps inspire others to seek or grow their tech career. 

Craig and James return with another podcast for the ages! It all starts with some "cloudification" featuring Tony Safoian of SADA. The company's president and CEO talks about the cloud wars and what it's like to be exclusive to Google. Furthermore, he explains why Google's third-place position among hyperscalers is nothing to shake a stick at. Later, Vince Menzione, founder of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering, shares his methodologies around good business partnerships. He'll offer some significant takeaways for both the partner and vendor audience. That, plus the guys dig into what's become an internet phenomenon--the "Florida Man" craze.

Welcome to the 94th episode of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering™. It was a pleasure to welcome to the podcast Microsoft's Vice President for Partner Development, Carlos De Torres. Carlos's organization is responsible for ISV's Industry and Private Equity for the US Business. With a servant leaders mindset for partner growth, Carlos asks partners, "where can I help you?" As the Vice President, US for ISV, Industry and Private Equity within Microsoft, Carlos' US Partner Development Team is charged with driving growth with ISVs (Integrated Software Vendors), Industry verticals (i.e. Financial Services, Healthcare, Education, Manufacturing, Retail and Public Sector) and Private Equity Partnerships. He is responsible for a multi-billion dollar business, accelerating Microsoft Partners transformation to the Cloud, building the Industry Partner capacity & capability, and driving strong Partner preference on Microsoft’s platform.   Carlos is fairly new to his role and it was refreshing to spend time to get his perspective and point of view on how he hopes to further serve this critical group of partners and organizations. In this episode, we discuss his business priorities, his view of his role, and how he is applying a servant leader lens to how he supports his partners. The importance of partner to partner as a vehicle to success for partners and how the transformation has changed how we work. I particularly enjoyed my time with Carlos and hope you enjoy this discussion as much as I enjoyed getting to know Carlos De Torres. LINKS & RESOURCES Follow Carlos De Torres Gimeno on Linked In.The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership. James C Hunter.About Vince MenzioneSubscribe and listen to this podcast on Apple,  Spotify,  Google,  Audible,  SoundCloud, Stitcher, Player FM, almost anywhere you get your podcasts!Follow or reach Vince – Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook Drop me a line – vincem@ultimate-partnerships.com. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ and where they can find us. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Partnerships. Ultimate Partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships. Get Partnerships Right – Optimize for Success – Deliver Results – Ultimate Partnerships. Transcription By Otter.AI – Please Pardon Typos Below Vince Menzione  0:30  Carlos, welcome to the podcast. Carlos De Torres  1:34  Thank you so much Vince. Hello, everyone. Vince Menzione  1:36  I am so delighted to welcome you to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. You are Microsoft's Vice President for Partner Development and I'm excited to welcome you to share with our listeners the important work of your team, how Microsoft co sells with partners, why partnering is more important now than ever, and your personal professional journey, so welcome. Carlos De Torres  1:58  Oh, hey, thank you so much. So great to be here with all the audience today. I'm Carlos De Torres, the Vice Presidentvrunning all the ISV business for Microsoft in the US. And originally from Europe, five years in the US 10 years in the company, and I'm super excited to be here today. Vince Menzione  2:20  Well, the work you do is so important. So I really feel that this discussion is of great value for our listeners. So first, as you might know, I came from a leadership role, first within Microsoft running partner for Public Sector, and then in a role with a large ISV. The work that I got to do was so closely aligned to your organization. But for our listeners and partners that might not know the function and mission of that organization. Can you share a little bit more detail with them? Carlos De Torres  2:50  Absolutely, well, first of all things will be great because you coming from one of my partners, you will be able to hold me accountable even mo...

For this episode of the podcast, I am pleased to welcome Anne McClelland, the Vice President of XaaS Channel Optimization Research for Technology & Services Industry Association or TSIA. In her role at TSIA, Anne works closely with member companies to deliver research and advisory services that help them achieve success and optimization for their partner channels and drive incremental revenue at scale for XaaS offerings. I invited Anne because she focuses on the emerging XAAS (as a service) market and has a perspective valuable to this ecosystem, including the importance of Agility to Partner Success and Optimization in 2021. Anne and I both came from Partner Leadership roles at Microsoft and she has over 25 years of experience focused on channel and partner transformation to deliver innovative go-to-market strategies and develop new models to drive incremental revenue and reach. During her career as a global partner and channels executive, Anne has built new partner organizations from the ground up, driven revenue from new partner communities, and launched programs and tools to support these partner efforts. She has held leadership roles in a diverse set of companies including Blue Prism, Cisco, Red Hat, Microsoft, and IBM. In this episode we discuss what she has seen since this past year, trends and research her company has created that will be of great value to our listeners, and where organizations need to focus to optimize success in 2021. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed my time with Anne McClelland. LINKS & RESOURCES Follow Anne McClelland on Linked In, Twitter. More About TSIA.Access to Anne's work at TSIA - XAAS Channel Optimization. About Vince MenzioneSubscribe and listen to this podcast on Apple,  Spotify,  Google,  Audible,  SoundCloud, Stitcher, Player FM, almost anywhere you get your podcasts!Follow or reach Vince – Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook Drop me a line – vincem@ultimate-partnerships.com. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ and where they can find us. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Partnerships. Ultimate Partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships. Get Partnerships Right – Optimize for Success – Deliver Results – Ultimate Partnerships. Transcription By Otter.AI – Please Pardon Typos Below Anne McClelland  0:00  I think companies are able to be agile like we talked about earlier and continue to assess and reassess their positions and compare that to what's happening around them. So keep your eyes open, those folks will do their best. Announcer  0:13  Welcome to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. In this podcast Vince Menzione. a proven industry sales and partner executive brings together technology leaders in this forum to discuss transformational trends and to deconstruct successful strategies to thrive and survive in the rapid age of cloud transformation. And now, your host, Vince Menzione. Vince Menzione  0:43  Welcome, or Welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I'm Vince Menzione, your host and as we kick off the four-year anniversary of this podcast, I'm thankful to all of the amazing thought and business leaders who've come to this podcast to share principles, success strategies, and best practices that help technology organizations thrive during this age of change and transformation. for this episode of the series, it was really great to welcome and McClelland the VP of research for as the service channel optimization at technology services industry association or TSIA a and I both come from Microsoft, and she has over 25 years’ experience focused on channel and partner transformation to deliver innovative go to market strategies and develop new models to drive incremental revenue and reach. I invited Anne because she focuses on the emerging as...

For this episode of the podcast, I am pleased to welcome Cassandra Gholston, the Co-Founder & CEO of PartnerTap. I've known Cassandra since the early days of PartnerTap, so it was great to have her as a guest to discuss the success of her company and a topic we are both passionate about, Partner Co-Selling. In this episode, Cassandra and I both agree that trust, commitment, and focus are critical factors to successful co-selling and partnerships. As CEO, Cassandra is responsible for the strategic vision of PartnerTap. Before founding PartnerTap, Cassandra spent her career in sales as a top performer in SaaS companies. She obtained multiple President's Clubs and awards. She drives to make the jobs of channel and sales teams more lucrative through PartnerTap. Cassandra is passionate about giving back with a focus on charities around autism and youth. I was an early fan of Cassandra and PartnerTap, so it was great to have this discussion on how technology has become a key enabler to the process of getting results. We both agree that overlook partnership first principles is often the kryptonite to successful partnering. In this episode, Cassandra and I go deep on co-selling fundamentals for successful partnerships, how customers use her technology for success, her perspective and journey as a woman CEO in the tech sector, and trends she sees in the partner universe. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed my time with Cassandra Gholston. LINKS & RESOURCES Follow Cassandra Gholston on Linked In, Twitter. More About PartnerTapAbove the Line / Below the Line About Vince MenzioneSubscribe and listen to this podcast on Apple,  Spotify,  Google,  Audible,  SoundCloud, Stitcher, Player FM, almost anywhere you get your podcasts!Follow or reach Vince - Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook Drop me a line - vincem@ultimate-partnerships.com. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ and where they can find us. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Partnerships. Ultimate Partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships. Get Partnerships Right – Optimize for Success – Deliver Results – Ultimate Partnerships. Transcription By Otter.AI – Please Pardon Typos Below Cassandra Gholston,  0:00  I think the companies that are focused on building out their ecosystems and really focused on, you know, those key strategic partners, that trust building, we're going to see them come out as the leaders. And these leaders might look completely different than who we're seeing today. Announcer  0:24  Welcome to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. In this podcast, Vince Menzione. a proven industry sales and partner executive brings together technology leaders in this forum to discuss transformational trends and to deconstruct successful strategies to thrive and survive in the rapid age of cloud transformation. And now, your host, Vince Menzione. Vince Menzione  0:54  Welcome, or Welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. I'm Vince Menzione, your host. And as we kick off the four year anniversary of this podcast, I'm thankful to all of the amazing thought and business leaders who've come to this podcast to share principles, success strategies, and best practices that help technology organizations thrive during this age of change and transformation. for this episode of the series, I was delighted to welcome a friend and a woman I admire Cassandra Gholston, the CEO of partner tap, a partner ecosystem technology platform where she is responsible for this strategic vision of the company. I've known Cassandra since the early days of partner tap, and she is taking the sector by storm focused on partner ecosystems, and helping organizations get the best results from co-selling. In this episode, Cassandra and I go deep on a topic,

For this episode of the podcast, I am pleased to welcome Phil Sorgen, the Chief Revenue Officer of Ring Central and a former Microsoft Corporate Vice President to Ultimate Guide to Partnering. In this episode, we discuss the Transformation, RingCentral's Capabilities, and Partners. As RingCentral’s Chief Revenue Officer, Phil Sorgen leads global sales including all direct, service provider, channel, and strategic partners. Sorgen is a 30-year industry veteran and spent the last 20+ years at Microsoft in a variety of leadership roles and that's how I met him. Prior to joining RingCentral, Sorgen was responsible for Microsoft’s US Enterprise Commercial Group, an organization responsible for helping the company’s largest commercial customers in the US navigate digital transformation. In this role, Sorgen led US enterprise sales and customer success teams including national, industry, and technical teams. Prior to that, Sorgen served as the Corporate Vice President of the Worldwide Partner Group and was responsible for setting the channel strategy for a broad network of diverse partner companies worldwide. I've known Phil for many years and it was great to have him as a guest as partners have played a critical role throughout his career including his role as Microsoft's Channel Chief. In this episode you'll learn more about RingCentral's capabilities and value, their role in the rapid transformation we are seeing since the pandemic, the role of partners in their business and why customers and partners chose Ring Central. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I enjoyed spending time with Phil Sorgen. LINKS & RESOURCES Follow Phil Sorgen on Linked In, Twitter. More About Ring CentralJoin Ring Central's Partner ProgramAbout Vince MenzioneSubscribe and listen to this podcast on Apple,  Spotify,  Google,  Audible,  SoundCloud, Stitcher, Player FM, almost anywhere you get your podcasts!Follow or reach Vince - Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook Drop me a line - vincem@ultimate-partnerships.com. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ and where they can find us. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Partnerships. Ultimate Partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships. Get Partnerships Right – Optimize for Success – Deliver Results – Ultimate Partnerships. Transcription By Otter.AI – Please Pardon Typos Below Vince Menzione 0:30Welcome, or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I'm Vince Menzione, your host, and for this episode of the podcast, I was pleased to welcome Phil Sorgen, the Chief Revenue Officer of RingCentral, and a former Microsoft corporate vice president. I've known Phil for many years, and it was great to have him as a guest to learn more about RingCentral. And partners have played a critical role throughout his career, including his role as Microsoft's channel chief. In this episode, you'll learn more about RingCentral's value, the role they play in the rapid transformation, we are seeing the role of partners in their business, and why customers and partners choose RingCentral. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I enjoyed spending time with Phil's origin. Phil, welcome to the podcast. Phil Sorgen 1:23Thanks, Vince. It's great to be here. Vince Menzione 1:25It is really great to have you as a guest on Ultimate Guide to Partnering you and I had the opportunity to work together when you lead SMSP. And that seemed like 100 years ago, and you served as Channel Chief at Microsoft, you joined RingCentral in mid-2020. And your organization has a great value proposition. I'm looking forward to this discussion today. So welcome. Phil Sorgen 1:46Thank you. It's a it's great to connect again. And it does seem like so long ago, but hey, time flies when you're having fun, right?

For this episode of the podcast, I was delighted to welcome Alysa Taylor - Microsoft's Corporate Vice President for the Cloud Marketing Business Applications and Global Industry divisions at Microsoft. For 2021, Alysa advises us to keep listening, keep understanding, keep knowing where the world is going. She suggests agility and customer-centricity will be driving forces for partner success in 2021. In her role at Microsoft, Alysa leads the product marketing teams responsible for Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform (Power BI, Power Apps, Power Virtual Agents, and Power Automate) as well as the global industry product marketing team. Alysa's previously led the Cloud and Enterprise business marketing group in Microsoft’s U.S. subsidiary, where she was responsible for the U.S. business, marketing, and operations across the cloud, and the infrastructure portfolio of products, including Windows Server, Azure, System Center, SQL, and Visual Studio. Taylor came to Microsoft with a background in consulting and advertising account management and design. It was great to have Alysa come share her career progression, the progress of her organization, and the innovation. I also had the chance to work with Alysa in the US Subsidiary and so it was great to catch up and learn more about her career journey. ​In this episode, Alysa and I discuss: The innovation, change and transformation coming from her organization.How data, business processes, and industry are at the core of the transformation in Microsoft's approach. Her recent announcements - Healthcare Cloud and Retail Cloud and what that means for partners. Why partners are more important now than ever and why they need to drive with agility and customer-centricity. Lessons for our listeners from her amazing career journey. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed spending time with LINKS & RESOURCES Follow Alysa Taylor on Linked In, Twitter. What is Dataverse? Retail Cloud AnnouncmentHealthcare Cloud AnnouncmentAbout Vince MenzioneSubscribe and listen to this podcast on Apple,  Spotify,  Google,  Audible,  SoundCloud, Stitcher, Player FM, almost anywhere you get your podcasts!Follow or reach Vince - Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook Drop me a line - vincem@ultimate-partnerships.com. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ and where they can find us. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Partnerships. Ultimate Partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships. Get Partnerships Right – Optimize for Success – Deliver Results – Ultimate Partnerships. Transcription By Otter.AI – Please Pardon Typos Below Vince Menzione 0:50Welcome, or Welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. I'm Vince Menzione, your host. And as we kick off the four year anniversary of this podcast, and leap into 2021, I'm thankful to all of the amazing thought and business leaders who've come to this podcast to share principles, success strategies, and best practices that help technology organizations thrive during this age of change and transformation. As we kick off this new year, I'm excited to be joined for this special series by some of those industry thought leaders to help each of us better prepare for what we can do to optimize success in 2021. And for this episode of the podcast, I was delighted to welcome Alyssa Taylor, Microsoft's corporate Vice President for the cloud marketing, business applications and global industry divisions. In her role, she leads the product marketing teams responsible for dynamics 365, the power platform, as well as the global industry product marketing team, it was great to have Alyssa come share with our listeners, the innovation and change that her organization is driving during this transformation. And all of the innovation that is happening across industries.

For this episode of the series to help us Optimize for Success in 2021, I was delighted to welcome Bob Moore, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Crossbeam, a partner ecosystem platform that helps companies build more valuable partnerships by discovering which customers and leads they have in common. For 2021, Bob advises us to embrace that really important change is happening in the world of partners. ​​Bob is a serial entrepreneur, co-founder the cloud data pipeline company Stitch (Acquired by Talend in 2018) and business intelligence platform RJMetrics (acquired by Adby way of Magento Commerce in 2016). Bob is on a mission to help organizations solve many of the challenges of sharing data he saw in his last two companies. Prior to RJMetrics, Moore worked on the Investment Team of Insight Venture Partners, a leading software-focused venture capital and private equity firm based in New York.  He is a graduate of Princeton University's School of Engineering and Applied Science. Bob is a vocal supporter of the Philadelphia startup scene, where he serves as the Board Chair Emeritus of Philly Startup Leaders and a has served as a Board Member of Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies (PACT).  ​As a writer and speaker, Bob has been featured by The New York Times, Forbes, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, TEDxPhilly, EnterConf, Business of Software, and many more.  He guest lectures regularly at Princeton University and The Wharton School. ​ Outside of the tech scene, Bob is a comedy performer, where he has performed over 100 shows as a member of the Philadelphia-based improv team Big Baby.  He has also served as a Trustee of the Awesome Foundation and the Glassboro Education Foundation In this episode, Bob and I discuss: His organization, mission, focus, the value of Crossbeam and how it differentiated in Channel Software Tech Stack. His perspective and what he has seen in the market and the channel.Advice on optimizing for success in 2021 by embracing the important change happening in the world of partners. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed spending time with Bob Moore LINKS & RESOURCES Follow Bob Moore on Linked In, Twitter. Join Crossbeam: https://www.crossbeam.com/Sign up for the Crossbeam newsletter to hear about new research and reports: https://www.crossbeam.com/newsletter/2021 State of the Partner Ecosystem ReportAbout Vince MenzioneSubscribe and listen to this podcast on Apple,  Spotify,  Google,  Audible,  SoundCloud, Stitcher, Player FM, almost anywhere you get your podcasts!Follow or reach Vince - Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook Drop me a line - vincem@ultimate-partnerships.com. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ and where they can find us. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Partnerships. Ultimate Partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships. Get Partnerships Right – Optimize for Success – Deliver Results – Ultimate Partnerships. Transcription By Otter.AI – Please Pardon Typos Below Bob Moore 0:00embrace the fact that really, really important change is happening under our feet right now in the partnerships world because the change that's happening is actually sitting outside of the partnerships realm and sitting in the realm of how products get built, and interconnectivity between companies takes form in the very first place. Unknown Speaker 0:19Welcome to the Ultimate Guide to partnering. In this podcast Vince Menzione, Unknown Speaker 0:24a proven industry sales and partner executive brings together technology leaders in this forum to discuss transformational trends and to deconstruct successful strategies to thrive and survive in the rapid age of cloud transformation. And now, your host, Vince Menzione. Vince Menzione 0:49Welcome, or Welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partneri...

For this episode of the Series, "Optimize for Success 2021", I was excited to feature Miri Rodriguez - a globally recognized Storyteller, Head of Global Internship Program at Microsoft, and author of Brand Storytelling. Miri joins this podcast to discuss the components and importance of good Storytelling with our listeners. Miri's book, "Brand Storytelling -  Put Customers at the Heart your Brand Story" recently won a Stevie Award in the Book of the Year Category for Women in Business. Miri has earned several awards in digital marketing and customer experience and is ranked as a top in-demand speaker at leading industry conferences around the world. Read more about Miri here. In this discussion, you will learn the elements of a great story, how to build an integrated marketing plan with "story" and how storytelling can sit at the center of your marketing and branding strategy. In addition to this important topic - Miri and I discuss her amazing journey overcoming poverty, migrating to the United States, building her career, and her roles and success at Microsoft. As we each look to optimize for success in 2021 - I hope you listen and learn from this amazing guest. LINKS & RESOURCES Learn More About Miri Rodriquez Find Miri Rodriquez on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram.Also, check out my interview with Dux Raymond Sy on Brand.Subscribe and listen to this podcast on Apple,  Spotify,  Google,  Audible,  SoundCloud, Stitcher, Player FM, almost anywhere you get your podcasts!Follow or reach Vince - Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook Drop me a line - vincem@ultimate-partnerships.com. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ and where they can find us. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Partnerships. Ultimate Partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships. Get Partnerships Right – Optimize for Success – Deliver Results – Ultimate Partnerships. Transcription By Otter.AI – Please Pardon Typos Below Miri Rodriguez 0:00What if we learned from every one story? How much empathy will we have in the world? What will we learn from that? So tell your story or someone else will, story will be written history will be written. If you don't write your story, somebody else will write that history. It may not be representative of you, because you haven't told your side. So you have a voice and you have a platform using Announcer 0:20Welcome to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. In this podcast Vince Menzione. a proven industry sales and partner executive brings together technology leaders in this forum to discuss transformational trends and to deconstruct successful strategies to thrive and survive in the rapid age of cloud transformation. And now, your host, Vince Menzione. Vince Menzione 0:50Welcome, or Welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I'm Vince Menzione, your host and as we kick off the four year anniversary of this podcast, and leap into 2021, I'm thankful to all of the amazing thought and business leaders who've come to this podcast to share principles, success strategies, and best practices that help technology organizations thrive during this age of change and transformation. For this special episode of the podcast, I was delighted to welcome mirri Rodriguez, and award winning author, master storyteller and the Global Head of internships at Microsoft mirrors book brand storytelling. Putting customers at the heart of your brand story recently won a Stevie award for the Book of the Year category for women in business. I invited Miri to the podcast because I believe firmly that brand is often an underdeveloped competency in most organizations. In this episode, you'll learn the elements of a great story, how to build an integrated marketing plan with story and how storytelling can sit at the center of your marketing and branding strateg...

For this episode of the Series, "Optimize for Success 2021", it was great to welcome back Jay McBain, Principal Analyst - Channels, Partnerships & Ecosystems at Forrester. In this episode, we discuss the rapid changes in the channel, accelerated by the pandemic and advice for listeners - "Find and Embrace the Ecosystem Delighting Your Customer." I hope you enjoy and listen as Jay always has a unique and well-shaped view of the channel based on his engagement with vendors, organizations, and partners and his command of the numbers driving the channel is like no other. In this episode, we pick up where we left off from our 2020 mid-year discussion and he shares his perspective and observations on trends he has seen in the channel in the last few months, the continued rapid transformation he is seeing, and where organizations need to focus to optimize success in 2021. LINKS & RESOURCES Find Jay McBain on LinkedIn and TwitterJay’s Personal BlogFollow Jay’s Forrester BlogHow Did I Score On My Channel Outlook For 2020?NEW - Channel Software Tech Stack 2021Channel Marketers Need To Become Community Marketers "The Law of a Few" - From Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point. Subscribe and listen to this podcast on Apple,  Spotify,  Google,  Audible,  SoundCloud, Stitcher, Player FM, almost anywhere you get your podcasts!Follow or reach Vince - Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook Drop me a line - vincem@ultimate-partnerships.com. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ and where they can find us. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Partnerships. Ultimate Partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships. Get Partnerships Right – Optimize for Success – Deliver Results – Ultimate Partnerships. Transcription By Otter.AI – Please Pardon Typos Below Vince Menzione 0:30Welcome, or Welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I'm Vince Menzione, your host and as we kick off the four year anniversary of this podcast and leap into 2021, I'm thankful to all of the amazing thought and business leaders who've come to this podcast to share principles, success strategies, and best practices that help technology organizations thrive during this age of change and transformation. As we kick off this new year, I'm excited to be joined for this special series by some of those industry thought leaders to help each of us better prepare for what we can do to optimize success in 2021. for this episode of the series, it was great to welcome back Jay McBain principal analyst channel's partnerships and ecosystems at Forrester. Jay was an early guest when I revived this podcast this summer, and he shared his perspective on what he was seeing mid year, and so I found it very appropriate to have him back to help share his perspective on what he is seeing going into 2021 Jay always has a unique view based on his bird's eye seat working with vendors, organizations and partners. His command of the numbers driving the channel is like no other. In this interview, he shares his perspective and observations and where organizations need to focus to optimize success in 2021. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed my time with Jay McBain. Jay, welcome back to the podcast. Jay McBain 2:10Thank you so much for having me. Vince Menzione 2:12I am really excited to have you back as a guest on Ultimate Guide to Partnering. You're one of my very first new guests coming back to the podcast this summer. And I'm excited to have you back to discuss the state of the channel as we kick off this New Year 2021. Jay McBain 2:28Well, I guess I didn't screw up if you're asking me back up on the right foot. Yeah, I Vince Menzione 2:32believe we are we are and you know, we had a really interesting conversation about some of the predictions that you had made at the beginning of 2020.

As we kick off the podcast's fourth anniversary and leap into 2021, I am excited to be joined by an "Industry Thought Leaders", a friend and a woman I admire, Chaitra Vedullapalli, the co-founder and CMO of Meylah Corporation, a purpose-driven organization. Chaitra is recognized as an Influential Business Leader with a passion to enable digital equity and access to achieve economic prosperity in our communities. As the co-founder and CMO of Meylah Corporation, Chaitra is focused on helping customers to modernize their business with cloud solutions. She is also the Co-Founder & President of Women in Cloud, where she drives global conversations with the United Nations and top corporations like Microsoft, IBM, and Accenture. In this episode, Chaitra and I discuss: Her Passions and JourneyHer Audacious Mission, Work, and Focus at MeylahHer work driving Women in the CloudWomen in Cloud Digital Summit 2021 - January 28th - 30th 2021. A must-attend event - for everyone in the tech sector. LINKS & RESOURCES More about ChaitraFollow Chaitra on Linked In, Twitter, Facebook. About MeylahRegister - Women in Cloud Digital Summit 2021Subscribe and listen to this podcast on Apple,  Spotify,  Google,  Audible,  SoundCloud, Stitcher, Player FM, almost anywhere you get your podcasts!Follow or reach Vince - Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook Drop me a line - vincem@ultimate-partnerships.com. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ and where they can find us. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Partnerships. Ultimate Partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships. Get Partnerships Right – Optimize for Success – Deliver Results – Ultimate Partnerships. Transcription By Otter.AI – Please Pardon Typos Below Vince Menzione  0:30  Chitra, welcome to the podcast. Chaitra Vedullapalli  2:22  Thank you, I'm really excited to be here and Happy New Year to you and to all your listeners, Vince Menzione  2:29  Happy 2021 I am so excited to be able to say for the first time, Happy 2021. And so excited to welcome you to the Ultimate Guide to partnering. Our paths have crossed for many years now you have had an amazing career, we both worked at Microsoft for a period of time. And you've been a force for good in places that we both really care about, including the women in the cloud movement, our partner ecosystem. And so I'm really looking forward to this conversation today. Chaitra Vedullapalli  2:56  Thank you, Vince, thank you Vince Menzione  2:58  Chitra, your bio is really impressive. You have had an amazing career both in large tech giants like Microsoft and Oracle. And as an entrepreneur, and you hold several positions in board roles. I was noticing your LinkedIn profile. I'm wondering where you find the energy? In fact, can you describe yourself to our listeners? Chaitra Vedullapalli  3:19  Because I wish I could see it in like a single line. But let me take a stab at it, I would say is the journey to Tech has been, I would say an accidental and also and I would say an opportunity. And it started with me saying no, I don't want to do technology because I wanted to be in music. But after getting married to engineer and moving here, decided like, you know, I couldn't fit into the music industry because I couldn't see myself there. Because the representation did not make it feasible to go however, I decided to go into the tech. So as a tech journey, I got into the Oracle consulting as my first role and then investing a lot with meeting with customers and doing a lot of consulting work and pricing and licensing stuff. And that helped me grow into the career very smoothly where I got to spend more time with the leadership team at Oracle, I would say the executive leadership and that's when I kind of saw what the potential of techno...

As we kick off the podcast's fourth anniversary and leap into 2021, I'm thankful to all of the amazing thought and business leaders who come to this podcast and share principles, success strategies, and best practices that help technology organizations thrive during this age of change and transformation. After a year like we've never experienced before, I am excited to be joined for this special series by some of these "Industry Thought Leaders" to help us better prepare for "What We Can Do to Optimize Success in 2021." My guest for this maiden episode of the series is Joseph Landes, the Chief Revenue Officer at Nerdio. Joseph's partner leadership experience is extensive and before joining Nerdio in 2018, Landes had a 23-year career at Microsoft and worked directly with Managed Service Providers (MSPs), Value-Added Resellers, Distributors, Enterprise partners, and other service providers in multiple geographies. In this episode, Joseph and I discuss: Nerdio unique and compelling value proposition to both MSPs and Enterprise Partners and Customers and why this is an excellent time for partners. His recommendations for Microsoft Partners for 2021.Observations, opportunities, and optimism going into this new year?What Makes A Great Partner - Having Great Listening and Learning Skills.Lessons from his career journey NerdioCon, the big event he is hosting, January 26th, and 27th. LINKS & RESOURCES Follow Joseph Landes Linked In, Twitter, About Nerdio Register for NerdioCon.Subscribe and listen to this podcast on Apple,  Spotify,  Google,  Audible,  SoundCloud, Stitcher, Player FM, almost anywhere you get your podcasts!Follow or reach Vince - Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook Drop me a line - vincem@ultimate-partnerships.com. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ and where they can find us. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Partnerships. Ultimate Partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships. Get Partnerships Right – Optimize for Success – Deliver Results – Ultimate Partnerships. Transcription By Otter.AI – Please Pardon Typos Below Vince Menzione 0:54Welcome, or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I'm Vince Menzione, your host and as we kick off the four year anniversary of this podcast, and leap into 2021. I'm thankful to all of the amazing thought and business leaders who've come to this podcast to share principles, success strategies, and best practices that help technology organizations thrive during this age of change and transformation. And after a year like we've never experienced before, I'm excited to be joined for this special series by some of those industry thought leaders to help each of us better prepare for what we can do to optimize success in this new year. My guest for this episode of this series is Joseph Landis', the Chief Revenue Officer of NERDIO and a longtime Microsoft partner leader. In this episode Joseph and I discuss NERDIO is a unique and compelling value proposition to both MSPs and enterprise partners and customers. Why this is a great time for partners, observations, opportunities, and optimism going into the new year. Lessons from his career journey and the big virtual event that his organization is hosting later this month. NERDIOCON January 26 and 27th. I hope you enjoy my interview with Joseph Landis'. Joseph, welcome to the podcast. Joseph Landes 2:28Thank you so much, Vince. It's great to be here with you. Vince Menzione 2:31I am so excited to have you today. You're the Chief Revenue Officer of NERDIO and I had a chance to work with your organization and I featured your founder Vadim Vladimirskiy on this podcast a couple of years ago, so great to have you as a guest and to learn more about where NERDIO has taken the business. Joseph Landes 2:50Yeah,

In the midst of all the transformation that the world is currently going through, partnerships are more critical to success now than ever before. Vince Menzione, Founder of Ultimate Partnerships LLC, has made it his life’s work to build successful partnerships to transform businesses in the tech industry. In this episode, Vince discusses the importance of having the right mindset towards partnerships during these times of transformations and sheds light on some guiding principles on partnering for success. Host: Tony SafoianGuest: Vince Menzione   Connect on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cloudnclear https://twitter.com/SADA https://twitter.com/Safoian https://twitter.com/vincemenzione Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sada/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/safoian/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincemenzione/   To learn more, visit SADA.com.

Given everything happening this year, it’s an understatement to say that we are living in uncertain times. Uncertainty creates fear and can wreak havoc on any organization. What does it take to lead a successful partner business as a vendor or as a partner through uncertain times? I took that question to channel chief and … Vince Menzione: How to Lead Partnerships in Uncertain Times Read More »

Transcript Mariya Zorotovich talks with Vince Menzione about emerging and disruptive technologies in retail with a focus on Artificial Intelligence. Mariya shares about her role as a translator between retail and consumer goods customer needs and Microsoft’s technology agenda related to Azure and AI technology. Further, organizations are using intelligent technologies to drive business in retail and consumer goods. Mariya recommends practical approaches to helping more traditional organizations truly transform in order to compete as this industry evolves. Show Links Explore AI for retail Read Reasons why retail and consumer goods brands should address Artificial Intelligence today Mariya Zorotovich Mariya Zorotovich, WW Industry Leader, Retail and Consumer Goods. Mariya Zorotovich has more than 20 years of experience in retail leading strategies and initiatives across sales, operations, human resources, public relations, technology and product management. Before joining Microsoft in 2016, she led strategy and delivery of digital capabilities and new services to market at Nordstrom across physical and digital channels. Mariya joined Microsoft as the US Retail CG Industry Solutions Executive focused on digital transformation at top Fortune 500 brands. Mariya is active in the Retail and CG community, currently serving on the Retail Tomorrow Board. Read Mariya's recent blog posts on how to address common retail and consumer goods use cases using Azure. Follow Mariya through LinkedIn or Twitter.

For this special series of the podcast, leading up to Microsoft Inspire, I interview leaders from Microsoft's One Commercial Partner team to discuss the work that their teams are doing in this age of rapid digital transformation. I was delighted to welcome back to the podcast Eduardo Kassner, the Chief Technology and Innovation Officer for the worldwide One Commercial Partner Organization under Gavriella Schuster. Eduardo was a previous guest on #39 - Fundamentals of Innovation for Partners to Transform.   In this episode, Eduardo and I have a lively discussion on the state of disruption that is continuing in our industry, the work that his team has been doing to enable and ready partners to embrace the transformation, the amazing content and eBooks that they have been delivering that we all need to be aware of and have access to, and what's in store for partners and some must attend sessions at Microsoft Inspire, July 15th through the 19th in Las Vegas, Nevada. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support, please tell your friends about the podcast and where you can find us. And I’d love your feedback you can reach me at vincemenzione on linkedin twitter facebook and Instagram or at vincem@cloudwavepartners.com. Designed to Disrupt https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/designed-to-disrupt-reimagine-your-apps-and-transform-your-industry/ Sessions we discuss at Inspire. General Sessions & Breakouts Type Title Time Location General Session | Eduardo Kassner Are you ready to capture the Artificial Intelligence opportunity? Come and learn from the best in the Market. MONDAY | 12:30-1:15 PM North, Level 0, South Pacific Ballroom F Breakout Learn best practices for finding and retaining top technical talent MONDAY | 1:45-2:30 PM North, Level 0, South Pacific Ballroom F Breakout Partner Capital Adequacy in a Cloud-first World MONDAY | 3:00-3:45 PM North, Level 0, South Pacific Ballroom F General Session | Melissa Mulholland Capitalize on the Digital Transformation Opportunity MONDAY | 4:15-5:00 PM North, Level 0, Islander Ballroom A Breakout There is nothing trivial about providing Cloud Migration or Operations Services. Come learn from the best and accelerate your practice. TUESDAY | 4:15-5:00 PM North, Level 0, South Pacific Ballroom C Workshops & Booth Sessions Type Title Time Location Booth Partner Profitability + Partner University ALL DAYS | 11:00 – 6:00 PM MPN Booth on Expo Floor Workshop Want to build an AI Practice, or add AI Services to your products? Build your strategy based on best practices TUESDAY | 12:30-1:15PM North, Level 0, South Pacific Ballroom I Workshop Beat the technical skills gap. Come build your strategy to attract, develop and retain top talent. TUESDAY | 2:00-3:00PM North, Level 0, South Pacific Ballroom G Workshop Accelerate the sales process with packaged cloud solutions WEDNESDAY | 2:30-3:30PM North, Level 0, South Pacific Ballroom G Workshop Accelerate your cloud business model WEDNESDAY | 4:00-5:00PM North, Level 0, South Pacific Ballroom G Workshop Value Based Pricing Approached – Shifting Project Revenue to High Margin Recurring Revenue WEDNESDAY | 8:30-9:30AM North, Level 0, South Pacific Ballroom G Workshop Want to provide the best Cloud Migration & Operations services? Come learn from the best practices and accelerate your success WEDNESDAY | 9:45-10:45AM North, Level 0, South Pacific Ballroom G Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy this episode. Transcript of the Interview. Eduardo, welcome back to the podcast. Eduardo K.:                      Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be back. Vince Menzione:             I'm excited to have you back. I know how compressed your schedule is right now. This is a great time for a discussion about what your team's been up to, and what's going to happen at Inspire in Las Vegas. I'm happy to have you back right before the event this year. Eduardo K.

Welcome to the 42nd episode of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. My guest for this episode of the podcast is Josh Waldo, the Chief Customer Officer for Nintex, a Global Leader in the Business Process automation market. Josh brings more than 20 years of experience leading partner strategy, partner marketing, product marketing and customer advocacy to Nintex. Prior to joining Nintex, Josh held a number of channel leadership positions at Microsoft during his nearly 10-year tenure there, including a role as the senior director of the Global Cloud Partner strategy where he helped the company transition partners to the cloud. Josh and I both worked at Microsoft and on Episode 33 my Guest Toby Richards referenced Nintex as a great example of a Microsoft partner that had mastered partner to partner engagement building out its own channel as many of Nintexs partners closely align as Microsoft managed partners. In this episode, Josh and I discuss Nintexs value proposition for customers, use Case examples and market sectors they serve,  how he thinks about his channel strategy, how the technology integrated with Microsoft, what he looks for in partners and his career journey. In this interview episode you will learn: What is Business Process Automation, key customers, markets, use cases and case study examples. How the company got started and how it has evolved with the shift to the cloud. The Nintex Partner Program and what he looks for in partners. How Nintex drives O365 utilization and Azure consumption and opportunities for growth. Advice for companies looking to partner with Nintex. Why it's important to be focused in the line of business. "Top 10 do’s and do not’s to partnering with other partners". Career insights - early career, insights moving from Microsoft to Nintex, best career advice given and received. You can listen to the podcast here or on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione

For my very first interview episode with Amazon Web Services (AWS) I was pleased to welcome to the Podcast Dan Kasun, a former colleague, who leads the ISV Strategy for AWS' Worldwide Public Sector Business. Dan and I met and discussed how his team is organized, what makes the AWS core value proposition unique for partners, the company's culture, how he thinks about great partnerships and his career journey. His team works with solution providers that develop finished applications for government, education, and nonprofits. We discuss how his team engages with these organization on business and technical enablement. We discuss why partners chose AWS the sheer scale of their infrastructure high availability and redundancy and the vast array of services AWS offers to partners and customers. Most customers are choosing a multi-cloud strategy today, so this episode should be particularly helpful and interesting to any technology organization or partner considering this approach. Some  highlights from the interview include: Dan takes our listeners through how Amazon's core set of leadership principles guide his business and partner engagement. You can access them HERE. How partners select and engage with AWS, how his team recruits partners and why they always need more partners to satisfy the demand for cloud and SAAS based solutions. What makes a great AWS partner - leadership, clarity of vision, high-quality technical talent, effective sales and marketing, high bias for action, experience in the industry, trustworthy and credibility - these are some of the traits we discussed. How his team facilitates cross partner engagement and is organized to foster it. Common myths working with AWS. Partners that have failed, why and what he would say to them now. Advice for partners looking to work with his organization. As with each of my episodes, Dan shares his career journey as a computer programmer and engineer and how that led to this spot in his career. Best piece of advice he received when he joined AWS. Quote he lives by and thinks of often - "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has", by Margaret Mead Book he's gifted often - "Most likely to succeed", By Tony Wagner. How to reach Dan - dankasun@amazon.com You can listen to the podcast here or on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione

I was delighted to have Eduardo Kassner, the leader of the WW One Commercial Partner (OCP) Strategy and Innovation Team, join the podcast for a lively discussion. In this episode, we discuss the fundamentals of innovation for partners to transform and how he and his team address the key areas where partners need the most support, guidance, and enablement. Eduardo brings a rich set of business, technical and leadership experiences to this role. His deep background as a cloud business leader lends itself to a  deep discussion on the fundamentals for success. It’s a rich business and technical discussion and points to the work he and Microsoft are doing to enable the partner ecosystem to accelerate and push through the change. Eduardo brings a wealth of resources, highlighting links available to help partners innovate and transform. In this interview, we address four fundamental focus areas: The Skills Gap - helping partners understand and address the skills gap, including how to locate, identify, attract, hire, onboard and retain talent. Change is happening so fast, how do you stay current? Check out Eduardo's Blog Post on the topic HERE. Practice Development - how partners can develop the right practices to grow and optimize their businesses. We share a link HERE to the Practice Development Playbooks with more details. Marketing / Selling - how partners can build a reputation and differentiate themselves in the market, find the next area of opportunity, build on it, and co-sell with Microsoft. Read more HERE. Profitability - how partners can achieve and maintain profitable in this new digital age. Read more HERE. In addition, Eduardo and I discuss how his team is working to evolve Microsoft Competencies to make them more relevant, measurable and deliverable to joint customer satisfaction. Its a continuation of a discussion from Episode #33 with Toby Richards. In addition, we discuss his book “Enterprise Cloud Strategy” with former Microsoft CTO Barry Briggs, which explores the why what and how of an "enterprise-class" IT environment. Eduardo also shares his career journey and how it prepared him for this unique role. Listeners and readers will find the following links from Eduardo valuable: Ebook blog https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/enterprise-cloud-strategy-2nd-edition/ Ebook link https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/enterprise-cloud-strategy/ Webinar for the ebook https://info.microsoft.com/roadmap-to-build-your-enterprise-cloud.html My MPN blog with a lot of articles: https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/news#/?author=Eduardo%20Kassner Build a Practice: https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/business-opportunities/build-a-practice Practice development playbooks: https://partner.microsoft.com/en-US/campaigns/cloud-practice-playbooks You can listen to the podcast here or on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione

I was thrilled to welcome to the podcast Margo Day, Microsoft's Vice President of US Education since 2012 and no stranger to the channel. Margo leads Microsoft's largest business focused on this segment and was Microsoft's US Channel Chief for 5 years from 2001 to 2006. In this episode, Margo shares with our listeners the US Education business, Microsoft’s focus on outcomes, how she thinks about partners in her business and her career journey. Margo's enthusiasm and passion for education and empowerment are contagious and come through in this interview. Her business role and her life work are both closely aligned with Microsoft's mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Toward the very end of our interview, Margo shares her personal story of the incredible and selfless work she does in collaboration with World Vision to make a difference in the lives of girls in Kenya. That work has been game-changing and has created new opportunities for thousands of girls whose only other path was Female Genital Mutilation and early marriage. Here's a link to Margo's personal blog about this work*. In addition, in this interview you will learn: Skills and competencies critical to success in preparing for the jobs of tomorrow - excellent communications skills, creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and traits such as character and citizenship. What Microsoft is doing to help students use the tools of tomorrow in the learning of today.  How Minecraft with Code Builder is being used in Education to develop computer coding skills and understand big data. Hacking Stem and how it is making learning experiential - data, coding, engineering students can see and visualize data examples in lessons plans to help democratize STEM and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math). How Microsoft tools in the classroom like One Note, Microsoft Learning tools, and Translator are helping students acquire skills to compete. How institutions are thinking about cost and optimizing operations by shifting their data centers to the cloud and how cloud tools can improve operations and create new scenarios by leveraging predictive analytics. Managing the campus - how ISV applications can greatly improve business operations leveraging IP that's been developed for other customers outside of Education. Security and developing an Identity Based Security Model What's she is seeing in the transformation that she didn't expect to see a year ago. The work in research and how Research Institutions are using big data to do breathtaking work. Where should Microsoft partners invest in 2018? What characteristics make a great partner? Top challenges organizations in technology face today? How Margo got started in technology. How to reach Margo Day - margoday@microsoft.com *If you or someone you know is interested in making a donation, please visit www.kenyagirls.seeyourimpact.org. You can listen to the podcast here or on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the rating link. This helps others find the podcast. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione  

You're invited to join Mike Moore, VP of Channel Strategy, Averetek, Peter Thomas, CEO, Averetek, and Vince Menzione in the office as we tackle the everyday challenges channel professionals face. This is a career none of us went to school for, yet somehow we found ourselves here. We're all doing the job, but are we doing it right?

The year 2017 was a most significant year in the technology industry. The digital transformation we've all been discussing is happening fast. Many experts in the industry have told me this year that change and transformation are happening even faster than they had expected. With the start of a new year, many technology companies are looking for guidance on where to place their bets for continued success and learn to skate to where the puck is going in 2018. To help inform the discussion, I turned to a good friend and encore interview guest Tony Safoian the CEO of SADA Systems. I invited Tony to join me for an interview in front of a live audience at The Channel Company's NexGen Conference in Los Angeles, California on December 12, 2017. Thank you, Robert DeMarzo for making it all possible. SADA Systems is a family owned company that has grown from a "small IT shop" to $100M in annual revenue and premier partner status with Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Tony was an early guest, Episode 3 of Ultimate Guide to Partnering and my most downloaded episode in Season 1. SADA has a strong track record of incredible growth and Tony joined me onstage to discuss where SADA is investing for continued success, how he’s recruiting and hiring top talent and where he sees the continued transformation in 2018. In our onstage interview we discuss: His company's story. His secrets to how he has attained and maintains premier status with three of the top five technology giants*. Challenges he has faced balancing field relationships with these technology leaders and how he continually builds trust. How he looks at micro - incubations or micro investments to drive future innovations. Where he sees the growth and where he is investing in the future. What he’s seeing happening faster today than he expected with the transformation. What customers expect today in terms of rearchitecting their services SADA's culture and how grit and determination instilled in his family has influenced it. Attracting and maintaining top talent today and particularly women in technology. Where is the technology sector headed in 2018? Decisions he made to take the organization from a small IT shop to $100M company. *As of this writing, the top five technology companies in terms of valuation are Amazon, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Facebook and Microsoft. You can listen to the podcast here or on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione  

Don Yaeger - 11 Time New York Time Best Selling Author, Speaker and Coach. As we approach year's end, I asked my good friend and New York Times BestSelling author, Don Yaeger to join me for a special encore episode to discuss his latest book along with leadership lessons and principles that he has applied to a successful career and personal life. This episode is a little different than our typical episodes, but there are some great nuggets and leadership lessons that Don shares from a rich career and engagement with leaders in all aspects of business. For this 36th Episode Don Yaeger shares: Leadership lessons from his latest New York Times Best Selling book  - Andrew Jackson & the Miracle of New Orleans. A leadership principle that has kept him focused on his business. How he has learned to stay focused on one thing at a time. How he writes books - his best creation time and why he doesn't suffer from "writer's block" when facing a deadline. The best piece of advice he received when he planned to leave the corporate world and venture into his own business writing books and speaking. His morning rituals - a typical Don Yaeger morning and how he balances a hectic life. How he dealt with a really rough situation in his business. Core operating principles he follows and instills in his company. "The 16 Characteristics of What Makes a Great Teammate" from his NYT Best Selling Book "Teammate"and how that translates to what makes great partnerships. Including the best trait to follow for an organization going through a significant transformation Humble - Make a point to praise others, especially when you are being praised. Fully Engaged - Be present at all times. Notice all that is happening. Encouraging - Identify those co-workers who are struggling and find ways to inspire them. Respected - Allow your voice to be heard in a manner that holds people accountable. Reliable - Be consistent in your roles so your team knows what to expect of you everyday. Problem Solver - When a mistake is made, lead the team to a solution instead of placing blame. Resourceful - share your expertise with these co workers in your circle. Willing to Sacrifice - Assume whatever role necessary - never say no it's not my job. Positive - When things go wrong, highlight the upside. Communicators - If you have something constructive to add, speak-up. Relationship Builders - Beyond your department, build bridges. Honest - Transparent and well-intended for the betterment of the team. Hard Workers - Arrive early and exceed expectations. Always Ready - Volunteer for assignments no one else wants. Competitors - remind others that winning matters to you. Fun - remain approachable, reliable and friendly. Don has written 27 books and 11 are New York Times Bestsellers and his books make great holiday gifts. You can search site here or contact Don directly and mention that you heard this podcast Don@Team180.com. You can listen to the podcast here or on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione  

One area where transformation has the potential for high impact that improves lives is Public Safety. A few short years ago, data security and data sharing was a huge impediment to the use of the cloud in this market. That's when one of the tech giants invested in CJIS - Criminal Justice and Information Systems certifications to allay governmental agency concerns. Today with these certifications as an enabler, the cloud promises to drive significant transformation in public safety and opens up opportunities for partners. For my 35th episode of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering, I welcome Rick Zak the Justice and Public Safety Solutions Director at Microsoft. In his role, Rick provides guidance on strategy, technology, and policy for law enforcement, situational awareness, collaboration and video, emergency management and corrections systems. On this podcast we discuss how  transformative technologies are impacting this sector and how the cloud promises to drive significant transformation in public safety and law enforcement markets. Our conversation explores how government has the unique opportunity to improve lives and protect citizens through technology as part of their "smart cities" initiatives. Microsoft has it's own smart city program known as City Next. It’s a really great conversation for partners looking to learn more about this market, how the perception of Cloud has changed, and how Microsoft Gov Cloud drives transformation in this market. In this episode we explore: How Microsoft serves the law enforcement and public safety community. How this evolved from core infrastructure to supporting the transformative capabilities of the cloud. How Rick ended up focused on this specific vertical. Three areas where the cloud opens up transformation. How the perception of "cloud" has changed in the Law Enforcement market. Solutions he is seeing in this market from ISV's - Independent Solution Vendors. The opportunity for partners to take their core competencies from other sectors and markets into public sector. How IoT - Internet of Things - devices and sensors are changing the conversation. Characteristics of a great partner, advice for partners that struggle and the work he does to help partners along their transformational journey to the cloud. Books he’s gifted - Lincoln by Gore Vidal and Connections by James Burke. How you can reach Rick to engage https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardzak/ You can listen to the podcast here or on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione

Jason Rook, Vice President Market Development 10th Magnitude The pace of change and transformation is happening fast, customers are moving to public cloud infrastructures at a rate not seen before, open source technologies and tools are enabling it and partners need to be adaptable. These are messages that resonated when I recently met with  Jason Rook,  for a special encore interview and update on the state of the transformation from his vantage point. Jason is the Vice President of Market Development for 10th Magnitude, an early "Born in the Cloud" partner. Microsoft chose 10th as its 2017 Partner of the Year for Infrastructure and Hybrid Cloud. On Episode 13 of my podcast, Jason and I discussed the company’s evolution and growth and in this interview episode he shares what he is observing today from his vantage point. In this interview we discuss the rate of change and growth, emerging technology trends and why brand, employees and customers are the new currency. By listening to this episode of the podcast, you’ll learn: 1. The rapid sun-setting of on-premise data centers and the shift of customers to embracing public cloud. His company has migrated 166 data centers to the public cloud in 2017. 2. Containerization and how this technology is giving customers flexibility and scale. 3. The trend toward Open Source. 4. Why he believes customers choose Microsoft as their Public Cloud. 5. How he is viewing Microsoft’s internal change and transformation as a partner. 6. Why “ focus” as a partner is critical to branding. 7. Brand, employees and customers as the new currency. 8. How his company now views the Managed Service Provider model. 9. How he continues to recruit great talent. 10. Two books by Verne Harnish he recommends to partners looking to grow and transforming their businesses -Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and Scaling Up. You can listen to the podcast here or on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione

Toby Richards, General Manager Worldwide Partner Programs In this episode we peel back on the Worldwide Partner Transformation going on at Microsoft and the One Commercial Partner or OCP organization that is driving much of it with Toby Richards, the General Manager of Partner Programs at Microsoft. Toby and his team are responsible for partner programs worldwide at Microsoft including the Microsoft Partner Network program, the CSP - Cloud Solution Provider partner experience, community engagement and the Microsoft Inspire partner conference. In our discussion we focus on how his team is supporting and leading this worldwide partner transformation, what programs are getting the most attention and what has changed. Toby has spent over 25 years in the technology industry, holding several leadership roles within Microsoft including Customer & Partner Experience, and most recently, Partner Support within the company’s WW Services organization. In our discussion we also discuss his career journey. In this episode you will learn: What programs are getting the most of his attention during the worldwide partner transformation. How he is thinking about the startup community and early stage partners with IP. The new Microsoft Partner Community Portal and plans to expand the content to drive greater collaboration. His experience in the Customer and Partner Experience Organization and how he has applied his perspective on the change and transformation with an emphasis on customer success. The Modern Partner Series and its four attributes: 1. Differentiate to Stand Out, 2. Optimize your Operations, 3. Modernizing Sales and Marketing and 4. Focus on Customer Lifetime Value. The greatest challenges he sees with partners transforming and making the shift to the new model. Why it’s important to follow the incentives. What he believes makes a great partner The IDC Study on Partner Profitability. His professional journey and why the voice of customer always wins.   You can listen to the podcast here. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione

I'm delighted to welcome a thought leader, sales strategist, growth adviser and change agent to Ultimate Guide to Partnering, Tiffani Bova. Tiffani is the Global, Customer Growth, Sales and Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce. Her focus is to help drive customer success within their vast customer and partner ecosystem, helping companies re-imagine how they can not only grow bigger but grow better with innovative business models and technology. Bova has earned accolades from the best leaders in the technology world like HP, IBM, Amazon, Oracle, SAP, Oracle, Cisco, and Microsoft. They praise her for cutting-edge analysis and her skill at inventing bold strategies for growth. "Tiffani is one of the most knowledgeable analysts in the industry when it comes to understanding channel, customer and tech trends." "She's the only one who speaks to the real world we all live in – recognizing our need to preserve the existing revenue stream while simultaneously developing a whole new approach." "Her ability to see clearly several steps ahead and uncover practical solutions to shortcomings and challenges is a true asset." Prior to working with Salesforce she was a VP, Distinguished Analyst and Research Fellow at Gartner. Bova has also lived in the fast lane of high tech, leading sales organizations, driving growth and creating durable competitive advantages at Sprint, Inacom, Interland (web.com) and Gateway Computers. She learned how to lead sales and marketing teams in hotly competitive markets. She created some of the first cloud based channel programs and completely reinvented "go-to-market" tactics in several hardware and services businesses. And she developed her unique ability to connect with executives and employees at every level. Tiffany and I have an extensive and rich conversation. In this episode you will learn: Why she decided to host her own podcast “What’s Next” to share the conversations with thought leaders on business transformation. Listen here: http://whatsnextpodcast.libsyn.com/website. Partner transformation and the pace of change that she has observed over a span of several years. And that speed of business is the new currency. Disruption of existing models and why monetization is really tough for smaller organizations. Why it’s hard for both the vendor and partner to shift. What is the right pace of change for IT channel partners. Trends she sees in the marketplace. Advice she gives organizations looking to transformation. Why "Customer Experience is the new battleground". When a business coach or advisor can help your small business through transformation. Her mentors, career advice, lessons learned and other nuggets from her career journey. You can listen to the podcast and read the transcript of this episode below. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione Transcript I'm really excited to have you as a guest on The Ultimate Guide to partnering you and I had the opportunity to interact when you were a gardener and supporting Microsoft at a pivotal time in the business. And I'm a big fan of yours and excited to have you here today so welcome. Tiffani Bova:                    01:23                  Oh I'm so glad to be here Vantz and I'm so glad to have conversation about you know something I'm passionate about which is channels and partnering. Vince Menzione:             01:30                  So terrific to have you as well. And ad sales force you have a very interesting title now customer growth and innovation evangelists. I think that's a really cool title by the way. Can you tell our listeners a little bit more about how you see your...

  Welcome to the 31st episode of The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. My guest for this episode of the podcast is Casey Coleman, Senior Vice-President of Global Government Solutions at Salesforce. She is responsible for enterprise positioning and solution strategies for government customers worldwide. Salesforce was at the forefront of business transformation as one of the first pure cloud companies back in 1999. Casey's career has been at the intersection of both government and industry, having led GSA's transformation as its CIO during the Obama administration. At GSA, Casey chaired the Federal CIO Council’s Cloud First committee that developed the FedRAMP standard for cloud cybersecurity. Casey holds several honors and awards from various organizations, including the Computerworld Premier 100 Award and the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium Award for Leadership in Innovation. She is a three-time winner of the Federal Computer Week Federal 100 Award. In this episode, we peel back on Casey's role at Salesforce, Salesforce solutions focused in on the government sector, Salesforce as a company, and the amazing DreamForce event taking place in San Francisco in the coming week. In this episode you'll learn more about: Casey's role leading Government Solutions for Salesforce, one of seven industry markets for the company. What she loves about working for Salesforce and the company's four core values - Growth, Innovation, Quality and Trust. Why customers choose Salesforce as a platform and vendor. What makes a good partner and what challenges she experienced driving change with vendors when at GSA. What she thinks are the greatest opportunities for growth in government. How she is thinking about her first DreamForce event and keynote. A link to Casey's session at the event here: Her career journey, advice she received getting started and mentors. You can listen to the podcast and read the transcript of this episode below. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast. Thank you for following and listening. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione Transcript Vince Menzione:             00:38                  Welcome to the third episode of The Ultimate Guide to partnering my guest for this episode of The podcast is K.C. Coleman senior vice president of global government solutions at sales force sales force has been a pioneer and at the forefront of business transformation and Casey has been at the intersection of both government and industry. Having served as the CIO of GSA during the federal government's push to a cloud first strategy during the Obama administration in this episode we peel back on Casey's role at sales force some of sales forces solutions focused in on the government sector sales force as a company and the amazing Dreamforce event taking place in San Francisco in just a few days. As with each of my episodes I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on linked in or email at Vince m at cloud wave partners dot net. And now with the latest version of iOS it's easier than ever to rate and review this podcast. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy this episode. Vince Menzione:             01:44                  KC Welcome to the podcast Sansome glad to be here.  I am excited to have you today to share with our listeners your role at sales force the company's amazing value proposition what you look for in successful partnerships your career journey and your personal story so welcome to you. Vince Menzione:             02:02                  KC I'm fascinated by how people got to this particular spot in life and you've been the recipient of several awards and honors top 50 women in technolog...

One of the most important and pivotal areas of focus for the company is the the group of Microsoft Strategic Partners with Licensing Solution Competencies. I've been interviewing partner leaders on how the business is evolving since the formation of the OCP or One Commercial Partner organization and this week's discussion led me to Scott Buth, whose team focuses on supporting some of the largest strategic partners at Microsoft. During Scott’s nearly 10 years at Microsoft, and 14 years in the Channel, he has held a variety of roles from sales and product management to partner account management across software and hardware. Now as Director of Partner Development in Microsoft's One Commercial Partner organization, he is responsible for the solution and practice development within Microsoft’s US Licensing Solution Provider (LSP) Partners aligned to Microsoft’s four solution areas – Modern Workplace, Apps & Infrastructure, Data & AI, and Business Applications. . In our interview you will learn about Scott's role and the mission of his team, what strategic levers he applies to help these partners evolve their practices and where he sees the growth for Microsoft's largest strategic partners. In addition, you will learn: How his organization works across OCP - leveraging resources from Build With, Go-to-Market and Sell With organizations to help partners better align on business planning, strategy and market expansion. The infusion of PTS or Partner Technology Strategists and "the swarm" of CSA - Cloud Solution Architects available to partners. Challenges partners face during the transformation. How partners are developing new revenue models. How he sees the business evolving with CSP - Cloud Solution Provider program. Qualities he believes important to great partnerships: commitment, transparency and accountability. The importance of having a growth mindset and listening. His personal and professional journey and business philosophy. You can listen to the podcast and read the transcript of this episode below. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast. Thank you for following and listening. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione Transcript Vince Menzione:             Welcome to the 30th episode of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. In this episode, I walk the hallways once again at Microsoft to interview partner leaders during this season of change and transformation. In this episode, we'll peel back on the organization that manages some of Microsoft's most strategic and largest partners. My guest today is Scott Buth, director of partner development in the One Commercial Partner Team. We'll learn about Scott's role and mission, how his team engages with these partners, strategic levers he's applying to help these partners grow, and where he sees the growth. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your feedback. With the latest version of iOS, it's easier now than ever to rate and review this episode. You can also email me at VinceM@cloudwavepartners.net. Thank you for listening and thank you for supporting the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. Scott, welcome to the podcast. I'm really excited to have you on today to share with our listeners your role leading what we refer to as the "strategic partners with license solution provider authorization" at Microsoft, and how you go to market, what you look for in successful partnerships, your career journey, and your personal story. So, welcome. Scott Buth:                       Thank you, Vince. I appreciate you having me on today. Vince Menzione:             Just really great timing to have you, given the state of change in the channel and at Microsoft...

                Security is a wildly important topic today given the risks and the number of security threats from bad actors and nation states. Security in a cloud-enabled world requires a new approach as organizations transform. Solutions that address multi platform needs are more important now than ever before. My guest for this podcast episode is Dan Mannion, Vice President of Partners & Technology Alliances for Armor, a Security Platform Company based in Richardson, Texas. In this interview Dan addresses the new realities of security in a cloud-enabled world and how Armor solves for them. As the First Totally Secure Cloud Company™, Armor sets the standard for managed cloud security services – delivering protection, detection and response for data workloads and applications no matter where they’re hosted. Dan is responsible to all aspects of business alliances with vendors and Armor's reseller channel for this fast growing Cloud Security company. He has been responsible for creating a trusted, predictable indirect sales channel that will soon generate the majority of the revenue for the company and shifting the previous channel business from SMB focused and reactive, to proactive and mid-market/lower enterprise focused. In this interview you will learn: The importance of security in today's heterogeneous, multi cloud platform IT environment. The "Three Types of Threat Actors". Armor's Security Platform - Spartan - secures over 1200 customers in 45 countries today. The Shared Responsibility Model - accountability when customers move their apps and data to the cloud How he balances his business focus across two hyperscaler vendor partners - Microsoft and Amazon Web Services or AWS. The three classes of organizations he partners with to sell and deliver his solutions. How he enables Armor's partners to successfully identify, qualify and sell. Where he sees the growth - Armor Anywhere, international expansion and partner growth. What makes a great partner. Dan's career journey including career advice and great books he recommends. You can listen to the podcast and read the transcript of this episode below. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast. Thank you for following and listening. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione Transcript Vince Menzione:             00:36                  Welcome to the twenty ninth episode of The Ultimate Guide to partnering my guest for this episode is Dan Mannion the vice president of partners and technology alliances for armor armor sets the standard for managed cloud security services delivering protection detection and response for data workloads and applications. No matter where they are hosted in this episode Dan talks about the importance of security in today's volatile I.T. environment. The three types of threat actors armor's secure platform and how it secures over 1200 customers in 45 countries today how he thinks about partnerships alliances and channels and how channels will be such an important part of armor's growth moving forward. I hope you enjoy this episode and thank you for your support and for listening to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. Vince Menzione:             01:30                  Dan welcome to the podcast. I'm delighted to welcome you here today. You and I have known each other for quite some time. You're the vice president of partners and alliances for armer a company focused on manage cloud security services and your organization Partners with the hyperscalers. Some of our partner listeners and customers to deliver world class solutions. So welcome to the podcast. Dan Mannion:                 01:52              ...

In my podcast and recent series - Season of Change and Transformation,  I interview leaders from Microsoft on how the recent reorganization is impacting partner engagement for over 300,000 partners to ensure partners stay in lock step with the technology giant. In this 28th episode, I visit with William Lewallen who leads the Cloud Solution Provider Program in the United States for an encore episode and update on the program for Microsoft's Fiscal Year 2018. William was an early guest on Episode 5 of Ultimate Guide to Partnering and as a member of the OCP or One Commercial Partner organization he leads the engagement of over 8000 CSP partners for Microsoft's United States subsidiary. In this encore episode you will learn: Where the CSP Program now sits within OCP - One Commercial Partner Organization. His point of view on the energy level in Bellevue and sense of renewed commitment. Changes and enhancements to Microsoft's Cloud Solution Provider Program since Episode 5. Where he is focused to drive incremental growth for the business. Channel incentive levers that favorably support the program. Where people can learn more about CSP - HERE You can listen or read the transcript of this episode below. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast. Thank you for following and listening. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione Podcast Transcript Vince Menzione:             William, welcome to the podcast. William L.:                        Hey, Vince. Good morning. Vince Menzione:             It's really great to have you back on this encore episode and update on the business. You were an early interview guest - Episode 5, and given the state of change and transformation, I thought it would be great for our listeners to get this check-in from you on the state of the CSP or Cloud Solution Provider business. So, welcome. William L.:                        Yeah. Thanks for having me back and congratulations. We're a long way from Episode 5 now, and I've listened to most of them. And I think what you're doing is great and providing a real great set of resources for partners. So, congratulations. Vince Menzione:             Thank you for that very generous feedback, and for our listeners who didn't tune in to Episode 5, can you take a moment to peel back on your role at Microsoft and the Cloud Solution Provider program in greater detail? William L.:                        Sure. So, the Cloud Solution Provider program, CSP, is a sales program that allows partners to resell our cloud services alongside their own managed professional services and IP. So it's a program where partners are responsible for deploying, managing, provisioning, management and billing, so they can offer a more streamlined experience for their customers. And my role in the US subsidiary of Microsoft is, I am the lead for the program. Vince Menzione:             And your role sites in the new One Commercial Partner, or OCP, organization. Is that correct, William? William L.:                        That is correct, and the reorganization put all of our commercial partners - so think of that as non-consumer partners - into a single organization called One Commercial Partner. There are a few teams that make up that organization. There's a Build With side, and I think you spoke with somebody about kind of some more details on that, essentially where we're doing partner and practice development. There is a Sell With side that's focused on co-selling alongside our sales teams in the field. I'm part of the Go To Market, or GTM, team, which is really kind of putting glue between the entire looking left to right across the partner life cycle from re...

  In this interview, Chris Pyle and I sat down for a discussion on partner profitability and relevance during the transformation. Chris is the CEO of Champion Solutions, a premier Microsoft partner based in Boca Raton, Florida who has made the transformation and now shares his advice to help other partners benefit as they migrate to cloud service providers. Champion started as a IBM hardware reseller and transformed to a premier cloud solution partner of Microsoft. Chris discusses how he addressed the challenge of transformation in positioning his new identity with his traditional customer and bringing his sales organization along. In order to make the transformation, Champion started an entirely new company and brand Message Ops to focus on this new and emerging market. Chris takes our listeners through his 3-Step approach applying digital marketing to build a new business, brand and market. His 3 steps - Acquire, Engage and Monetize. Acquire - created value for potential clients through providing support - he initially grew a follower base of 5,000 members. Engage - built free tools, products and utilities growing to 90,000 members Monetize - began engaging with customers helping with migrations and supporting customers in their transformation. This "3 - step" approach ultimately led to being partner of record for over 3.2 Million Seats of Office 365. By building this new business Chris finally got Champion to break out of its old mold - think Entrepreneur's Dilemma - and transform while the traditional business continued to perform. Chris recently commissioned a study, "The True Price of Office 365" to inform his community on the true cost of running Office 365 and how he could add value to customers.  This study helped him develop a statement of work and better profitability in supporting clients. Speaking at industry events, Chris cautions partners to stay relevant as clients migrate more and more workloads to the cloud. Chris has also launched a platform to help clients best utilize their investments in O365 - Office365adoption.com. I asked what makes a great partner and for him it's all about Speed, Innovation and Execution. In today's environment it's fail fast - ready, fire, adjust! Toward the end of our interview we also discuss career journey, personal pursuits, advice he'd give his younger self, books he values and thoughts to live life. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. This helps others find the podcast. Thank you for following and listening. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione

Vince Menzione is the founder of Cloud Wave Partners, a company that helps technology organizations build profitable relationships and execute effective partner strategies to grow their business. He’s an award-winning leader who was in charge of the launch of Microsoft’s cloud offerings & enabled the organization’s transformation to a cloud services model. Vince is also the host of the podcast ‘Ultimate Guide to Partnering’, which focuses on helping technology giants connect & thrive in the rapid age of digital transformation. What you’ll learn about in this episode The importance of keeping pace with rapid changes in technology within your business Why commitment to change must start at the top of the organization The need for grit and determination for your business to be successful How being adaptable in the technology age will benefit your business The benefits of focusing on your three most important tasks each day How starting your day with some form of exercise can help you focus on your day Having the courage to make the tough decisions when necessary Why patience and consistency are critical skills to master The importance of guarding the doorway to your mind Having an ideal customer profile leads to working with the right clientele How to best connect with Vince: Email: vincemenzione@gmail.com Twitter: @vincemenzione

Scott Peltier, Microsoft's US Channel Incentives Lead - One Commercial Partner Microsoft Channel Incentives can be a complex and polarizing topic for Microsoft Partners. In this episode of this special series, "Season of Change and Transformation", I interview Microsoft's US Channel Lead - Scott Peltier. Scott and I peel back the topic of Microsoft channel incentives available to close to 100,000 Microsoft Partners in the U.S Market. Scott simplifies the topic, how channel incentives have evolved to support the transformation and feedback he receives from partners. Scott does a nice job of discussing his approach to the business. His insights and appreciation for what makes a great partnership and how the approach to partners has evolved to better support the business and is why Microsoft is the place for partners to place their big bets. Scott also gives advice for partners looking to better engage with him and his team. In the interview, we also discuss his career journey, valuable lessons he learned when he started in his career, role models and advice he gives to the people he mentors. You can read the entire transcript of the interview below. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. This helps others find the podcast. Thank you for following and listening. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione Vince Menzione:             Scott, welcome to the podcast. I am really excited to have you on, my friend. We had the opportunity to work for several years together within the US Partner Organization. Your topic, channel incentives, is one that's near and dear to our partners, so I'm glad you could join us today during this season of change at Microsoft and to tell our listeners all the exciting things that are happening in your role and your organization. So, welcome. Scott Peltier:                    Hey, Vince. Thank you very, very much. You are exactly right. Channel incentives, I've been running this business for several years and it is an exciting business. It's sometimes a very hard business, but I am delighted to be here with you and to talk through some of the strategies, the things that we're doing, things that as you know are very, very important to partners and that's their profitability. I have been at the heart of that for several years, and I can't think of a more exciting role that I've been able to partake up in the last several years and to really get to know partners and really what makes them work. So, glad to be here and looking forward to our time together today. Vince Menzione:             We're going to peel back a little bit on that channel incentives piece, but I want to give you a little bit of insight from my side, you and I working very closely together over the years. This is a very complex topic, and it's one that isn't very well understood for a lot of people both partners and internally to Microsoft, so I think this interview will be very insightful for folks. To begin, can you take our listeners a little bit through your role and your mission that you're looking to accomplish for partners? Scott Peltier:                    Sure, and I'm gonna digress just for a moment because when I visit with whether it's family members, relatives, they all want to know what I do at Microsoft and when you work in Microsoft you can ... You get very complex very fast, but we speak the same language, but to folks like my family members or relatives, they don't understand all of our language used at Microsoft, so interestingly, here's how I describe what my role is at Microsoft to the outside world when they go "Scott, what do you do at Microsoft?" I say, "Hey, have you ever gone to Walmart and opened up the coupon book,

This interview episode of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering was recorded onsite at the XChange2017 event in Orlando. I had the chance to sit down with a former colleague Eric Martorano, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) of Intermedia, a one stop provider of solutions for the business cloud and a premier Microsoft Partner. Eric is responsible for sales and strategic partnerships across the globe. He brings to this role over 20 years experience in the industry, deep expertise in working closely and strategically with a range of customers and partners, and his passion for customer and partner success. Martorano has been recognized as a top industry performer, including being named to CRN’s “Top 100 Executives” and “Channel Maverick” lists, among others. In this interview Eric takes our partner listeners through Intermedia's unique business cloud value proposition for both customers and partners and if you are a partner trying to determine how to best monetize business cloud offerings in this age of rapid digital transformation, you may find Intermedia's partner-centric model and business cloud focus very compelling. As with many of my interviews, I found Eric's personal story of transformation to be very compelling. His is a story of grit and determination to overcome failure and to reinvent himself, ultimately leading to a highly successful career in technology. As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. This helps others find the podcast. Thank you for following and listening. I hope you enjoy this episode! Vince Menzione   Transcript of our interview Vince Menzione:            Eric, welcome to the poscast. You and I have had the opportunity to work closely together for many years at Microsoft and I'm really excited to have you here today to share with our listeners your company's unique value proposition, how you go to market, what you look for in successful partnerships, and your career journey and personal story. Eric Martorano:              Thank you very much, Vince. Really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you for allowing me to join you here today, and being part of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. Vince Menzione:             I'm so excited to have you and to tell your story. So let's just dive in now. Can you tell our listeners about your company, Intermedia? What the company's value proposition is, the mission, and how it's evolved over the years. Eric Martorano:              Sure. Well, Intermedia's a client-oriented one-stop shop for cloud business applications. For customers, we deliver security, scalability, and someone to manage the intricacies of the cloud forum. For partners, we offer these things along with value ads that help them run a profitable cloud business. Hundreds of competitors offer to spare point solutions, just voice, backup, security, or email. This can likely threaten the workplace efficiency. As businesses deal with multiple unintegrated vendors, support organizations and bills. Intermedia takes a different and better approach by delivering a robust suite of integrated cloud solutions from a single provider. Vince Menzione:             I got to see you present here at the Exchange 2017 event and I really get it. Because you're taking a lot of the complexity out of the equation. How did the company end up getting focused on these solution sets? Eric Martorano:              While business needs continually evolve, change, the demand for productivity remains constant. We continually build on top of a core technology platform and it really addresses the partner and customer needs. We help customers focus on what matters, and it enables partners to differentiate and run a profitable business. As customers, partner,

I've dubbed this interview and series, Microsoft's Season of Change and Transformation. This is the first interview in a series to help the partner community best engage with the technology giant as it evolves it's partner business to better serve partners and customers. As most of you know, Microsoft announced a major reorganization to it's customer and partner - facing business in early July which included the formation of a "One Commercial Partner" or OCP organization. This included three key elements - "Build With", "Go to Market", and "Sell With"*. *In an earlier episode, Bill Hawkins helped decode the announcements for our listeners in greater detail and you can listen to this Episode 18 as a primer. With Microsoft summer and implementation still underway, I thought it would be good to walk our partners down the hallways of Bellevue and Redmond and "peel back" through interviews with partner leaders on how to best align and engage with Microsoft at this critical season. My guest for this interview episode is Eric Loper. Eric leads a "Build With" organization of partner business development managers focused on growing competencies, capabilities and capacity with Microsoft's top partners in the United States. This is a second or " encore" interview episode with for Eric. If you listened to Episode 2 of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering you will remember Eric as my very first interview guest. At the time Eric and I had a great discussion and he shared with partner listeners the essential elements of partnering, his observations on technology trends and recommendations on how to best engage with the technology giant. You can listen to that episode here. For this interview episode, Eric updates us on how the changes are positively impacting his organization, the renewed excitement and energy around partners, how both partners and partner sellers now need to think and act, and the increased investments in growing the business with and through partners. A full transcript of the interview is below in the show notes. If you have not listened to the podcast, now is your chance by going to iTunes , Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players or by going to my website “Ultimate Guide to Partnering“. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. This helps others find the podcast. You can also follow and like on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thank you for following and listening. Vince Menzione Transcript of our interview. Eric, welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you back for this encore episode and to update our listeners on you and the business. You were my very first interview guest about 25 episodes ago. Boy, have we come a long way since then. At the time, you had a fairly small team, focused strictly on the National Solution Provider Program, and your organization was nested in the US business underneath the S&S&P team. Flash forward six months now, all of that is changed, and I'm super excited to have you here, and hear from you about the changes. The charge in the energy in Bellevue and RedMon right now. So, tell our listeners a little bit about what's happening. Eric Loper:                       Awesome. Well, first of all, thanks for having me. It's always good to have a chance to catch up. By the way, I listened to some of your conversation with Bill Hawkins the other day. I thought that he did a great job. I took away some things from that and excited that you continue to deliver something that's pretty cool for our partner community. Vince Menzione:             Thank you. So tell us, how is the charge in energy in Bellevue right now? Eric Loper:                       I think there's a ton of excitement. We're in a place right now where we are seeing great investment. Some of that is really recognizing the opportunity this year in the US.

Shawn Toldo 2012 This episode features Shawn Toldo who leads the Worldwide Solution Partner Program as a VP for VMWare, Inc.. In this episode Shawn shares the opportunity for channel partners looking to engage with VMWare. VMware, Inc. is a subsidiary of Dell Technologiesthat provides cloud computing and platform virtualization software and services.[2] It was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture.[3] In this episode Shawn tells the business story and value proposition to partners of this  cloud computing and platform virtualization software and services company, how he thinks about what makes great partnerships and his personal and professional journey. I'm also excited that Shawn offered to join the podcast in the days leading up to VMWare's big VMWorld Conference in Las Vegas, NV and what was an outstanding event for its partners and customers. A full transcript of the interview is below in the show notes. If you have not listened to the podcast, now is your chance by going to iTunes , Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players or by going to my website “Ultimate Guide to Partnering“. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. This helps others find the podcast. You can also follow and like on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thank you for following and listening. Vince Menzione Transcript of our interview. Vince Menzione :            Shawn, welcome to the podcast. You and I have had the opportunity to work closely together for many years and I'm really excited to have you on today to share with our listeners VMware's unique value proposition, how you go to market, what you look for in successful partnerships, your career journey, and your personal story. Welcome. Shawn Toldo:                  Thank you, Vince. It's a pleasure to have a chance to speak with you as well as the audience and looking forward to the discussion today. Vince Menzione :            First, for our listeners, tell our listeners a little bit about who you are. Shawn Toldo:                  Yeah, so from a professional standpoint my name is Shawn Toldo. I have been at VMware for almost a year now leading the solution partner route to market. Our collective team is very focused on accelerating VMware's growth through helping our customers digitally transform through the use of our technology via our partners. Prior to my time at VMware, I spent 12 years at Microsoft in a variety of roles in the US partner business there. Fantastic experience and that's been awesome coming to VMware and having the opportunity to leverage it here. Vince Menzione :            Tell our listeners a little bit more about your role and the mission of your organization. Shawn Toldo:                  The mission of our organization is to deliver customer success through the best solution partner engine in technology. We have a global team that's focused on building processes for partner engagement and profitability. We collaborate very closely with the geo leadership across AMER, EMEA, and APJ. They're responsible for channel sales and the local partner relationships across the world. Vince Menzione :            You overlay those organizations I guess essentially, right? When you say geo organizations for our listeners that don't understand that, those are the geographical business units within VMware, correct? Shawn Toldo:                  Within the global organization we're responsible for setting strategy and overall management of execution within the route, which is our solution partner route to market. Our geo leaders are responsible for the execution locally from a channel sales perspective as well as the partner relationships within the geographies. Vince Menzione :            Great. VMware basically invented the virtualization market.

While I was speaking at the XChange 2017 in Orlando*, I was reminded of the stories of grit, determination and personal transformation of many interview guests. *I really enjoyed the opportunity to connect with so many great friends and partners at the event and wish to thank Robert DeMarzo, Doris Branscombe and the entire Channel Company team for the opportunity. This 21st episode is a bit of a milestone or a mid year point for the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. We've built an amazing body of work through the terrific interview guests that I now share broadly in talks with technology organizations to stay better informed, connect and thrive. This is a "solocast" episode where I share the genesis of the podcast, a unique story of grit, determination and personal transformation, and ask my tribe of listeners for feedback to make this the best podcast on partnering. So where do we go from here? Please provide your constructive feedback on what you wish to see or hear in future episodes of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. Do I focus more or less on the grit, determination and personal transformation I uncover in so many of my interviews? Or do I focus more on the mechanics of busienss? It's not good enough that I might like an episode or a particular topic or guest, it's important that it serves you! If you have not listened to the podcast, now is your chance by going to iTunes , Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players or by going to my website “Ultimate Guide to Partnering“. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. This helps others find the podcast. You can also follow and like on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thank you for following and listening. Vince Menzione

Welcome to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. In this episode of the podcast, you get to hear me - Vince Menzione - being interviewed by Jen Spencer on her technology and channel podcast - the Allbound Podcast, hosted by Jen Spencer. Jen was kind enough to invite me to her show which features technology channel leaders to discuss trends and success strategies. We discuss my experiences and insights in the channel and my new venture Cloud Wave Partners. In this episode, we discuss what makes successful partnerships - how compensation drives behavior - and why commitment to a shared purpose is essential to success. Here is a link to the article and show notes from Allbound. As a footnote - I'm releasing this episode with the official launch of my website www.cloudwavepartners.net where you can sign up for my weekly newsletter to read about my latest podcast episodes and other useful nuggets of information. I hope you enjoy this episode If you have not listened to the podcast, now is your chance by going to iTunes , Google Play, Player FM or going to my website “Ultimate Guide to Partnering“. Please review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. This helps others find the podcast. You can also follow and like on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thank you for following and listening.

Vince Menzione, Founder of Cloud Wave Partners, join me, Jen Spencer to discuss long-term relationships with partners, compensating partners, collaborating with the competition and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast. Effective selling takes an ecosystem. Join host Jen Spencer as she explores how to supercharge your sales and master the art of never selling alone. Welcome to the Allbound Podcast, the fundamentals of accelerating growth with partners. Jen: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Allbound Podcast. I'm Jen Spencer, and today, I am joined by Vince Menzione, who is founder of Cloud Wave Partners. Welcome, Vince. Vince: Jen, thank you. I'm just so excited to be here. I've listened to some of your episodes. You've had some amazing guests, and just delighted and honored to be here. Jen: We're glad to have you, as well, especially because your business experience just screams channel, and I love getting a chance to chat with people who have seen all aspects of channel sales and marketing. I mean, you were VP of Sales at General Dynamics, you were a general manager of Partner Sales Strategy at Microsoft, you host your own podcast, "The Ultimate Guide to Partnering." You're truly ingrained in the partner ecosystem. Can you share a little bit about what drew you to and what has really kept you working in the channel? Vince: That's a really great question. You know, I think it all started, Jen, because when I started off in selling right out of college, and I had a degree in marketing and wound up in sales because that's where the big money was. I saw that the people in my organization were making most of the money in the sales organization. And so I worked with companies, in four companies, that were, kind of, underdogs in their market, and candidly, I hated cold-calling. And so, you know, being a Marketing major and realizing that I needed to create credibility for my company in my offering, I started early hosting events and inviting complimentary companies to present their solutions along with my company's solution in order to build our credibility and our brand, and that led to a lot of, sort of, ad hoc collaboration with organizations that grew over time and then formalized into relationships, alliances, channel partners, and the like. And the one company that I was with at the time, we took that company from about 6 million in sales to about a 125 million. And then I did a turn-around where I was actually asked to start the government sales business and build a channel from scratch for that business, and that was a pretty interesting time. It was right after 9/11, we were selling to the government ruggedized computers, and we had a very unique offering, but we're underpenetrated our market. And so, I leveraged the relationships that I was building. I leveraged PR, events. I even spent time on Capitol Hill trying to get our message out through local congressmen and the staffers and the like. And so, this resulted in an amazing success that led to my joining Microsoft to lead the channel strategy all up for public sector. And so, I've always believed in the philosophy of one plus one equals three or more and mutual success and collaboration and at my core, I'm a connector. So I guess partner is just really ingrained in my system. Jen: Yeah, absolutely. I love that. I love that philosophy, and you wrote this article. It was called "The Three P's and how every partner needs to think in the Third Wave," and those three P's were partnership, policy, and perseverance. And you talk about driving business outcomes, you talk about shareholder value and market share. I'd love if you could elaborate a little bit. It was such a great piece but elaborate, for this audience, about, you know, how does partnership really fit into what you're referencing as being the third wave, the Internet of Everything, and then we'll link to the article in the show notes also, but, you know, can you give us the Cliffs Notes version? Vince: Sure, happy to. And that article was a direct result of seeing Steve Case speak, actually, at an event, a Microsoft event, hearing him being interviewed by my leader at the time and then also then reading his book "The Third Wave." And what really resonated for me there was just this evolution, you know, from the Internet to the app economy to the internet of things, and that there was this need that I still believe is under-appreciated around working across policymakers about just the amount of cooperation and collaboration that needs to take place between government agencies and private business. We're moving into a whole nother economy right now as you know. I mean, this disruption in the cloud is changing everything, and the Internet of Everything is all about, you know, things like smart cars, the ability to monitor for, you know, police officers to monitor things like gunshots and doing gunshot detection that ties into how a police officer responds to how municipalities deal with water and wastewater management to, you know, traffic lights, all kinds of things that were not part of the computer ecosystem in the past. And it requires this collaboration, again, between the agencies as well as just a common working knowledge on policy and things like that that those policies...some of those policies need to change or be updated to support this 21st-century environment that we live in. I'll give you an example actually. I was thinking about this. Jen: Yeah, that'll be great. Vince: Yeah, so you know Uber? I mean, you know, an incredible disruptive technology, right? But Uber has, kind of, built itself on disrupting and not collaboration. And I think about this at times because, you know, you'll go into certain cities, you'll land at an airport, and you'll realize you can't get an Uber, right? Because the city has basically blocked them because they feel like it's predatory and competitive to what their cab services do and what they feed off of that, their tax revenue dollars to that. But what if Uber had gone to those agencies, to those municipalities in a spirit of cooperation rather than fighting them, and said, "Hey, you know what? We can collaborate more effectively together. Why not have it so that Uber can then communicate to the mass transit systems in those cities?" Think about things like this, I take the train to my exit or my stop, I should say, and my Uber is then waiting for me because Uber has created a bridge or a collaboration technology to that municipal transit system and knows when that train or bus or you know, other motor transportation will arrive at that stop and you know, calls an Uber and my Uber shows up for me automatically. I mean, these are the type of things that you could see happening with the closer collaboration in what a lot of people are calling smart cities or cities of the future and those kinds of technologies where municipalities and private industry come together for the greater good. Jen: That's a great example, and it's that we really...I think that the crux of it is that we have to evolve in terms of that policy, our business practices. And far too often, I see organizations trying to kind of shove tomorrow's collaboration into today's or yesterday's practices, and it's hard. I mean, what you're suggesting is innovative and it's optimistic. It's challenging, right? This isn't something that's gonna come very easily. Vince: It is challenging, and also, the companies don't always get it, you know? I talked about the need for not just the collaboration, the cooperation but the patience and persistence that are required, and I might have mentioned this in the article. I was reminded of this because it takes a long time...If you're going to work in a regulated industry like healthcare or government, the sale cycles might be longer, the hurdles that you have to face or overcome like, you know, regulations, like HIPAA compliance and health care, or maybe just the fact that you're selling to a government entity and you have to have the right contracting vehicles, and the sales cycle is longer, those things take longer. And I was reminded of an example from that company that I built the government practice for. We initially had a CEO running the business who didn't get that. He didn't understand the government sales cycle and how long it took to build the government practice. Often, government agencies look at you and they frowned upon companies just coming in and kinda poaching business in their market. They wanna know that you're gonna be in that business for the long haul, and they wanna see a track record of proof and success for a period of time before they'll award business to you. And so that particular CEO didn't get it. He didn't wind up staying in that role very long, but we persisted and the business took off from there. And so, again, you have to have the patience and persistence to drive forward if you wanna achieve an objective. Jen: You had some really, you know, great experiences and successes in managing channel for Microsoft's public sector. I was really hoping you might be willing to, sort of, share, recount one of your best partnership stories with our listeners. Maybe a time you achieved a great revenue goal together, there was some big accomplishment or some strategic alliance that was able to be formed. Do you have anything for us? Vince: You know, I have a lot of stories for you, and if we've got time, I can tell you, actually, more than one great example. I kind of paint a couple of stories for you here. But there was one particular instance where, you know, we were getting into the cloud space and competing directly against Google for email business, and this was at a time when Google was going into the cities, and they were the cool, new, you know, shiny, new object, I guess, if you will, and Microsoft was just moving...I don't even think we called it Office 365 yet. It might have just been called BPOS which was Business Productivity...That was the original name for Office 365. And we were looking for partners to help us be successful in that market and recruited a partner of Google's, one of their launch partners for the Gmail product to the Microsoft ecosystem, but I had trouble getting that partner engaged with the sellers in the public sector business because they were averse to working with anybody that worked with a competitor. And so, I really had to break down some barriers. My team had to break down some barriers to demonstrate that that partner would firewall their Google business from our Microsoft business and that they wouldn't share information between the entities so that if they were gonna work with us on an account, they would not work with a competitor and vice versa and that they would firewall any information they knew. And it took some time, but that partner wound up being very successful, being a Partner the Year, getting elevated in status. They're now what they call a National Solution Provider or NSP, and they won Partner of the Year Award in Education, and they were just spotlighted in the healthcare business for a great success that they've had in the healthcare business this past year. And so that was one example. Jen: That's great. Vince: I had another example too that I wanted to share, too. Jen: Yeah, please. Vince: I was thinking about this one, and this one was, again, in the government space, but it was a large systems integrator, whose name will, you know, go unmentioned here. But this systems integrator was an influencer in their market but very vendor-agnostic. They didn't partner with other organizations, but they became a big fan of Microsoft, and this led to...And again, this was persistent. This was like years and years of working with them, meeting with them, getting them in to engage with our teams that they really became the big fan of the technology when we released Surface, when we started moving to Azure and the cloud. And we developed this strategic alliance and started to co-develop some very cool technology around security, and it was through some of those agencies and government that we really can't talk further about, but you know who they are, and they went from being very vendor-agnostic to being raving fans and creating an alliance and strong partnership with Microsoft that took off. And I was actually reminded that when I was trying to kinda bring this partner along. I had a very senior Microsoft sales leader at the time say to me, don't waste my time with them. "They're not gonna partner with us. That's not their approach." And that person's no longer with Microsoft, but we persisted. Again, persistence, trying to drive the right outcome for the business, and you know, just having the end in mind in terms of what we need to do in order to be successful. Jen: It's actually a really good segue. I love hearing success stories. The benefit of having channel sales and marketing professionals on this show is also to hear about some of the problems, some of the mistakes that have been made over the years, so that we can make sure, you know, we teach those and those mistakes aren't made again. Are you willing to share any mistakes or problems you've seen business leaders have to deal with when managing alliances for their business? Vince: Yeah. That's quite a bit of what I do on "The Ultimate Guide to Partnering" is I try to uncover the pitfalls as well as the success stories. And on both sides of this equation, it comes down to not really understanding or having a common vision of what the outcome needs to be and not understanding each other's operating model. So in the case of partners that are looking to engage with companies like Microsoft, and this is true of other tech giants, is it's just not understanding, you know, the cadence of the business like when is a good time to engage, when it's not a good time because it's the end of a quarter or end of the fiscal year. It's thinking that just because you are a partner that "you're just going to get all these leads and access to customers where these big companies have lots and lots and lots of partners," and they can't just open up the doors. It would erode their customers' confidence in them if they did that, so it's understanding how to best engage with a field organization. And again, it comes back to this kind of being in it for the long haul, understanding the mutual outcomes that you're looking to drive, and being in it together. In the case of Microsoft...Again, it comes back to...I'd mentioned that one partner, particularly Google partner. Sometimes, the field sales organizations don't want to collaborate with a partner that they see as being somewhat competitive to them because they offer other offerings. And in today's world in this time of rapid transformation, you need everybody, actually, to help drive your business, and so you have to be a little bit more open to the conversation and maybe firewall the conversation so that we're specifically going after this particular outcome together, and maybe we're competitors someplace else. Jen: I think, you know, a lot of what you touched on regarding, you know, those challenges or the way to really approach an alliance or a partnership, it's really cultural in nature. And you know, for me, I see that as this is...that's top-down, right? That's the leadership of the organization and from the CEOs level going down into the organization of making sure that there is a culture of partnership, that there's the understanding of "why," why are we doing this, learning from each other, looking at the KPI's that we're gonna be holding our team accountable to and ensuring that they are the right sort of KPI's, you know? But also, I talk to people all the time who go, "Wait a minute. I'm just a cog in this machine. I have a job to do." And so, do you have any advice you would give somebody for, you know, who really wants to build partnerships successfully, build partnerships with transparency, and the way that you're suggesting, when they've been inserted into and organization and maybe don't have the opportunity to craft that culture from the onset? 16:20 Vince: That's a really good question, and I think you're right. It comes from the top-down in the organization. And I see this way too often where sellers are very good at one specific function, and that's calling on the end customer. And in many cases, some of those best sellers, bestselling people, best sales people are the ones that are also, I'll call them control freaks for lack of a better term here, and they don't want anybody else involved with their account, and anything that's introduced into the account is an issue. I would say to those sellers or sellers that are in an organization that thinks that way is that you have to think differently, right? You have to really think about the adage of, you know...I can't think of this term. I'm gonna come back to that one. But just the adage that I mentioned earlier about one plus one equals three or more because it really is a collaboration leads to a greater set of outcomes for you and for the customer. And it leads to raving fan customers as well as a partner that will collaborate with you and bring you into opportunities later on versus kind of having the blinders on and saying, "No, I want to control this account. I don't want the partner involved." Not being willing to kinda give up the reins or give up control of the outcome or the time frame for the outcome to happen is a reason why a lot of people are unsuccessful working in partnerships with other organizations. Jen: Well, there's certainly a lot of fear. I think that that control freak, sort of, nature, you know, that you're talking about comes from this fear of, "I'm not gonna be successful," or "Someone's gonna encroach on my work or what I'm doing." And I guess, it's up to those leaders to, you know, set the culture but also identify the processes, procedures, provide the tools and resources so that everyone's worst fears, whatever they are, get them all out on the table, "Okay, what are you most worried about happening? And let's make sure that those things don't happen," or "Let's just dispel this rumor, okay? This is not...That is never gonna happen. Don't worry about that." Because I think, it just comes down to trust, and people want to feel like, you know, they're being taken care of by their organization. And when you bring a partner into the mix...sometimes, if you haven't had experience working collaboratively with partners, you know, I think that could be a little bit daunting for some folks. Vince: It is, and then it's also knowing just that this is a relationship. This is an ongoing long-term relationship. It's not transactional. Before Microsoft evolved the cloud business, there were some people at Microsoft that only engage with the partner that was transacting the Enterprise Agreement. And so, I would get the phone call around this time of year, which is the end of Microsoft's fiscal year, and that was the only time the sales person wanted to talk to the partner person. And of course, it was really...they were really ready to just jump on them because the order hadn't come through yet. Rather than building that relationship, having lunch once a month to discuss account strategy and account planning, all the things that should have happened, these people were just really in the moment for the transaction to happen. And it was just about that time of year or that time of the cycle versus having this ongoing relationship. You mentioned trust, building trust, having transparency, a mutual respect for each other's business, and business cadence and you know, set of outcomes. What's in it for me? Knowing each other's wins is so important, right, that that radio station, WIIFM, you know, What's In It For Me, that both organizations have, right? Each organization has its own business and set of outcomes that they're trying to drive against, and understanding that mutual respect is just so important to success. Jen: There's something else I want to ask you about, and a lot of the people that we talk to, you know, here at Allbound are either, they're in one of two camps...they either are have been hired to enter an organization and literally breathe life back into the channel partner program. So in those cases, it's typically the company has some kind of a partner program that really wasn't very well architected. Maybe they kind of fell backwards into it, right? Someone comes to them, and says, "I wanna refer your business," or "Let's cut a little bit of a deal." And the beginnings of a partner program are put into place and other folks kinda jump on board, and then it becomes its own living beast, and now, someone's got to come in and wrangle it. So we talk to a lot of people that are in that kind of world, and then we talk to folks who mostly, you know, at rapidly growing SAAS companies that have gone...their go-to-market strategy has been direct, but now, they have these goals to start a channel program. They're starting from scratch, and it's just this open field, like of, you know, what do they want to build? And I'm wondering if you have any advice for either one of those people. I don't know if that advice would be different or if it would all be rooted in the same. If you can kind of like think back to sort of the beginnings of what it's like to start building something. What advice do you have to give these people who are setting out to build a successful channel partner program? Vince: It's a really great question. I think about just how, culturally, the organization has to think differently, right? And in both of those examples, right? So we had a program, why wasn't it working, you know? Maybe it was that conversation we're just having earlier about mutual trust and respect. A lot of times, I see organizations, they wanna go fix something, and they think that one particular individual could come in as the new channel chief and just that person will create some type of magic or hocus-pocus on the situation. It's much more ingrained in the culture of the organization that tops down approach. It has to be buy-in from everyone in the company especially from the financial acumen, the chief financial officer CEO level, all the way down into the field organization. Compensation has to be structured so that sellers win when partners win. That's an important aspect. Compensation drives behavior, right? So if I were to look at a program, an existing program, I want to look at a few things. I would want to interview the partners. I'd wanna interview the sales people. I'd wanna understand where the cultural imbalance was and then design programs and readiness tools and compensation incentive models that drove the right behavior both for internal sellers as well as for partners. And so, that's how I would think about that. I think from this SaaS model, I think it's fairly similar, as well, again for companies that are moving from the Direct model, they're trying to grow through their channel. Again, they have to take a look at their current business model, their revenue streams. You know, what could be changed to drive this mutual behavior, this behavior that drives to a successful outcome ultimately for both the sellers, the partners, and for the customers? Jen: Great, that's wonderful, wonderful advice. And I love that you mentioned compensation because it is what drives, you know, everyone. And if those compensation structures aren't aligned, that can really cause a lot of headaches with the partner program and making sure that program is successful. This has been so great chatting channel with you. Before I let you go, I do put all of our guests through a little bit of a speed round of more personal questions. Are you ready? Vince: I'm ready for this. I've listened to a few of your episodes. I don't know what's coming my way but go for it. Jen: All right. Okay. So first question is, what is your favorite city? Vince: That's a good one. My favorite city is Philadelphia. Jen: Okay, tell me why? What do you love about Philly? Vince: Well, we lived outside of Philadelphia for about 26 years. My kids love Philly. My daughter went to Temple University. It's a city that's on the rebound which is what I love about it, and it's become my new favorite place. Although I love Washington DC and spend a lot of time there, Philly has got this new exuberance about it, and I love the phoenix rising from the ashes. And I see Philly in much the same way. They're building new skyscrapers, Millennials are moving back in the city at a pretty high clip. It's still an affordable city and a very livable city, and they have great, great restaurants. Lot of great BYOBs, and just they're underrated in many ways but just a great little city. Jen: And pretty much...I went to Philly once and all I did was eat when I was there. Vince: It's a common thing to do in Philly. Jen: Right. Okay, question number two, would you consider yourself an animal lover? Vince: I am. I am, actually. I didn't grow up an animal lover, so that's a great question. I didn't have a dog until about 15 years ago, and we had 2 dogs up until a couple weeks ago. We'd lost...one of them just, you know, passed, and so I've learned to love dogs. And I've learned a lot about life through dogs and just giving back to them and just getting all that love and loyalty that you get from a dog. Jen: Yeah. Sorry to hear about that loss. What kind of dogs? What breed? Vince: Shih Tzu and Shih Tzu-Bichon blend were the two dogs we had. Jen: Oh, yeah. Fluffy, fuzzy. Vince: Fluffy, fuzzy. And the other reason why I didn't have dogs when I was younger, I had really bad allergies as a kid, and so they're hypoallergenic and they're just, you know...they're terrific dogs. Jen: Yeah. Okay, next question, Mac or PC? Vince: Well, PC. Jen: I should've known, right? Vince: Yeah, you know, I do...I'm a huge fan of the Surface, and I knew Panos Panay at Microsoft when he released it and just, you know, still a super fan. Although, I will tell you that I have iOS. I have an iPhone, and I do love the apps and the finished quality of the apps. Jen: Excellent, and last question, let's say I was able to offer you an all-expenses-paid trip, where would it be to? Vince: I'm a real beach person, so, you know, it's probably gonna be Saint Barths, but there's this other piece of me that wants to be on the coast of like Sicily right now...and eating great Italian food, so I'm gonna go with Sicily instead of Saint Barths, how's that? Jen: Yes. Well, Sicily, right? So you can...there's water, right, and the food. You get the best of both worlds. Vince: That's right. Beautiful blue water and great Italian cooking, so, you know... Jen: Perfect. Vince: Well, thanks so much for taking some time with me and with our listeners today. It was great. If anyone would like to reach out to you personally, what's the best way for them to get a hold of you? Jen: So I have become a fan of social, and in fact, just...really getting the hang of Twitter but my Twitter handle is @vincemenzione, that's V-I-N-C-E-M-E-N-Z-I-O-N-E. I can also be reached at LinkedIn and Facebook at the same handles and on Instagram, as well, and then my email address is vincemenzione, without any dots or dashes, @gmail.com. Vince: Perfect. Jen: Thank you, Jen. This has been a great pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. Vince: Again, thank you for your time today, and thanks to everyone for listening, and we'll catch you next week with an all-new episode. Man: Thanks for tuning into the Allbound Podcast. For past episodes and additional resources, visit the resource center at allbound.com, and remember, #NeverSellAlone

I recently returned from an amazing week in Washington DC where I had the opportunity to present to partners on "how to take their Microsoft relationship to the next level", visit many old friends and meet new friends. I also received some amazing feedback on Ultimate Guide to Partnering. This is an important time at Microsoft and partners need to better understand how the changes will impact their business and engagement with the tech giant. I asked a voice of the Microsoft partner field to help me take our listeners through the changes - what it means to partners and how this ultimately translates into action in the days ahead. In this latest episode of the podcast I was joined by Bill Hawkins from Microsoft's One Commercial Partner or OCP organization to share his thoughts on the changes, how they will impact partners and how partner sellers will engage to drive partner success in FY18. In the discussion Bill pointed to an overarching theme - the right resource, engaging with the right partner, at the right time. We discuss exactly what has changed. The slide below provides an overview of the roles and motions and we go through each element in more detail on the podcast. We touch on the shift in compensation to better align sellers to the consumption model versus the transaction. Everyone in the field will be pivoting harder in this regard. More details on incentives plans will follow as changes roll out to the segments. They have not been released as of the date of this podcast to individuals in the Microsoft organization. Toni Townes Whitley discussed the shift to "industry focused - partner powered" which is fundamental and allow for da eeper and more focused engagement by Microsoft sellers with partners into a given customer's business. The 6 verticals are: 1. Financial Services 2. Manufacturing 3. Retail 4. Education 5. Health - 430 accounts, roughly $2B. 6. Government We conclude here that it's a great time to be a partner! Satya's announced 4 key solution areas for the business during his Monday keynote - its important to note that these are not stove-piped business silos, but interdependent solution sets: 1. Modern Workplace & introduced MICROSOFT 365 2. Business Applications - including DYNAMICS 365 3. Applications & Infrastructure - 4. Data and AI In the days ahead, I'll be asking leaders from Redmond and elsewhere to join the podcast and share more details on how these changes translate into success for partners. Now more than any time - its important that Redmond have a persistent channel and message to partners and field sellers on how to drive the change to effect mutual success. I'm happy to be a conduit at scale through Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I hope you enjoy this episode. If you have not listened to the podcast, now is your chance by going to iTunes , Google Play, Player FM or going to my website “Ultimate Guide to Partnering“. Please review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. This helps others find the podcast. You can also follow and like on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thank you for following and listening. Vince Menzione

My guest for this episode of the podcast is Dux Raymond Sy. With over 20 years of business & technology experience, Dux is the CMO & Public Sector CTO of AvePoint an award winning Microsoft partner and 2017 Public Sector Partner of the Year Award winner. He is a Project Management Professional (PMP), a Microsoft Regional Director (RD) and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) who has authored a book, white papers, industry articles and delivered interactive presentations to over 10,000 people in major industry events worldwide. I asked Dux to join and discuss his role at AvePoint, their continued success partnering with and through Microsoft, his personal and professional journey as an immigrant to the US and his amazing reputation in the Microsoft Partner ecosystem as an influencer - and I asked him to share how he developed this prowess with our listeners. We discuss how he joined AvePoint, the company's value proposition and markets, how he created a brand on social and became an "influencer" shortly after writing his book and the advice he would give partners on successfully working with Microsoft - what makes a great partnership and what to avoid. I asked Dux to share his advice for anyone looking to build their social brand with our listeners, he also shared two links to presentations he gave at Microsoft's 2015 Worldwide Partner Conference: When to Use and How to Leverage Relevant Social Media Channels. " Time Saving Techniques that can Elevate your Social Media Engagement We dig in on AvePoint's Value Proposition, Ideal Customer Profile and the Award Winning Platform they built to support Microsoft Public Sector's business, http://citizenservices.org/. Dux also provides our listeners very insightful advice on how to best engage with Microsoft and things to avoid when first engaging the field organization. As with each of my episodes, we spotlight Dux's personal and professional journey from his native Philippines and what he learned from his family to the successful career partnering with Microsoft and achieving his dream of meeting industry legends Bill Gates, Satya Nadella and Tim Berners-Lee. Some nuggets: Quote he lives his life by - Stay Humble and Hustle Hard. His passion for giving back and his recent mission trip to Uganda to set up technology - we include a link to a blog he wrote about it HERE. AvePoint's philanthropic work: https://www.avepoint.com/philanthropy/. Best piece of advice when he started - "Being hungry - you will be rewarded for trying, but will never be rewarded if you do not try" A mindset of contribution, and staying hungry. How he keeps his energy level up - he wakes up a 4:30 AM everyday and uses this time to focus, exercise and nurture a positive mindset. Role Model - Thomas Edison for his persistence. He also admires the work of some of the internet companies to impact change and transformation, such as Airbnb for transforming the hotel industry. A book he loves - "Radical Candor " by Kim Scott. If he had a "Personal Billboard" what would it say? - #HackTheStatusQuo What he would tell his 25 year old self - "start learning about the stock market sooner". Here are the most common links to reach and follow Dux: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media channels search @MeetDux. His personal brand page is: http://meetdux.com/. It's a really informative interview and I hope you enjoy this episode! If you have not listened to the podcast, now is your chance by going to iTunes , Google Play, Player FM or going to my website "Ultimate Guide to Partnering".  Please review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching "Ultimate Guide to Partnering" and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. You can also follow and like on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thank you for following and listening. Vince Menzione        

A "Born in the Cloud Partner" is loosely defined as "a partner whose business model focuses on the cloud-based delivery of computing resources and software rather than legacy on-premises hardware and licensed software".  This week's episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering features an early "Born in the Cloud Partner"- 10th Magnitude and my guest for the interview Jason Rook offers the unique perspective of both a former Microsoft employee and now an award-winning partner. Jason is a former Microsoft channel director who was tasked with recruiting partners to Microsoft Azure in it's infancy. The relationship that developed with a new partner, 10th Magnitude and it's founder Alex Brown ultimately led to Rook joining the organization as they demonstrated early commitment, expertise and success. Jason currently serves as VP of Market Development and is responsible for developing and executing strategic relationships that deliver business-transforming solutions to 10th Magnitude customers and partners. He also leads the marketing function and is responsible for all Alliances and key industry relationships. Rook also serves on The Channel Company XChange Advisory board and is a regular speaker and contributor on the topic and trends in the Cloud and the Microsoft channel ecosystem. In this interview we discuss 10th Magnitude's journey, key relationships and how they go to market with customers. "The goal is to help customers take advantage of all the benefits of the cloud to reduce costs, get features to their customers quicker and transform - we are a transformation company", stated Rook. We discuss attributes that make 10th Magnitude successful to its customers and have led to a staggering 80+% annual growth. We also explore customer types and the extensive work they do with ISV's looking to move to the cloud and compete in the SAAS - Software as a Service realm. Over the course of the conversation we distill attributes that made 10th Magnitude an award-winning Microsoft partner and the 2017 Hybrid Cloud and Infrastructure Partner of the Year. These are great tips for any successful partnerships, as distilled here: Willingness to adopt and get behind what Microsoft was doing. Align the business to Microsoft's priorities Defined their niche as an "Azure - only" shop demonstrating focused that customers liked. Transparency - candid conversations with Microsoft about what you can do and cannot do. Integrity - speaking the same way to the customer without the partner present, Having each other's best interests at heart - bending at times to get the deal done. Partners need to understand the complex of the Redmond giant and get their mind's around what they "can change" vs. "what cannot change". As with each interview, I focus some of my questions on Jason's professional journey including: Favorite Quote - "Don't get excited" - there are only so many hours in a day, be calm and don't get excited by change Favorite book - Seven Principles of Professional Services - by Shane Anastasi. If you had a billboard what it depict - "it would highlight our culture with a series of pictures depicting why 10th Magnitude is an attractive place to work". If you have not listened to the podcast, now is your chance by going to iTunes and subscribing or going to the website "Ultimate Guide to Partnering".  Please review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching "Ultimate Guide to Partnering" and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. Follow me on Facebook and Twitter. You can also follow and like on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thank you for following and listening. Vince Menzione

This is a timely edition of the podcast, given the attention to cyber security, digital privacy and jobs creation in the United States. If you believe that technology can be a force for good in society, then you'll enjoy the opportunity presented in this discussion to drive positive change through Civic participation. My guest, Jonathan Friebert leads External Affairs for Microsoft's US Government Affairs Department and works with Microsoft partners to advocate for positive technology public policies through Microsoft's Voices for Innovation (VFI) initiative. VFI is a community of more than 90,000 technology leaders in the U.S. who focus on public policy advocacy in the technology sector on issues such as STEM funding, online privacy, software piracy, cloud computing regulations, cybersecurity, IP protection and government procurement mandates. The conversation focuses on computer science curriculum in schools, why the current technology legislation is outdated, online privacy and how government and the private sector can partner to deliver 21st century skills to US workers. Jonathan also points to some examples of partners that have engaged in the civic discourse to effect change. As I do with each of my podcasts, Jonathan and I also discuss his personal journey, role models and recommended books. Jonathan's Book Recommendation is: Rising Strong In our conversation on job and skills training, Jonathan talks about how "coding" could become the next trade taught in schools. Reference from the discussion are here - Wired The Next Big Blue-Collar Job Is Coding WHEN I ASK people to picture a coder, they usually imagine someone like Mark Zuckerberg: a hoodied college dropout who builds an app in a feverish 72-hour programming jag—with the goal of getting insanely rich and, as they say, “changing the world.” But this Silicon Valley stereotype isn’t even geographically accurate. The Valley employs only 8 percent of the nation’s coders. All the other millions? They’re more like Devon, a programmer I met who helps maintain a ­security-software service in Portland, Oregon. He isn’t going to get fabulously rich, but his job is stable and rewarding: It’s 40 hours a week, well paid, and intellectually challenging. “My dad was a blue-­collar guy,” he tells me—and in many ways, Devon is too. To learn more about Voices for Innovation, click here.  You can contact Jonathan directly at: jfrieb@microsoft.com For a broader view of the work of Microsoft's Government Affairs organization, see Microsoft President Brad Smith's Blog: HERE. If you have not listened to the podcast, now is your chance by going to iTunes , Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players or by going to my website “Ultimate Guide to Partnering“. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. This helps others find the podcast. You can also follow and like on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thank you for following and listening. Vince Menzione

Flashback three years to when a new CEO Satya Nadella is on stage making a commitment to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to build out a "Government Cloud" – Amazon has a head start and Microsoft was playing catch up. Fast forward to today, "what progress has the organization made to catch up and surpass the competition and what specific opportunities exist for partners in Government Cloud?" Michael Batt, Director of Government Partner Programs and a 21 year veteran of the company joined a recent episode of my podcast to discuss the important role partners play to growing Microsoft’s Government Cloud business. In my interview we discussed what differentiates Microsoft’s Government Cloud versus AWS, the attributes of partners that “got it right” working in the Government business at Microsoft, the opportunity that is being created by emerging Alliance partnerships with companies like Adobe and Citrix, and use case scenarios for partners to leverage IoT and Advanced Analytics to create new applications in government. Partners that are new to government procurement vehicles can best leverage other Microsoft partners that have opened up their contracts to allow other partners to sell a Microsoft cloud solution. Mike references a contracting vehicle that makes it easy for partners with little to no previous government contracting experience to engage. This contract US Communities Contract, is held by another Microsoft partner Insight. Partners looking to connect and partner in Government Cloud can reach Mike Batt at: mbatt@microsoft.com. As in each of my interviews, I devote a portion of our time to discuss my guests professional journey and useful information they can share. Mike recommended a book that he likes with our listners: This Used To Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back, by Thomas Friedman. If you have not listened to the podcast, now is your chance by going to iTunes , Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players or by going to my website “Ultimate Guide to Partnering“. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. This helps others find the podcast. You can also follow and like on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thank you for following and listening. Vince Menzione

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Tony Safoian CEO and president of SADA Systems for my Ultimate Guide to Partnering podcast about his journey to premier partnership status with Microsoft, Google and Facebook. Tony has transformed a small, family owned business into one of the top IT consultancy and cloud services brokerage firms in the US, maintaining premier partnerships with two competing industry giants - Google and Microsoft. Tony speaks to the journey from small and locally focused IT shop to premier national partnerships with both Google and Microsoft. In addition, SADA recently launched a new partnership with Facebook. I asked Tony how he runs competing practices and the steps he takes to minimize business conflict, while attaining and maintaining premier status. Tony also shares his thoughts on the evolution and opportunity in the cloud and toward the end of the Podcast shares his thoughts on leadership, diversity, role models and values. If you have not listened to the podcast, now is your chance by going to iTunes , Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players or by going to my website “Ultimate Guide to Partnering“. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. This helps others find the podcast. You can also follow and like on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thank you for following and listening. Vince Menzione

I was excited to host this first interview episode today, joined by former colleague Eric Loper, Microsoft's National Solution Provider - NSP Leader. From Venture Investing to Enterprise Sales, Eric is a 16-year industry veteran focused on delivering people centered innovation.  In his time at Microsoft Eric envisioned and built a $39M customer offer engine, consulted senior leadership on competitive strategy and pioneered Microsoft’s managed partner marketing model.  Today Eric leads the National Solution Provider Sales Business at Microsoft focused on driving revenue with the most strategic US partners. Eric shared his perspective on the evolution of the business, how partners have evolved their model and the new business opportunities emerging from the intersection of technologies such as: Big Data, Azure and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Eric speaks to the attributes of some of the best Microsoft partners and how to best engage his organization to drive growth and success engaging with Microsoft. Towards the end of the episode, we dove into Eric's personal and professional journey, his leadership philosophy, role models, core principles and advice he would give to others. Eric's life statement is to : "Focus on living each day intentionally, without fear, with a spirit of power, love and self-control to leave a legacy in the lives of others." A great aspiration! Eric recommended two books on professional development - links are here: -Turn This Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders, by L. David Marquet https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AFPVP0Y/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 -Living Forward:A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want, by Michael Hyatt  https://www.amazon.com/Living-Forward-Proven-Plan-Drifting-ebook/dp/B012H10GBW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1489616679&sr=8-1&keywords=living+forward+book If you have not listened to the podcast, now is your chance by going to iTunes , Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players or by going to my website “Ultimate Guide to Partnering“. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. This helps others find the podcast. You can also follow and like on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thank you for following and listening. Vince Menzione

In this first episode your host Vince Menzione a sales and partner veteran explains why a podcast focused on the IT Partner Ecosystem and why now. I've had the good fortune to connect with many friends in the technology industry. In my discussions on the future of technology, leaders from Microsoft and other technology companies tell me they struggle to scale  "broadly" to a growing set of partners in this time of rapid transformation. And companies that "partner" with them tell me it is more important than ever to stay aligned and in lock step with these technology leaders. What invariably is needed is a strong persistent dialogue, commitment and collaboration on both sides. The old models of industry newsletters, blogs, partner conferences serve a valuable purpose for building community and delivering readiness, but many people tell me there is a need for more rapid, persistent and easily consumable information. I've become a big fan of the Podcast format and love the way it allows me to quickly consume information on a variety of topics like health, personal growth or finance. I listen when I want and where I want. I thought, "why not a podcast format for partnering, a place where I could connect leaders to help raise the bar on the art and science of partnering, helping both sides achieve more faster. And bring an independent perspective and behind the scenes view of what it takes to create success?" I created the "Ultimate Guide to Partnering" as both a destination and community of collaboration between contributors and listeners. I'm opening this up to both sides to contribute. Partners can come and hear from industry leaders like Microsoft to align technologies, strategies, best practices and connections. And also hear from organizations that have thrived in this age of digital transformation and where we will deconstruct the success formulas and strategies they used to win. I'm hoping to make this fun and my goal is to add value to listeners and grow interest in this destination and community. Feedback and listener support will be keys to success. If you have not listened to the podcast, now is your chance by going to iTunes , Google Play, Player FM, other Android podcast players or by going to my website “Ultimate Guide to Partnering“. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings tab. This helps others find the podcast. You can also follow and like on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thank you for following and listening. Vince Menzione