Microsoft’s VP for Partner GTM, Programs & Operations Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering®

In a world where technology constantly pushes boundaries, the recent Microsoft Inspire conference set the stage for groundbreaking announcements, including the emphasis on artificial intelligence and the renaming of Microsoft’s partner program. I had the privilege of hosting an exclusive interview with Julie Sanford, Vice President, Partner GTM, Programs & Operations, to kick off our first LIVE Digital Event, “Winning with Ecosystems.” Julie Sanford reveals Microsoft’s game-changing moves at Inspire on this episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering.

In Julie’s Words

As Vice President, Partner GTM, Programs, & Operations within Global Partner Solutions at Microsoft, Julie is responsible for the end-to-end go-to-market strategy across Microsoft’s commercial services partner ecosystem. The team combines the go-to-market strategy, programs, and platforms to accelerate growth and improve partner experience across all partner segments. Before her current roles, Julie was GM of Global Industry Product Marketing and was responsible for Microsoft’s Industry GTM across priority industries and Microsoft industry clouds strategy and GTM, including Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, Microsoft Cloud for Retail, Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services, and Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing.

What You’ll Learn

In a world where technology is constantly pushing boundaries, the recent Microsoft Inspire conference set the stage for groundbreaking announcements in artificial intelligence. I had the privilege of hosting an exclusive interview with Julie Sanford, a prominent figure trailblazing the partner business. This interview discusses the exciting developments empowering partners to win with ecosystems.

Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program: A Game Changer

The highlight of the conference was the launch of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. Julie revealed that this move was driven by overwhelming customer demand, making it clear that AI is the way forward. This program opens up possibilities for partners to capitalize on Microsoft’s AI offerings and enhance their businesses. With a focus on seamless onboarding, skilling, and go-to-market incentives, it’s an opportunity like no other.

Unleashing the Potential of ISVs

Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) won big during the conference with many exciting benefits and incentives. From specialized AI applications to increased investments in Azure Migrate and Modernize, Microsoft lays the groundwork for ISVs to thrive. Access to GitHub co-pilot, funding for assessments and proof of concepts, and personalized support is a game-changer for those venturing into the AI landscape.

SMB and SMC Segments

Microsoft is significantly emphasizing the Small and Medium Business (SMB) and Small Medium Corporate (SMC) segments, recognizing their untapped potential. With customized investment portfolios and deliberate strategies, Microsoft is paving the way for partner-led success in these segments.

The Microsoft Marketplace Moment

Julie disclosed some remarkable developments in the Microsoft Marketplace. The availability of multi-private-party offers and the integration of “transactable” offers with co-sell benefits are transforming the game for partners.

The conversation with Julie Sanford at Microsoft Inspire left us inspired for the future of AI. With the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program revolutionizing the industry, ISVs reaping unprecedented benefits, and a sharp focus on SMB and SMC segments, the opportunities are boundless. Microsoft’s marketplace advancements are also set to boost partner success.

Nicole’s Inspire Blog Post

A Word from AG1
“Winning with Ecosystems” – Now OnDemand

Ultimate Partner’s first live digital event, “Winning with Ecosystems” Is Now Available OnDemand

Why Ultimate Partner?

Over six years ago, I embarked on a mission to empower partners struggling to navigate the complex world of tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and AWS. Today, I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Ultimate Partner, an extraordinary media, events, and advisory company dedicated to transforming your Cloud Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy and fostering Ecosystem Led Growth.

Having witnessed the industry from multiple perspectives – leading a $4.6 billion Ecosystem at Microsoft, spearheading partnerships for a billion-dollar company, and hosting 200 episodes of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering®, I’ve gained invaluable insights and crafted a manifesto of principles to guide your success.

In an era defined by tectonic shifts, such as the global pandemic, economic headwinds, and the rise of AI, the role of hyperscalers has become increasingly critical. With investments of billions of dollars in ecosystems, technology, and customer acquisition costs, they have secured over $200 billion in customer commitments to durable cloud budgets. We stand on the precipice of a marketplace moment where simplifying and streamlining economic models associated with co-selling and ecosystem-led growth will shape the decade ahead.

Yet, as vendors and organizations demand more from us while resources diminish, we ask, “Where do we go? How do we navigate these seismic shifts? How do we thrive during this decade of the ecosystem?”

If you’re a partner, you’re likely grappling with these questions. The watering holes of the past no longer offer the guidance required to transform into a Cloud GTM and embrace Ecosystem Led Growth. That’s why Ultimate Partner exists – to be your trusted compass amidst the noise.

Transcription – by Otter.ai – Expect Many Typos

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

partners, microsoft, ai, investments, year, announcements, marketplace, customers, program, excited, launch, ag, isv, smc, julie, smb, segment, inspire, specialization, making

SPEAKERS

Vince Menzione, Julie Sanford

Vince Menzione  00:04

Are you ready for a deep dive with the most important announcements coming on the heels of the Microsoft inspire conference? Do you want to hear the perspective of the leader of Microsoft’s partner go to market programs and operations on the significant changes and announcements Microsoft just made? And do you want to know where you need to place your bets as a partner leader gearing up for fiscal year 24? Then hold on tight as you won’t want to miss this next episode of ultimate guide to partnering. Welcome to or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host and today I will Julie Sanford, the Vice President of go to market programs and operations for Microsoft’s global partner business and joined us the day after the Microsoft inspire conference to kick off ultimate partners first live digital event winning with ecosystems. I hope you enjoy and learn from this discussion. As much as I enjoyed welcoming Julie San. So excited for this opportunity to have you Julie Sanford kick off our exciting event winning with ecosystems. So happy to have you here today.

Julie Sanford  01:22

Thank you for having me.

Vince Menzione  01:24

So we’ve got quite a bit to talk about. The Microsoft inspire conference just ended. And Microsoft has made major investments in artificial intelligence over the past several months. AI was a big topic at the Inspire conference. There have been several AI specific announcements made during the keynotes, most notably the launch of the new Microsoft AI cloud partner program. What drove the decision to make this change? Julie?

Julie Sanford  01:52

Yeah, I’m so excited about this announcement. And really, it was our customers. The customer demand we’re seeing just put that in perspective, our Azure open AI service is the fastest growing service in Azure history with more than nine and a half 1000 customers using the service. And so the Microsoft AI cloud partner program is how we’re going to invest in partners to enable them to capitalize on all of the opportunities that Microsoft AI presents. And really, it’s anchored on in the industry’s broadest technology stack. As you know, the Microsoft Cloud and AI is infused across that entire cloud platform. So we couldn’t be more excited to be able to launch this new program.

Vince Menzione  02:31

Such an exciting time. This announcement comes less than a year after the launch of the Microsoft cloud partner program. In fact, we had Dan Rippy here to discuss that launch a required partners to take significant actions to participate in the new program. What will partners have to do now to meet the Microsoft AI cloud partner program requirements.

Julie Sanford  02:53

So as you know, Vince, we talked about this probably this time last year, where we were introducing the Microsoft cloud partner program, which was over a decade since launching our NPN. And what we really want to make sure is that our partner programs are always meeting the needs of our customers and making sure we’re investing in our partners to meet that customer and market demand. So this is really just the next generation of the partner program to make sure that we’re again meeting our customer market demands. The good news for partners is it’s absolutely seamless for them. There’s no action for partners to take to move to the new program, we’ve moved all of our existing partners into the new program effective immediately, and partners will maintain their existing benefits and designations. And partners will get all value of the benefits of the previous program plus access to the new offerings and benefits specific to AI, including onboarding, skilling go to market incentives, and CO selling

Vince Menzione  03:49

so much more to talk about there. But during her keynote, Nicole diesen talked about the new investments in Azure migrate and modernize. Can you tell us more about that?

Julie Sanford  04:00

Yeah, I’m so excited about these investments. So first, I’ll talk about increasing Azure migrate and modernization investment, we’ve increased that by 300%. To help more partners migrate customers to the cloud so they can be aI ready, managed ISVs, who meet eligibility requirements will qualify for this incentive. The second big announcement that Nicole made was a new AI offering. It’s called Azure innovate. And this is over $100 million plus investment. And this is all about helping partners win and onboard customers into analytics and AI. And so these offers work together to really help increase deal velocity and reduce time to market. So it’s things like funding pre and post sales activities, such as assessments and concepts. And then we’re implementing this right within partner center. And the investment we’ve made for partners can activate as quickly as possible they can go from nomination to customer approval in just minutes.

Vince Menzione  04:56

So really amazing investments. They’re such a big commitment. On behalf of Microsoft towards this area, can you walk us through the other AI specific benefits that are available to partners?

Julie Sanford  05:07

Sure. So first, we’ve talked a lot about our specializations in the past. And right now with the new launch of the AI apps in Microsoft Azure specialization that brings us to 35. And so that was an announcement we made during Inspire. And we have already 200 partners that have earned this specialization, enabling them to showcase their expertise to customers and Microsoft sellers and partners can access the Azure migrate and modernization and the Azure innovate investments we just talked about by earning this specialization or any Azure specialization for that matter. In addition to the specializations, we are launching an era of AI campaign in a box, so partners can leverage that in their demand gen efforts. We have an AI transformation playbook, which is all about guidance from skilling to innovation, from marketing to selling for partners. And then we’re really excited about the security copilot design Advisory Council that’s available.

Vince Menzione  06:06

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Julie Sanford  07:15

Well, another big headline at Inspire was all about ISV success and the general availability. And that will continue to be the pathway for ISVs to access all of the Microsoft AI cloud partner program benefits. And so as I said, it’s in general availability, some of the new benefits include gaining up to $126,000 of guidance resources for a full year, eligible partners can access additional Cloud Credits, including access to get how the co pilot, which is a huge announcement we’re really excited about we have we’re launching new demo and sandbox environments and up to 50 hours of business and technical consults to help build and publish applications in the Marketplace. And then of course, all of the sales and marketing benefits, including marketplace for awards, help accelerate deals through the marketplace. In addition to that we also launched in public preview the new ISV designations and this is to support both industry and horizontal IP applications. So we can make sure that we’re surfacing those partners offerings in context of the industry they serve. So just a huge amount of investment going in with our ISV community this year. Seems like you’re building

Vince Menzione  08:25

out that ISV house we talked about before when you’re on the podcast. Yeah. So where should partners go to learn more about these offerings and get started.

Julie Sanford  08:35

So we’ve pulled all the resources together, and so they can go to our AI transformation for partners website. And I believe we’re sharing the link right now. And then of course, I would encourage everybody to read Nicole’s inspire blog, it was chock blocked with all of our announcements and investments that we’re making this year.

Vince Menzione  08:54

So in addition to all this AI news, and new partner program announcements, the other big announcements at Inspire were really around marketplace, right? I’ve been calling it the marketplace moment. There are really amazing things happen here with regards to marketplace. Can we talk a bit more about the Marketplace announcements? Sure. The

Julie Sanford  09:11

way we’re talking about this to partners, and internally at Microsoft is this is the year of Microsoft marketplace. And so we’ve made significant investments in the platform. One of the new features and capabilities we’re most excited about is the availability of multi private party offers. We’ve been asked for that for a while now. And so that’s launched and lived in the US and it’s going to be a followed up with Canada and UK and then expanding globally beyond that. So we’re really excited about the new platform capabilities. And then another big change we made is that having a transactable offer on the marketplace is what is going to unlock partners opportunity to access cosell benefits. And so you know the message I would want all ISPs or any partner that’s building IP, that they really should have a marketplace strategy As part of their go to market, and we’ve got onboarding and resources available to help partners every step of the way,

Vince Menzione  10:06

some really great things happening here. With regards to marketplace, we have some other sessions, we’re going to be talking about marketplace. We’ve got to tackle IO as a partner for this event. So there’ll be a lot of content and go do’s for partners on how to land that. So, Julie, I understand that you’re rolling out a new differentiated investment model this fiscal year, can you talk to us more about what drove you creating this new model, and the emphasis you’re making this year, specifically on the SMC, and SMB segment, and for partners that don’t understand that, that is small, medium corporate accounts and small medium business segment. So tell us more about that. Yeah,

Julie Sanford  10:46

I would say this is one of the most intentional planning sessions we’ve had at the company. And what we wanted to do was start with our solution plays, as you know, we go to market through the lens of six solution areas. And obviously, AI is infused across all of those. So we go to market through a set of solution plays. And we talked a lot about those last year at Inspire. This year, we were laser focused on simplifying, so we could make sure we put the investments behind what matters most to drive most customer impacts. So we’ve moved from 52 solution plays to 18 solution plays. So that’s where we started. Then as we went through each solution play. As you know, we serve as strategic enterprise customers all the way down to SMB. And we wanted to make sure that we were being deliberate and what that sales motion looked like on how we land, the solution play with every customer from again, strategic enterprise all the way to SMB. So we took a step back, our sales process here at Microsoft is something called an SEM, it allows us to go through stages from engage all the way through to driving consumption. And we took a targeted approach by segment by sales play, and by Ensign stage. And we really focused on what the unique differentiator was that partners can drive for our customers and help extend the reach and scale of Microsoft. And then that informed where we were going to start making our investments in different investments, whether that’s pre sales assessments or proof of concepts, or helping invest in actually the migration that happens on the back end. So it’s a very deliberate and customized investment portfolio this year. And, you know, you’ll hear this from Jeff York session, as you know, our incentives is growing faster than revenue. So really significant investments here. The other piece that we are really proud and excited to talk about, is on top of all of the investments, we are going to ensure we’re making a commitment this year that any change management will impact partners, we’re going to make sure from disclosure to implementation that we’re having a six month lead time for that. And that’s just something we’ve heard loud and clear from our partner ecosystem that we just have to do a much better job at that. So I would say, on top of the differentiated investment model, we want to make sure as we’re rolling out any change that we’re giving our partners the appropriate amount of time to implement any change that’s required. And then you also mentioned SMC. So for us, SMC and SMB is primarily a partner led and partner closed motion. And so the majority of our investments this year will be made within that segment. So I think over 75% of our portfolio investments will be made into SMC with very discreet accountability into the SMB segment. So I just think this is a huge leap forward for us and making sure that we are not duplicating first party Microsoft investments, and we’re really making sure that we’re optimizing the value that our partner ecosystem brings to Microsoft to really help us scale to 100% of our customers

Vince Menzione  13:47

globally. I love what you share here, around SMC and SMB specifically, because I think that a lot of partners don’t recognize how big that opportunity is. And in fact, many organizations consider enterprise accounts, what are corporate accounts at Microsoft, and the fact that you’re layering in these additional incentives, and working more closely, to bring the sales process together with the partner to execute and help, it really helped drive the customer success? It’s outstanding. It’s really outstanding, Julie, now, we’re

Julie Sanford  14:17

really excited about it.

Vince Menzione  14:19

So great to have you today. So great to have you share this intimate conversation with our viewers at the event, taking it down to how they can implement and drive their greatest success in fiscal year 24. And thank you so much for making the time during your busy schedule right after inspire Julie. So thank you so much. Great to have you here today.

Julie Sanford  14:41

Well, thank you so much for having me. I mean, this is a really important platform. And we just wanted to make sure we took the opportunity to just drive continued clarity with your audience. So again, just huge. Thank you for having today.

Vince Menzione  14:53

Thanks so much. I hope you enjoyed that discussion. As much as I enjoyed welcoming Julie Sanford. And we’re so honored to have her kick off our first live digital event, winning with ecosystems. So many great announcements coming from the Microsoft inspire conference, and the incredible focus on both AI and marketplaces to driving your success in fiscal year 24. Don’t miss the opportunity as well. And listen to the session that I recorded with Kevin peace Kurt, the president of Microsoft’s s MC, small, medium and corporate business, as Kevin is committed to doubling his partner business for this incredible and huge segment of Microsoft. Follow the link in the show notes or go to ultimate guide to partnering.com. And you can watch each of the sessions from our first live digital event, winning with ecosystems. Thank you for listening. Thank you for following thank you for supporting the ultimate guide to bartering