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Oguo Atuanya Join Ultimate Guide to Partnering®
In this Ultimate Guide to Partnering episode, I enjoyed welcoming a friend and leader into the studio for an insightful conversation. Oguo Atuanya, a General Manager within Microsoft GPS, leads the selling efforts for one of Microsoft’s most important segments, SMC – Small, Medium, and Corporate.
With over 20 years at Microsoft, Oguo shares his proven track record in global business strategy development, organizational culture transformation, partner ecosystem transformation, and reversing declining businesses. He is educated across three continents and integrates his diverse cultural background and rich career experiences to create effective global strategies, with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as core principles. He operates consistently on his foundational values: Integrity, Dignity, and Dedication.
What You’ll Learn From This Episode
0:02 – Partner engagement and growth strategies at Microsoft.
5:25 – Mentorship, family, and mental health awareness.
11:24 – AI impact and Microsoft’s copilot technology.
16:16 – AI adoption and transformation in a large multinational company.
21:25 – AI, security, and partner success in the tech industry.
25:39 – Microsoft’s mid-market strategy and partner channels.
31:11 – Microsoft’s SMB strategy, partner engagement, and AI solutions. 36:33 – Partner engagement and success strategies.
44:15 – AI strategy and partner alignment for Microsoft’s new fiscal year.
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For more insights and detailed discussions, tune in to the full episode of The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. Subscribe to stay updated with the latest trends and strategies in the world of technology partnerships.
Transcript
Keywords:
partners, microsoft, ai, talked, cosell, isv, year, organizations, people, solution, opportunities, terms, strategy, impact, cloud, customer, journey, understand, smc, mentoring
Transcript (Generated by Otter A.I. – Please Excuse Any Typos)
Jay McBain 0:02
Microsoft’s purpose is in service of your purpose. And again, 2024 is the year that partners come out as the leading edge of the spear on finding this buyer intent you
Vince Menzione 0:13
show up to every meeting and demonstrate why you are relevant every day, I have to force myself to make sure that I’m taking one step ahead in terms of my own earnings, that flywheel success is where you will build momentum. And that momentum will continue and then you feed into the other systems to say, this is what we did. This is how we did it together.
Vince Menzione 0:32
Welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. I’m Vince Manzi on your host, and I’m on a mission to empower every individual organization and partner to achieve their greatest results through successful partnering. Much of the discussion that we’ve been having is on the tectonic shifts, this decade of the ecosystem, the increasing dominance of the three hyperscalers the changing buying behavior, and the importance of the mid market, what Microsoft calls SMC small, medium and corporate, and this marketplace moment, I’m excited to be joined in the studio today here in Boca Raton, with a leader responsible for many of Microsoft’s largest partners, and is also driving the partner engagement in this mid market that is so important to the future growth and success of the partners working with Microsoft. A go out to Anya is our latest guest, a GM at Microsoft, and a leader that I’ve gotten to know and has been on the podcast before a Google welcome to the podcast
Oguo Atuanya 1:30
events. Big thanks for having me again. absolutely a pleasure to be back.
Vince Menzione 1:33
It is so hot. I’m so excited to have you finally in the studio looks great. But you got to be in the room when we just had our big event yesterday, we recorded yesterday, our big event types. And I’m glad you could stick around today, spend a little bit more time with us.
Oguo Atuanya 1:49
Thank you
Vince Menzione 1:50
have you have an important role. We got to know each other in fact, because I was working with an organization that was trying to figure out how to work with the partner ecosystem that you manage. But for our listeners, I want you to maybe double down on that introduction that I just gave maybe explain your role in a little bit more detail and the mission of your organization.
Oguo Atuanya 2:11
Yeah, it’s it’s a very interesting and fulfilling role, I think. So I responsible for a set of wonderful partner development managers in the Americas that look after those large partners that you talked about, as well as an organization or channel sales organization that’s responsible for cosell? Yes.
Vince Menzione 2:36
Right. So it’s such an important process, the
Oguo Atuanya 2:39
interlock of those two roles we found have been pretty powerful in helping you know, our partners, the head of technological trends. Specifically, this year, of course, we’re focused on helping our partners get ahead when it comes to AI, and security. And you mentioned earlier, the growth of that small, medium corporate segment. And
Vince Menzione 3:04
you’ve been at Microsoft quite some time. I mean, you’re pretty young guy. So I stayed in grade school, you must, must have started very, tell us more about this career journey. You’ve had a fascinating career journey to this level at Microsoft. It’s a pretty big role at Microsoft. So tell tell us a little bit more about ago. It’s
Oguo Atuanya 3:21
been sort of wonderful, right? I’ve been at Microsoft for 22 years. Mostly all on the partner side, I started my career at Microsoft as, as what used to be a global account manager. But now a PDM. I run one of our partners, largest partner in the embedded space. Now IoT net. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we had some fun. We actually work together to unset Linux and Wind River as the leader operating systems and embedded, replacing them with, you know, Windows Embedded and CE. One day, so I did that for a while and moved over to the classic OEM side where I was a BDM for some of our system builders. Went back to the embedded group, Randy America’s direct team. And then Steve Guggenheimer tapped me to run the Windows Mobile, open channel. vision strategy we had we had such, you know, huge traction and progress with, you know, phones that were locked to operators. But on the other side of the equation, there was nothing going on with this open channel forums that were really really big in places like Asia and Europe, Middle East and Africa. So I went to run that did that for a bit. went over to the SMS NP side, you remember, worldwide distribution strategy eventually ran their distribution team out of Redmond. And then I spent about four and a half years in Europe. Living in the UK, running devices, business and IoT business is
Vince Menzione 5:23
so fascinating journey to this point.
Oguo Atuanya 5:25
It’s been awesome. It’s been fulfilling. Had a lot of all that said I, one of my most fulfilling aspects of my career has just been to have the opportunity to mentor, a group of people across the world have got about at any given time 10 to 15 leaders that are mentoring across the globe. So
Vince Menzione 5:48
how do you find time to do that, that is fast, it’s just
Oguo Atuanya 5:51
a passion. I love watching people grow. I love watching people grow from different perspectives. You know, just having that ability to work with people from different walks of life, different parts of the globe, just been enriching.
Vince Menzione 6:05
I love that. Tell me about like you, you have a group of 15 people you’re mentoring or mostly younger folks? Or like what? What is the what is the the typical profile of somebody that you mentor? And how does that engagement start?
Oguo Atuanya 6:18
They actually quite dispersed, you know, along the plains. I mean, I’ve got I’ve got people who are, what is it about three, four years into Microsoft earlier and career Early in career, I’ve got people who about, you know, 10 years, Microsoft, some I see some managers. So midpoint, and I’ve got some, a couple of very senior folks. And, you know, they’ve come to me from, you know, a compilation of, of, or confluence of touch points, some introductions from people, some of them actually know people who work in my organization that will reach out to those people and say, hey, it’s kind of leader like to, you know, speak to and grow from, and those introductions are made, and then tried to just find time.
Vince Menzione 7:07
Yeah, it strikes me you’re and I got to know you. And some of the people work for you. They, your people are very important to you. Absolutely. That’s number one for Yeah, yeah. Where does that come from? Where does that passion come from
Oguo Atuanya 7:18
it. I come from a very close family, very close knit family. And I really watched my parents kind of do the same thing in their careers. And my parents always told me that the number one asset you have, as a human being are human beings, you know, everything else comes along for a ride, you nurture that and, and everything falls in place. And we were always taught to, you know, make time no matter what, yeah, a lifetime I love. So that’s that’s sort of persisted was,
Vince Menzione 7:53
you know, at our event, we talked about mental health awareness. And younger people today, the rate of suicide, and I’m bringing this up. Because I think that this maybe this is something that’s lacking in our society today, is having someone to speak to and I do think that we’re, we’re investing, making contributions in organizations to support that. And I’m just wondering what your point of view on that was, since you are mentoring some earlier people?
Oguo Atuanya 8:21
Yeah, it’s, it’s really unfortunate. If you think about the things that our young folks have to face today, that we didn’t have to deal with the litany of social media out there. Yeah, the material that’s put out just the gravity of, you know, some negative gravity of negative
Vince Menzione 8:46
fantasy, or the aspiration to something that’s so hollow, in terms of superficial
Oguo Atuanya 8:52
and superficial people just get caught up, you know, trying to be whatever. Yeah, so any opportunity that I have to sort of sit these young individuals down and just ground them and sort of give them a dose of, you know, you know, reality, and also let him know that you’re never really alone. In this journey, makes a difference as he never know where an individual is at a certain point of their lives and the impact he can have in terms of turning them one way or the other. Visibly, whatever they’re facing at that point. Is
Vince Menzione 9:34
there a common piece of advice or guidance that you provide them? Or is it is it situational across each other?
Oguo Atuanya 9:41
It is, it is mostly situational. But But I think young people just have to understand that your journey is your journey. Yeah, you know it you’re not gonna live someone else’s life. Right? Don’t compare yourself. It may be wonderful for someone else you’re not you’re not Lebron James. I Um, and believe me, he’s got his own problem still that has to deal with. That’s right, no matter what you’re going through. Someone else always has it worse. That’s right. And then the last thing I tell people even, you know, you know, speak to folks, their mind musician about this is it if everybody’s health is intact, you don’t have a problem. Yeah, you have issues that you, you get to deal with and overcome. But once you have a problem with somebody’s health, then things are really out of control. So that’s kind of the perspective
Vince Menzione 10:40
is reminds me about the nuclear, you talked about having a tight knit family, I came from a tight knit family as well. And it seems that today, we don’t see as much of that as we used to, and it’s a shame.
Oguo Atuanya 10:50
It’s really, it’s a detriment, the negative impact to the young folks. Yeah. But again, we, as you know, leaders have you had this, say, and I’m originally Nigeria, and we always had this thing about it taking a family. When I was younger, and if I did something wrong, I never really got home before was discipline. I got discipline along the way, by me. So, in a sense, my parents didn’t have to do much, because
Vince Menzione 11:23
you had the cat, there was an accountability trail. I
Oguo Atuanya 11:26
already went through that. I love it. I love checking those boxes. And you
Vince Menzione 11:31
were if I recall, you were born in Nigeria, and then you came to the United States as a teenager, or when did
Oguo Atuanya 11:36
you get back? So I was born in Nigeria? So we spent some time in, in Europe, and then also, I think, into the US. Yeah. And so you know, luckily, those values persist. Yeah, that’s good. And when I came here, we sort of fell into the same, you know, cluster of great individuals. So that really was not, you know, anything lost. I think if you if you’ve got these values, they will transcend no countries and continents.
Vince Menzione 12:14
Good. I was gonna ask you was there one great piece of advice you received during that journey during that time growing up? Whether it was in Nigeria, Europe, or here? Actually, it’s
Oguo Atuanya 12:24
the same thing my mom always told me, which is what I tell young people, be yourself. Your journey is your journey. In a world that constantly pushes you to be yourself and be
Vince Menzione 12:39
yourself. Be yourself. Yeah.
Oguo Atuanya 12:41
I love to be true to yourself. Be true to yourself. Yeah.
Vince Menzione 12:44
All right. We’re gonna shift gears now to business. I, we could spend all day here and I love this conversation. I love the personal journey and the conversation. So Microsoft has been on a tear. You know, 18 months ago, we wouldn’t be having a conversation about AI. And I think it was right after right around Thanksgiving of 2023. Yeah, that open AI took off like a rocket ship, right? Yeah. I think Microsoft was caught a little bit off guard to like a little bit like, okay, yeah, this is great. We made this investment. But nobody saw that rocket ship taking off. Certainly Google was flat footed. They were like, well, yeah, we’ve been. We’ve been holding on to this technology. We haven’t done anything with it yet. And Microsoft’s been on a tear with copilot. It’s copilot. Everything. Microsoft recently finished the build event, lots of big announcements around copilot about infusing AI, basically, and all the Microsoft tools and technology and Wall Street has been very appreciative of that Microsoft stock has had a really great bounce, I would say this past year, call it a bit of a renaissance. Right. Would you agree?
Oguo Atuanya 13:52
Absolutely. Vince, listen. It’s been amazing. And if I take a step back and just talk about AI, because it’s wonderful technology. I don’t want to take away from technology that it is, but what is even more impactful to me. And I think somebody like sat here as well, the way he goes about, you know, driving the strategy of AI is the impact that it will have on humankind. Yeah, you know, if you I always tell people that there’s never been a better time, you know, to be in our industry. Yeah. Right. If you think about the impact this will have on the medical field, you know, research and trading, accelerating the treatment of no illnesses like cancer. If you think about the impact or have on education, if you think about the impact they’ll have on developing countries, you know, human development, if you think about it, Just the advancements that will drive in their countries. And also, you know, most of these countries that are really potential rich, but have had issues with governance and compliance. Yes. Right. So massive, massive impact. So for me, that’s even more impressive than than the technology. So then then, you know, when you when you come down to the technology, itself, copilots has just been amazing. What we’ve done in terms of taking the Lang sorry, the large language model and coupling it or integrating it into your work content and context. Right, so that it reasons how it reasons and just reduces the digital overload you have making individuals more productive, enhancing productivity, elevating their human creativity, right? I’m just customizing where we work. Just, that’s just been immense. And I think I think a lot of people got caught flat footed as people like us who are leading the fray. Because if you think about cloud transformation, that was it driven?
Vince Menzione 16:15
That’s right. That’s right. It was yeah, it was lift and shift, it was taking your data center moving into the cloud.
Oguo Atuanya 16:23
It was some sort of, you could predict what would happen and you could pace what what, you know, what would happen? Yes, in this case, this is actually driven, you know, by people wanting those outcomes, that’s going to impact where they work and the way they live. So that’s why it’s been so overwhelming, in a good way. Well, it’s
Vince Menzione 16:43
the promise, you talked about IoT a little bit earlier. And to me, this is the promise of the cloud. Because, you know, firstly, it was having the Central Intelligence of bringing everything into the cloud, then it was having IoT be the tentacles, right, the bringing, bringing all the information into the Central Intelligence, and then layering in like large language models and all the capabilities around AI to that data set, and being able to act on it in real time. I mean, that’s where we’re going.
Oguo Atuanya 17:15
And then the interesting part about it is, we’re right at the surface, we’re just at the beginning, we’re right at the surface, it’s gonna get, it’s gonna get more pervasive, it’s going to in a good way, right? It’s gonna get more powerful. In fact, that’s why I tell the partners that are in my patch, that, you know, it’s not just about, you know, this wave that we’re facing right now. It’s about them getting ready for it. Yes. Right. So just ensuring that you build in this practices, you’ve got the resources to support it, you’re compensating those resources in accordingly. You’ve got the services that will convert, especially in the case of, you know, co pilot, you know, those licenses that you sell, through adoption and consumption. They very critical that we learn that and we’re here to help them. Well, let’s
Vince Menzione 18:12
talk about your world for a second. I’m going to break it up into two conversations, right? Because I look at the partners that you manage in your business. Yeah. We talked about him. We talked about the Bill Gates moment, right. I talked about this, what happened here in Boca Raton, 43 years ago, Microsoft created a licensing model. And we already three years ago, and that created a channel. And though some of the largest calm channel partners are the companies that you manage, right, we can rattle off names like CW, and insight and crayon and some of our other great friends. And some of them have been guests here on the podcast as well. They’re massive organizations. And I and you know that management of that processes. You know, it’s not for the faint of heart like you, these are massive organizations that you’re infusing Microsoft across. What is happening with AI? And how is your business aligned and changed working with these partners now on AI, but also, you know, this new world of hyper scalar co selling and marketplaces? How are your partners thinking differently than maybe they were a year year and a half ago?
Oguo Atuanya 19:20
Yeah. First and foremost, as you mentioned, these is a large multibillion dollar company, hence,
Vince Menzione 19:28
publicly traded, publicly traded.
Oguo Atuanya 19:30
So things are moving fast. Yeah. You know, what we typically do with this, folks is, when we define our priorities at the beginning of fiscal year we sit down with him, let him back up. We actually have conversations with them before they define right. So we have, you know, defined
Vince Menzione 19:49
you have an ongoing ongoing dialogue. Obviously, we
Oguo Atuanya 19:52
find it we get input in consideration, right. So it’s collaborative. And then the Get to land it. And in some cases, they get to, you know, staff up the resources to go execute against the strategies and priorities. And that then has to trickle down through the organizations. So my point is it like mentioned, it’s a large ship. Yes. We’ve seen some pretty positive, you know, steps in terms of transformation. And I think we each of them that you’ll speak to, they’ll tell you that while we’ve seen some progress, we still have, you know, a long way to go. Yeah. I think the advent of AI is pushing everybody. Yes, it is pushing everybody. Because this discussions that we’ve had, you know, year in year out for the last, I don’t know, four or five, six years. I think everybody now realizes that. If they’re not manifested, you will get left behind. Yeah. Right. So again, I commend these partners, because we’ve talked with in a conference, they’ve listened. They’ve talked to us who have listened. We’re implementing the strategies. They’re creating budgets, to hire resources, in cases that need to be and
Vince Menzione 21:24
where are they investing? Is it an AI? Is it across other roles? What were you seeing the investments? It did
Oguo Atuanya 21:30
this huge investment in AI? You know, security? Data? Yeah. Right. Because don’t forget that journey is customers have to get their data estate. Yes. Yeah. Right. to then be able to leverage AI.
Vince Menzione 21:45
Yeah. And then they have to layer in security to make sure this
Oguo Atuanya 21:49
has to be secure. Right. So they’re beginning to their credit, they now understand, you know, the importance of that left to right investment.
Vince Menzione 21:59
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Vince Menzione 22:56
We talked about this yesterday. But you know, we talked about Microsoft’s priorities not really changing as much as they changed before in the past, right last year was we’re going to talk about SMC in a moment. But AI being at the forefront marketplace is being an important, but this year, layering in Security Security is foundational to partner success. And would you say that’s that’s a new area? Or it’s an area that’s gotten increased importance and maybe scrutiny? I
Oguo Atuanya 23:24
think it’s the second part, because it’s not really a new area of
Vince Menzione 23:27
No, no, no, but But it’s getting more
Oguo Atuanya 23:29
it’s, it’s become more critical. Yes. And, you know, our partners, we have to succeed when it comes to security, and we have to succeed with them. We think we have probably the most comprehensive, you know, security framework, right solutions from working, because, you know, we start from the devices back to the end of the cloud. I mean, we just liked, you know, a co pilot plus devices. What was it about two weeks ago? Yeah, probably the most powerful devices with the most powerful and the most secure. Yeah, right. And when you it’s creating a
Vince Menzione 24:07
resurgent resurgence for the PC market. And see,
Oguo Atuanya 24:12
you can’t really divorce this discussion. That’s right, you know, between the hardware and the cloud, and then everything happening in between and whatever,
Vince Menzione 24:18
maybe partners that don’t know the ecosystem. The way you and I do is that these are large organizations that provide end to end middle cell devices, they’ll sell cloud they’ll sell ISV solutions, a
Oguo Atuanya 24:30
one stop shop, one stop shop. It’s a one stop secure and powerful stop and 1000s
Vince Menzione 24:37
of sellers and organizations huge organizations, you know, we had de Berger on just recently like we talked about like how organizations like his are embracing the change, right? Not Not every organization is like that. What are you seeing from the majority they’ll like it, or I’ll say I’ll put insight maybe towards the top, top ranks, but what do you think For the majority of the partners you manage,
Oguo Atuanya 25:02
we’ve we’ve got a mixed bag. Right, we’ve got we’ve got, you know, partners, some of them that, that I ended up top tier that forefront insight. You know, this some in the middle, right, but middle of the pack middle of the pack, what I still trying because they understand the urgency, right? We know some of those as well. Yeah, yeah. And what I will tell you, though, is that where we used to have a lot of partners in lower tier pack, we don’t have a lot of anymore. That’s a good thing. It’s been there’s been this push to get to the middle. Yeah.
Vince Menzione 25:39
And that’s good. I remember we had those conversations. We’re
Oguo Atuanya 25:43
working very aggressively with them to get to the top of the pack.
Vince Menzione 25:46
Yeah. Yeah. Nobody wants to be left behind. Yeah.
Oguo Atuanya 25:48
And the other the other concept that’s that that’s really beginning to, you know, take hold and gain traction that we’ve talked about in the past, but it never really has, is that concept of PRP. Right? Because we talked about this. What was it three years ago, when we spoke, it must have been three years. Yeah, we talked about the fact that not everybody, you know, has all the constituents to build a comprehensive solutions, right yet to pull in an ISV, if needed yet to pull in a hardware provider or an OEM, right. So what a lot of this these folks are doing right now is they now have a very pronounced VDP strategy, where they either engage, you know, with a partner who has a piece of what they’re looking forward to build a complete solution, or they engage in BI, or they’re now talking about, you know, building, you know, from in house. So, in the case of security, and
Vince Menzione 26:51
it’s also changing, we could dive in on this whole conversation, we might lose a few people along the way here. But the cloud and the dominance of the cloud commitments is changing the dynamic for those organizations that would normally sell, they would sell maybe ISV. Software independent of Microsoft. Yes. And then they sell Microsoft separately. Yes. And now it’s infusing the two going together into the account, right? Because maybe, maybe this ISV is maybe committed to a Microsoft agreement, they have a SaaS solution now sitting on Azure, and they’re trying to get that SAS solution to the customer where it was normal, maybe it was an on prem solution before let’s let’s use backup and recovery. So they’re having to change their internal models, right? The the ISV is changing their model, their compensation, the reseller is now coming to market a little bit differently with them. But at the end of the day, it’s driving Microsoft Azure, it is driving Microsoft products, maybe Office security, all these other solutions into that customer. So it’s more complex. Yeah,
Oguo Atuanya 27:53
I think more importantly, it’s enabling the outcome they want to drive for the customer. That’s right. I love the fact that we’re where we are right now. You know, from the MPO. perspective, you know, that’s a mechanism that I want to make sure that our partners get really, you know, familiar and conversant with, because it really gives the ISV the ability to scale along with the partner when fulfilling those needs, on marketplace, that you know, is becoming more and more prevalent as a medium to purchase. Yep.
Vince Menzione 28:28
Right. For those that don’t know, MPO is Microsoft. Multi party offer multisoft term for multiple positions coming together in a marketplace solution. The other guys use a different term for it. I think it’s
Oguo Atuanya 28:42
CPP PPO. Yeah.
Vince Menzione 28:44
We get down to the Microsoft speak. And we you know, we get some people here, they’re like, talking about, let’s let’s use another Microsoft acronym for this next part of the conversation. You participated in a panel discussion at our amazing event with one of the leaders from the SMC business, and we’ve had Kevin P skor. Here on stage we’ve had Kevin Biesecker. In the room, we had no no an actor was with you yesterday. SMC is Microsoft’s Small, Medium corporate accounts, business people don’t understand what that means they think it’s SMB. But it’s the mid market. And to mean, it’s actually a pretty significant part of the Microsoft business people don’t regulate. There’s a huge opportunity here. And I remember you and I having a conversation probably about a year ago, that it was underdeveloped and needed to create some muscle and you know, I know you, you exercise and you understand about building muscle, but that we felt we needed to build some muscle. Right. And that’s, I think, what how your role has evolved since we last met in on the podcast is that now you have these channel sellers. So tell us more about that part of the role, and why that’s so important to our listeners and viewers watching.
Oguo Atuanya 29:49
Yeah, we did a really interesting, good thing. You know, last year at the beginning of the fiscal year, we went from if you recall my role Last year was only in one country, the US what happened? All the channel partners had
Vince Menzione 30:05
telco distributor,
Oguo Atuanya 30:09
what we call a scale partners, domain providers. I had them all. It was fun. It was fun. And then I also had accountability for all segments. Yes. Right. But there really wasn’t a lot of focus. That’s right. Right. So yeah, what we did was we went to that singular segment, you know, focus alignment. And we took a look at our channels and said, Hey, which of these partner sets would provide us working with them the biggest bang when it came to focusing on certain segments? Because the scale partners for me. And we took a look at opportunities within each of these segments, by far and wide, the largest opportunities that we had witness MC, small, medium corporate segment, by far, and it was just on the top.
Vince Menzione 31:08
I’m not surprised, by the way I’ve been calling this the acre of diamonds for a year.
Oguo Atuanya 31:11
That’s that’s such an apt term, but But you understand, you know, Microsoft, you know, how well resourced the enterprise, you know, businesses,
Vince Menzione 31:19
there’s, everyone gravitates to the top right, so now you have hundreds of partners going on to those 11,000 customers, basically, yeah. And then they’re ignoring this mid market, which is huge, huge.
Oguo Atuanya 31:31
And then it keeps growing, because you’ve got you’ve got, you know, a customer in the in the smaller tier SMB that eventually rise into, essentially. That’s right, right. So it continues to grow.
Vince Menzione 31:44
And people don’t realize that and some of the enterprise customers move down to the corporate space as well, because Microsoft focuses on a smaller patch, in some cases, organization. So the corporate account space gets gets bigger. Yeah, it gets bigger on both sides. So
Oguo Atuanya 31:57
we did something very deliberate. We carved that out, we assigned a partner portfolio to it. Now, that doesn’t mean the way I like to explain it to partners is with us, you major in SMC and you minor in other things. Right. We encourage you to major and live in SMC doesn’t mean that we’re going to dissuade you from doing anything else. But this is where the opportunity and investments we made some significant investments in resources in incentives. Yes, right in. Right. So that landscape looks very different. We’ve got a nominee we’re talking to yesterday. We’ve got sellers. We’ve got my PDM. We’ve got my channel sales managers, you facilitate now cosell?
Vince Menzione 32:54
And just in the US market, there’s what 10,000 corporate accounts, roughly athletic nominees 5000 for the East.
Oguo Atuanya 33:01
Yeah, yeah. So roughly across the Americas even much more than much bigger, you have much more of
Vince Menzione 33:06
all of the Americans. So that was the other thing that happened differently. Microsoft last year, your role expanded from a geo perspective. Yeah, exactly. So Sam, and Kenneth, you
Oguo Atuanya 33:15
went vertical, you know, partner says, right. So to provide a focus. Yeah.
Vince Menzione 33:22
And it makes the most sense, because, again, those are the partners that you manage scale into those mid market organizations most effective.
Oguo Atuanya 33:29
Yeah. And they’ve been, they’ve been very receptive to that shift in strategy, because we’re seeing in the fruits of focusing on those opportunities together.
Vince Menzione 33:41
So let’s, we got partners, watching and listening to us today that are looking to maybe potentially engage with you and your team on the SMC side. What did they need to do? Like? How did they engage? And what do you do to help them foster the growth? What does your team do there?
Oguo Atuanya 33:56
So the first thing I like to say is if you’re not engaged, email me. It’s all at one or at you NYHA microsoft.com. Now, you know that we’ve got a very elaborate, you know, partner, management and development program. Alright, so we’ve got a set of BDMS that manage
Vince Menzione 34:23
depending on where you are, what type of partner are you are, if you’re an SI a GSI, an ISV? I mean, exactly. You’re ultimately going to your teams can ultimately work with them to bring them into the customer, potentially, or help them guide them into the journey. Yes, but they might be managed or unmanaged. In one of those others. Yeah, yeah.
Oguo Atuanya 34:40
But what’s what’s what’s blanket and universal across the board is that at the beginning of the year, again, we define this priorities right. This branch is defined along solution areas, you know, more than one Azure, these apps and then we’ve got you know, solution plays on The neat solution areas that are very specifically aligned. Right? To segments. Right, right. And then what this team that I just talked about, is make sure that through partner business planning, you know, our partners engaged into those opportunities in a very defined way. Right. And then in addition to making sure you’ve got your AI strategy, there are three things that that we’re going to focus on this coming. this coming fiscal year. Here’s one, land copilot,
Vince Menzione 35:37
land copilot on every desk,
Oguo Atuanya 35:39
every seat. Dr. Jen AI design wins. And you know, absolutely proliferate Microsoft solution. Security Solutions.
Vince Menzione 35:52
With the land land, Jen AI, wins, what does that look like? So it’s, it’s something that customers
Oguo Atuanya 36:01
it’s a little, it’s kind of broad, right? Because if you have a Gen AI solution that you’ve developed as a pot, right, you drive an opportunity win with it. Now there’s so many different things that we look at in terms of calibrating those wins, right? You know, things that that you know, spin the Azure data consumption in the backend, right. But it’s just going out there secure net win with a customer. We want our partners to drive all theirs as much as possible. Right. And then of course, we talked about security, but security, probably the most important, one of the most important things that we need to get done in terms of partner engagement with our field is cosell. We talked about cosell yesterday? Yes.
Vince Menzione 36:55
Quite a bit. Actually. We
Oguo Atuanya 36:57
did. Yeah, we spent a lot of time on an important topic. It’s very, very important because we need the sellers, from our partners and sellers from SMC organization to really get down to the tactical level in terms of where there’s opportunities. What are we going to use to fill those opportunities? How do we attract those opportunities? Right. So now kushiel bid is very important. Partners have to get really comfortable with you know, partner center. That’s right, right, as I’m moving these,
Vince Menzione 37:30
and many of them are working with some of our coaches, right, we have these ultimate partner ambassadors that were up on stage yesterday, these are organizations that actually helped coach these or help these partners along because you can’t do everything alone. You can’t always rely on Microsoft to do it all you were with you. With some of the help that we we have people that know how to do that really well.
Oguo Atuanya 37:49
So how how are you successful, let’s align on those imperatives. There’s three imperatives that I’ve talked about. Let’s align on how we drive what I call a relationship with yourself. Right? Those are the four really important legs of the stool, I would say when when engaging successfully with us.
Vince Menzione 38:10
And so the fourth one being the cosell effective. Relational cosell.
Oguo Atuanya 38:17
I call it relationship because our relationship. What is the difference
Vince Menzione 38:20
between relationships cosell and any other cosell because they’ll by any other name? I think
Oguo Atuanya 38:25
you know, some people think that quiz sale is that point in time engagement where you sit down?
Vince Menzione 38:31
Right? Yeah, like let’s let’s compare spreadsheets. And
Oguo Atuanya 38:34
yeah, off you go. Yeah. Yeah. Relationship cross sells. Actually, you start that pre work beforehand. It’s right. And beyond that meeting, you know, you’re still connected. Yeah. Right. You heard no more mentioned yesterday, if something goes wrong, pick up the phone and call your counterpart. Right.
Vince Menzione 38:51
And the relationship is all about building the trust. Right. In fact, we have Cassandra gholston Here. recently talking about the fact that CO selling is a verb. It’s something you do all the time. Yes. Right. It’s not an amount of one and done. It’s not a noun. It’s a verb. Yeah. Yeah.
Oguo Atuanya 39:08
I mean, we actually even get now to level where we now I want to make sure we map the names of our sellers. Yes. On platinum sellers. Yes. And make sure that their contact information is exchanged. And they live with one another. It’s, it’s getting to that point.
Vince Menzione 39:26
So cool. What advice do you have for these partners watching or listening today to optimize success? Like if you, you talked about these four areas, but if you want to, like, within 30 seconds, if we’re on an elevator, what would you say to them? What do they need to go do differently or better to optimize for success?
Oguo Atuanya 39:44
I would say, one, understand who you are, and be very definitive in terms of what you do. Right, you know, while it’s wonderful to say you can do everything That doesn’t always work, right, you’re better off, you know, taking those two or three things that you know how to do and do well, and filling in, you know, very specific gaps in terms of needs, you know, that we’ll have when we’re trying to get to that customer, you know, requested outcome. In at the second thing I would say is, be very, very intentional from a cultural perspective, right. Make sure that we’re connected, make sure that we’re having those follow ons from a relationship point of view. The third thing that I will just mention is, let’s also stay aligned on imperatives. Right? Because we can really succeed without the partner. And that, I would like to think vice versa, right. So if we begin the fiscal year, step for step aligned in the same direction, and understanding how to leverage the resources that we have, will be successful. The other thing that I think partners should think about is, let’s understand what you’re doing from a GTM perspective. Because we can evangelize, we integrate, we can interlock we can evangelize,
Vince Menzione 41:27
right, and understanding what makes you different and better and different, and makes you stand out gives you that opportunity to then go evangelize.
Oguo Atuanya 41:34
Yes. It’s a branding campaign, right. So Phil, somebody hears about a CD wo insight or soft choice of crayon. Is that one of the two things that’s right, that pricks and they understand that they’re strong idea, and you pull them into opportunities. I
Vince Menzione 41:50
love that. I love that. So I want to pivot for a second, I want to ask a personal question is one of my favorite questions. And want to ask now that we’re in the studio here in Boca, you are hosting a dinner party, and you can host this dinner party anywhere in the world, we could talk about all the fabulous places you’ve lived. And you can invite any three guests to this amazing dinner party from the present or the past to this dinner party. Maybe even in the future. Somebody somebody once said, a guest in the future. Whom would you invite? And why? A gua.
Oguo Atuanya 42:23
So I always say this, I would invite my mom from the past, right? I mean, the significant impact she had on my life at indelible. I have a soccer star that I loved growing up as a child, Socrates, Olivia.
Vince Menzione 42:44
Socrates Olivia era from Brazil from Brazil. Okay. Wow, I know Pele.
Oguo Atuanya 42:52
But I love Socrates. I would I would, I would invite Socrates. And I would probably invite my, my college football coach, Dave Aslanian. What’s his name? Dave Aslanian.
Vince Menzione 43:05
Dave is learning. Yes. Interesting. Interesting. As you play again,
Oguo Atuanya 43:09
we will state university Nice, nice. So there’s a I mean, if we kept the list of three, and that would be it.
Vince Menzione 43:15
And obviously, I get the impact of your mom. Some was the soccer player, just we’re just a huge fan. I was just a huge fan growing up as a child, and tell me about the impact of your football coach.
Oguo Atuanya 43:26
Coach Aslanian had a style of autumn. He was he was a real human being he wasn’t your typical coach. He was that coach that would tell you hey, listen, useful policy, get what you want out of life, versus football using. He’s that coach now give me a pep talk and say, Hey, listen, we’re not really out there to hurt anybody. Right? We’re out there to achieve an outcome. Right? So do what you need to do, but then make it personal. I just love this integrity as a human being and I loved you know, just as authenticity made an impact on me.
Vince Menzione 44:15
Wondering, I’m wondering about the mentoring that you do now wondering if you’re taking some of that forward, thinking forward. A lot of that a lot of that comes in
Oguo Atuanya 44:25
you know, he’s a very powerful individual came from a very, you know, prominent powerful family, but was very understated. Nice. So that really struck a chord and stayed with.
Vince Menzione 44:41
So awesome. So awesome. A gua I want to thank you. But before I do, we are at this we’re like the halfway point of the year beginning of Microsoft’s new fiscal year. One last thing for our partners on leaning in for the second half of the year. How do they think how do they need to be thinking differently? going into the second half of the year beginning of Microsoft’s new fiscal year.
Oguo Atuanya 45:05
I think if I could just borrow a co pilot, as your as some sort of a microcosm to just learn this, we spent the first six months or so landing it, testing things out trialing. Right. Now we’re ready for scale. Right. Now, when you sort of draw that parallel back to AI, and you know, all the movement that AI is going to drive in the industry, that’s really where we are right now.
Vince Menzione 45:43
Yeah, yeah,
Oguo Atuanya 45:44
we need to scale now. I think we’re past. You know, the trial show and tell. So it’s time to lean in and say, It’s time to lean out. It’s time to execute against all the strategies. It’s time to scale. Because if you don’t, you’ll find yourself behind. Yeah. And if you find yourself behind, and this AI race, it’s
Vince Menzione 46:05
gonna be tough. It’s a fast race.
Oguo Atuanya 46:06
It’s not like Cloud transformation. We talked
Vince Menzione 46:09
about it. We have lots of years to get the cloud transformation. We don’t have we don’t have years here in the
Oguo Atuanya 46:14
cycle, if you want to stay relevant. I go back to those things I talked about, right. Develop a managed services, practice and strategy if you don’t have one yet. Right. Second thing is hurry up and get that AI strategy. Yes. The thing is security. Fourth, is amplifying that cosell. Right. Because that’s what we’re all about. Moving into FY 25. Yeah.
Vince Menzione 46:46
Excellent. Excellent. I want to thank you so much for coming down here to Boca Raton, making the trip for this event and for being on the podcast here today in the studio. I can’t thank you enough. And for our listeners and viewers, I want to thank you for joining thank you for supporting the ultimate guide to partnering. And if you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel, please hit the subscribe button at the top. You can also rate and review us on Apple Spotify. And leave a comment in the note section on either of those platforms. It helps us continuing to get great guests like a good to join us on Ultimate Guide to partnering with gua thank you so much for joining us today. I mean,
Oguo Atuanya 47:25
it’s been wonderful. The event yesterday was absolutely incredible.
Vince Menzione 47:30
Thank you. Hey, gentlemen, thank you. Thanks for having us. Thanks for being part of it. And thank you for watching and listening. Thanks for listening to this episode of ultimate guide to partnering. Hopefully, this episode and all the episodes we’ve recorded are helping you better align your partner strategy to achieve your greatest results. So I want to ask you something. Have you implemented everything you’ve been learning? And are you now achieving the growth and revenue objectives that you hope to achieve? If not, it’s time to take action now. Join ultimate partner experience. We’re building the community I’ve always dreamed about. With up x you get access to exclusive Industry Insights, unparalleled networking opportunities, tons of educational resources and support from a community that shares your goals. Join us now visit our website, the ultimate partner.com and sign up today.